Page 49 of To Kill a Badger (The Honey Badgers Chronicles #6)

Keane focused his attention back on Nelle. “ This is who you desperately need to talk to?”

She smiled up at him. “Yes.”

* * *

“This, Keane, is Johann Frederick Ludwig Emmanuel Von Sch?fer-Müller the Fourteenth. Grand Duke of—”

“I can’t express to you how much I do not care about the man’s title.”

“Well,” Johann said, “you are American.”

Keane’s eyes narrowed. “And you’re wearing an ascot. What’s your point?”

“Gentlemen,” Nelle quickly cut in—she couldn’t afford for Keane to be Keane this early in the game—“can we just get started?”

“Of course,” Johann agreed. He moved around his desk and sat down in the big leather chair, pulling out a cigar from a case in his jacket pocket, and motioning to the chairs across from him. “Please. Sit.”

Nelle took Keane’s arm, tugged him over to the chairs, and pushed at his chest until he reluctantly sat down.

“Excellent,” Johann said when everyone was seated. “Now would either of you like something to drink?” He held up a clear container containing live scorpions. “Perhaps a little nibble?”

Keane’s hands gripped the arms of his chair, fangs beginning to show again, and Nelle motioned the treats away with a quick wave of her hand.

“No, thank you, Johann.”

“So, my dear,” Johann began, putting the scorpions back into a desk drawer, “I’m guessing you’re here about the Austrian royal jewels, yes? Name me a price!”

Nelle sat up straight in her chair. “No, no, no. That’s not why I’m here.”

“It’s not?”

“No.”

“Do you only know thieves?” Keane asked.

“Thieves?” Nelle glanced around the room as if looking for someone. “What is this word thieves ? I do not know this word. English is not my first language.”

“You already bragged to me how you only went to British schools in Hong Kong.”

Ignoring Keane, Nelle said to Johann, “Actually, Johann, I’m here to ask for a favor.”

“A favor? From me?”

“From your family.”

“Ah. I see. So, I’m guessing this has to do with the de Medicis.”

“It does.”

“Yes. That whole situation is most unfortunate. But I’m sure we can come to some arrangement if you want my family involved with protecting your little friend. We have a delightful chalet in the Swiss Alps she might like.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Everyone knows.”

“Everyone knows what?”

“That some nasty cats are trying to kill your little MacKilligan friend, yes? The Chinese one? With the colorful hair? Although we can only protect her so long, because a lot of people want Max MacKilligan dead. I think your own mother does. There may be no stopping that train.”

“Johann—”

“I know for a fact your mother has a real issue with that tiny girl not taking her shoes off—”

“No, Johann. I’m not talking about Max; I’m talking about all of us. The de Medicis are trying to wipe out honey badgers.”

He leaned back a bit in his chair and pressed his free hand against his chest. “But, my dear Gong . . . we are beloved.”

“Are you?” Keane asked.

Nelle slapped Keane’s shoulder with the back of her hand and continued on, “Of course we’re beloved, Johann. We’re delightful. But that’s why the de Medicis hate us. Not just the MacKilligans—”

“Whom everyone hates.”

“—but every honey badger. They see us as a threat and want us all dead, and they’re going to great lengths to make it happen.”

“I see. And what do you want from us?”

“Your influence. We need to combine the forces of all honey badgers, uniting to fight back against this. And with your help in Europe, talking with the European families, I know you can make that happen.”

Johann took his time fixing his cigar before puffing away on it. Throwing his legs up on the desk and leaning back in his chair, staring up at the ceiling in what he probably thought appeared to be “deep thought.”

Finally, after a few minutes, he said, “You’re absolutely right. I can make that happen. But what would I get out of it?”

“You?”

He smiled at her. “Me.”

Nelle wanted to leap over Johann’s desk and choke him to death, but she was too busy stopping Keane from doing that himself. She grabbed his arm and held on for dear life.

“Johann, I don’t think you understand the situation we—and I mean all honey badgers—are in,” she told him.

“I’m afraid I do understand, my dear Gong. I mean, if you want to hire me to assist in this matter, that’s different. But just doing something out of the kindness of the heart I do not have . . . you’re asking a lot of me.”

Keane stopped trying to pull away from Nelle and instead said, “I need to pace.”

She understood and immediately released her grip. Keane stood and walked to the far side of the room, away from Johann and the desk, where he proceeded to pace the length from the door to one of the bookshelves. Back and forth.

“You do understand that if they get past us,” Nelle explained to Johann, “they’ll eventually come for you and everyone else.”

“Of course!” he replied amiably. “But by then, my family will know what to expect, because they’ve already killed all of you!”

Nelle was about to explain how ridiculous that logic was—giving lions a chance to learn from their mistakes was always the wrong way to go—when something flew over her and at the male badger.

She knew it was Keane, but still . . . it was a shock to see his tiger form soaring over her head and onto Johann’s desk.

Keane’s forearms lifted up, and giant paws landed on the badger’s shoulders, shoving him and his chair back and into the floor-to-ceiling window behind the desk.

Except that particular window wasn’t close.

It was about seven-and-a-half feet from the desk.

Keane’s back paws were still firmly on the desk, so he had more length to stretch if necessary.

She knew Amur tigers could be that long, but to see it up close like that....

Johann let out a panicked snarl, and the study room door slammed open. The group of badgers that had brought them here walked in, and Keane turned his massive head, unleashing a walls-shaking roar.

Never ones to back off, the badgers pulled their weapons—mostly guns and a few knives—and started forward, but Nelle held up her hand.

“I wouldn’t,” she told them calmly. “Especially if Johann isn’t the one paying you.”

They all stopped and waited. Nelle took her time getting to her feet and stepping around the chair, resting her hands on the back of it.

“Before this turns . . . unfortunate,” she said, “I think we should take a moment and wait.”

“Wait for what?” Travers asked.

The study door opened again, and she walked into the room.

Dressed in a simple gray dress from some common store and high-heeled shoes that were less than one hundred euros, the She-badger let out a sigh when she saw Johann snarling up at a raging Keane.

“I swear, Johann, you can’t handle shit, ” she said in Polish.

“How is this my fault?”

“Shut up.” She held the door open and motioned with a wave of her hand. “Everyone get out. Now.”

Travers and the other males walked out at her order.

“Tell your cat to release him, Gong Zhao,” Jules Kopanski-Müller said in perfect Cantonese to Nelle. “So we can talk.”

* * *

“Keane.”

He heard Nelle’s voice, but really didn’t want to let his dinner go. It had really pissed him off. But then a She-badger in human form appeared beside his tiger form, and she bravely slapped his snout a few times with her claws until Keane backed away.

He debated biting her head off, too, but Nelle slid her hand down his right hip, pausing to grip his fur between her fingers. That’s when all he could think about was her.

Keane turned and leapt off the desk. He turned again and came to a stop next to Nelle. She pressed her hand against the back of his neck. Warm. Reassuring. Silently telling him she had this.

“Go,” the older She-badger said, and Keane thought she was talking to him and Nelle. But she wasn’t.

“He started it!” the male badger complained.

“You turn everything into bullshit. Go.”

Shoving his chair back again as he stood, the male badger stomped out of the room, baring fangs at Keane as he did. When the door slammed behind him, the She-badger gestured to Nelle.

“Come, Gong Zhao, let us go talk. And bring your big kitty with you.”