Page 26 of To Kill a Badger (The Honey Badgers Chronicles #6)

K eane sat on the top porch stoop in the front of the MacKilligan sisters’ rental house. He’d walked away from the backyard when the older honey badgers couldn’t calm down Mads’s aunt. There was a lot of screaming. He didn’t like a lot of screaming.

So, he sat on the stoop stairs and watched Edgar Van Holtz make his strong, steady way out of the backyard, through the picket fence gate, and over to his stretch limo.

Who still used a stretch limo in this day and age? The wolf couldn’t just hire a car service like a normal shifter?

Although, Keane did have to admit to himself that he hoped he was as strong and steady when he was that age.

Then again, he had been battered so many times over the years, hit by guys two to three times bigger than him who just wanted to get past Keane in order to sack the quarterback, that maybe he should simply be grateful he could still walk and talk and form complete sentences when he was that age.

While Van Holtz briefly stopped outside his limo to answer a call on his cell, Charlie sat on the stoop banister.

“The balls,” she said to Keane, also watching the old wolf, “to tell us they wouldn’t be helping.”

“Dogs always have balls. You know that because they spend so much time licking them.”

Still talking on the phone, the wolf got into his limo. The door held open by the driver. Another, much younger wolf, who briefly glared at Keane and Charlie with Arctic blue eyes that reminded Keane of his neighbor’s husky, closed the door and returned to the driver’s seat.

“So what do we do now?” Keane asked her.

“You need to get Dani and Nat to safety.”

This, this was why he trusted Charlie so much. It surprised both his brothers, because Keane didn’t trust anyone outside of his immediate family. Yet Charlie’s first thought, always, was the safety of those who needed it.

“My mother and her sisters are coming back,” he told her. “They’ll go to a Malone family house out in Jersey . . . or Mineola. And, most likely, they’ll probably bring those goddamn dogs. The family won’t like that.”

“You and your brothers should go with them.” When Keane frowned, Charlie added, “I don’t want to be the reason Dani loses her Uncle Mean.”

“You won’t be. Besides, the kid already knows what it means to be a tiger.”

“What does it mean?”

“Vengeance.”

“Good to know.”

“Besides, the kid won’t be safe until we deal with the de Medicis.”

The limo finally drove off.

“You know this is going to get bad, right?” Charlie asked him.

“How could I not know that? It’s already bad.”

“Yeah, but I don’t think they ”—she nodded toward the limo turning at the corner—“know how bad it’s going to get.

Paolo de Medici is not only meaner than his father, he’s actually crazy.

These organizations Van Holtz is so loyal to may think they’re protecting all their fancy big-breed, non-hybrid predators, but someone like de Medici won’t stop at us.

He wants more than just to fuck with some badgers who tossed his father’s rotting corpse into their dining room.

He wants what every male lion wants. Territory. As much as he can get.”

The older badgers finally reached the picket fence, three of them desperately holding onto Tracey Rutowski.

It appeared as though she was ready to run after that now-gone limo, but when her friends wouldn’t let her go, she instead leaned over the fence and screamed.

Just . . . screamed. No words. Just a guttural scream that had bears stepping out on their stoops to see what was going on.

The entire thing almost made Keane laugh, because the She-badger screamed like any middle-aged Long Island housewife when the gardeners cut back too much on her shrubs.

“Good God,” Charlie finally said, watching the four She-badgers.

“Yeah, I know. They’re . . . a lot .”

* * *

Nelle finished sending a text to a smuggler contact in Sri Lanka when she came around the corner of the house and saw Malone and Charlie talking on the porch steps.

She stopped, assuming they were making next-step plans and not wanting to interrupt, but also keeping close by in case she had to step in and soothe things.

“What do you think is going on there?”

After glancing over, Nelle replied to Max’s question, “Two normal people having a discussion? But I’m assuming you’re going to somehow twist it into—”

“Think he likes her?”

“I don’t think that cat likes anyone.”

“I can tell you Berg won’t be happy about any of this. Those two getting all close and friendly during a dramatic time like war.”

Nelle lowered her phone to stare at her teammate. “Are you trying to start something between your sister and those two very large predators?”

“No.”

“I thought you liked Berg. I definitely thought you liked him for Charlie.”

“He’s perfect for Charlie.”

“Then why are you trying to break them up?”

“I’m not.”

“Then what are you doing?”

“Noticing.”

Nelle let out a breath. “Max, I come from an ancient, powerful family of shit-starters. I know when anyone is about to start shit. You’re about to start shit.”

“I’m bored.”

“I see.”

“And what’s a little shit-starting between—”

“Stevie!” Nelle called out. “Max is trying to break up Charlie and Berg because she’s bored!”

Max’s face dropped. “That was unnecessarily mean.”

“I still owe you for that wed—oh.”

Stevie slammed into Max with such force and outright rage that she immediately took her sister to the ground, screaming in her face, and attempting to punch her with wildly flailing arms. The panda came running, doing his best to pull his girlfriend away.

Even the older badgers stopped screaming at the long-gone Van Holtz and joined in the fray of attempting to separate the sisters from each other.

Nelle’s teammates, however, simply stood back and watched, doing absolutely nothing.

Of course, they’d been watching Max and Stevie fight since junior high. This was nothing new.

“Nelle?” Charlie called out.

Nelle made her way over to Charlie and Keane, ignoring the continued screaming coming from behind her.

“What’s that about?” Charlie asked, once Nelle stood in front of them, so they didn’t have to yell over Stevie and Max.

“Your sister being a bitch.”

“She asked about Stevie’s meds again?”

“No.”

“Threw a rabid squirrel at her?”

“Not this time.”

“Set her hair on fire?”

“No, but we do have a good conditioner for that now should it happen again.”

“Then what?”

“Max was bored.”

“Ohhhh.”

Malone glanced between the two females before asking, “Does her boredom explain something?”

“When Max is bored, she starts shit,” Charlie explained. “What this time?” she asked Nelle.

“You and Malone are sitting a little too close together.”

Charlie’s eyes crossed in minor exasperation, but Malone was instantly confused.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“She says something to Berg,” Charlie explained. “He goes into a grizzly rage out of jealousy, which he shouldn’t because he knows better. And you, being a cat, take the bait—”

“Unfair.”

“—and Max is briefly entertained by a brutal apex predator fight in the middle of bear town.”

“Is she mentally ill?” Malone asked.

“Actually, no. According to Stevie and several specialists, she has a personality disorder. There, apparently, is a difference.”

“What difference?”

“One is treatable with medication and psychiatric care and one is, probably, not. Guess which one Max is.”

“The one that’s going to piss me off the most?”

“Yep!”

* * *

Keane didn’t understand what badgers called “logic,” but he really didn’t have time to either. War was no longer coming; it was here. The de Medicis had attacked the older badgers in their homes, trying to kill them. Might have succeeded, too, if these suburban ladies were anything but badgers.

Homes with offspring inside were usually off-limits in most shifter battles.

This was not the Serengeti, where one hunted down a yummy cub that was standing alone in the tall grass, waiting for its mother to return from a hunt.

Fights between adult shifters was one thing, but the offspring.

.. ? Never. So Keane had to start making plans and getting shit done so he could protect his niece and sister.

Meaning that, for once, football would have to come in second in his life, or even third for the time being.

Speaking of which, he’d forgotten all about his youngest brother Dale....

Eh. The kid was probably fine. He was currently surrounded by Malones.

When all this had gotten serious, the Malone family had suddenly appeared in Keane’s neighborhood to “help out,” as one of his uncles put it.

Keane still didn’t trust any of them, even his aunts and female cousins.

They were, however, convenient. If they wanted to help now, fine.

But he’d never forgive that they’d done nothing for his family when his father had been murdered, leaving his mother to deal with it all on her own.

True, she had her own family more than ready to help, but a majority of his mother’s family still lived on the Steppes.

That was a bit of distance to travel to help with cooking and getting her boys off to school while she was grieving the loss of her mate.

Yet despite his inability to “let it go,” as Finn put it, his main concern right now was protecting his immediate family—yes, including Dale. And to do that, he would have to work with the badgers. Maybe not the crazy older ones. They seemed incredibly unstable.

He also didn’t want to work directly with Max. That female had no boundaries whatsoever. Life and death were nothing but party favors in her daily existence.

Charlie MacKilligan, however . . . they understood each other. He didn’t have to explain anything. Didn’t have to make excuses. They both just got it.

While Nelle continued tapping into her phone like it was the only thing regulating her heartbeat and ability to breathe, he looked at Charlie and asked, “What’s our first move?”