Page 19 of Tiger Queen

“I vetted her,” David said.

“Is she even qualified? Or did you just hire a hot piece of ass to stare at all day?”

Rachel made an offended noise.

“She’s not just a hot piece of ass! She’s totally qualified,” Anthony chimed in. He glanced at Rachel and blushed deeply. “I mean. I’m not making any comments on how she looks. I’m just trying to say she knows what she’s doing.”

The girl stepped toward me. “I’m good at what I do—”

I held out a finger to her. “I am talking to my brothers. Not you.”

“What else were we supposed to do?” David demanded. He sounded like a fucking lawyer. “We can’t run it by ourselves. Everyone who worked for dad already split. We needed to hire someone. It’s done.”

I laughed bitterly. “And you’ve taken charge. Like you always do.”

“I thought you didn’t care about the zoo anymore,” David shot back. “You left and never wanted to come back.”

“I inherited a third of this place. Same as you.”

The two of us glared at each other, fists balled at our sides.

“I’m sorry about dad,” Anthony told me weakly. “I know you two were… You know.”

It felt like I was punched in the gut. It had been nearly a week since he died, but it hadn’t sunk in yet. It didn’t feel real. Not until Anthony said it out loud. I could see the sadness and vulnerability in my baby brother’s eyes, and it hurt because it mirrored my own emotions.

“Whatever. I’m gonna go muck out the cages. Doubt any of you have done that.” I glanced at David. “You never liked getting your hands dirty.” I walked away.

Like I said: all of this was fucking bullshit, and I already regretted coming back here.

10

Rachel

I watched Jake stalk away, angry and dismissive. He was definitely not like the other two brothers. Messy red hair that stuck out from underneath his cotton beanie. A ruggedly-handsome face with reddish scruff along his jaw. Arms that were rippled with muscle and covered with tattoos. He was like every girl’s bad-boy fantasy.

It was a shame he was such an asshole.

David let out his breath slowly. “That’s Jake. He’s a delight.”

“I can see that.”

“We rarely see eye-to-eye.”

“I can see that, too,” I said.

“He’s not usually this bad,” Anthony added. “I think he’s taking dad’s death harder than we are. They were close when he worked here.”

David said, “Let’s go sign that paperwork.”

We went into the visitor’s center and then through a door to what I assumed was the employee section. It was a mess of papers, binders, and boxes of folded zoo maps. David cleared some space at the table and handed me a stack of papers.

“I don’t know what they use here at the zoo, so I pretty much just copied the employee forms from my Crossfit gyms. With some added personal injury waivers. Read through everything and let me know if you have any questions.

I skimmed the pages. I didn’t care about paperwork. In my experience it only got in the way of the real work.

“I want to reiterate why I’m here,” I said before signing. “I’m only agreeing to work here because you’re doing the right thing. Moving the animals to other zoos and sanctuaries, where they’ll have proper homes. I didn’t come here to help you get a shady private zoo back up and running.”

“Understood,” David said.

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