“What exactly would you talk to the pope about?” Nelle wanted to know.
Streep’s smile was wide. “About his philosophy on love and life and humanity.”
“While your mother is stealing shit out of Vatican storage?” Mads guessed.
“No!” Streep snapped. Then she cleared her throat. “That would be my Aunt Trudi and my cousins. What?” she barked into the following silence. “It’s not like the Church uses most of that shit anymore!”
Slowly, painfully, Savta put her fingers against her temples, pressing them deep and massaging the tiny muscles before she snarled out, “Master of the Universe, save me from these idiots.”
Since Mira Lepstein wasn’t exactly known in Israel for her religious zeal, Tock was pretty sure her grandmother was seconds from ordering a drone strike on them all before signing a deal with the de Medicis that would allow them to rule North America, for no other reason than she just didn’t want to deal with the aggravation for another second.
Chapter 23
“I would have done the same thing if someone walked into our kitchen uninvited,” Keane admitted to his brothers.
Tock had moved quickly, getting her grandmother out of the kitchen and taking her someplace they could talk privately. Not that Shay blamed her. Tock’s grandmother looked ready to go on a murderous rampage.
Mads’s aunt and her friends had followed them out, leaving the rest of the group to eat Charlie’s baked goods and chat with one another.
“You would have done the same thing if someone looked at you wrong,” Finn told his brother.
“That’s true. I don’t like when people look at me wrong.”
Now that there were empty seats at the round kitchen table, Streep patted a spot next to her, motioning for Shay to join them. Not a problem. He’d already finished the platter of Danish he’d grabbed earlier, but he was still hungry.
He sat down next to Streep and grabbed several of the cinnamon buns before his brothers could eat them all. She leaned over and said in what had to be the loudest whisper he’d ever heard, “How did it go last night with Tock?”
“Fine.” He shrugged while devouring the first bun he put in his mouth. Then added as he reached for another, “I’m in love with her.”
Keane threw his arms in the air. “What is wrong with you?” He glanced at Finn. “And you.” Then he tossed in, “No offense, Mads.”
Mads, who hadn’t been paying even a little bit of attention, replied, “Huh?”
“We’re tigers,” Keane went on. “We’re supposed to be exploring the world! Fucking every woman that comes along! Not falling in love after just one hump.”
“What are you talking about?” Finn asked. “You haven’t been on a date in six years.”
“It’s been two.”
“Two years?” Max stared right at Keane. “How do you go two years?”
“I have a hand,” he shot back. “And I’ve just put a short moratorium on dating right now because women get so moody when—”
“You ignore them?” Shay guessed.
“I’ve got things to do! I’ve got a kid to raise—”
“Dani’s not your kid.”
“—a football team to manage—”
Finn shook his head. “You’re not the manager.”
“—a brother to get into college—”
“Has anyone seen him?”
“I got a text from him,” Finn said, holding up his phone. “He’s alive.”
“—and a family to keep safe.”
“Which is why we’re all on wolf territory! Where we could be murdered in our sleep and no one would know.”
“Shut up, Finn. And what are you doing?”
Nelle had placed herself behind Keane, arms around his neck, her phone right in front of them.
“I need a picture of the two of us. I just lied to a guy and told him I have a terrifying Russian boyfriend who will kill him if he comes near me. You don’t mind, do you?”
“As a matter of fact—”
“There! Posted. Thanks!”
“Why would they try to kill you guys?” Stevie asked, and everyone focused on the Malone brothers. “I mean, I get us. Charlie killed their patriarch and Max helped clean it up. But what does that have to do with you three?”
“The loving bond between all of us?” Streep asked.
“No. That can’t be it.”
*
Tock had never seen her grandmother so agitated. They’d gone to some fancy den with a big wooden desk, leather chairs, and shelves along all the walls filled with old books. But glancing at the titles, all she saw was literature written by old European men that meant nothing to a woman like her.
Tock knew pushing her grandmother to speak was a waste of time, so she let Mira pace and take her time. The badger’s mind was turning, trying to figure out where to go from here. But she’d faced more serious enemies before. The woman had faced down Brezhnev. Kissinger. Reagan. Even Mao. Why were some Italian cats freaking her out?
But before Tock could get around to asking that question, the den door opened and Mads walked in with Max, Streep, Nelle, Yoon, álvarez, and Tracey.
“Why did they try to kill the Malone brothers, too?” Mads asked.
Savta stopped pacing, but she didn’t speak. Or even look at them.
“She asked you a question, Lepstein,” Mads’s aunt pushed. “You should answer her.”
Finally, she faced them all and said, “Because they wouldn’t stop.”
Yoon frowned. “Wouldn’t stop what?”
“Looking for who killed their father,” Tock guessed.
“Not to be rude,” álvarez said, “but who cares whether they look or not?”
“Their father was CIA.”
“So? There are a lot of CIA guys out there. What does one matter to a bunch of Northern Italians?”
Savta walked around to the front of the desk and leaned against it, folding her arms over her chest.
“The de Medici Coalition has always been . . . wiser than most. For decades, maybe even centuries, they’ve had deals with”—she briefly searched for the right word—“institutions that allowed them to function in the world without worrying about repercussions. In turn, they have provided information that helped these institutions take down other, more well-known criminal organizations.”
“Oh, my God!” Yoon exploded. “You knew they were trafficking humans and you guys let them?”
Savta held up her hand. “Stop. It was not me. It was not ‘you guys.’ It was others who did this and allowed it.”
“But again,” álvarez interjected, “not to be rude, but so what? So one CIA spook knew what some lions were up to? Who cares?”
“He found out about all this at a time when the old guard had been moved out and a new guard was moving in. More than a few of them unwilling to allow something like that to go on. It’s believed that the Malones’ father was going to let this new guard know.”
“And you let them kill Malone?”
“I didn’t let them do anything. By the time I heard about any of this, he was dead. Katzenhaus didn’t want to blow up their organization by turning cat against cat. And BPC doesn’t tell their bears what organizations they can work for. If some bear gets killed in a drive-by, they send flowers to the widow and go about their day. There was nothing left to do but start a war. Something no one wanted. So it was left alone. Except . . .”