Page 63 of To Kill a Badger (The Honey Badgers Chronicles #6)

H er flesh had already begun to heal over the spikes embedded in her arms, and she wasn’t looking forward to when they would be removed, but Nelle was more concerned with where they were taking her.

The zip tie had been replaced with a titanium chain that held her two arms together and was then attached with a combination lock.

That was then attached to a titanium bar bolted to the inside of the black van she was now traveling in and.

.. ? Going where? Where was she being taken? She still didn’t know.

She hadn’t said a word since she’d been taken from the police station, and she hadn’t put up a fight.

She wasn’t trying to reason her way out of this, but she wasn’t ready to show her hand either.

Not that she had a hand. At the moment, she had nothing.

So she focused on her current situation until something came to her.

In this van, there were eleven men total. Six on the opposite bench and, on her side, five surrounding her. They were all full-human but heavily armed. She would guess they were mercenaries who worked for whatever country was willing to pay them.

She thought about all the people who could have arranged this.

Who could have hired someone like the man in the passenger seat of the van, giving orders.

He was not only able to get her arrested, but also able to take her out of a police station without anyone asking questions.

Whoever he was—or had been—he was extremely powerful. Powerful was expensive.

It could have been the de Medicis. At least she thought so until he began talking on his cell phone.

When this white male spoke halfway decent Cantonese, it was like ice water was poured down her back.

She hadn’t lived in China long enough to make any enemies.

But her father? Her mother? Now she understood her current situation.

She wasn’t the target, just the bait.

* * *

“Versailles.”

Keane knew that word. “The museum? Why would they take Nelle to a museum? Won’t there be thousands of tourists there?”

Elise shrugged before taking a turn. “It is closed on Mondays.”

“What does that mean?”

“There will only be security for these people to worry about, I guess. I doubt they plan to kill her, kitty. Your lover is worth more alive than dead.”

“She’s not my—” He shook his head. Forget it. “What do you think they are planning? Putting her up in a palace for a few days? Is that something kidnappers do with their rich victims?”

“My brother is right. You are slow-witted cat and very hysterical.”

“I just want my honey badger—”

“I know! I know! We will do what we can. As long as we . . . merde. It is too late.”

“What do you mean it’s too late? How is it too late?”

Keane could still see the trio of black vans that the foxes had tracked down and been following for the last forty minutes or so.

He didn’t think they were that close to the palace, though, because he couldn’t see it.

Although he was making the assumption that he could see a palace without straining.

They were also on a freeway or highway or whatever the French called an eight-lane road that was split in the middle with traffic going in two different directions.

Whatever you called what they were currently driving on, Keane had no idea what Elise was talking about.

Until that bright red Lamborghini darted past them, heading straight for the black vans.

“Who is that?”

Elise didn’t answer his question, instead hitting the gas, no longer worried about holding back so they weren’t spotted.

But two seconds later, she was forced to hit the brakes as an F-150 Ford pickup— in France?

— crashed through the trees lining the road, tearing across the pavement, and slamming into the van’s front side and forcing it into the concrete barrier separating the roadway.

When the two vehicles came to an abrupt stop, someone from inside the truck began firing a weapon through the windshield.

Was this Nelle’s teammates? He knew they could be crazy, but this . . .

The black van that had been leading spun around and came back, while the one behind had already stopped.

They were driving straight toward the crashed vans, but the Lambo had turned around, went wide, and came back.

The driver made another wild turn and spun out and into the first van.

Another crash that slid right into the first. The driver and front seat passenger in the first van came through the windshield on impact, but armed men jumped out the back and immediately began firing.

The damaged windshield on the pickup truck was kicked out, and a female in designer jeans and T-shirt, with a gray balaclava over her face, rolled out onto the crumpled hood. She stood tall and, pointing at the armed men, she opened fire with an automatic weapon.

The cars that had been idly driving wherever that morning spun around and drove off in different directions.

Some people panicked and abandoned their cars altogether, running for the opposite sides of the road.

And some tried to hang around and get all the insanity on video.

But two more females came out of the crumpled Lambo and fired at them.

They didn’t hit any of the bystanders, though, which Keane felt was on purpose.

These two females also wore balaclavas: one’s, a dark red: the other’s, a light blue.

As all the unarmed innocents ran for their lives, another car pulled up, and another balaclava-covered female stepped out.

She was armed, but her weapons were holstered.

Instead, she moved through the crowd of fighters.

When anyone grabbed at her, probably hoping to use her as a shield, she either punched, kicked, or flipped them out of her way with a simple throw.

Initially, Keane thought these females were Nelle’s teammates.

But no. He’d seen them in action before.

They worked and moved like a military special ops team.

These four, however deadly, moved like crazed marauders unleashed from a mental institution.

When they weren’t trying to scare off onlookers, they were shooting, stabbing, and battering well-trained mercenaries with an obvious glee.

Even with their faces covered, Keane knew they were enjoying every second of this attack.

And it was an attack. A brutal, unforgiving attack.

Elise still hadn’t moved to help or run away, but Keane couldn’t wait for that. Not when he saw that man he recognized from the surveillance recording, Manse, yank open the back door of the second van and step in. When he came back out, a snarling Nelle was with him.

He yelled at five of the mercenaries that were still fighting and ordered them to do something in another language. He forced Nelle over the concrete barrier that separated the street and pulled her toward the trees on the opposite side.

Keane opened the door of the van, but Elise grabbed his arm, pulling him back.

“Are you mad?” she demanded. “We will get her back! Do not go out there!”

His rational brain knew she was right, but his tiger DNA had already taken over. All he could see before him was a fox touching him. He snapped at her with a mouthful of fangs, not realizing he’d shifted right inside the van until he’d jumped out and ran across the road on all fours.

* * *

Mercenaries were thrown into Nelle when something collided with the right side of the van.

The force sent Nelle slamming into the van wall behind her, the spikes pushing deeper into her bones and opening up the wounds that had already healed.

She snarled in pain, but stopped when the bullets began tearing through the metal paneling.

Her legs were free, so she began kicking the full-human men who had fallen onto her off, and forcing them back across the half-crumpled van. These men would have hit her in return if they weren’t so freaked out about what was happening.

Nelle turned enough to grab the metal chain attached to the now-crumpled van wall.

One yank and she freed the bar secured to the weaker vehicle metal.

Crawling her way across the bodies of the few who lay dying from the impact and those still confused and trying to figure out where right-side up might be, Nelle made her way to the still-closed back door.

Having to continually stop and twist this way or that to avoid the bullets that kept tearing through the van’s walls made it slow-going, but she wanted out.

With time, and all sorts of hell being unleashed outside the remains of this vehicle, Nelle reached the doors.

She slapped her hand on the handle, but before she could rip it off, the doors were opened and the man who had arranged her kidnapping stood there, staring down at her.

His singular focus meant he would be a problem.

He wasn’t going to go down easy, and he would make sure to take her out before that happened.

He reached around her and grabbed the skin on her back, lifting her up and out of the van. Pressing a gun to the back of her head, right at the one spot a bullet could actually kill her, he snarled, “Move.”

As he dragged her away from the vehicle to—and over —an embankment, and then to the other side of the road, he ordered his mercenaries in German, “Kill them all!”

* * *

Elise jumped out of the van and watched the crazed cat tear his four-legged way across a battlefield with no care for his safety or whether full-humans could see that a fucking tiger had now entered the nightmare unfolding on local roadways!

Knowing she would have to now step in, whether she wanted to or not, she motioned to her team in the cars behind her, sending them back home.

“What now?” her brother asked, standing beside her. “And we should have killed that cat.”