“Wait,” Tock cut in. Her grandmother had a knack for setting people at odds. She wasn’t going to let Mira do that to her teammates. “Savta, who are you talking about?”
Glaring across the room directly at Max, her grandmother snarled out, “She killed Giuseppe de Medici.”
“Ohhh, fuck,” one of the Dunn triplets gasped. Tock didn’t know which one. She was too tired to tell the difference between them. But maybe the girl . . . ?
“Who’s Giuseppe de Medici?”
“He was the father and head of the Coalition,” the Dunn triplet explained. “But if he’s dead . . . that means his oldest boy is in charge.” She shook her head. “That’s not good.”
“Jesus, Max,” Streep complained. “What is with you?”
“I didn’t kill anybody!” She stopped. Thought a minute. “I mean, I don’t think I’ve recently killed anyone important. And definitely not some old man from Italy.”
“Just admit it.”
“It wasn’t me! I don’t even know what this Giuseppe person looks like! How would I know to kill him?”
Nelle quickly typed into her phone, then showed it to Max. “This is him.”
Max, Mads, Streep, and Tock all moved closer to take a look.
Max immediately shook her head. “I did not kill him.”
For once, Tock had the feeling Max wasn’t lying. “Are you sure?”
“Positive. Look at the big white-and-brown mane on that old dude. I would remember killing him.”
“Max is right,” Charlie said after looking at the picture herself before putting down a plate of cinnamon buns. “She didn’t kill him.”
“Why do you insist on protecting such an unstable badger?” Tock’s grandmother sneered, as if she didn’t protect her own blood just as insistently.
“I’m not protecting her.”
“Then how do you know she didn’t kill him?”
“Because that dude?” Charlie pointed at Nelle’s phone. “I killed him.”
There was a moment of stunned silence before Savta slammed her teacup and saucer on a nearby counter and stood. “What do you mean you killed him?”
“I mean, I killed him.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “He and some big-muscled cats were in my house. Uninvited. So, yeah!” she said, without any remorse or concern. “I killed them. I killed them all.”
Max crossed her arms over her chest. “I told y’all it wasn’t me.”
Chapter 22
A few days ago . . .
Charlie loved baking and cooking, but she hated doing the dishes. It was literally her least favorite thing to do in the world. She tried to keep the workload manageable by washing things along the way, but usually when she finished mixing up her last batch of anything, there was still a mess to clean up.
That was what she was doing when she sensed someone sitting at her kitchen table.
She was busy scrubbing a baking pan with her back to the kitchen. Deep in her thoughts about whether she should take a couple of classes at the closest community college. She’d always wanted to go to school, but lacking money and needing to protect Stevie, there hadn’t been the time and/or the finances. And although her time was still short, she did have money now and Stevie had Shen.
But then these people suddenly appeared in her house and she realized that maybe an academic career was just not in the cards for her.
“Signorina MacKilligan,” she heard a voice say from behind her. “We should talk.”
With her hands still stuck in hot soapy water, she looked over her shoulder. Even with her allergies acting up, preventing her from smelling much of anything at the moment, she’d still know these lion males. All that hair. Italian lions, in fact. The old man’s accent was thick.
“Before you try to run, signorina . . . think of your family. Think of your sisters. Think of what I can—”
He stared at her with wide eyes, his words cut off as he tried to take in a breath. The ten-inch chef’s knife she’d used to cut up almonds an hour ago was buried so deep in the side of his upper chest, it had impaled a lung and stopped him from talking.
She’d moved so fast, the old cat’s protection detail didn’t even realize what she’d done until she’d slammed a smaller paring blade into another cat’s jugular. That’s when they went for their guns. But they didn’t already have them out and ready. Their sloppiness gave Charlie precious seconds she could use to snap a neck. Lacerate a spine. Crush a windpipe. And open up two femoral arteries.
By the time she again stood in front of the old cat, he’d begun to choke on his own blood.
She didn’t say anything to him as he died. What was there to say?
The swinging door between their kitchen and the living room opened and Max walked in. She stopped immediately and looked around until her gaze settled on her sister.
“Need some help with cleanup?” she asked.
Charlie nodded.
“Okay. Let me change my sneakers, though. I just got these Air Jordans.” She grinned. “I’d hate to get blood on them right after I got ’em out the box!”
Now . . .
“What?” Max demanded when everyone in the room looked at her. “They were new Jordans. You never waste those on a cleanup.”
“Shut up, useless badger!” Savta barked at Max.
“Hey!”
“Why didn’t you just talk to him?” Savta asked Charlie, ignoring her sister.
“Talk to him about what?”
“You don’t even know why he was there!”
“I don’t care why he was there. He walked into my house uninvited. He vaguely threatened my family. I have no regrets.”
“When someone says they want to talk, you let them talk!”
“If they want to talk, they should make an appointment.”
Max snorted a laugh but quickly stopped when Tock’s grandmother pinned her with a vicious glare.
“You are a stupid, reckless child!” Savta told Charlie. “And now look what you have done.”
Charlie stepped across the room until she stood in front of the older She-badger. She folded her arms over her chest and bluntly told Tock’s grandmother, “The last time strangers walked into my house uninvited, just to talk . . . they killed my mother.”
Another shocked silence filled the room, this one lasting for more than a minute. Maybe even two. With Charlie and Savta glowering at each other. In that moment, it was as if the entire world was sitting on the tip of a knife.
At least, that’s how it felt until Max said, “Awkward burn, old lady!”
Mads’s aunt barked out a surprised laugh, but she quickly covered her mouth and looked away. Yup, the whole thing was awkward, all right, but at least it broke the tension.
“Look, the deed is done,” CeCe álvarez announced to the room before moving from her seat to sit on the kitchen table. “There’s no point in bitching about it. The question is, what happens now?”
“What happens now?” Savta repeated. “Now there’s war.”
“Oh, my God!” Streep gasped. “We’re going to war with Italy? But I’m honeymooning there! Ash even arranged lunch with His Holiness!”