He became even less happy when Dee-Ann Smith walked in with her father, Eggie Ray Smith.
“Smith,” Van sneered.
His father-in-law grunted back, which was more than Ric got on a good day. The wolf wasn’t “much for talking,” as his daughter put it. In fact, Eggie Smith spoke to exactly three people on a regular basis: his wife, his daughter, and, now, Dee and Ric’s daughter. Otherwise . . . grunts were usually the best you were going to get out of him.
“You know what to do?” Van asked.
This time Eggie Smith didn’t even deign to answer. Simply nodded at his daughter and walked into the room where they had the bear chained to a chair.
He walked back out a few seconds later, though, with a big tactical knife in his hand and, to Ric’s eternal surprise, suddenly announced in a voice that sounded like ten miles of bad gravel, “He’s dead.”
“You killed him already?” Van exploded. “You just walked in there!”
“Wasn’t me, rich wolf. He was already dead.”
Dee-Ann and Cella rushed into the room but quickly returned.
“Yep,” Dee-Ann announced. “My daddy’s right. Old boy is dead.”
That’s when Bayla and Mary-Ellen went into the room.
“How?” Ric asked.
“Bullet to the back of the head,” Cella explained. “Very clean and quick. Very professional. Dee-Ann couldn’t have done it better.”
“Not sure I could get in and out of there, though. The air vent ain’t nothin’ but a little bitty thing.”
“She’s right,” Cella agreed. “Her giant shoulders could never get through there.”
“Neither could your fat ass,” Dee shot back.
Ric thought a moment. There was only one door into the room that they’d put the bear in. And Dee was right, the air filter was not some large, roomy space an assassin could easily traverse. It was, in her words, “a little bitty thing.”
So then how did someone get into the room?
When Bayla returned, Ric asked, “Where’s Mira Lepstein?”
“Why are you asking me?”
“Because, Bayla, you used to run the shifter division of Mossad.”
“And Mira didn’t work for me. She worked for the full-humans. I have no idea where she is or what she’s doing.”
“But . . . ?”
“But I will say that trying to kill the granddaughter of Mira Lepstein was a foolish move, and New York City is about to be invaded by a lot of honey badgers.”
*
There was a full bathroom next to the laundry room. It wasn’t fancy, but it was functional, allowing Tock and Shay to take quick showers and put on clean clothes before heading upstairs to face Tock’s grandmother.
And she was waiting for them. In the kitchen. Along with Keane, Finn, Tock’s teammates, Mads’s aunt and her friends, the Van Holtz brothers, and a couple of Tock’s cousins.
Shay wasn’t sure he was going to sit in on the conversation. He needed to go check on his kid. But he saw his daughter outside already playing with Princess, the two male dogs, and Nat. She was laughing and running in the sun. Even a few pups from the Van Holtz Pack had joined in when they saw her rolling around with the three big dogs. Since no one from the Pack was complaining, he’d let her keep going and, by staying in the kitchen, he got to keep an eye on Dani through those big glass windows and double doors.
Even better, Charlie had clearly been up for a few hours and had done more baking. Danish! He grabbed a platterful and slid onto one of the counters beside Tock.
“Are we all settled now?”
It took him a second to realize that Tock’s grandmother was talking to him.
“Uh . . . yeah,” he replied, half a Danish already in his mouth.
The She-badger took a cup of tea handed to her by Charlie. “Thank you, dear.”
Taking a sip, she glanced off, then announced, “The de Medicis.”
“That pride out of Italy?” Streep asked.
“No,” she corrected. “They’re not a pride. They’re a coalition.”
“What’s that?”
“The de Medici brothers run the family. Not the females.”
“Didn’t we just do some work involving the de Medicis?” Mads asked.
“Yeah,” Max said. “We were supposed to be taking down their businesses.”
“What businesses?” Keane asked.
“They sell humans to high bidders. For food.”
Shay looked at Tock, and she let him know that accusation was true with a tilt of her head.
“Wait,” Finn said, “you guys are serious?”
“Don’t the hyenas kind of do the same thing?” Keane said.
“No,” Nelle explained. “There are hyena clans that you can call in to clean up an . . . event so no evidence is left behind. Some just dispose of the bodies. Some feast. But it’s still scavenging just like any hyena on the African plains would do. What they don’t do is have breathing humans shipped to their location like they’re ordering a pizza.”
“But that’s what the de Medicis do?”
“I think Mrs. Lepstein is saying,” Nelle continued, “that the de Medicis handle the pizza delivery.”
“I’ve heard about shifters hunting humans for sport, but—”
“This is different,” Charlie told them, placing new platters of honey buns on the table. Even if Shay’s brothers had wanted to try them, the Dunn triplets got there first. Snarling at the badgers when they tried to get a few. “The operation we saw was human trafficking on a pretty big scale. They’re doing high volume.”
“For someone’s food supply?” Streep tried to clarify, her lip curling in disgust.
Charlie shrugged and went back to her baking.
“Human trafficking of any kind is indefensible,” Mira said. “Why they take these people does not matter. What matters is that they take them at all.”
“Which is why we were attacking their businesses,” Nelle pointed out. “Although we’ve only dealt with one of their operations.”
“Have you done anything else?” Mira asked, looking over her teacup.
“Anything else?” Nelle glanced at their team. “I don’t think so. Just the one operation so far. And the only shifters we took down that day were bears. American bears. No Italians.” Nelle’s eyes narrowed on the She-badger. “Why do you ask? What’s happened?”
Tock’s grandmother placed the teacup back on the saucer, balancing both on the top knee of her crossed legs. Shay would expect it to slide over and fall to the floor, but it just sat there. Perfectly poised. He found it kind of frightening.
“That day,” Mira Lepstein said, “you may have only killed bears but then, soon after, you killed someone much more important. And now the entire de Medici Coalition wants all of you dead.”
*
Tock, and everyone else in the room, immediately looked over at Max.
“Why are you all looking at me?” she asked.
“What did you do?” Mads demanded.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Max, come on,” Nelle pushed.
“I didn’t!”