In a Badger Way (Honey Badger Chronicles #2) - Shelly Laurenston Page 0,60
guessing this was the girl’s mother.
“Why are annoying jackal pups here?” the woman asked, her Russian accent thick.
“Nothing better to do?” Oriana asked.
“We’re here to steal your souls?” Kyle suggested with a smile.
With an eye roll, the woman began to close the door.
“No, no,” Stevie said, putting her hand against the door before it could close all the way. “I need to see . . .”
“Jessica Ann Ward,” Coop told her.
“Yes. Jessica Ann Ward. Wait . . .” Stevie looked back at Coop. “Why do I know that name?”
Coop shrugged. “I have no—”
“Oh! I remember!” Stevie smiled but then, she really did remember how she knew that name and she felt her smile fade. Along with her hopes. “Uh-oh.”
“What?” Shen asked.
The Russian woman pointed a damning finger at Stevie. “I remember you.” She spit on the ground near Stevie’s feet and slammed the door shut.
Crinkling up her nose, mortified, Stevie faced her friends. “We should go.”
“What did you do?” Oriana asked, laughing.
“It’s kind of a long—”
The front door opened again and Jessica Ann Ward stood there, glaring at Stevie.
“You.”
Stevie immediately raised her hands, palms out. “I can explain!”
“I’m calling the FBI!” Ward shot back.
She turned to march into the house, but Stevie followed, desperate for her to listen. “Please don’t do that!”
“Fuck off!”
Ward continued down the hallway and Stevie stayed right behind her.
“If you’ll just let me explain.”
“There is nothing to explain. Nothing you can say that I want to hear.”
Stevie followed Ward into the kitchen just as the wild dog picked up her phone from the long wood table where several other wild dogs were sitting on benches.
“I think I still have Agent Hall’s number,” she warned with a smirk.
“Please don’t call him,” Stevie begged, horrified. “If you would just give me a minute—”
“What did you do?”
Stevie winced, refusing to even look at her sister.
“I asked you a question, Stevie.”
“Can we talk about this later?”
“No. We can talk about this right fucking now. What’s going on?”
Finally, Stevie looked at her sister and instantly Max barked, “This is Dad’s fault, isn’t it?”
“Please stop screeching.”
“I was not screeching. Now, what did that motherfucker get you into?”
“She stole my son’s violin.”
Max’s head reared back a bit; a confused frown crossed her face. “A violin? Why?”
Stevie—and her sister knew this—could have any instrument she could ever want. All she had to do was ask and maybe perform for a dignitary or two with said instrument. So there was no reason in the world for her to steal a violin. Any violin. But there were some instruments that were worth their weight in gold and—
“It was a Stradivarius.”
Stevie winced, watching her sister’s confused frown turn into a glower of anger.
“That motherfucker!” Max exploded. “I’ll kill him! I’m going to kill him!”
And Stevie did the only thing she could think of at that moment to stop her sister from doing something really stupid. She dove headfirst at her, dropping them both to the ground.
* * *
Nope. Shen never expected Stevie to tackle her own sister. And she hit Max hard too. Took her down like a linebacker sacking a quarterback.
It was such a surprising move that even the wild dogs were stunned into silence . . . and very little managed to silence wild dogs.
Shen reached for Stevie, but he couldn’t get a solid grip because the two women kept moving. One on top, then the other. One punching her sister in the face, then the other punching the first in the stomach. It wasn’t a cute “girl fight” either. Nor was it an attempt for either one to get control of the other.
This was an all-out brawl.
Max got to her feet. She had Stevie by the hair and she brought her up with her. Then she threw her across the room and into the stove. Pots and pans hit the floor. Thankfully, the oven and the burners were not being used.
Shen was shocked by the move. Although Max was crazy with everyone else, she never went too far with her baby sister. For her and Charlie it was always about protecting Stevie. But at this moment . . . it was like she was fighting a stranger.
Stevie snarled and rolled off the oven and dropped to the floor. When she straightened up, she bared her fangs at her sister and Kyle suddenly grabbed Shen’s shoulder. Probably thinking Stevie was going to shift and wreck the entire wild dog house, but only after crushing everyone in the kitchen with her shifter weight.