And she was waiting for them. In the kitchen. Along with Keane, Finn, Tock’s teammates, Mads’s aunt and her friends, the Van Holtz brothers, and a couple of Tock’s cousins.
Shay wasn’t sure he was going to sit in on the conversation. He needed to go check on his kid. But he saw his daughter outside already playing with Princess, the two male dogs, and Nat. She was laughing and running in the sun. Even a few pups from the Van Holtz Pack had joined in when they saw her rolling around with the three big dogs. Since no one from the Pack was complaining, he’d let her keep going and, by staying in the kitchen, he got to keep an eye on Dani through those big glass windows and double doors.
Even better, Charlie had clearly been up for a few hours and had done more baking. Danish! He grabbed a platterful and slid onto one of the counters beside Tock.
“Are we all settled now?”
It took him a second to realize that Tock’s grandmother was talking to him.
“Uh . . . yeah,” he replied, half a Danish already in his mouth.
The She-badger took a cup of tea handed to her by Charlie. “Thank you, dear.”
Taking a sip, she glanced off, then announced, “The de Medicis.”
“That pride out of Italy?” Streep asked.
“No,” she corrected. “They’re not a pride. They’re a coalition.”
“What’s that?”
“The de Medici brothers run the family. Not the females.”
“Didn’t we just do some work involving the de Medicis?” Mads asked.
“Yeah,” Max said. “We were supposed to be taking down their businesses.”
“What businesses?” Keane asked.
“They sell humans to high bidders. For food.”
Shay looked at Tock, and she let him know that accusation was true with a tilt of her head.
“Wait,” Finn said, “you guys are serious?”
“Don’t the hyenas kind of do the same thing?” Keane said.
“No,” Nelle explained. “There are hyena clans that you can call in to clean up an . . . event so no evidence is left behind. Some just dispose of the bodies. Some feast. But it’s still scavenging just like any hyena on the African plains would do. What they don’t do is have breathing humans shipped to their location like they’re ordering a pizza.”
“But that’s what the de Medicis do?”
“I think Mrs. Lepstein is saying,” Nelle continued, “that the de Medicis handle the pizza delivery.”
“I’ve heard about shifters hunting humans for sport, but—”
“This is different,” Charlie told them, placing new platters of honey buns on the table. Even if Shay’s brothers had wanted to try them, the Dunn triplets got there first. Snarling at the badgers when they tried to get a few. “The operation we saw was human trafficking on a pretty big scale. They’re doing high volume.”
“For someone’s food supply?” Streep tried to clarify, her lip curling in disgust.
Charlie shrugged and went back to her baking.
“Human trafficking of any kind is indefensible,” Mira said. “Why they take these people does not matter. What matters is that they take them at all.”
“Which is why we were attacking their businesses,” Nelle pointed out. “Although we’ve only dealt with one of their operations.”
“Have you done anything else?” Mira asked, looking over her teacup.
“Anything else?” Nelle glanced at their team. “I don’t think so. Just the one operation so far. And the only shifters we took down that day were bears. American bears. No Italians.” Nelle’s eyes narrowed on the She-badger. “Why do you ask? What’s happened?”
Tock’s grandmother placed the teacup back on the saucer, balancing both on the top knee of her crossed legs. Shay would expect it to slide over and fall to the floor, but it just sat there. Perfectly poised. He found it kind of frightening.
“That day,” Mira Lepstein said, “you may have only killed bears but then, soon after, you killed someone much more important. And now the entire de Medici Coalition wants all of you dead.”
*
Tock, and everyone else in the room, immediately looked over at Max.
“Why are you all looking at me?” she asked.
“What did you do?” Mads demanded.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Max, come on,” Nelle pushed.
“I didn’t!”
“Wait,” Tock cut in. Her grandmother had a knack for setting people at odds. She wasn’t going to let Mira do that to her teammates. “Savta, who are you talking about?”
Glaring across the room directly at Max, her grandmother snarled out, “She killed Giuseppe de Medici.”
“Ohhh, fuck,” one of the Dunn triplets gasped. Tock didn’t know which one. She was too tired to tell the difference between them. But maybe the girl . . . ?
“Who’s Giuseppe de Medici?”
“He was the father and head of the Coalition,” the Dunn triplet explained. “But if he’s dead . . . that means his oldest boy is in charge.” She shook her head. “That’s not good.”
“Jesus, Max,” Streep complained. “What is with you?”
“I didn’t kill anybody!” She stopped. Thought a minute. “I mean, I don’t think I’ve recently killed anyone important. And definitely not some old man from Italy.”
“Just admit it.”
“It wasn’t me! I don’t even know what this Giuseppe person looks like! How would I know to kill him?”
Nelle quickly typed into her phone, then showed it to Max. “This is him.”
Max, Mads, Streep, and Tock all moved closer to take a look.
Max immediately shook her head. “I did not kill him.”
For once, Tock had the feeling Max wasn’t lying. “Are you sure?”
“Positive. Look at the big white-and-brown mane on that old dude. I would remember killing him.”
“Max is right,” Charlie said after looking at the picture herself before putting down a plate of cinnamon buns. “She didn’t kill him.”
“Why do you insist on protecting such an unstable badger?” Tock’s grandmother sneered, as if she didn’t protect her own blood just as insistently.
“I’m not protecting her.”
“Then how do you know she didn’t kill him?”
“Because that dude?” Charlie pointed at Nelle’s phone. “I killed him.”
There was a moment of stunned silence before Savta slammed her teacup and saucer on a nearby counter and stood. “What do you mean you killed him?”
“I mean, I killed him.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “He and some big-muscled cats were in my house. Uninvited. So, yeah!” she said, without any remorse or concern. “I killed them. I killed them all.”
Max crossed her arms over her chest. “I told y’all it wasn’t me.”
Chapter 22
A few days ago . . .
Charlie loved baking and cooking, but she hated doing the dishes. It was literally her least favorite thing to do in the world. She tried to keep the workload manageable by washing things along the way, but usually when she finished mixing up her last batch of anything, there was still a mess to clean up.