Page 72 of To Kill a Badger (The Honey Badgers Chronicles #6)

“W here’s my son?”

Shay gazed down at his mother. She was at least a good foot shorter than he was and yet, he always felt like he was about to be crushed.

She always said Keane was just like their father, but the truth was, he was just like her.

The two floated on their rage the way butterflies floated on air.

So when he didn’t want to answer her straightforward questions, he tended to panic.

“What? Huh? Uh . . .”

Finn stepped in front of him. “Hey, Mom! What’s up?” He looked at his watch. “You sure are up late. Anything we can do for you? The Malones being too loud? Want me to tell them to shut it down?”

It was when their mother was quiet that she was the most terrifying.

Again, just like Keane.

“My son wouldn’t happen to be in France, would he? With that badger?”

“France?” Finn said. “Why would Keane be in—”

“Okay.” She held her hand up to stop Finn’s attempts to tap dance around the question. “I can see that whatever’s going on is just going to send me into a spiral of anger the likes no one has ever seen.”

“That sounds ominous.”

“Doesn’t it? But to avoid that, let’s just do this . . .”

Their mother pointed across the street to the badgers slipping through the crowd of bears waiting outside Charlie’s house for more baked goods.

“You four!” she called out.

Tock, Mads, and Streep immediately stopped. Max kept going.

“Over here. Now.”

Shay hadn’t even noticed Tock and the others were leaving. He knew they would be, but he hadn’t asked for specifics and hadn’t noticed they’d already made their move to leave.

Tock came to his side, her hand slipping into his. Something his mother immediately noticed and, based on the way her eyes narrowed, she did not like. Mads settled next to Finn, and Streep stepped in front of their mother, smiling.

“Hi, Mrs. Malone! What can we do for—”

“Quiet.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Streep stepped back and kept quiet.

Max ran up a few seconds later when she realized she’d lost her entire team.

“What are we doing?” she asked. “What’s going on?”

“I’m not asking that question,” his mother informed them all. “Because I don’t want to know. I am, however, going to say this . . . you two go with them.”

Shay looked at his brother, and he saw the same confusion.

“Mom, are you—”

“Whatever is going on with your brother—and I don’t want to know!—this de Medici thing needs to be resolved now. I want that coalition wiped from the face of the planet, and I’m sensing whatever idea these rodents—”

“Ratals,” Max corrected.

“—have maybe the only way to get it done quickly. But, quite honestly, I don’t trust these four to do anything without causing even more problems than we already have. So you two go with them. And that other cat should go with you, too.”

“The other cat?” Streep asked.

“You,” his mother called out, and Zé sauntered over in his jaguar form, black tail flicking. “This one goes, too.”

“But, Mom . . . we should stay,” Finn argued. “Nat and Dani—”

“I have come to realize that Nat can take care of herself. And Dani—”

“Has all of us!”

Finn locked eyes on their uncle, who had slung his arm around their mother’s shoulders while making that pronouncement.

“If you want to keep that arm,” Shay’s brother quietly warned, “I’d move it.”

“Now, lad, it’s just a friendly gesture!”

“You know what else is a friendly gesture?” Streep asked with a big smile, and before Shay or Finn could, in fact, rip the cat’s arm off. “Me calling your wife and telling her what you’ve been doing with your arms while she’s gone! Isn’t that friendly? I think it’s really friendly!”

She pulled out her phone. “Let’s give her a ring, shall we?”

His uncle’s smile faded, and he pulled his arm off their mother’s non-consenting shoulders.

“We won’t leave until your mother tells us to go,” their uncle informed them before walking away.

“You believe him?” Finn asked their mother.

“I do. Now go. All of you. We’ll be here when you get back.” She went up on her toes and kissed Shay and then Finn on the cheeks. “And if you have to leave these rats—”

“It’s ratals, Mrs. M!” Max happily reminded her.

“—to die, you do it. Your lives are much more important than theirs. Just bury them in shallow graves and keep moving.”

“Ma!” Shay and Finn said together.

* * *

Nat kissed her two big brothers goodbye, checked on her niece to make sure she was sleeping, then snarled a little at the puppies to watch them cower, before returning to the Dunns’ finished basement, where she’d made a bedroom for herself.

She was glad she’d gotten to this street when she did; otherwise, she could be trapped like her brother Dale.

In an RV with three younger Malone cousins was not what she considered a good time.

Besides, unlike Dale, who’d been doing nothing but prepping for college, she had more important things to do.

Important things her brothers didn’t know about, but that was okay. They didn’t need to know everything. Besides, they’d just get in her way.

When Nat got to the bottom stair and turned into the main basement room, she froze at the doorway.

Charlie sat on Nat’s twin bed and looked at her over the laptop screen.

She’d left it open on the table she’d brought down to have next to the bed, so she could work and watch the TV across the room.

Since she’d been staying here, no one had come downstairs.

Not even once. Still. This was sloppy on her part. She knew better.

For a minute that felt like an eternity, Nat and her half-sister stared at each other until Charlie motioned her over with a twitch of her forefinger.

God, she didn’t want to do this. She didn’t want to have this out with Charlie.

Especially because Charlie was way tougher than Nat’s brothers.

All these years, Nat knew just how to handle them.

Even Keane, who was tough with her, but never mean like he was to Dale.

Charlie, however, wouldn’t be fooled by the tricks Nat used to keep her older brothers from giving her too much trouble.

She was a badger herself and had basically raised Max and Stevie.

She’d found Nat’s usual moves almost insulting.

And the girl was not afraid to hit when annoyed.

Nat’s brothers never raised a hand to her, but Charlie and Max didn’t have that problem.

They’d swing in a heartbeat if they were pissed enough.

Staring at her half-sister, Charlie said, “You’ve been busy.”

Charlie had gotten better about looking directly at Nat when she spoke, keeping her sentences short, and enunciating.

Nat was pretty good at reading lips, but it wasn’t easy, and she preferred American Sign Language.

But Nat didn’t hold it against her new half-sisters that only Stevie knew some ASL, since none of them had known they’d had another sister, much less a deaf one, until very recently.

It was funny, though, how they’d just accepted her. Without question. Without resentment. They were angry, but not at her. They blamed their mutual father for all of it, which she appreciated. Especially because Freddy MacKilligan was an asshole.

“Did Tracey Rutowski ask you to do this?” She pointed at the screen.

Dumb. Nat should have closed her laptop, which would have forced Charlie to enter a password to get in.

A password that combined sixteen letters and numbers, so Charlie getting in would have never happened.

Same thing with Max. Stevie, though, could have probably gotten in.

She was way smarter than Nat, and Nat didn’t say that about a lot of people in the world.

“Yes.”

Charlie rubbed her forehead with both hands and blew out a long breath.

Then she stood, and Nat steeled herself for a punch or slap, hoping it wasn’t too hard.

She could handle it, but she didn’t want to.

Being around her brothers had made her comfortable living without random acts of sibling violence.

Standing in front of her, Charlie said, “Don’t let your brothers know.” She handed her a piece of paper ripped from a spiral notebook. “And I need this information as soon as you can get it. Understand?”

Nat nodded.

“Leave the information in my backpack. It is red and by the door. Okay?”

She nodded again.

Giving a small but sad smile, Charlie pressed her hand against Nat’s shoulder, then walked out.

Nat followed after her to make sure Charlie went up the stairs. Once she felt confident her sister was gone, she looked at the paper in her hand.

She didn’t think she could be any more surprised than she already had been by Charlie MacKilligan but, for once, Nat had been wrong. She had been delightfully surprised!

* * *

Berg opened his eyes when he felt Charlie slip into his bed. He turned over, reaching his arm out to pull her into a hug.

“What’s going on?” he asked, happy to have her pressing against his bare chest. He knew she hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep the last few days. Actually, most of her “quality” sleep time involved short naps at her kitchen table while things were baking.

“A lot.”

“Are you leaving the country, too?” he asked.

“It’s not my plan.”

“That’s not a no, though.”

“It’s not.” She cuddled closer, and he tightened his arms around her. “I hate to ask but—”

“We’re not going anywhere, Charlie,” Berg told her, speaking not just about himself but his brother and sister. “We can protect Dani and Stevie.”

“And Nat.”

“Nat doesn’t need anyone protecting her.”

“I know. That’s what worries me.” She let out a small sigh. “I’m sorry you’re losing so much money right now.”

It was true. They were. Berg and his siblings provided security services to very rich and very important people. But the work often took them out of the country for long periods of time. He wasn’t going to do that with Charlie and her sisters in such danger.