chapter TWENTY

chapter TWENTYKeane followed Max up a set of backstairs to a small antiques shop on the second 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.“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.”“Which brother?” Max asked.“Jacob.”“Oh, I like Uncle Jacob.”“I’ll tell ya what. I’ll text him. Give him a heads-up you guys need to talk to him. Now I don’t know exactly where he is and he probably won’t tell me. I think he may be on a . . . ya know . . . job.”“Right,” Max said, knowing that among badgers the word “job” could mean a myriad of things.“Once he knows you need to talk to him, he’ll let you know where he is.”“Thanks, Uncle Carl. That’s really helpful.”Carl shrugged. “Honestly, sweetie, I’m just glad you’re not here to kill me for the insurance money.”Max glanced at Keane before asking her uncle, “Is that becoming a common thing in our family? Because I feel like it’s something I should be informed about.”* * *Mads was shooting baskets in Charlie’s backyard when Max and Keane returned from their meeting with Max’s uncle.“How did it go?” Charlie asked, handing plastic baggies filled with dark chocolate brownies out to the bears patiently waiting on the other side of the fence. The bears had originally been in the yard, but Finn and Shay began roaring at their presence when the first batch of brownies came out and there was a small scuffle that could easily have turned into a big scuffle. Mads became worried when Stevie scrambled up a tree, hiding in the leaves like a baby bear. Charlie had tried to calm everyone by telling them there were more brownies on the way, but no one was listening . . . until Streep had pulled out the scorpions.“You guys don’t want scorpions?” she’d asked, holding up a big, shiny black one. “They are soooo yummy! And putting up quite a fight. This one has stung me about six times!”That’s when the bears scrambled over the nearby fence while Finn and Shay jumped into the pool.“What?” Streep asked the bears. “You really don’t want one? The poison gives it a nice little zip. Especially with the crunch!”It always helped that none of the locals knew anything about scorpions and snakes. The really poisonous ones had to be secretly brought into the country and badgers would often build whole dinners around the event, pairing excellent wines and tequilas with the specific kind of scorpion they would be enjoying that night.Honestly, these big black ones might as well be wine in a can as far as the badger community was concerned.“We found out nothing,” Keane announced.“Not exactly true,” Max quickly cut in. “Uncle Carl didn’t have much to tell us. But he passed us on to his brother. I’m just waiting for a text from him. Hopefully he’ll have more info.”“Any info.”“I warned you it would be like this,” Max reminded Keane. “That we might have to talk to more than one badger. That we might have to travel a little bit. Especially since no one else has had any information about your father in all these years. You just have to be patient.” The cats all stared at her. Even Finn and Shay, who were still floating in the pool in their jeans, T-shirts, and boots. “I know. As soon as that came out of my mouth, I knew it was a stupid thing to say.”Max turned away and walked toward the house.“Where are you going?” Nelle asked.“I have to pee.”Keane closed his eyes. “She couldn’t just say I’m going to the bathroom?”No one replied because they all knew the answer.“Don’t feel discouraged,” Mads told Keane. She thought about patting him on the shoulder, but she didn’t feel like reaching up that high. “There are no straight lines when it comes to badgers.”“She’s right,” Nelle said, stepping back as Finn and Keane got out of the pool so she wouldn’t get the chlorinated water on her shoes. “And you guys should get a bag together with a change of clothes. You’ll probably have to travel.” She looked off for a moment, then added, “You know what? I’ll see if my father will loan us one of his planes.”She began to tap on her phone.“Your father has so many planes he can just . . .loan us one?”Nelle glanced up at Keane, and chirped, “Uh-huh.”“You going to come with us, too?” Finn asked Mads.“Until practice starts for the championships . . . okay.”“Seriously?” he demanded. “The championship is more important than—”“Yes!” she replied before Finn could even finish. What surprised her was that all her teammates joined in at the same time. Because they had no delusions about her loyalties either.Finn grabbed her around the waist and hugged Mads close, which she normally wouldn’t mind except that he was soaking wet from the pool. Laughing, she halfheartedly tried to push him off. Neither stopped until Max ran out of the house.“He texted me back!” she cheered. “I heard from Uncle Jacob! He said he’ll meet with us.” She stopped in front of the group and grinned.In fact, Max stood there and grinned for so long that Keane finally barked, “When?”“Don’t yell at me!”“That was not yelling. You’ll know when I’m yelling.”“Daddy says we can use any jet that’s available,” Nelle said, smiling. “And there are an array. Would you like me to list them?”“How rich are you?” Shay asked.“Very,” she replied, not missing a beat.Staring at her phone, Max asked, “Any that can do, well . . . long distances?”“Yes.” Nelle raised a brow. “Why?”She cleared her throat. “Uncle Jacob is not exactly around the corner.” Keane growled and Max immediately became defensive. “It’s not my fault!”Nelle placed her hand on Keane’s arm. “Everyone calm down,” she ordered, using her best soothing voice so that you never really knew it was an order. “Instead of making this a chore, we’re going to make this fun. Together. We’ll take one of Daddy’s best jets, we’ll go meet with Max’s uncle, get what information we can, and then we’ll go someplace fabulous for dinner. Like Paris. Or Rome. We’ll be back before you know it!” She looked over at Charlie, who was still handing out brownies. “Charlie, do you think you and Stevie want to go?”“Not me, sweetie. I think I still have a warrant out in Paris I haven’t dealt with. Stevie? You want to go with—”“No, thank you,” came from one of the trees. “I am currently attempting to manage a new and hopefully short-lived irrational fear of flying—you know, because of climate change? I fear sudden and brutal storms whipping up that will cause damage to the engines, and all the passengers plummeting to untimely deaths. As well as my more rational fear of terrorism in this current political climate.”When only silence followed that statement, the tree shook a little, and Stevie’s small head popped out from the leaves. “Not that you guys have anything to worry about,” she immediately backpedaled. “You guys will be fine. I’m . . . I’m . . . sure. Absolutely fine.”With still no reply, she cringed and ducked back into the solace of the tree.“Anyway,” Nelle continued, “everyone should go pack one overnight bag and meet me at the airport. I am this very moment texting you the address.” She looked up at Keane. “And stop looking so angry. I promise! This will be fun, fun, fun!”* * *“Is this really fun, fun, fun to you?” Keane bellowed before diving behind the remains of a blown-out building.“If you ask me that again,” Nelle yelled back, firing the submachine gun that had already been packed onto the private jet she’d borrowed from her father, “I will kill you myself!”Finn wasn’t sure how they’d actually ended up here, but here they certainly were. In the middle of a goddamn war. Not a known war. Not the kind of war you’d see on the nightly news while sitting down for dinner. This was some Eastern European thing that was sneaky and illegal and involved backhanded government deals that every government involved would deny later.And Max’s Uncle Jacob was right in the middle of it. He apparently was a mercenary. That was the “job” his family meant.Finn heard screams and saw women and children trying to run away from a group of armed men attempting to chase them down. Finn looked at his brothers and they shifted.* * *Mads landed hard on the ground, her machine gun knocked from her hands. A full-human male grabbed her leg, dragging her close. She kicked him in the face, breaking his jaw. He stumbled back and she lifted her leg so she could grab a blade from her holster. Mads flipped forward and plunged the blade into the man’s chest, but immediately had to yank it out again because another man was coming at her. She was still low to the ground, so she cut his inner thighs, turned back to the man she’d stabbed in the chest, and cut his throat. Returned to the man standing and cut him low across the belly.As his insides fell onto the floor, she ran back to her gun and grabbed it up just as the door to the small house she’d run to was kicked in. She opened fire and dashed over the bodies in time to see three massive tigers take down armed men so that women and children could make a desperate run for safety.“This way!” Mads yelled out in very bad Russian, motioning with her hand. She knew the people she was yelling at weren’t Russian but it was the best she could do, and she hoped they understood enough. If nothing else, they seemed to grasp her gestures. Tock then used her skills with explosives to clear space behind them.When the dust settled, they heard Max shout, “Here! Over here!”The team ran toward her and Mads whistled for the big cats. To her surprise, Finn spun and faced her. He bumped his brothers and they followed her as she ran to Max.Inside a dilapidated office building, they found Uncle Jacob. He was tall for a badger, a true soldier. He kept firing out a broken window while casually conversing with Max and Keane.“I remember your father! Quite a cat. Big bastard! Mean! But knew how to get the job done! Can’t say I know who killed him. No one would talk about it! You. Bomb girl. Blast those boys over there, would you? Thanks, dear girl. Anyway, you know who might have more info . . . your Uncle Billy, Max! He was in Prague last I heard! Try him!”* * *“Exactly how many uncles do you have?” Keane asked as the private jet made its way to Prague.“More than I thought,” Max admitted.“Sure you guys don’t want to choose something from the Zhao family plane armory?” Tock asked, gesturing to the gun display. It had been hidden behind a panel, and it was not the only one. Apparently most of the family’s jets had them.The brothers politely declined. They knew how to use guns but such weapons always seemed excessive when they already had claws, fangs, and, when they shifted, nearly a thousand pounds. Finn didn’t hold it against the badgers for adding weapons to their fangs and claws, though. Not that they necessarily needed any enhancement. He’d watched them fight earlier. When they lost a weapon or ran out of bullets, they moved to hand-to-hand combat with ease and they kicked ass. He was guessing that it was a form of krav maga that Tock had taught them, modified to take advantage of their badger rage and willingness to strip off an enemy’s skin at a moment’s notice.“We’re not going into another war, are we?” Shay asked, staring out the plane window. “I am not in the mood for another firefight. That’s the second one I’ve been in, in . . . like . . . three days. I might get PTSD. I may have to get a support animal.”“You are not getting any more dogs!” Keane snarled.“Of course not!” He scratched his neck. “But I heard goats are good.”“You get a goat, I’m eating it,” Finn warned. “While it’s alive and screaming.”“You sick fuck—”“It’s not a war zone,” Max promised, probably thinking of her younger sister’s words and not wanting two tigers to get into a fierce battle on a plane that could suddenly go down. Sure, as badgers they might survive a crash . . . but they also might not. “I never knew my Uncle Jacob that well. But my Uncle Billy is definitely not a soldier, and he’s not going to be fighting for anyone.”“So we’ll be in and out?” Keane asked.“In and out!”* * *“Thirty seconds!” Billy Yang yelled, moving from case to case and smashing each one with a crowbar. “Go! Go! Go!”Mads refused to get involved, so she stood by Finn and his brothers, waiting while Max yelled questions at her uncle and her teammates . . . “helped” Billy’s associates.Streep and Max handled the watches. Nelle and Tock, the diamond necklaces and bracelets.“Twenty seconds!”“Do you know anything?” Max asked Billy again.“Um? Yeah! Bosnia.”Mads felt Finn’s entire body tighten beside her and all three brothers straightened up.“What about Bosnia?” Max asked. “Was he in the war there?”“No. Not at all. Ten seconds! Wrap it up! He was there for something else! I don’t know what! Maybe Larry knows! All right, team! We are out!”* * *Wearing a five-million-dollar-diamond necklace, two-thousand-dollar shoes, as well as designer sunglasses and dress, Nelle strutted through the art museum that was housed inside an old castle. She had a fur stole wrapped around her shoulders and yelled at everyone in Cantonese while the rest of them followed her in black suits and dark sunglasses.It was a brilliant performance Nelle was putting on, but at this point Finn wasn’t surprised by anything she might do. She’d managed to steal the necklace she was wearing from the Prague jewelry store’s safe while Max’s Uncle Billy and his team smashed the shop’s cases and grabbed its mid-level wares. She’d also come out with several diamond-encrusted watches and rose gold bracelets she knew her mother would like. How and when she’d gotten into that safe, Finn had no idea. He just knew he was impressed.While Nelle loudly interrupted what turned out to be an auction of works by the Swedish artist Carl Larsson, demanding to purchase a piece that had already been sold to a local billionaire, Max’s Uncle Larry was in the museum’s basement switching a recently loaned Monet out with a recently forged copy.“Niece!” he greeted, when he saw Max. “You’re not here to kill me for the insurance, are you?”“No! How common is this with you guys?”Laughing, he hugged Max. “What are you doing here? Hoping to get your own Monet, are you?”“No. We are not here to stay. Just to see you. Very quickly. Super quickly.”“About what?”She filled him in on why they’d flown to Sweden and the badger frowned. “Why did Billy send you to me?”“You don’t know anything?”“Honey, I don’t have to. Your Uncle Russ knew him. Sent flowers to his funeral and directly to the widow. I know he actually looked into what happened.”Feeling as if his heart had stopped in his chest, Finn turned to look at his brothers.“Are you sure?” Max pushed. “Russ knew him?”“Positive. He was really upset. But you know Russ. Ma always said he had that weak gene.”“You mean sympathy?”“And the other one.”“Empathy?”“Yeah. That one, too. But Russ is definitely the one you should talk to.” Larry shook his head. “I do not know why those boneheads didn’t send you right to him.”“Because both sides of my family are full of idiots?”“Pretty much.”“So any chance Uncle Russ is in Norway or Iceland or Valhalla? Or anywhere within a thousand-mile radius of where we are currently standing?”Max’s Uncle Larry cringed and Finn already knew the answer was a solid “No.”“Last I heard,” the older badger said, “he was in the Congo, protecting gorillas from poachers.”“Africa?” Max demanded, her voice breaking a little. “He’s in Africa?”“Even from here, that’s not a short trip,” Keane muttered.“Can we just call him there?” Max practically begged. “I mean, even if I felt like being in a jet for twelve to fourteen hours, my friends and I have some . . . lingering issues involving a few African countries. What?” she demanded when Finn and his brothers stared at her.“You think we’re paranoid?” Larry asked, looking at his cell. “Russ will never tell you anything over the phone. Now, let’s see. I’m looking at the last few texts with the family. Blah, blah, blah. About the gorillas. How amazing they are. Yeah, it looks like he is definitely in the Congo, fighting poachers”—he glanced up and added—“which I think we all know means wiping them from the planet. Okay. I think I have his exact location coordinates right here and . . . oh!” He lowered his cell. “Russ is in Brooklyn now.”“Sorry?”“Yeah. Got a little confused. Forgot he came back from the Congo about a month ago.”“And none of your brothers knew that?”“I’m not sure they cared enough to remember. You know . . .”“The sympathy gene again?”Larry shrugged. “Yeah.”* * *“Don’t go anywhere,” Max said into the phone. “Understand? Just stay there until we come to talk to you.” Suddenly Max’s fangs unleashed. “I am not coming there to kill you for the insurance money! Just do as I say and stay in New York! Okay, fine. Even better. We’ll meet you at your job. That’s perfect.”She disconnected the call and was about to throw her phone when Streep snatched it out of her hands. The last thing they needed was for her to lose their connection with her family.“Is your mother planning to kill all her brothers?” Tock asked as one flight-crew member poured wine and another put out cheese and cracker plates with sides of honey.“Dude . . . I honestly don’t know. I don’t know what she’s doing. But clearly they are all worried.”“But if she asked you . . . ?”“No, Streep, I would not kill my family for my mother. And the fact that I have actively attempted to kill my father several times does not count because that had nothing to do with my mother. I did that on my own. I also need to add there was no money to get when it came to my attempts to kill my father. Because he is a useless, worthless man.”“But your uncle will see us when we get back?” Keane asked.“Yes. He will. He’s nice, too, so I believe him.”Finn returned from the bathroom and dropped into the seat next to Mads. “I can’t believe there’s a shower and tub in the bathroom here.”“And scented oils,” Mads told him.“Is that what that rose smell was?”“No, that was the fresh flowers they replaced while we were out.”“Wow.” He looked around and smiled at her. “This is kind of awesome.”“Thank you,” Nelle said from the plush leather seat she reclined in, a copy of the most recent Italian Vogue in her lap. Unlike the rest of them, Nelle hadn’t changed back into her “real” clothes after their time in the museum, pretending to be someone else. That ridiculously overpriced designer dress was one of her regular dresses. She’d had another just like it, but one of her nephews had spilled grape juice on it, so she’d asked the designer to send her a new one even though it was from two seasons before. Why? “Because you know it’s my favorite and I love it! And legally I’m not allowed to beat my nephew to death for fucking up the old one.”“I said it was an accident, Auntie!” the sixteen-year-old had yelled back from another room.And three days later, delivered by messenger, the dress she currently had on arrived.“I designed the look and feel of this particular fleet of planes for my father,” she bragged.“Did you also do that without asking him if you could?” Mads wanted to know.“American Jesus Christ! Is this about me decorating your house again?”“It was rude!”“It was necessary! Because we all know you were never going to do it!”“She’s right,” Max chimed in. “You were never going to do it.”“How the fuck do you know?”“I know because you rented that place for six months one time, near where we used to practice, and you remember what happened there.”“Oh, come on. I was eighteen.”“You were twenty-four and you had nothing in the place but a mattress, a cardboard box, and an old black-and-white TV that you put on the cardboard box.”“Where did you even find that TV?” Streep asked. “I thought those TVs were in massive trash heaps, slowly destroying our planet.”“You barely had any lights!” Max went on. “It was like a pit of despair and even I hated going there. And once I lived in a dirt hole in the woods for three days.”“Why?” Keane felt brave enough to ask.“To see if I could.”“Of course.”* * *Finn didn’t know how commenting on enjoying being in a private jet rather than crammed onto a commercial flight with a bunch of complaining full-humans had led to a fight between honey badgers, but here they all were.Although he’d kind of known it would be coming. Hard to decorate a person’s house without their knowledge or approval and not have them get a little pissy about it.“Seriously?” Mads demanded. “None of you guys think Nelle coming into my house and putting in furniture and clothes and appliances is remotely weird? On any level?”“Nope,” Max easily replied.“Not at all,” Streep said.“I told her to do it,” Tock suddenly admitted.Uh-oh. It was like the air had been sucked out of the cabin. Even though Finn had no doubt that most of Mads’s shifter genes were honey badger, he still had a definite feeling that a few hyena ones had slipped through. If nothing else, it would explain how her lovely neck seemed to get longer and sort of drop, then swing out while her eyes looked up at Tock in dangerous warning.“You what?”Nelle stood. “I think I need to use the conveniently placed shower—”“Sit down!” Mads barked.Nelle sat back down.“I think I was quite clear,” Tock said.“You told her to do all that creepy shit in my house?”“I did.”“Because I’m poor?”“In what world are you poor? That hippy aunt of yours ensured you’d never be poor as long as you don’t give your shit away.”“Is this about the Kandinsky again?”“You also have a Warhol, a Basquiat—”“Well, I’d never give away the Basquiat. He gave that to her on her birthday.”“It doesn’t matter whether you’d give it away. It’s that you have it. You have millions of dollars’ worth of artwork in storage units spread out all over this country due to your Buddha-loving aunt.”“Buddha?” Shay asked.Mads shrugged. “She used her love of Buddha to replace her intense love of cocaine. It was the eighties and there was a lot of cocaine.” She refocused on her teammates. “But it doesn’t change the fact that you should have talked to me first.”“Why?” Tock asked. “You weren’t going to do it. I really didn’t think you’d notice. Not during playoffs.” She glanced off. “I guess we should have waited until the championships.”“Tock!”“Look, we are all nearing thirty. It was time for you to act like an adult.”“Couldn’t you all have just taken me shopping or something instead?”“No!”“God, no!”“Heaven forbid!”“I’d rather set myself on fire . . . again.”“You hate shopping,” Tock explained, “unless the new Jordans are out. And then you just go and stand in line with everyone else. That’s not exactly the act of shopping.”“Whereas,” Nelle interjected, “I love shopping and I know exactly what you like. I just had to look up a few things online, send my ideas to my personal shoppers, and you were set. That way you didn’t have to worry about it. I was truly trying to be helpful. Not shove your nonexistent poverty down your throat. Since that seems to be what you’re harping on.”“And the creepy factor.”“What’s so creepy? That you’re easy to buy for? Jeans. Basketball tanks. An array of unattractive basketball sneakers. It’s not exactly brain surgery.”“You also bought me underwear.”“Sports bras and Hanes for Her. They come in packets.” Nelle looked at her teammates. “Packets.”“The condoms?”“From what I surmise, they have not gone unused.”“With a note on the package.”“That was just funny. Max would have done the same thing.”“I probably would have,” Max agreed with a small shrug.“It would have only been weird if you’d picked one of the other two,” Nelle said, pointing at Keane and Shay. And when Finn’s brothers only gawked at her, she added, “Oh, come on. You three are practically interchangeable. The Dunn triplets are easier to tell apart because at least one of them is a woman.“And I’d like you all to keep in mind,” she added, “there are very few people in this world that I would do this sort of thing for: you ungrateful bitches; my father, because he is amazing and brilliant and adores me; my eldest sister, because she never once threw an axe at my head or set the dogs after me; my mother, because I wisely fear her . . . and . . . yeah. That’s it. And that’s how you know you guys mean so much to me because . . .”Nelle’s words faded off and Finn looked over to see why she’d stopped talking. That’s when he saw that Streep was sitting on the edge of her seat, hands clasped in front of her, eyes practically bulging from her head.“Say it!” Streep finally pushed, with a huge, impatient smile. “Say it!”“Say what?” Nelle finally asked.“Say that you love us all.”The females reared back from Streep. It was as if she’d grown a second head or suggested doing something disgusting with dolphins. There was even a loud, simultaneous “Ewwwww!”“We risk our lives for each other! We spend so much time together! Happily! We are as close together as five people can be who are not fucking. Why won’t you just say we are all friends and that we love each other dearly?”Nelle leaned over and took Streep’s hand. Smiling warmly, she said with great feeling, “You guys are my dearest, closest associates. And I tolerate all of you greatly.”The eager grin Streep had on her face faded away and she snatched her hand back.“All of you are mean, petty cunts, and I don’t know why I waste a bit of my precious time on you!”With that, and with as much dignity as she could muster, Streep stood and walked toward the bathrooms in the back of the jet. Once one of the doors slammed shut, the badgers exploded into laughter. Max fell onto the floor; Mads into Finn’s lap. And Nelle had actual tears in her eyes while Tock had trouble getting her breath back.“I can hear you laughing at me, you evil bitches!” Streep yelled from the bathroom. “And I will never forgive you!”Of course, that just made them all laugh harder.“Streep is right, you know,” Keane said, staring out the window. “You are all evil bitches.”