Page 21 of To Kill a Badger (The Honey Badgers Chronicles #6)

A gostino “Ago” Medici watched his eldest brother pace back and forth in the family room while the rest of them patiently watched him.

It was always good to be patient when dealing with their brother.

He was emotional and spent most of his time in his lion form, because he seemed to not like being human at all.

Something had happened to get him this agitated; they were just waiting to find out the details.

Giovanni Medici looked down at his big paws, lifting one to study it, then the other. After a moment of deep, painful meditation on those paws, he shifted back to human.

“Sorry,” Gio said, pulling on some dark blue sweatpants his twin sister, Giuseppina, had laid out for him. “I needed to gather my thoughts.”

“So what happened now?” Ago asked.

“The de Medicis attacked wives of the Van Holtz wolf pack this morning.”

Pina frowned. “Why would they attack the Van Holtzes? And why do the Van Holtzes have wives? What normal shifter gets married?”

“I love how the whole thing has a very European vibe,” Ago joked. “Like the War of the Roses, but with dogs and cats.”

When his brother didn’t tell him to stop joking around, Ago knew something was truly wrong.

“What is it?” he pushed when his brother continued to remain silent.

“The wives they went after were She-badgers.”

“A Van Holtz married a badger?” Pina asked. “Really?”

“Is that important?” Ago asked.

“It’s weird.”

“Three Van Holtz wolves married three badgers. Friends,” Gio explained for his sister. “There’s a fourth badger, but she has not married anyone. But all four are a problem.”

“More of a problem than the MacKilligan sisters and their friends? Because you said everyone was freaking out about them, too.”

“The MacKilligan sisters are young and antisocial. Other than the bears near their house that they continually feed to keep them docile, they have no allies. No friends. But these four She-badgers are the opposite of them. They have connections, allies, dating back more than forty years. Allies that can help them wipe us from the planet.”

The six siblings were silent for a long moment until baby Bria—now twenty years old, but still a baby as far as they were all concerned—noted, “Ever notice, Gio, you get really dramatic when there may be even the tiniest chance you might have to leave the house?”

“That’s not what this is about.”

“Isn’t it? You and Antonella hate leaving the house. You work from home, you stay at home, you have food delivered because you won’t even go to a restaurant. But this... ? This situation might force you out into the sunlight.”

Their brother looked away because, as usual, Bria was right.

Not surprising, though, when Ago thought about it even a little bit.

Gio lived as cat, roaming their big house on four legs, as much as he could without getting caught by the neighbors.

Yet all his siblings knew that Gio—and their eldest sister, Antonella—would happily roam the Serengeti instead, if he could.

All day. Every day. But, sadly for their big brother, he was born on Hewlett, Long Island, along with the rest of them, and fabulous trips to Africa were not in the cards for them anytime soon.

Their startup company was doing well, which was great.

Each sibling managing to find a department to run that highlighted their skills and education.

But they hadn’t hit billionaire money status yet, and Ago didn’t think they would for quite some time.

They cared too much that their products were actually useful and working correctly when unleashed on the public.

It made for an extremely strong fan base, but they hadn’t hit that sweet spot of loyal fan base combined with average consumer yet.

So if Gio thought he’d be able to move to any part of Africa soon and wander around like king of the African plains . . . he was wrong.

So, when their Italian half-siblings—the de Medicis—caused a problem for them, it meant Gio had to deal with the world. And the man loathed dealing with the world. Too many full-humans running around. Too many canines and bears. He basically hated them all.

“So the de Medicis have gone to war and are dragging us with them,” Nicky said, pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.

“But we’re Medicis. Not the de Medicis,” Bria reminded them. “Everyone knows that.”

“We’ll just alert Katzenhaus,” Renny suggested, talking about the global cat organization that kept peace between the many breeds and prides and families of big cat shifters. “Let them know we’re not any part of some war our half-siblings are in the middle of.”

“It may not be that simple anymore,” Gio replied.

“Why?”

“The MacKilligan sisters killed our father and dumped his body in front of Giuseppe and the rest of them.”

“They hunted our father down?” Pina asked, a little surprised.

Honey badgers were known to be “crazy,” but they didn’t usually seek out trouble. The way it had been explained to him by an aunt, trouble seemed to find them. Constantly.

“No. He went to them. He threatened them. And Charlie MacKilligan killed him.”

They should all be angry. He was their father . . . biologically. But he could tell from the calm silence that none of them could muster more than mild indifference.

Besides, he couldn’t blame the MacKilligans for defending themselves.

Although, dropping their father’s corpse at their psychotic half-brother’s big feet seemed .

. . a tad reckless? No, no. He didn’t mean that.

He meant it was insane. What they’d done was insane, and he was starting to understand why Gio was so worried.

“But . . . come on,” Renny argued, looking around at the rest of them. “They’re badgers . Right? Aren’t they like rats or something?”

“You didn’t even know there were badgers, did you?” Ago asked his younger brother.

“Because I refuse to believe anyone would choose to be a badger. Who would do that?”

“This,” Pina snarled, “ this is why we’ve asked you to read a book. Just once. So you can gain knowledge.”

“I watch TV.”

“Honey badgers are their own, unique, horrifying thing,” Ago explained. “Shifters, yes. But soooo different.”

“Rasputin was a honey badger,” Nicky pointed out. His brother loved studying Russian history.

“The Borgias were badgers,” Bria chimed in.

“Walsingham, who helped Queen Elizabeth I in the first part of her reign . . . badger,” Gio added.

“Thomas Cromwell, who took down Thomas More and Anne Boleyn,” Pina tossed in.

“Trotsky, of course,” Gio remembered.

“I heard Judas was a badger.”

“No, no, Ago,” Pina corrected. “That was just hyena propaganda back in the day. But Pontius Pilate . . . definitely a badger.”

“Wait.” Ago turned to his younger brother and asked, “Do you have any idea what we’re talking about?”

“Aren’t you just making up words to confuse me?”

“Dear God!” Pina exploded. “Read a fucking book!”

* * *

“Why are you four here?” Edgar demanded, glaring at the four females that had ensnared his nephews.

Tracey Rutowski. CeCe álvarez. Stephanie Yoon.

There was also Oksana “Ox” Lenkov, who hadn’t married any of his relatives but hung around the other three so much, she might as well be family.

He knew she was always at Easter dinner!

“Why are we here?” Rutowski said, smiling. “To bring you joy and laughter, of course.”

Letting his fangs slip out of his gums, Edgar snarled a little. He couldn’t help it. These women drove him to it.

Since they were young teens, these four honey badgers had been making Edgar’s life a living hell. And despite his retirement, it seemed the nightmare part of his old life would never be over. Not when they constantly, continually, never-endingly started shit!

“This isn’t about Konstantin Chernenko again, is it?” Tracey Rutowski asked about the long-dead and onetime leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. She tossed her hands into the air and let out a loud, annoyed sigh. “I was just a kid! You need to let that go!”

He would never let that go, but he didn’t want to get into any of those past issues in the here and now. Not when they had bigger issues staring them right in the face.

Ignoring that badger’s mention of her and her friend’s old war crimes, Edgar said, “None of you should be involving yourselves into anything that’s going on right now.”

“Too late,” Rutowski sighed out.

“What does that mean?”

“What do you think it means?” Yoon questioned.

Glaring, Edgar demanded, “What did you four do now?”

“What makes you think we’re the problem?”

“Because you’re always the problem !” he suddenly exploded halfway through his sentence.

A tray, held by Charlie MacKilligan, suddenly appeared in front of Edgar’s face.

“Muffin?” she kindly asked.

“I don’t want a muffin.”

“It’s blueberry.”

“I don’t care.”

“Blueberry can be very soothing,” Stevie informed him, as she sat down across from him at the long table in the MacKilligans’ backyard. “It’s the antioxidants.”

Not wanting to hear about blueberries and antioxidants, Edgar asked Charlie, “Why are they here? Why are you working with them ? Why is this happening?”

Unlike his nephews’ wives and their friend, Charlie and her sisters didn’t usually cause problems. They simply reacted to problems coming at them. In other words, they were manageable.

Glancing back and forth between Edgar and the others, Charlie finally said, “Look, I’m guessing you guys have a history that I’m not privy to, and that’s okay.

Because I really don’t want to know, and I especially don’t care.

I’ve got enough on my mind and, apparently, I’m going to start playing football soon. ”

“Are you talking about American football?” Rutowski clarified.

“Yes.”

“No offense, but aren’t you a little . . . small for that?”