In a Badger Way (Honey Badger Chronicles #2) - Shelly Laurenston Page 0,102

Berg started to step inside, but a foolish wolverine pushed past him and dove into the spot next to Max.

“Miss me?” he asked, grinning.

“Of course, my sweet love!”

“I didn’t miss ya,” Charlie coldly stated. “Liked it when you were gone.”

“Damn, Charlie,” Dutch laughed. “I don’t even get props for manhandling your father for you? In front of a priest, no less.”

“You’ve gotta give him points for that,” Max insisted.

“No, she doesn’t,” Berg stated, settling into a spot next to Charlie. “She doesn’t have to give him shit.”

“Why?” Dutch asked. “Because you say so?”

The bear took his time turning his big bear head. When he finally faced Dutch, he let out one of his grizzly huffs, and the wolverine instinctively jerked back in his seat. He then turned red because he’d gone on instinct rather than the practical logic that Berg wasn’t about to shift into a bear in the middle of this funeral limo and attack him.

But the look of fear on the wolverine’s face was enough to have Charlie grinning like a little girl while Max laughed in her best friend’s face.

“See why I love him?” Charlie asked, stroking Berg’s arm.

The limo door closed and the procession began to move. Their driver was moments from pulling away from the curb when a knock startled them all. They looked to see Freddy waving at them through the window. He tried opening the door but it was locked. So he knocked again and pointed toward the door handle, urging his daughter to let him in.

“He must be kidding,” Bernice said in awe.

Charlie and her father stared at each other for several long moments. Then, Charlie raised her fist and, after that, just her middle finger.

Snarling, baring his fangs, Freddy stepped back, raised his leg, and kicked at the door.

“Don’t worry,” Bernice said, shaking her head in disgust. “The limos are bulletproof. He can’t get in.”

Stevie frowned. “Well . . . maybe we should just let him—”

“Stevie!” her sisters barked.

Stevie shook her head. “Forget I said anything.”

Their father continued to kick the door. Again and again, getting madder each time he did.

“Open the fucking door!” he yelled.

Charlie raised her other fist, then her middle finger. So now she had two middle fingers raised at her father.

The limo was beginning to pull out into traffic, and Freddy seemed to know he was running out of chances. When he took several giant steps back, Shen assumed he was going to throw everything he had at the limo in the hope of—

“Oh!” they all gasped as a semitruck sped by, going in the opposite direction.

Freddy hit the grill and went down, disappearing underneath the vehicle, which didn’t even slow down.

Stevie spun around, her knees on the seat, her arms on the headrest.

“He’s back up,” she announced, and Shen almost laughed when he heard everyone else sadly sigh.

There was just so much disappointment in the collective sound.

“Yeah, he’s fine,” Stevie said, settling back into her seat.

“How is he fine?” Britta asked. “The man was hit by a semi.”

“Dad’s not very bright,” Stevie admitted. “But he is resilient.”

Gazing out the window, Charlie sounded on the verge of tears. “The motherfucker just won’t die.”

chapter TWENTY-ONE

After she knocked, the door opened and Cella Malone threw her arms around the priest who answered.

“Uncle Jimmy!”

“My sweet Cella. How are you?”

“I’m fine. Fine.”

“Come in, come in,” he said, stepping back.

Cella walked into the office. Uncle Jimmy wasn’t the only priest among the Malone clan, but he was the one based in a Manhattan church and not one of the other boroughs or Ireland. Jimmy had been running this church for nine years and, thankfully, had never been called to the Vatican to face disciplinary action. Unlike some of the other Malones who’d made their lives in the Church, including a few aunts and cousins who had literally been sent to Siberia. A punishment that would have destroyed other women, but Malones were Siberian tigers . . . they ended up battling Cossack polar bears so that they could take over the towns around the nunnery. And, in typical Malone fashion, once the aunts and cousins had control, they began to run some very successful scams and offered brutal protection for the towns. Gangsters soon learned the local nuns were not to be fucked with.

Uncle Jimmy, though, was “a good lad,” according to his mother, which meant he didn’t like doing anything with his church except help others and worship God. A life Cella could never get into herself, but she understood how