Charlie suddenly pointed a silencing finger at Finn. “And before you say anything, we’ve had Max thoroughly tested . . . she’s borderline. So just leave it alone.” She turned her gaze back to Nat. “You are seventeen. You can’t be stupid! Do you want to end up in a prison you can’t dig yourself out of? Because they have them and there are at least three MacKilligans rotting away in them as we speak. One of them in Germany. It’s built in what was once known as East Berlin and was behind a wall. You should look that up sometime if you haven’t heard about it in history class. Maybe you can meet your MacKilligan cousin there and both of you can chat over what I’m told is still a very East German–style unpleasant breakfast!”
Nat sat silently for several long moments before she slowly stood, tossed her black hair with the white stripe over her shoulder, and told Charlie, “Thanks for the advice.”
And like seventeen-year-olds around the world—because she thought she knew better—Nat ignored her half-sister’s words and started toward the men groveling on the floor in her living room.
“Don’t tell, Keane, okay?” she sweetly asked her brothers. “I’ll take care of all—arghhhhh!” Nat screamed as her body flew back into the couch, her hands covering her face, blood flowing from between her fingers.
Automatically, Charlie looked down at her own hands, expecting to see that she’d been the one to punch her younger sister in the face for her rudeness. But, for once, it hadn’t been her.
Stevie pushed past Shay and, using ASL, began to rant at her younger half-sister; Nat gawked at her above her blood-covered hands.
Charlie quickly tapped Dale’s knee with the back of her fist, prompting him to translate for her.
“Um . . . uh . . . ‘Who do you think you are?” he rattled off in a flat, monotone voice, “Charlie’s trying to help you and you’re ignoring her. Do you think about anyone but yourself? What if your mother had been home when they came here? What if they’d come at night? What if they hadn’t broken into your home but just shot up your car with your mother in it? Or your brothers? What if they set your house on fire with you guys in it? Or blew it up? I can come up with a thousand scenarios of how this could have gone down. Many of them, Charlie, Max, and I have been through because of the shitty decision-making of our idiot father! Do you want to be like him? Do you want to be the one we all talk about with hatred when we talk about you at all? When we get a call that there’s a body in the morgue that we have to identify, do you want us to hope and pray that it’s you? And start throwing shit when we find out it’s not, terrifying the morgue attendant? Because we’re really pissed off it’s not you! Because our lives would be a thousand times easier if you were dead? That’s our father, Nat! That’s where you’re headed! And if you don’t figure out how to harness the shitty MacKilligan in you, then I guess I should just start expecting calls from forty-year-old Nat asking me for gas money!’”
Charlie reached over and tapped Stevie’s arm. “That asshole called you again, asking for gas money?”
Stevie waved her off. “I didn’t even answer. I just let it go to voice mail.”
Letting out a breath, Stevie returned to Nat, and Dale again translated. “‘Your family loves you. But if you keep acting like a little asshole-bitch, you will end up alone and bitter and wondering why your life sucks so bad.’”
Stevie pointed at Charlie. “Get outside. The contract is ready to sign. I got you fifteen percent over what you wanted, flexibility on your hours for that other thing you and Max do, and I made that lawyer guy cry a little. So I feel pretty good about the negotiation.”
She turned and started to walk out, but abruptly stopped and faced Nat. This time, she didn’t use ASL. “And don’t ever dismiss Charlie like that again when she’s trying to help you. Or next time, I’ll bite you in half, spit your legs across the room, and make you stare at them while you slowly bleed out.”
And with those words, Stevie left.
“What the hell did—”
“No.” Mads cut Finn off before he could finish his question.
“But how would she—”
“We don’t ask those questions when it comes to Max’s little sister.”
“We don’t?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“We know it can’t end well for anyone. So we just don’t. And you shouldn’t either. Okay?”
“Well—”
“Great!”
“My nose!” Nat cried out, blood still gushing from behind her hands.
“It’s just broken,” Charlie told her. “Don’t be such a baby.”
Finn moved closer. “Let’s see,” he prompted.
Nat moved her hands away from her face and all the shifters in the room cried out. Tock actually looked away. Charlie covered her mouth with her hands. Shay nearly retched.
Nat slapped her hands over her face. “What?” she demanded. “What?”
“Nothing,” Charlie lied. “It’ll be fine. Just go upstairs. Now. Dale, go with her.”
“Why do I have to?”
“Dale!”
As Dale passed Charlie to follow his sister out of the living room, Charlie grabbed his shoulder and quietly told him, “Don’t let her look in a mirror. Put a bandage over her nose right away. And don’t start crying. It’ll pop back out by tomorrow.”
“I’m not crying.”
“Oh, my God, you’re as bad a liar as your sister,” she complained, pushing him away. “And bring the money she stole down here once you get the bandage on her, please. Thanks!”
Once the teens were gone, Charlie warned Finn and Shay, “You have no control over her, and it’s going to bite all of you in the ass.”
“No offense, but we can handle our baby sister.”
“She’s not a baby. She’s a manipulative little viper, aka a teen. And at some point the true MacKilligan in her is going to come out and you will not be ready for it.”
Charlie started for the front door, but Tock stopped her.
“What about these lovely gentlemen?” she asked.
Charlie studied the full-humans for a moment, then smirked . . . and unleashed her fangs.
* * *
Dez put down her phone and looked across her desk at her old partner. Because of polar bears like Crushek and the grizzlies in her department, she’d had to get specially made chairs that didn’t crumple under their human weight. The chairs weren’t easy to find and cost a fortune, but they were nice looking. And held up really well despite the fact that Crushek didn’t simply sit but sort of dropped into his seat as if he was a much smaller man.
“What?” Crushek asked when he saw her expression.
“So I just got a call from Nassau County’s shifter division. Seems some drug dealers ran into one of their precincts to warn them that monsters with claws and fangs and crazy woman strength were trying to steal their money and take over the world. And we need to let the government know and do something about it, otherwise these monsters are going to kill us all . . . and let the hyenas from Africa eat us.”
The pair gazed at each other for quite a while until Crushek finally shook that big head of his and angrily sighed out, “Fuckin’ honey badgers.”
“Okay, so I’m not wrong. That’s definitely a honey badger kind of... situation we’ve got there.”
“Not even foxes cause that kind of problem, Dez. And foxes cause all sorts of problems.”
“Is this something we should get involved in?”
“Did you wake up this morning and think to yourself, ‘How can I fuck up my day?’”
“I did not.”
“Then I say we deal with the nightmares we already have within our city rather than going out to the Island to find more.”
“Excellent plan. Coffee and a bear claw?”
“I feel like I’m being attacked with that bear claw thing, but . . . yeah. Sure.”
chapter TWENTY
Keane followed Max up a set of backstairs to a small antiques shop on the se
cond floor of a battered building off the Jersey Turnpike.
“You brought cash, right?”
Keane frowned. “You didn’t tell me to bring cash.”
Max stopped and faced him. “You didn’t bring cash?”
“You didn’t tell me to bring cash.”
She let out a breath and threw up her hands. “Great.”
“You didn’t tell me—”
“Yes. I heard you,” she snapped, continuing up the stairs.
“It’s always going to be this way with you, isn’t it?”
“What way?”
“Annoying. Trifling. Pain in the ass. You go out of your way to be difficult.”
“Not out of my way.”
They reached a wood door. Max pulled it open and stepped into one of those packed stores that had so much of everything, Keane could never tell if they were selling antiques or just junk.
“Hello?” Max called out. “Uncle Carl? It’s Max. Renny’s daughter. Are you here?”
There was a flash in the corner of Keane’s eye, giving him only a second to wrap his arms around Max’s waist and drop them both to the floor. The gun blast destroyed the stuffed grizzly that had been right behind them.
“Uncle Carl!” Max yelled. “What the fuck?”
It took a moment before a voice yelled back, “Did your mother send you here? Well, you can tell her to fuck off!”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about!”
Another long pause. “You don’t?”
“No.”
“Because I heard she took out life insurance on me. A million dollars’ worth.”
Max dropped her head back, eyes crossing. “I don’t know anything about that. I’m not here for my mother. I’m here for information.”
“Oh. Okay.”
* * *
Charlie sat in her sunroom, legs stretched out in front of her, one arm thrown over her eyes. She’d thought about going to bed and taking a nap, but she wasn’t really tired so much as miserable and depressed. She wasn’t sure a nap would take care of that. At least not for her. She heard liquor was effective for some people, but she’d never been much of a drinker. A beer here or there. Maybe a shot when she went out with friends or her sisters. But anything beyond that just made her think she’d end up a pathetic drunk, spewing anger and hatred in some bar somewhere. That was not the way she wanted her life to go.
“Charlie?”
Not in the mood to move her whole body, Charlie simply lifted her arm to her forehead and opened her eyes. She looked up at Mads and smiled.
“What’s up?”
“Just checking on you. Need anything?”
Charlie had always liked Mads. She was just the sweetest kid. And had never deserved the early life she got. Then again, what kid ever deserved a life like that?
“I’m good. Just . . . forget it.”
Mads sat on the love seat across from Charlie’s chair. “I’m sure Nat will be fine. I think you’re forgetting Max’s teen years. Of course, you had a lot going on then. A lot more of your dad. Way more kidnappings. Mostly because your dad kept selling your sisters.”
“That’s all very true. And you’re probably right. I did realize something today.”
“Meth heads will believe anything when they’re high?”
“I already knew that. No. I realized that Stevie’s going to be a great mom one day. We just have to teach her not to shove her child’s nose into its skull.”
“I think it’s different when it’s your own kid.”
“Let’s hope so.”
“Well, if you need anything, just let me know.”
“Sure.”
She expected Mads to get up and leave. Usually Max’s friends didn’t hang around Charlie too long without Max there to be a buffer. She knew she made them all nervous and she didn’t mind. She’d always sensed she kept them out of any major trouble by being the thing they had to face if they really fucked up. So when Mads just sat there, doing nothing . . .
“Anything else, Mads?”
She leaned over a bit to look into the other rooms.
“I think they’re out by the pool,” Charlie told her.
Mads combed her hair behind her ear. “My cousins came after me last night. My mother thinks I took something from the family that I didn’t. My father did. I found it in my house. It’s mine by right. Solveig wanted me to have it. But my mother and grandmother think it belongs to them. I could just send it back to them.”
“And prove to them you’re as weak as they think you are? Don’t send them anything. Don’t give them anything. You need to crush them. Now and for good. Or you’ll never have peace, Mads. They’ll make sure of it.”
“What about the others?”
“The other what?”
“Max? Tock? Streep? Nelle? I go after the family, they’ll come after them.”
“And we’ll be finding pieces of hyena all along the Eastern Seaboard. People will wonder for days and weeks where all these hyenas came from. ‘Are people transporting them from Africa for pets?’ the news will ask.” She chuckled. “It’ll be pretty funny.” Charlie laughed a little more until she saw Mads’s expression. “Wait. Are you worried about them? After all these years? After you’ve seen what they can do?”
“But what you said to Nat about her family—”
“Sweetie, they’re tigers!” Charlie sat up in her chair, her depression and misery forgotten in the face of Mads’s irrational thought process. “You shoot up a car full of tigers, you could kill them. You shoot up a car full of badgers . . . you’re just going to have a car of pissed-off badgers! And in the case of your friends? Well-armed pissed-off badgers.”
“What about their families?”
“Their families are all badger dynasties.”
“Not Streep’s family.”
“Why do you think that? Because they’re Filipino? The Gonzalez family have been a badger dynasty for centuries. In fact, her family has been ripping off the Vatican since the Philippines became Catholic in the 1500s. Not only that, but her family managed to infiltrate every Philippine government since then. Not because of any political aspirations but because they really like money. And gold. They love gold.”
“Why didn’t Streep ever tell me?”
“I think she thought you knew.”
“Why would I know any of that? I was raised by hyenas.”
“And I was raised by wolves. You live by the hand you’re dealt. You want my advice? It’s time to be who you truly are. Who Solveig knew you were. It’s time to crush that family of yours, Mads Galendotter. Not completely wipe ’em out. I’m not a heartless monster . . . most of the time. But make it clear to them that you’re not to be fucked with ever again. Show them who the true Viking is now that Solveig is gone.”
“Okay.” Mads winced. “The whole thing is scary, though.”
“Life is scary. That’s why I’m going to make brownies.”
The two females stood, but before they could head toward the kitchen, a loud bang at the big windows shocked them both. A black bear from the neighborhood stood at one of the sunroom windows, gazing at them.
“Did I hear someone say brownies?” the bear asked.
* * *
“Sorry about that,” Carl said, placing mugs of coffee down on the table in front of Max and Keane. “We’ve all been a bit jumpy since your mother came back.”
“I don’t know why. She never said anything to me about having a problem with any of you.”
“No problem with her sisters maybe. But with her brothers, she sees dollar signs. She’s out to get us all.”
He put a plate of fudge-covered Oreos in the middle of the table. Max reached for one but Keane had taken the entire plate and had already gone through half the cookies.
“Dude . . . seriously?”
Carl went back to the cabinets, grabbed the rest of the box of Oreos, and dropped it on the table. Max grabbed several in case she didn’t get a chance later.
&nb
sp; “If that’s true, she hasn’t said a word to me,” Max insisted. “And I wouldn’t do something like that anyway.”
“Not even for your mother?”
“I love my mom, but I’m not going to start killing family members so she can collect insurance. That’s just tacky.”
“Really?” Keane asked around a cookie in his mouth. “Tacky? That’s the best you can come up with?”
“It’s tacky.”
Carl dropped into a chair at the table. “I’ve also heard that the Yuns are out to get your psychotic sister.”
“They don’t even know Stevie.”
“Not Stevie. The one with the big shoulders.”
“Charlie? They’re going after Charlie?” Max snorted. “Good luck to them.”
Carl looked at Keane. “And you’re here about your father.”
“Yes.”
“I hate saying this but . . . I don’t know anything about his murder.”
“Oh.”
“It’s been kept surprisingly quiet. Usually you can at least hear something from foxes. They can’t keep a secret to save their lives but, for once, they’re not talking.”
Keane’s massive shoulders dropped and Carl actually looked a little sad that he was unable to give the big cat any information. That’s when he said, “You know, my brother might be able to help you. He knows a lot of people I don’t.”
Breaking Badger Page 31