“Two years?” Max stared right at Keane. “How do you go two years?”
“I have a hand,” he shot back. “And I’ve just put a short moratorium on dating right now because women get so moody when—”
“You ignore them?” Shay guessed.
“I’ve got things to do! I’ve got a kid to raise—”
“Dani’s not your kid.”
“—a football team to manage—”
Finn shook his head. “You’re not the manager.”
“—a brother to get into college—”
“Has anyone seen him?”
“I got a text from him,” Finn said, holding up his phone. “He’s alive.”
“—and a family to keep safe.”
“Which is why we’re all on wolf territory! Where we could be murdered in our sleep and no one would know.”
“Shut up, Finn. And what are you doing?”
Nelle had placed herself behind Keane, arms around his neck, her phone right in front of them.
“I need a picture of the two of us. I just lied to a guy and told him I have a terrifying Russian boyfriend who will kill him if he comes near me. You don’t mind, do you?”
“As a matter of fact—”
“There! Posted. Thanks!”
“Why would they try to kill you guys?” Stevie asked, and everyone focused on the Malone brothers. “I mean, I get us. Charlie killed their patriarch and Max helped clean it up. But what does that have to do with you three?”
“The loving bond between all of us?” Streep asked.
“No. That can’t be it.”
*
Tock had never seen her grandmother so agitated. They’d gone to some fancy den with a big wooden desk, leather chairs, and shelves along all the walls filled with old books. But glancing at the titles, all she saw was literature written by old European men that meant nothing to a woman like her.
Tock knew pushing her grandmother to speak was a waste of time, so she let Mira pace and take her time. The badger’s mind was turning, trying to figure out where to go from here. But she’d faced more serious enemies before. The woman had faced down Brezhnev. Kissinger. Reagan. Even Mao. Why were some Italian cats freaking her out?
But before Tock could get around to asking that question, the den door opened and Mads walked in with Max, Streep, Nelle, Yoon, álvarez, and Tracey.
“Why did they try to kill the Malone brothers, too?” Mads asked.
Savta stopped pacing, but she didn’t speak. Or even look at them.
“She asked you a question, Lepstein,” Mads’s aunt pushed. “You should answer her.”
Finally, she faced them all and said, “Because they wouldn’t stop.”
Yoon frowned. “Wouldn’t stop what?”
“Looking for who killed their father,” Tock guessed.
“Not to be rude,” álvarez said, “but who cares whether they look or not?”
“Their father was CIA.”
“So? There are a lot of CIA guys out there. What does one matter to a bunch of Northern Italians?”
Savta walked around to the front of the desk and leaned against it, folding her arms over her chest.
“The de Medici Coalition has always been . . . wiser than most. For decades, maybe even centuries, they’ve had deals with”—she briefly searched for the right word—“institutions that allowed them to function in the world without worrying about repercussions. In turn, they have provided information that helped these institutions take down other, more well-known criminal organizations.”
“Oh, my God!” Yoon exploded. “You knew they were trafficking humans and you guys let them?”
Savta held up her hand. “Stop. It was not me. It was not ‘you guys.’ It was others who did this and allowed it.”
“But again,” álvarez interjected, “not to be rude, but so what? So one CIA spook knew what some lions were up to? Who cares?”
“He found out about all this at a time when the old guard had been moved out and a new guard was moving in. More than a few of them unwilling to allow something like that to go on. It’s believed that the Malones’ father was going to let this new guard know.”
“And you let them kill Malone?”
“I didn’t let them do anything. By the time I heard about any of this, he was dead. Katzenhaus didn’t want to blow up their organization by turning cat against cat. And BPC doesn’t tell their bears what organizations they can work for. If some bear gets killed in a drive-by, they send flowers to the widow and go about their day. There was nothing left to do but start a war. Something no one wanted. So it was left alone. Except . . .”
“Except?”
“The Malone brothers wouldn’t stop looking for the people who killed their father,” Mads said.
Savta nodded. “Yes. They still weren’t much of a problem because they weren’t close to the rest of their family or involved in the government. But then”—she stared hard at Tock and her teammates—“they joined up with you.”
“And they knew we’d never stop either.”
“You are also unaffiliated but still have many contacts. Including me. The mistake, it seems, was for Giuseppe to come here to talk to Charlie MacKilligan on his own. And you can stop smirking,” she said to Max.
But Max couldn’t stop smirking. She even tried, but the smirk stayed on her face.
“What can I say?” Max finally asked. “She’s my hero.”
Before her grandmother could say something vicious to the honey badger she loathed most of all, Tock said, “You need to go.”
Shocked, Savta looked at her. “Emily—”
“You need plausible deniability, Savta. You need to go.”
“Whatever you’re thinking—”
“We never stop. We never back off. And we never lose with grace.”
“The honey badger motto,” Rutowski said with an approving nod.
Staring at Tock for a few more seconds, Savta grabbed her purse and sunglasses and stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
Tock then looked at Mads’s aunt and her friends, but Rutowski smiled and shrugged. “We’re in. Like you, we’re also unaffiliated, which really pissed off Reagan . . . and Bush.” She smiled at her friends. “Such good times.”
*
Shay sat on a picnic table, watching the dogs sleeping under the summer sun, his daughter in his arms. She’d climbed into his lap to give him a hug and then fell asleep with her head against his chest and her arms and legs tight around his body. He didn’t want to wake her from her nap, so he just held her.
And when Tock placed her head against his shoulder, nothing had ever felt so perfect before.
“You okay?” she asked.
“I’m great. You?”
“Good.”
“How long do we have to stay here?” he asked.
“Rutowski said you and your brothers could stay as long as you want.”
“Tell them thanks, but no thanks.” Keane stood in front of them as Finn and Mads came up from behind. “We’re going home. I already called Mom. She’s coming back. Bringing the aunts. It’s time for us to decide where to go from here.”
“And where’s that?”
“I don’t know. But I’m not going to stop until every de Medici is dead.”
Shay nodded. “So a thoughtful, rational plan. Good to know.”
*