Page 53 of To Kill a Badger (The Honey Badgers Chronicles #6)

The badger blinked; his slow, tragic mind turned as he tried to think of a lie that would get him out of this.

“Uh . . .”

Finn crumpled up the note he’d been holding, and Nat walked away. He didn’t even have to tell her what was said in ASL, because she already knew. Whether she read the lips or just understood . . . Shay didn’t know. And it didn’t matter.

Snarling, Stevie screamed, “You are the worst person I have ever known! And I’m including the meth dealers you sold me to!”

Shay couldn’t believe anyone would risk cutting their own throat—deeply! Down to the spine!—just to get money out of his family so he could wiggle out of some gambling debt. Who did that?

Oh, yeah. Fred MacKilligan did that. Because he was an idiot!

Finally, a quietly seething Charlie turned around and, looking down at her father, said in a soft voice, “I’ve asked you this before, Dad . . . and I am going to ask you one more time . . . why won’t you J UST D IEEEEEEE ?”

Lions from the street over roared in response to her scream. Three blocks away, wolves howled. On the very street he was standing on, tigers and bears growled. But all of that could be barely heard over Charlie MacKilligan’s bellow of absolute rage and hatred at her own worthless father.

Charlie lifted her foot over her father’s head, and Shay knew she was about to stomp his skull into nothing but a puddle.

She was that angry. But then Berg was there.

He grabbed her around the waist and lifted his screaming, fury-filled mate away.

He had to work so hard to get control of her like this that his grizzly hump exploded between his shoulder blades.

It was the extra strength that helped him hold on to her.

But he was still having a problem, and his two siblings had to jump in to help.

Dag grabbed her legs, and Britta wrapped her arms around the She-badger’s chest.

“Let’s go! Let’s go!” Berg ordered, and the triplets quickly made their way back to the rental house, Charlie’s roars of rage shaking nearby cars and the Malone RVs.

Vehicle windows were blown out.

Max, gazing down at her panicked father—who must have realized that he was trapped not only in this disgusting lie, but in the tarp, plastic, and duct tape he’d used to sell his lie—stretched her arm out.

Shay didn’t know why until a simple axe flew past him and into her hand.

He glanced over his shoulder and realized that axe had come from Nat.

She’d gotten it from somewhere and sent it to Max to finish the job Freddy MacKilligan had started.

She was going to cut off her father’s head. Holy shit.

“Finn . . .”

But before either of them could move to stop her, Stevie leaped over her father’s struggling body—his claws working overtime to tear his way out of his self-made prison—and grabbed the axe handle.

The sisters fought over it. Nat started to step in, and Finn grabbed her, holding her back.

Because they both were certain now that she’d taken after Charlie and Max when it came to their birth father, which meant she’d be more than happy to cut the badger’s head off.

Something he didn’t want his sister doing! Ever!

Taking his life into his hands, Shay stepped up to the battling sisters and wrapped his fingers around the hands holding the axe.

He then yanked them forward and away from their father, since neither sister would release the weapon.

The panda and the black jaguar—the two sisters’ mates—joined in to protect the females from each other and, as one, they all headed back to the house.

Each trying to get full control of that stupid axe.

As everyone moved away from the toxic badger, Fred MacKilligan yelled out, “I swear, you guys, I can explain everything!”

* * *

Smack dab between France and Spain, Andorra was one of those places that Steph Yoon loved to visit when she needed a break from everything.

She used to own a beautiful house in the region, but she’d sold it about a decade-and-a-half back to help her—at the time—struggling business.

Now, of course, she could buy that place and a few hundred more if she wanted, but she hadn’t had any time recently to think about real estate.

Besides, if anything good came on the market that would be perfect for her, Ox would handle it.

The woman had been handling global real estate since she’d been old enough to get her Realtor’s license.

It had started off with her finding studio space for CeCe and gallery space for Nelle in some of the worst places in the five boroughs to handling available gallery space in London for Nelle’s massive business.

Even the Van Holtzes had been known to use her skills when they wanted to open a new restaurant in territories not known to be welcome to wolf packs.

Which was why Steph didn’t understand what would make anyone think they couldn’t be found by her and her girls in such a small principality like Andorra. As it was, Ox could find anyone, anywhere, whenever she wanted. But if one was actively hiding from her, Andorra was not the place to go.

Kicking at the door of the baggage area until it opened, CeCe leaned out to take a quick look around before announcing, “All clear.”

Grabbing their backpacks, bottled water, and jars of honey, the four females jumped down to the tarmac.

“You know,” Steph felt the need to point out, “none of this would be necessary if you weren’t so cheap.”

“I am not cheap,” Trace snapped. “I am—”

“Budget-conscious,” they all said before she could, which just annoyed her.

“We are getting too old for this,” CeCe complained.

“Especially when we have access to jets we can board like normal people rather than hiding like rats in the jet’s baggage compartment.” Once on the ground, Steph took a few seconds to stretch her legs out and do a few forward bends to loosen up the now-cranky muscles in her back.

“Do you want people knowing what we’re up to? Because everyone and their mother is probably watching us.”

“You are so ridiculously paranoid, Trace.”

“Am I, CeCe?” their friend asked, very dramatically. “Am I?”

“Okay,” CeCe said, starting to laugh. “Take it down a notch, Lady Drama.”

Steph pulled the straps of her backpack onto her shoulders and waited for the rest of her friends.

They were all dressed in black, but CeCe’s black jeans, black T-shirt, and black Keds were covered in paint; Trace’s jeans, T-shirt, and work boots were purchased at the Target closest to her main home during a Black Friday sale a few years ago; Ox’s clothes were all designer, because she didn’t mind spending several thousand dollars on black jeans, T-shirts, and combat boots named after some snobby Italian; and Steph’s clothes were the same black hoodie, jeans, and Doc Martens she’d been wearing since she was sixteen and had hacked into the Pentagon one day when she’d been bored.

She hated clothes shopping, so rarely had new clothes unless her husband or one of her sons picked something up for her.

Staring at her phone, Trace clicked her tongue against her teeth and muttered something.

“What now?” CeCe demanded. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, nothing.” She waved away their friend’s concern before typing into her phone. “Just a more local update from our young friend.”

“Do we need to—”

“Don’t worry. Having it handled there.”

Steph knew what that meant and decided not to worry about anything happening in the States while they were away.

It was how she managed to pass her advanced calculus class in eleventh grade while running around Europe.

By not worrying about calculus until she was home and then passing all the tests the teacher gave her with flying colors.

And when that teacher asked, “You haven’t been to class in more than week,” Steph could reply with a straight face, “Of course I was. We talked about taking college-level calculus at Hofstra over the summer. Don’t you remember? ”

Turning away from the jet they’d hitched a ride on, Steph saw the stunned security guard watching them from a few feet away.

This was probably not what he’d expected from his night.

Seeing four middle-aged women climbing out of the bottom of a private jet like rats from a ship.

Women who didn’t seem damaged from a trip that should have frozen them to death, but didn’t, because they weren’t women at all.

“I thought you said it was clear,” Steph pointed out to CeCe.

“It’s just Romero. Hi, Romero!”

The guard seemed to snap out of his trance and fumbled with his radio to contact the rest of the security team protecting this small airport that catered to millionaires and billionaires of various repute, but CeCe walked a few steps forward.

That move allowed the light from the nearby lamppost to hit her eyes at an angle, showing that they were not human eyes.

Not at all. Because they flashed in a way one only saw from nocturnal animals.

Stunned, Romero dropped his radio and stumbled back.

Ox was already on the move, walking past poor, terrified Romero—her eyes shining like CeCe’s—but pausing long enough to shove a wad of cash into his hand.

“You never saw us, Romero,” Trace said to Romero in Spanish, since she didn’t know Catalan, the main language of Andorra. “And that way, we won’t ever stop by your house late one night. Because you wouldn’t want that, would you?”

CeCe patted the man’s shoulder as she passed him, telling him in Spanish, “Sorry, Romero. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

Steph didn’t know how CeCe knew the man, but she also didn’t care.

Instead, she stopped by his side long enough to press her forehead against his and flash her fangs, opening her mouth wide.

He’d probably think they were vampires, but whatever.

As long as he kept his mouth shut, she didn’t care what he thought.

She did feel bad, though, when he pissed himself. But Ox fixed that with another wad of cash she went back to shove into his other hand.

As they walked off into the night, CeCe asked, “Did you get us transport, Trace, or are we going to walk where we’re going?”

“I have a Land Rover, paid in full, waiting for us in the nearby woods.”

“Paid for?” Ox demanded, annoyed. She had no problem paying money for jewelry, designer luxury goods, and to keep people quiet, but she had never paid full price for any vehicle in her life.

Even that three-hundred-grand Aston Martin she took a shine to and drove off in when they were briefly in Monaco.

“Why pay when we can just take?” she would always ask.

“Yes. Paid for , Oksana. I paid for a vehicle for us, not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because Max MacKilligan is such a kind, sweet soul who actually purchased it for us with the money from her private Swiss accounts that not even her sisters know exists.”

“Tracey Rutowski, you didn’t!” CeCe gasped.

“So loving, our Max, don’tcha think? I’ve discovered she also loves to donate money to pug dog rescues in Arkansas. One of them is giving her a plaque to honor the two hundred thousand she’s sent them out of the goodness of her heart.”

Steph, CeCe, and Ox stopped walking, staring after Trace as she kept going, disappearing into the darkness ahead.

“Come on, ladies,” Trace called out over their laughter. “This old crone has a lot of work to do!”