In a Badger Way (Honey Badger Chronicles #2) - Shelly Laurenston Page 0,64

and reacted instantly.

“Just a nick,” Sabina said, her voice soft but her Russian accent thicker, “and you two bleed all over our nice lawn furniture. So you stop . . . or I will start cutting. Understand?”

MacKilligan pulled her hands away from her sister, her knuckles bloody from punching her sister’s face. And her sister stepped away, her nose bloody and flatter.

“Thank you, Sabina.”

Sabina winked at Jess. “You are welcome, my friend.”

Jess moved closer to MacKilligan. “What your father did . . . is not on you. You know that, right?”

“Sure.”

The sister rolled her eyes. “You are the worst liar.”

“Shut up.”

“Nick here . . . nick there,” Sabina muttered and the siblings again stopped bickering.

“We can’t keep that violin,” Jess finally said. “I mean, when I thought it was a piece of shit, that’s one thing.” She reached out and grabbed Johnny’s forearm. “And thank you for stopping me from destroying it that time.” She cleared her throat. “Because that would have been awful.”

Johnny smiled. “No problem.”

“But now that I know what it’s actually worth and what actually happened—”

“I can’t take it back.”

The sister threw up her hands in frustration but she didn’t say anything. Smart. Sabina was dying to use her knives on actual human beings.

“As a collector, Stevie,” Coop said from behind Johnny—how long had he been there?—“you could donate the violin to Johnny for his lifetime. As a collector, since you don’t play yourself, it would be considered completely normal and no one would have to know anything but that.”

Johnny suddenly shook his head. “I . . . I’m not ready to play a Guarneri.”

MacKilligan suddenly made a scoffing sound and Jess thought she’d have to start punching bitches in the face, too, but then the hybrid said, “Of course you’re ready.”

“No, I’m not.”

“I’ve heard you play,” she said flatly, staring at Johnny like he was an idiot. “You’re ready. And just so we’re clear, I wouldn’t say that if I didn’t mean it. I don’t care what my father may have stolen from you. When it comes to music, if you suck, I tell you that you suck. But when you’re actually good, I tell you that too.”

“It’s true,” her sister interjected. “She’s a total bitch when it comes to her music or science. Anything else . . . she could give a shit.”

“Yeah,” Johnny said, “but a Guarneri . . .”

“You were playing a Stradivarius,” MacKilligan reminded him.

“Well . . . I kinda had to. My mom bought it for me. But to get a donation of this kind and then to fuck it up.”

“You won’t.” And MacKilligan said it so plainly, her gaze right on him, that Jess knew she meant it. She had no doubt in Johnny’s talents. None. Something that meant way more to Jess than the four million she’d originally paid for the Stradivarius at auction.

“Just one thing, though,” MacKilligan went on. “A favor. When you play the Met—”

“I’m not playing the Met.”

“You will. And when you do, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.” She smiled. “It’s my absolute favorite and it will make you a household name. I know it’s common and you hear it all the time in movies and commercials, but for violin . . . it never fails to make me feel. And I would absolutely love to hear you play that on a Guarneri. I mean, the power of your playing combined with the power of that violin . . . it completely outstrips the Stradivarius in intensity.” She glanced at Jess. “No offense.”

What was Jess supposed to say to that when the woman was donating a twenty-two-million-dollar violin to her only son? “None taken.”

* * *

“About the jackal house . . . I don’t want them to lose it.”

Johnny DeSilvo’s adoptive mom frowned. “Why would they lose the house?”

“Told ya,” Max muttered. “Set up.”

“Could you go away?” Stevie growled at her sister, completely fed up with her shit right now.

“But—”

“Go away!” she snapped, ready to start the punches again.

“Fine!”

Once her sister had stormed back into the house with everyone else, Stevie faced Jess Ward and put on her best audience smile. “Sorry about that.”

“I have five daughters . . . I get it.”

“Yeah, you probably do. Anyway, what happened at the house . . . my fault. I don’t want the Jean-Louis Parkers held responsible for it.”

“I get that, but our contractor says we’re looking at six figures’ worth of damage.”

Six figures? Holy shit.

“O . . . okay. I can’t pay that now, but I can get it.