Page 22 of To Kill a Badger (The Honey Badgers Chronicles #6)

Ox pointed at an unsmiling male tiger that Edgar knew—for many reasons—was a Malone.

Not a normal Malone. He and his brothers didn’t live in a caravan, traveling around when the mood hit them and, unlike most of their blood relations, they were only half-Irish.

The other half was part of a powerful Mongolian tribe that had once ruled the Steppes.

But these three were Malones nonetheless.

“This tiny badger—” Ox began.

“I’m hardly tiny,” Charlie noted.

“—took big idiot cat—”

“I have been nothing but polite to you,” the cat pointed out.

“—down without much pain and suffering,” Ox said, nodding approvingly. “I think she will be fine in the American football.”

“Except you already missed practice today,” the cat complained to Charlie.

“There’s practice?”

“We discussed this, Charlie. There’s practice, and you need to be there. Am I going to have a problem with you?”

She held the tray up. “Muffin, Keane?”

“I do want a muffin.”

Before allowing the cat to feed, she said to Edgar, “Sure you don’t want one? Once I put it in front of the big idiot cats—”

“Hey.”

“—the muffins will be gone. They are not fans of sharing.”

Edgar already knew that, but he shook his head anyway.

Charlie took the tray to the far end of the table and put it in front of the three brothers. By the time she’d walked to a free chair, the three cats had taken what they’d wanted and had left nothing on the tray but crumbs.

“Okay,” Charlie said with a surprisingly sweet smile. “So what are we all talking about today?”

“How much our Uncle Edgar still hates us after all these years,” Rutowski announced.

“No, no,” Stevie said with deep sincerity. “I’m sure Edgar doesn’t—”

“Yes,” he cut in, adamant. “Yes, I do hate you. All four of you. Always have. Always will. And fucking stop calling me uncle !”

Stunned silence from the entire table followed his explosion until Stevie softly said, “Could someone pass me the uh . . . half-and-half? I need a little for my coffee.” She cleared her throat before accepting the jug handed to her. “It’s a little more . . . bitter than I expected.”

* * *

“We shouldn’t suffer because of that side of the family,” Pina said, pacing around the room like the angry and tense cat she was.

“I’m not sure we can avoid it,” Ago reminded her. “They are our half-siblings.”

“Not that they acknowledge that . . . at all.”

“Pina’s right,” Nicky agreed, while pushing his glasses back up his nose again.

It drove Pina nuts that her brother never seemed to have glasses that actually fit properly.

He’d been wearing them since he was six, much to the disgust of their father.

By now he should be able to buy frames that fit his face. “We’re not considered de Medicis.”

“Our brothers don’t consider us de Medicis, but the Van Holtz definitely will,” Gio said, sliding onto the desk Pina worked on when she dealt with family finances. “Like those fucking tigers, they’ll want revenge for what happened to their own.”

“All the Van Holtz wives are dead?” Renny asked, horrified.

“Surprisingly, no,” Gio replied. “Considering what they hit them with.”

“If we’re all that worried what’s going to happen in the next few days or weeks”—Bria shrugged—“I can take the kids to safety in Colorado.”

Pina questioningly glanced at her twin, but Gio only shrugged.

“What makes Colorado safe?” she asked her sister.

“Our prepper ranch.”

“We have a prepper ranch?”

“Of course we have a prepper ranch.”

“Except we’re not preppers.”

“No. We’re not. But we still have a prepper ranch.”

“Every day I discover exactly how weird this family is.”

“Wait,” Ago cut in, “I don’t understand. Why would we have a prepper ranch when none of us are preppers?”

“What’s a prepper again?” Renny asked. “The people who believe the end of the world is coming? Right?”

“Yeah. Due to God.” Ago shrugged at Bria. “But you’re an atheist.”

“Agnostic, actually.”

“Before we decide on anything,” Pina cut in, “someone needs to tell . . . Antonella.”

The room immediately went silent, and there was a sudden lack of eye contact.

“No one is going to do that,” Ago finally admitted.

“Someone has to,” Pina replied, before quickly adding, “but it won’t be me.”

“But you two are so close,” Bria lied.

“I still have scars from the last time I was the one who had to tell her something she didn’t want to hear.” Pina pointed at her lower jaw, which her twin had to fit back into place so it could heal properly. “I am not going through that again.”

“Well, me, Renny, and Nicky have to start packing if we’re going to take the kids to the prepper ranch.”

“Stop calling it that,” Nicky complained.

He once again pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.

That’s when Pina snatched the pair off his face, adjusting the pads.

She’d started doing that for him when he was eight and he’d already lost two pairs of glasses that school year.

Their mother had been livid, and had ordered Pina to “fix the problem.” It just never occurred to Pina that this would become a lifelong job.

The things She-lions were forced to do for the males in their prides.

“Here,” she snarled, handing the designer glasses back to her brother.

“Oh. Thanks.” He put them on, looked around the room, and smiled at her.

“Gio,” Pina said, looking at her twin. “You tell, Antonella.”

Her brother stared at her with that wounded expression he always had when she asked him to go grocery shopping with her, and said, “It’s like you don’t love me at all.”

* * *

“I need you to hold it together.”

Keane gazed down at the She-badger who’d pulled him away from the extra-long picnic table and next to the tree where the panda was still hanging . . . and eating.

Why did he eat so much bamboo? Was it due to ill health? Was he just mimicking pandas in the wild, or was he clinically unstable? Keane really wanted to know if he should be worried about this bear, since his sister was going to spend so much time with her sist—

“Are you even listening to me?”

Keane shrugged. “No.”

He expected Nelle to get angry at his blunt response like everyone else did, but he saw the corners of her mouth turn up. “I see. Can you give me three minutes before I lose you?”

“You’ve got two. After that, my attention will wane.”

“Got it. So listen to what I’m telling you . . . I need you not to react to whatever happens at that table in the next few minutes. Just know I will handle it.”

“Handle what?”

“All of it.”

“All of what?”

Nelle glanced over her shoulder. The old wolf was still on the phone. His receiving a call had allowed for Keane and Nelle to get a few seconds together. But why she was worried about Keane’s reactions and not the cranky wolf’s, Keane had no idea.

“Just trust me and keep control.”

“Okay, but why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do I need to keep control?”

“Because when you react, you freak out Stevie. When Stevie freaks out, she worries Charlie. When Charlie is worried, Max instinctually makes it worse. And when Max makes it worse, Charlie destroys the world. I’m trying to avoid that.”

“Okay. . . ?”

“What?”

“I guess I’m not sure why that’s your problem?”

“I’ve made it my problem.”

“Yes, but I’m not sure why. Personally, I don’t make other people’s problems my own. My brothers, my niece, my sister . . . their problems, I make mine. Their concerns are my concerns. My buddy Jake—”

“You have friends?”

“—I don’t make his problems my problem. Because I really don’t care about his problems.”

“So you’re not friends.”

“We have a beer now and then. And when he complains about his girlfriend, I just sip my beer and listen and eat pretzels. What I don’t do, is start plotting how to manage his emotional issues.”

“Well, these are not just friends. They’re like family to me.”

“Really? Because any time Streep suggests—”

“She’s an annoying pest, so we torment her for our amusement, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t consider all of them my family and, like most Chinese people, family is absolutely the most important thing in my lif— Would you stop calling me!

” she suddenly yelled at the phone currently telling her to “fuck off, fuck off, fuck off.”

“What kind of ringtone is that? I don’t want my niece hearing that. She’s just a kid.”

“Just do as I ask. Please?”

He shrugged again. “Okay.”

“Thank you.”

With a sweet smile in his direction, Nelle returned to the table and whatever drama was about to happen there.

Keane was about to follow, but then the panda said, “Nelle is nice.”

He stopped, looked at the bear, but didn’t speak.

“Stevie really likes her. She goes out of her way to keep Charlie calm, and Stevie appreciates that.”

Keane continued to stare and waited.

“So I feel kind of protective of her. And I wouldn’t like it if some . . . dude was just trying to get into her pants.”

The panda said this while still hanging upside down, a stalk of bamboo gripped in his fist, which just irritated Keane.

He took a step closer so only the bear could hear him.

“You know, I could bite your head off, chew it, swallow, shit it out, and it would mean absolutely nothing to me. So, in future . . . don’t fucking talk to me. Understand?”

“Uh . . . yeah. That was, uh, pretty clear.”

“Good.”

* * *

Gio stared out the clear sliding glass doors that led into their large backyard. A huge tent stood over it. Not to block out the sun, but to block out any nosy neighbors or drones that might notice the four-hundred-pound lioness relaxing on a grass-covered dirt mound.