Page 28 of To Kill a Badger (The Honey Badgers Chronicles #6)

S ilvio de Medici entered the massive marble bathroom.

A room meant to recreate the Roman baths of his ancestors.

The fact that it was in the New Jersey penthouse of a tall building his father had built many years ago didn’t mean they had to leave their culture completely behind.

Even now, the females of their coalition were making them a big dinner that they would enjoy on the roof so they could look over at the city they planned to invade while dining on fish, meat, and handmade pastas along with the best cheeses and wine.

Like all big cats, his brother Paolo loved to eat. Unlike the lower-class cats, he insisted on only the best. “I wasn’t born in an alley; why would I eat from the garbage cans there?” he’d ask, while watching pumas and leopards dining in outdoor restaurants back home.

Silvio had no plans to live in this dirty, newborn country longer than necessary, but wherever Paolo went, he followed.

It had always been that way, and he didn’t question it.

His father had made it clear that brothers stuck together until death.

Infighting might be necessary to keep things organized and running smoothly, but you never sided with anyone over a brother.

Not a sister, not a mate, not your own child.

It was what kept their coalition going strong since the late Middle Ages.

Why would Silvio fuck with any of that now?

Stopping by a bench, Silvio slipped off his pool shoes and robe before sitting naked on the edge of the bath, his feet dangling in the extremely warm water.

“Well?” Paolo asked, without even opening his eyes as he floated by.

“It didn’t go well,” Silvio told his brother. “We lost some of our cousins to dogs and snakes.”

Paolo’s head slowly turned in the water to stare at Silvio. “What?”

“Poisonous snakes. They were in the walls and floors of the entire house. The Russian crone. It was her house.”

“Disgusting. It’s disgusting we have to bother with that species at all. What about the younger ones? That murdering whore and her sisters.”

“They’ve ensconced themselves with bears.”

“So?”

“My contacts tell me those bears will die to protect them.”

“Bears will die to protect little vermin? Why?”

“Something about muffins.”

Paolo gawked at him, then shook his head and swam over to the edge of the bath, pulling himself out. He sat on the edge next to Silvio. One of the younger nephews brought over a towel, and Paolo placed it around his shoulders.

“Has there been any retaliation from the others?”

“The others?”

“The cats? The bears? The dogs?”

“No.”

“Good. Then we try again.”

“We just lost blood. I’m not sure going after them again right now—”

“I am not letting some whore get in my way, Silvio! I want that cunt dead at my feet! I want her cunt sisters dead at my feet! I want anyone helping them dead at my feet! Do you understand me?”

Silvio kept his gaze down, focused on his own feet still under the clear water rather than on his brother.

“I understand.”

“Then make it happen.” He leaned in so his nose nearly touched Silvio’s cheek. “Before I get angry. . . .”

* * *

“Have you heard from Mom?”

Hearing his brother’s question, Keane walked out of Mads’s newly purchased house, where he’d gone to escape all the bears swarming Charlie’s house.

Once all those baking smells started to permeate the air, they’d come out of the woodwork.

Like bear-sized locusts descending on a crop of corn.

But Mads’s place was just across the street from Charlie’s and down a few doors from the Dunns’ house, where his baby sister and niece were staying at the moment until they were picked up and taken somewhere safe by his mother and her visiting sisters.

At least that had been the original plan, which he’d been completely involved in. Now, however, Keane didn’t know what was going on.

Standing in front of Mads’s house next to Finn, Keane watched as another RV drove down the bear-only street.

Past Charlie’s house, past Mads’s, until it reached the corner, two blocks away.

Moments later, another RV turned onto the street.

Then another . . . and another. The RVs that couldn’t find parking moved to surrounding streets.

And behind all those RVs came cars. Lots of cars. Some were old beaters, often abandoned as necessary. Other cars were high-end vehicles made tacky with bad paint jobs, off-market car parts, and ridiculous rims that would look awful in a low-budget, nineties rap video.

And in every one of those vehicles filling up the streets . . . were Malones.

So many Malones.

“What the fuck is going on?” Keane demanded. The last time he’d seen his relatives, they’d all been hanging out on his street, next to his house. Much to the consternation of his neighbors. Now they were all here. Why were they here?

Keane started to walk over to those cars, so he could pick each one up and toss them off the street, with his relatives still inside.

But Finn yanked him back and held him in place.

“Calm down.”

“I don’t wanna calm down.”

“Shay!” Finn called toward the house.

A minute or two later, his middle brother lumbered outside and stood behind Keane and Finn. Unlike at Charlie’s house, Mads’s place didn’t have a full porch or a sunroom. So they had to crowd onto that tiny stoop and those two small steps that led to the tiny front yard.

“Did you call Mom?” Finn asked Shay. “Or heard from her?”

“No. I thought you were handling that.”

“I thought I had. Last I heard, they were going to pick up Nat and Dani and take them back to the house. But now . . .” Finn watched all those vehicles park on the street. “But now this.”

“Maybe they’re just accompanying Mom as she picks up Nat and Dani,” Shay tried to reason.

“All ten thousand of them?”

“Don’t snap at me, Keane.”

“This is quickly turning into a disaster, and I’ve decided to blame you two.”

“What did we do?” Shay asked.

“I don’t care what you did or didn’t know. I just want you to fix it. Before I get angry. Because once I get angry—”

“Yes,” Finn barked. “We know.”

An enormous, tricked-out RV that must have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars parked in the middle of the street. The side door opened, and Keane’s mother stepped down the stairs.

Shay and Finn rushed over to her, giving her warm hugs. But Keane held back and waited until she’d walked over to him.

“Get that angry look off your face,” she told him. “Everything’s fine.”

“How can everything be fine when they’re here?”

Keane’s Uncle Cally leaned out of the RV and called, “There are my boys!”

Disgusted the old cat would even attempt that level of closeness after going years without doing anything for Keane’s family, Keane appropriately roared his rage and bared his fangs; his brothers ran back to his side to grab his arms and keep him from physically attacking their uncle.

Keane’s roar was so loud and angry that every other Malone in the vicinity responded in kind, while the bears surrounding Charlie’s house finally came off the sidewalk and onto the street to get a closer look at the sudden cat invasion on their territory; while the shifters on other streets that made up this insane Queens neighborhood added their own roars and howls to the mix.

It went on for several seconds until Keane’s mother yelled, “All of you, stop that!”

They did, because his mother had a way of controlling a situation that had made her the head of every parent-run bake sale and high school dance committee she had ever joined.

His mother took a few steps and, in an effortless move he envied, she launched herself up, landing on top of a cousin’s purple Camaro. She looked at the predators surrounding her.

“Now, I’m going to say this only once,” she explained, raising her voice so everyone on the street could hear her, “to all of you ,” she added, looking directly at Keane.

“We’re not here to cause problems. This is just temporary.

But we are here to protect the family . That means everyone will be polite, kind, and on their best behavior.

If anyone has a problem with that, feel free to discuss it with me. Until then . . .”

With that, she dismissed them all with a hand wave.

The bears refocused on the MacKilligan house and Charlie’s baking.

The Malones began the process of temporarily settling into this space until, one day, they would simply be gone.

Keane hoped that would happen sooner rather than later, but he wouldn’t say that to his mother. It would just make her angry.

His mother was walking past him now and into Mads’s house. Without saying a word, she made it clear she expected her sons to follow. So they did.

* * *

Texting on her phone, reaching out to her contacts, Nelle followed her teammates into the living room she had set up for Mads for just this kind of scenario. How Mads could be pissed that Nelle had done nothing but help her was beyond rational understanding.

Why were Vikings so damn moody? If she’d left it to Mads, they’d all be sitting on the floor or cardboard boxes right now!

“What is happening? Why are they here?”

Nelle looked away from her phone to see Keane pacing.

He was a very poised cat. He usually just stayed still until forced to move.

So seeing him pace alerted her that he was unhappy.

Although it seemed he was never really happy, he never seemed unhappy either.

Unhappy, she was guessing, was probably not good.

An older She-tiger stood in the middle of the living room, arms crossed over her chest, gold eyes locked on a pacing Keane.

Nelle knew in an instant that this was his mother.

Not only because she looked a lot like Finn, but because she gave off the same energy as Keane.

Innate physical and mental strength with a soupcon of barely controlled homicidal rage.

The way she spoke to him was a huge clue, too.