Page 47 of To Kill a Badger (The Honey Badgers Chronicles #6)

Keane followed behind her, but when he tried to step into the elevator, the Frenchman stepped in front of him.

“May I help you, monsieur?”

“Oh, he’s with me, Paul.”

“Are you sure, mademoiselle?” he looked back at Zhao. “Cats are very tricky. And American cats are the worst.”

Keane gazed at what he now knew was a French wolf. “Who says I’m an American?”

The wolf sneered. “Seriously?”

Keane started to unleash fang, but a push from behind sent him into the elevator, and Zeus followed. By the time he turned around, the doors were already closing.

The elevator went up and up until it reached one of the three highest floors. When the doors opened with the help of a keycard that Zeus had, it opened right into a massive suite.

With three bedrooms, he didn’t know how many bathrooms, and a layout of caviar, fresh fruit and salad, crackers, bread, and what Keane was guessing was very expensive champagne on the large coffee table in the middle of the living room, he knew he was seeing what the very wealthy had at their disposal every day.

He was usually just happy when the hotels his team used on away games had twenty-four-hour room service and a stocked minibar.

“This is nice,” he had to admit.

“Is it?” Nelle asked. She had an annoyed look on her face. “I still smell past jackal. Zeus . . . be a dear. Call housekeeping.”

The bear grumbled something and moved toward the house phone.

“Seriously? You smell jackal?”

“I smell everything, but jackal is prominent. They should have done a better job cleaning for what we’re paying.”

“You’re not paying anything.”

“My family is.”

He shrugged. “I think it’s nice.”

“It’s good enough.”

“Wow.”

“Don’t worry,” she said, smiling at him. “I don’t feel that way about people.”

“Wow.”

* * *

After an interminable flight and drive from the private airport, Nelle desperately needed a shower.

She did that and changed into a simple summer dress and five-thousand-dollar heels she’d recently purchased in Manhattan.

She accented her outfit with a simple gold necklace and gold hoop earrings.

She left her hair down and strapped a .32 auto in a black leather holster to the inside of her right thigh.

Grabbing her phone and another small purse she was positive Keane would hate, she walked out of her bedroom and into the living room. She immediately stopped and glared.

Keane stared at her before asking, “Friends of yours?”

“Not really.”

“Again,” he felt the need to say, “I have to question what your family calls protection.”

“They’re fellow badgers. Zeus probably didn’t even—”

“Do his job?”

Deciding not to start a debate at this moment with Keane, Nelle focused on the head badger. “Hello, Travers.”

“My sweet Gong. So good to see you again.”

Maurice Travers was her least favorite person next to her sister, but sometimes one had to put up with people they didn’t like.

Especially when they were pressing a gun into the side of the tiger she’d been planning a lovely dinner with just two seconds ago.

Keane could easily survive a gunshot wound to the side based on the caliber of that Beretta Travers held, but he might also lose a kidney in the process. She didn’t want that.

“Why are you here, Maurice?”

“To see you and talk about our unrequited love?”

“That statement makes me want to bite your head off,” Keane informed his captor.

“Ahh, don’t be mad at me, angry American. I have been nothing but polite to you.”

“I’m sorry, but that wasn’t an idiom,” Keane felt the need to explain. “I mean I literally want to bite your head off. It will not be the first time I have done such a thing to small men who threaten me.”

“Okay, gentlemen . . .” Nelle said, stepping fully into the room. That’s when all the guns were trained on her. Because any true honey badger knew that the real threat in the room was the female badger instead of the male tiger.

She smiled, held her hands up so they could all see. “Everyone calm down. I’m unarmed.”

“Liar.”

“Yes. I’m lying. But you knew that. And instead of getting angry and making threats—”

“Or promising retribution.”

“Not helping, Keane,” she told the cat before looking back at Travers. “Let’s all discuss this calmly.”

“We are not here to talk, chérie .”

“You want to get nasty with me , Maurice?”

“No, no. I am just the transport, yes? Here for you and your friend.”

“So you come with guns?”

“Your reputation, as always, proceeds you, Gong Zhao. We were being cautious.”

“I see.”

“We’re not going anywhere with you,” Keane told Travers.

“Fine. Then we could kill you here, kitty.”

“Well,” Keane said, “you and your friends can definitely get off shots as I move toward you, but the question will be if it stops me or will I keep coming . . . just for you ?”

Travers quickly calculated the speed of an angry, vengeful cat and that of his weapon, plus the lack of help from the other badgers he had with him, because their kind was known to do that sometimes.

The odds were not in his favor. And they all knew it.

So, he looked at Nelle.

“Let’s just go, Keane. Get this over with.”

“Are you sure?”

“Actually,” Nelle said, reaching for the silk wrap she’d left on the club chair outside her room, “I am.”