Breaking Badger Page 14

  “Sorry about your daddy,” the canine said. “I understand, though. I’m real close to mine . . . maybe one day you’ll meet him,” she added with a smile.

  “Sure. Whatever.” He pushed past the female and headed toward the elevators. He texted his brothers, telling them to meet him upstairs by the main exits rather than near the food court. He knew if Keane saw Cella, he’d explode, and Finn wasn’t in the mood to calm his brother down. Not when he was more than ready to head over to Mineola, Long Island, and have it out with all his uncles himself. Something he was sure the rest of the Malones wouldn’t appreciate one bit. Something the brothers had learned one drunken night when they’d stormed the multiple homes of their uncles. If it hadn’t been for their mother and visiting aunts, it might have ended with more serious consequences than a few torn muscles and some artery damage.

  He reached the elevators, pressed the button, and again checked his phone.

  “Still no thank-you!” he announced to no one in particular, but he managed to startle a grizzly sow, who roared at him.

  “Oh, shut up!” he barked back at her.

  * * *

  “Give me that!” Mads ordered, trying to grab the vase of flowers out of Max’s hands.

  Max dashed around the others, who were trying to take the flowers from her, and jumped up on the dining room table. She raised the big vase of flowers, ready to hurl the whole thing to the ground in a fit of Max-only rage.

  “Betrayal!” Max bellowed.

  “What is wrong with you?” Mads demanded. Only the Malone brothers seemed to get this reaction from Max. Not even Stevie made her this crazy.

  Charlie walked out of the kitchen. “What is going on?”

  “Your sister is insane!” Mads told her.

  “Besides that.”

  “Mads has betrayed us all!” Max announced.

  “Because she got flowers?”

  “It’s who she got the flowers from.”

  “Who’d she get the flowers from?”

  Max lowered the vase. “No one.”

  Charlie folded her arms over her chest. “Who’d she get the flowers from, Max?”

  “Why do you need to know?”

  “Because you’ve been acting shifty ever since you got back from last night’s job, which makes me wonder what the hell happened. So you can tell me the whole story, and I flip out now. Or you can just tell me the name of the person who sent the flowers.”

  Mads snatched the vase from Max. “These are from Finn Malone. He was in the food court after I found out about my great-grandmother. He was just being nice.”

  “And we hate him now because . . . ?”

  The team looked up at Max, who was still standing on the dining room table.

  “Fine!” Max snapped. “We went over there this morning to thank them—”

  “Thank them for what?”

  “None of your business. Anyway, we had all these fresh pastries and were really nice, and they threw us out of the house.”

  “Were you invited into their house?”

  Max glared down at her sister. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “When people have come uninvited into our house, we’ve killed them.”

  “Because they were usually there to kill us! We brought pastries.”

  “You were honey badgers invading their house, Max.”

  “Who brought pastries!”

  Eyes wide, Charlie turned her gaze to Mads, but all she could do was protectively hold onto her vase of flowers and shrug.

  “Told you,” Mads whispered loudly. “Insane.”

  * * *

  They were halfway home when Finn’s phone vibrated. He glanced at it.

  “Finally,” he said with a smile.

  “What?” Keane asked from the driver’s seat.

  “Mind your own business.”

  “Then don’t mutter random things while I’m driving.”

  Ignoring his brother, he looked at the text again.

  THX FOR THE FLWERS. MAX STILL HATES YOU & YR BROTHERS, THO. SORRY.

  * * *

  Finn chuckled.

  “What now?” Keane demanded.

  “Why are you still talking to me?”

  “Are you two going to argue all night?” Shay asked from the backseat.

  “Shut up!” Finn and Keane barked at the same time.

  See? A polite thank-you was all Finn had wanted. Because politeness counted.

  chapter EIGHT

  As promised, Nelle came through with the private chopper. Her family had a fleet of them on standby, ready for immediate use.

  They landed at the closest helipad, then called in an elite car service to take them the rest of the way. There was champagne on ice in what turned out to be a party limo and they indulged, laughing and talking loudly, occasionally flirting with the driver, and asking him inappropriate questions. When they were about a mile from their destination, they told him to stop and stumbled out of the limo, Streep landing on Tock’s back before she was shoved off.

  Nelle gave the driver a large cash tip and told him to wait.

  “Are you sure I shouldn’t go with you, ladies?” he asked, appearing more concerned about their state of drunkenness than his desire to get laid. “I don’t mind.”

  “No, no. You just wait here,” Nelle said, patting his shoulder. “We’ll be back in a little bit. Okay?”

  Laughing, they stumbled off into the dark, singing, with their arms around each other’s shoulders until they were about a half mile away.

  Then, as if on cue, they all immediately stopped performing and continued the last half mile in silence until they reached the high-end self-storage place.

  Mads punched in her code, and the large front gate opened. When they’d all walked inside, Mads led them past the outdoor storage containers, then used a different code to enter the building. She led them past the different-sized storage units, took an elevator that required a keycard to make it work and a different code to stop on the correct floor.

  When the elevator doors opened, Mads took them down the hall to her storage unit. She needed a keycard, a code, and two different metal keys to get into the space.

  “Think this system is a tad paranoid?” Streep asked.

  Then they stepped inside the unit and Mads turned on the lights. That’s when Tock answered Streep’s question with a, “Nooooo. We do not.”

  Mads, like Solveig, had never really trusted banks. So she kept piles of cash in her storage unit. And since she didn’t spend much, she had lots of piles. The artwork had been given to Mads by her honey-badger aunt Sylvie, who wanted to make sure Mads had an escape plan. The jewels were from her father. He also wanted to make sure she had an escape plan. Although Mads didn’t feel as confident telling anyone those jewels were not stolen as she was with Sylvie’s art gifts. But they were pretty and shiny, so she kept them.

  “Wow, sweetie,” Streep said, her voice filled with awe, “you have a lot of stuff.”

  “Not that much.”

  “How did you get an original Rembrandt?”

  “I don’t have an original Rem—” Mads spotted the painting, which should be somewhere in Vatican City, plopped in the middle of her storage unit. “Max!”

  Unlike most badgers, Max didn’t even bother to lie first. “Sorry. I ran out of space in my own storage . . . and then I forgot I had it here.”

  “How do you forget you stole a Rembrandt?” Tock wanted to know.

  She scratched her head. “At the time I had a lot on my mind.”

  “Because you were stealing something else?” Nelle guessed.

  “Probably.”

  * * *

  Finn opened the front door, then just stood and stared. He was too surprised to react.

  “You going to invite me in . . . or just gawk at me?” Charlie MacKilligan asked with a smile.

  He glanced back at the busy kitchen, which was filled with most of his family. Well not most. Just his brothers. His mother, bab
y sister, and aunts—oh, and Dale—were scattered throughout the rest of the house as the family meal bubbled on the stove.

  But any of them could appear in the kitchen at any time. And his family was a lot to deal with for an outsider.

  But Charlie wasn’t alone. She had three big grizzly bears standing behind her. Huffing.

  Finn was debating whether to let the bears into his house along with Charlie when Keane showed up behind him.

  “Who’s at the—oh. It’s you.”

  Charlie kept that smile in the face of Keane’s cold reception. “Yes. Me! And it’s good to see you again, too, Keane.”

  “You brought security with you?”

  Was Keane really blaming her for that? Because Finn didn’t.

  “No. My boyfriend insisted on coming along.” She pointed at one of the bears. “This is my boyfriend, Berg.”

  “And these are my triplets,” the bear introduced. “Britta and Dag.”

  “There are only two,” Keane noted and the bear blinked in confusion.

  “What?”

  “You said these are your triplets, but there are only two. Where’s the third?” His eyes narrowed. “Watching the house?”

  The bear shook his head. “No, no. I’m one of triplets. These are my triplets. Britta and Dag.”

  “Yeah, but there should be a third, right? Because triplets means three. So where is the third?”

  The bear cleared his throat, tried again. “If I were a twin, I’d say that this was me and my twin. But I’m a triplet. So there’s me and my triplets. Britta and Dag.”

  “And the third. Why won’t you tell me where the third is? Are you hiding him for some reason? Is there an ambush plan?” Keane demanded.

  “Charlie?” Berg said desperately.

  “Why don’t we go inside?” she offered, before pushing her way in.

  Finn sort of moved out of her way but he was surprised when Keane did. Because Keane didn’t move for anybody. But once she’d stepped into the kitchen, Keane leaned over and said, “I didn’t move.”

  “I saw you move.”

  “No. I mean . . . I didn’t get out of her way. She moved me.”

  The brothers gazed at each other a moment, then leaned around the interior doorway so they could see into the kitchen to get a better look at Charlie MacKilligan.

  She had what was universally known among shifters as “She-wolf shoulders.” Those were shoulders that were bigger than most female shifters had, even bear sows or She-lions. The rest of her, however, was tiny . . . in comparison to other She-wolves. Yet bigger than any honey badger Finn had ever seen. She was . . . ? What? A good five-eight? Five-nine? That was huge for a honey badger. The Viking honey badger was nearly the same height, but she was lean and her shoulders weren’t as wide.

  Charlie had a sweet smile, though. But cold eyes. Predator eyes.

  Finn and Keane followed her into the kitchen, while the bears stood off to the side.

  “What smells so good?” she asked.

  “Now you want dinner?” Keane demanded, and Finn shoved his brother into the refrigerator door.

  “Ignore him,” Finn told the still-smiling badger.

  This was when he could see the blood link between the half-sisters. In their smile.

  “So what can we do for you?” he asked her.

  “What happened last night with my sister and her team?”

  “She didn’t tell you?”

  “She’s avoiding telling me, which is never a good sign.”

  “Yeahhhhh. I’m not sure I want to get in the middle of you—”

  Before Finn could finish his very rational thought, Keane shoved him out of the way and into Shay.

  “What do we get out of it?” the bastard asked.

  “What do you want? More pastries?”

  “If I never hear about those fucking pastries again . . .” Finn muttered to Shay.

  Shay shrugged. “I thought they were good.”

  “We need information,” Keane told Charlie.

  “Information about what?”

  Keane held up a finger and a moment later their mother walked into the room. She was sniffing the air, finally asking with disgust, “Why do I smell bear? Oh . . .” She glared at the triplets standing on the other side of the kitchen. “That must be you three funking up my kitchen.”

  “Ma!” Finn snapped.

  Smirking, Keane motioned to their mother. “Ma, could you give us a second?”

  “Fine. I don’t want my sisters coming in here and being forced to deal with”—she gestured to the triplets with a wave of her hand—“the Hair Bear Bunch over there.”

  The three bears frowned at the same time, tilted their heads the same exact way—to the left—and then asked in unison, “The what?”

  Finn’s mother sighed. “Youngsters. I hate all of you,” she growled before stomping off.

  “She always looks so cute when she marches out of the room like that,” Keane noted with a rare smile. But that smile disappeared as soon as he turned back to Charlie MacKilligan.

  “We need to find out who killed our father,” he told her. “Can you help us get that information?”

  “No.”

  Keane threw up his hands and Shay said, “But we were told that you badgers could get any kind of information.”

  “Badgers have connections with badgers, which can lead to information.”

  “Okay . . . and?”

  “And . . . I’m the daughter of Freddy MacKilligan. No one’s going to tell me shit. That man has burned bridges all over the world, which has put an unfortunate stain on all the MacKilligan sisters.”

  “Then that doesn’t help us and you need to leave,” Keane told her. “Just seeing you here with your bears is annoying me.”

  “There’s still Max.”

  “Isn’t she a MacKilligan, too?”

  “And a Yang. Her mother’s family actually likes her and will help her. But every time you guys are mentioned, Max flips out.” She pointed at Finn. “Those flowers you sent Mads were almost slammed to the floor and stomped on. Luckily her basketball player friends are fast and were able to get that very nice vase away from her.”

  Finn grimaced as Keane and Shay faced him.

  “You sent one of those chicks flowers?” Keane demanded

  “Chicks?” the female triplet repeated. “Did you really just call them chicks?”

  “Don’t you have a hive to attack?” Keane shot back.

  “Don’t you have some knuckles to drag?”

  “I sent her flowers,” Finn cut in, “because her great-grandmother died. I was being nice.”

  “You’re weak and you disgust me.”

  “I would be disgusted, too,” Shay added, “but she’s cute. So I get it.”

  “You guys shouldn’t be disgusted; you should thank him. If it wasn’t for those flowers, I wouldn’t know the extent to which my sister is hiding shit from me. But you tell me what I want to know . . . and I’ll get her to help you.”

  Keane glanced uneasily at Finn and Shay.

  “Why doesn’t your sister want to tell you what happened last night?”

  “I don’t know. If she got herself into trouble . . . she doesn’t want to hear me yelling at her about what an idiot she is. Which I totally get. Although I’ve been working with my therapist not to do that as often. According to her, ‘Words hurt.’ ”

  Finn remembered that his baby sister had told him the youngest MacKilligan sister, Stevie, was also in therapy. Did they all go to therapy? Did Nat now want to go to therapy? Did just being the daughter of Freddy MacKilligan mean she would need to go to therapy one day?

  Instead of posing any of those questions, he instead asked, “And if someone else got her into trouble?”

  There was that Max-like smile. “Then she worries I’m going to start killing people.”

  Finn, Shay, and Keane now glanced at each other before saying in unison, “Huh.”

  * * *

  “Why is the
re a Degas here, Max?”

  “That’s my Degas,” Nelle announced. Then she added, “But it’s a forgery from my cousin.”

  “Which cousin?” Tock asked.

  “The twelve-year-old. He’s getting good. Although his dream—to his mother’s eternal sorrow—is to be a fireman.”

  Mads threw down the duffel bag filled with money. “How many of you have been using my storage for your loot?”

  They all raised their hands.

  “This is supposed to be a clean space,” she reminded them. “Nothing illegal.”

  “You don’t have anything illegal in here,” Max reminded her. “We do.”

  “Then why did you all act like you’ve never been here before?”

  “Wouldn’t you have noticed if we hadn’t?” Nelle asked in return.

  Annoyed at the logical response, Mads grabbed an actual gold bar and held it up for everyone to see. “This better not be from the federal reserve.”

  “Why are you worried? They don’t own the gold they have. They’re just holding on to it.”

  Mads had almost flung the bar directly at Max’s face when Tock snatched it from her fist.

  “Now, now, ladies,” Streep soothed. “No need for everyone to get so upset. If anyone should be upset, it’s me! Since apparently I’m the only one who thinks of you thankless bitches as friends!”

  “Are you still harping on that?” Max asked.

  “Yes! Because I feel greatly betrayed. By all of you!” She sniffed and a lone tear leaked beautifully from one eye, trailing down between her nose and cheek. “How can you not all love me?”

  “Because you’re a drama queen?” Tock guessed.

  “No one asked you, heifer!”

  “Charming.”

  “I want you all”—Mads pointed at each of her teammates—“to get your shit out of here. I am not going to prison for any of you.”

  “If we went to prison, it’s not like we’d have to stay,” Max felt the need to point out. “It’s only those Russian prisons we have to worry about. They’ve been built to keep honey badgers in. And that’s just the Siberian ones.”

  “Gulags,” Streep said, no longer pretend-crying. “One of the few words that actually strikes fear into the heart of a honey badger.”