Page 45 of To Kill a Badger (The Honey Badgers Chronicles #6)

“S o someone blew up one of Max’s Scottish uncles.”

“Wait . . . what?” Keane tried to turn to talk directly to Nelle, but the “family assistant” that they’d been “assigned” was too busy blocking his way and shoving a small duffel into his hand.

“Clothes,” the She-cat said. “And a few other necessary items if you’re staying a night or two.”

In his other hand, she shoved a wallet.

“Here’s some francs and a credit card you can use.”

“I don’t need—”

“This is a busy trip. You won’t have time to get money exchanged or worry about how much you’ll be charged on your American card. Just take it and be grateful.”

Keane never thought he’d meet someone who was as short-tempered as he was, but he hadn’t met Marti Hinds.

A bobcat that had worked for the Zhaos for years, apparently.

She may have the title of “assistant,” like some young kid who ran to get someone a latte when demanded, but she ruled with an iron paw.

Ordering him and Nelle around like they were very stupid people with no sense.

It irritated him, and normally he’d bully a smaller cat just by being himself.

But his instincts told him not to make her mad.

A surprising reaction to a cat with a short tail.

“Here’s your passport.” Keane tried to take it, but she pulled it back. “Can you keep hold of it, or should I give it to Nelle?”

“I can keep—”

“No. I don’t trust you. You take it.” She handed it to Nelle. He knew by the way Nelle wouldn’t look at him that she was loving all this.

The bobcat studied her very thin tablet.

“A car will meet you at the airport and drive you to Paris. I booked you a suite at the Llewellyn Arms for the next two nights, just in case you need extra time.”

“You know the Llewelyn Arms are owned by lions, right?” Keane asked.

Gold cat eyes coldly stared at him. “Of course I know that.”

“And you do understand that we’re in a fight with lions, right?”

“You’re in a fight with the de Medicis. The Llewellyns are not associated with the de Medicis, and I can assure you they never will be.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I know.”

“Can’t we go to the Four Seasons?” Nelle whined, diverting those cold eyes from Keane’s face. “With a view of the Eiffel Tower?”

“Not with an alley cat, you can’t.”

“Hey,” Keane weakly complained.

“The Llewellyns’ establishment will have the same level of comfort and be able to feed this one without you pretending to order for twenty people.”

“I’m standing right here,” he reminded the bobcat.

“Zeus will be your driver when you get to the hotel.”

“Zeus?” Keane asked. “Dude’s name is Zeus. ”

The bobcat stared at him. “Do not irritate Zeus.”

“How can I, mere mortal, irritate a god named Zeus?”

Marti turned her back to him and addressed Nelle. “The plane will be ready to board in a few minutes. Please don’t let this one”—she gestured to Keane with a toss of her hair—“tear up the seats like the other tiger did.”

“That was Shay. His brother. But this time I’ll be much more diligent.”

“Good.” Marti gave one last glare to Keane before telling Nelle, “I’ll meet you on the plane.”

“She’s coming with us?” Keane asked, ignoring the fact the bobcat was still standing there . . . being annoying.

Bobcats weren’t even one of the “big” cats. They were too small, too North American, and couldn’t even roar! Plus, they were rude !

“Of course she’s coming with us,” Nelle replied. “If we need assistance while we’re in Paris—”

“You said we weren’t staying. Why are we suddenly staying?”

“I know this is hard for you, but you need to let me deal with everything. When we get back, you can boss your brothers around again, and all will be right in your world.”

“I don’t boss them around.”

Both females laughed at him, and he didn’t appreciate it. Especially since Marti didn’t even know him.

“I do my research, Mr. Malone,” Marti said to his unasked question, “so let us not begin our working relationship off by lying to each other.”

“What working—”

She walked away.

“Now I’m just getting pissed,” he told Nelle.

“Sit, sit.” She took his arm and made him sit in one of the plastic seats.

The airport was small and nearly empty, except for a few employees and some passengers waiting to board.

It took a moment, but he eventually recognized a few of those passengers from the news.

Full-human billionaires who also had their own fleets of jets.

He often wondered what that would feel like. Being that rich.

Seeing his mother stressed over bills after his father died had been hard.

Knowing she could never scrimp on food for her growing cubs, his mother had been forced to downgrade their five-bedroom home to a small rental house, where Keane had ended up sharing a room with Shay and Finn, while his mother had shared her room with Dale, since he’d still been so young.

Originally, he’d hated all of that. Wanted to complain about it endlessly, but knew he couldn’t.

Not once he looked into his mother’s sorrowful eyes.

So he’d gritted his teeth and kept moving forward.

Although, in the end, he had been grateful to being forced to share space with his brothers, because it meant he was there when they woke up in the middle of the night crying or having a nightmare.

Studying the rich with their entourages and multiple assistants, Keane wondered if they even saw their kids.

Did they check on them late at night like his dad used to when he’d been out on assignment or whatever the CIA called that shit?

Or did their kids sleep alone with a nanny nearby?

Keane couldn’t even imagine anyone else but him and his mother taking care of his brothers during those first dark months after Dad’s death.

“Did you have a nanny?” he asked Nelle.

She didn’t look up from that phone, and he briefly wondered if she had surgically sutured it to her hand to ensure she never lost it.

“A nanny? Yes. But only because my grandmother said I was a curse against the family, and she refused to help raise me like she had for my older brothers and sisters.”

“Why did she do that?”

“I think because I stabbed her in the knee once with a bunch of colored pencils I’d just sharpened. She still limps a bit, but I think she does that to make my mother feel bad . . . which, of course, she doesn’t.”

Keane couldn’t help but chuckle. “Why in the world did you stab your grandmother in the knee?”

“She took the book I was reading, and I did not appreciate that at all. So I stabbed her. She did really try to make my mother feel bad about it, until my mother pointed out that a three-year-old shouldn’t have had access to pencils in the first place.

I should have only been using crayons at that point. ”

“She’s right.”

“I know. But my mother didn’t see me moving the chair, climbing the chair, grabbing the pencils off my father’s workspace, then climbing down again, moving the chair back to where it was, and lying in wait . . .”

“At three?”

“At three. But I’m a badger. She’s a badger. She raised my mother . . . she really should have known it was coming as soon as she snatched that book from my hand.”

“Wait . . . you were reading at three?”

“Yes. I was quite advanced for my age.”

“Were you like Stevie?”

“God, no. I just liked reading on my own. Besides, no one is like Stevie.”

Keane let out a sigh. “By the time Nat was three, she was taking computers apart. By five, she was putting them back together again with new components and new features. It was disturbing. Especially because I hate computers. I mean, they’re great for porn, but what else do you really need them for? ”

* * *

“I know I should have asked this earlier but . . . could you please elaborate on the whole ‘someone blew up Charlie’s uncle’ thing?”

Nelle held up her finger to tell Keane to hold while she requested an orange juice and croissant from the flight attendant assigned to their jet.

“And you, sir?” she asked Keane.

He gazed up at the pretty attendant, eyes blinking slowly. “What?” he finally asked.

“Would you like something? Something to drink or some lunch, perhaps?”

He continued to stare at her, and Nelle couldn’t take it anymore, so she ordered for him. God, sometimes she did take after her mother. How horrifying.

“Roast boar sub with extra meat. All the . . . uh . . . fixings, I think it’s called, on the side, please, Janette. And a pitcher of cold milk with a glass. Must keep those bones strong for football.”

“I can order my own food,” he told Nelle.

Nelle and the attendant waited for him to give his own order.

After a moment, he said, “Roast boar sub with extra meat. Milk.”

“Very good, sir.” The fox smirked at Nelle before moving off.

“Shut up,” Keane said, still snarling.

“I didn’t say anything!”

“But you’re thinking. I can hear you thinking and laughing at me.”

“That’s paranoid, because we both know I would just laugh right in your face.”

The captain came on the comm to tell them in Cantonese that they were in for a nice flight to Paris and to just sit back and relax before concluding with their calculated arrival time.

Keane’s eyes grew wide and he asked, panicked, “Does he only speak Chinese? I don’t speak Chinese. What if we’re on fire and we need to jump from the plane, but I don’t understand what he says?”

“Okay, first . . . if the plane is on fire, I’ll make sure to tell you we need to jump. And second . . .” She pointed up, and the captain came on the comm again to repeat his message in English.

“Oh.” Keane turned toward the window, gave a little chuff, then shook his head. It was a very big-cat move, and she loved it.

“So you were asking about Charlie’s Scottish uncle?” she reminded him.

“What? Oh. Yeah. Yeah, I was.” He looked at her. “You said they tried to blow him up?”

“No, I said they did blow him up. The aunt’s Mercedes is totaled, from what I understand.”

Keane frowned; blinked. “Uh . . . and her uncle? You know . . . the one in the Mercedes?”