Born to Be Badger (Honey Badger Chronicles #5)

*

“Did you know that, according to my sources, your father came into the States about five days ago?”

The lion male finally faced her, his gold eyes wide. “What are you talking about?”

“You didn’t know?”

“That can’t be right. Did he arrange all this as a distraction or something?”

“No. He just took his private jet to Teterboro Airport with a small security team, drove off in an SUV . . . and that was the last anyone has heard from him.”

“Why would he do that? My father hates coming here. I haven’t seen him since I was thirteen, when I stopped going to Italy. Why did he come here?”

“I thought maybe you could tell me.”

“What? You think my father came here to see me and I killed him?” Medici snorted a laugh. “I may not have seen my father since I was thirteen, but I also haven’t talked to him since I was thirteen. Me or my brothers. We’re all dead to him. The only sons he has are my half-brothers in Italy. Paolo and the others. And before you ask, we’re not friendly with them either. Medicis and de Medicis . . . like Hatfields and McCoys. So my father coming to the States to see any of his American offspring just wouldn’t happen. Ever.”

He turned away from her again. “But I’m sure my father is somewhere. Plotting. You just have to find him.”

“Anyone you know who might be willing to tell me why he came?”

“My Uncle Silvio might know. He lives in Little Italy. He’s the only one who deals with both sides of the family, kind of a diplomat. But I should warn you that doesn’t mean he’ll tell you anything. Silvio’s a little nuts.”

“Aren’t we all?”

“No, no. I mean, he’s nuts. Like if you go there, watch out for the towering piles of old newspapers and the big bottles of urine he keeps around his shitty apartment.”

“Great,” Mira said on a sigh. “Thanks.”

“And the cats.”

“Pardon?”

Medici looked at her over his shoulder and, for the first time, smiled. It was not friendly, though. “He has a lot of cats. And they’re not big fans of strangers.”





Chapter 20


The wolves finally invaded the kitchen once Charlie made plain vanilla cupcakes with an icing made of vanilla yogurt. It was the yogurt. Wolves, for some unknown reason, loved yogurt—and tequila, but everyone knew why they loved tequila—and they couldn’t get enough of those cupcakes or, after that, anything else Charlie MacKilligan made.

Tock smirked when she saw those upright, uptight Van Holtz chef siblings acting like they were having orgasms every time they bit into one of the delicacies. And their overwhelming devastation when Charlie suddenly announced, “I’m going for a walk.” Meaning she wasn’t baking anymore. They watched her leave the kitchen as if they were watching the love of their lives abandoning them for a younger, smarter partner. It was hilarious.

Although no one knew why the attack had happened—still—things had settled down inside the Van Holtz compound. Mostly because Niles Van Holtz and his younger cousin Ulrich had shown up. The disaster at the docks had been contained and the story out to the world was “wild animal smuggling gone wrong!” Tock hadn’t been sure that would work, but it had. On social media, everyone was having a blast, making jokes about the new “Tiger Mayor running City Hall” and the “Tiger Cops taking down criminals.” Jokes, sure. But closer to the truth than most of those people would ever realize.

Tock was still worried about what her grandmother might be doing at the moment, though. That badger would tolerate a lot, but not a direct attack on her granddaughter. It didn’t help that Tock’s mother had texted an hour or so ago asking, What’s going on? Family coming in from Israel? Are you okay? Should I be worried?

After that, Tock got rows of question marks, which was something her mother would do with absolutely no clue how annoying it was. Tock lied and told her mother everything was fine and she’d talk to her soon. Then she begged her to “stop abusing the question mark!”

As day finally turned into night and they enjoyed a dinner cooked by wolves—beyond delicious, by the way!—Tock wished she could say the “trauma” that she’d been through was catching up with her. But it wasn’t. She was wide awake. And the only reason she used the word trauma was because Streep kept saying it. “All the trauma I’ve been through today,” and “so much trauma! It’s a miracle I survived.” She even threatened to become “a better Christian. A better Catholic.” But none of them believed her because Streep always said that after getting hurt. Sure, she might head to Rome to see if she could get time with His Holiness the Pope, but she never came home from those trips empty-handed. Her family really loved their Vatican “finds.”

Once the wolves had eaten, they’d disappeared as wolves liked to do. Maybe they went out for a late-evening hunt. Or maybe they simply didn’t want to spend any time around strange honey badgers. It was obvious that Rutowski and her friends weren’t the wolves’ favorites, so it made sense they wouldn’t welcome more badgers. Especially mouthy young ones who couldn’t bake like Charlie. They had even less interest in the big cats who had invaded their compound. True, there were only three of them and a cub, but Amur tigers were big, mean, and known to be quite vengeful. The wolves had the numbers but the tigers had the rage. Especially these tigers. Keane stayed outside in his tiger form, sitting on a small hill and staring off into the distance. Finn shifted back to human but kept an eye on his older brother. Not that Tock blamed him. Keane was pissed, and the energy coming off him was deadly. He was just looking for someone to tear apart.

The four older honey badgers took off for places unknown, and the rest of them settled in to watch the ginormous TV in the “family room” and relax.

With everyone else more or less settled, Tock went looking for Shay. To make sure he was okay. She found him in the room that had been given to his daughter. Actually, it had started off as his room, but he’d put his daughter in it along with Princess, her puppies, and the male dogs. The wolves had even provided a proper whelping box for the puppies.

As soon as Tock walked into the room, she could see that having the dogs nearby was making the kid feel better. Of course, there were wolf pups at the compound but they never made it into the house; their parents brought plates of food to their residences on the property instead. They didn’t want their canine pups playing with the feline cub. But that was okay. Tock already had something to keep the kid busy.

“Here,” she said, handing Dani the notebook she’d been working on for the last two hours. “Problems for you to work on.”

“Oooh!”

“Tomorrow,” Shay said, trying to pull the notebook from his daughter’s hand.

“Daddy!” Dani yanked the book back. “I just want to look through it.”

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