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Those had beenhisdecisions. They werehismemories.

Gaos,he really needed to talk to the doc. He needed to cut the shit and own up to his goddamned wife about justhow muchhad come back, not to mention how it was affecting him. She definitely knewsomethingwas going on; hell, they shared a bed. She’d heard and seen him thrashing around, fighting, waking up with cold sweats, unable to breathe.

Why was he being such a coward about telling her how bad it was?

What the hell was making him balk?

She would understand. Hell, she’d probably be relieved. It wasn’t only him who went through a major metamorphosis eighteen months ago. She’d gone through it, too.

She’d also lost friends, and even family, that she’d never properly grieved.

She’d been attacked and kidnapped and hurt and her mate had been kidnapped and attacked and hurt and both of them had their hearts broken and had hurt one another. He’d buried all of it under the shell of needing to run a war and not having time or the emotional bandwidth to do much else apart from that. She’d likely done the same.

But they didn’t have that excuse anymore.

It had been almost two years; he didn’t even have the excuse of waiting for the dust to settle. Manny and Yarli were almost done with their end of things.

He wondered if he’d never really learned how to deal with his emotions in an adult way. That fucking “Dragon” thing just burned through emotional traumas and pain without being particularly invested in them, and shunted aside anyinconvenient feelings or mental-scarring when they overly impacted his ability to function.

That part of him had never been particularly empathetic.

It hadn’t been interested in emotions at all, including his.

The Dragon’s views on Miriam and his marriage had surprisingly not been what he’d thought at the time, either.

In general, he increasingly suspected The Dragon constituted more of a full-blown parasite than he’d fully realized. It had never been a true part of Black’s mind, much less his heart. Rather, it manipulated his thoughts and feelings to get what it wanted. It overwhelmed parts of him, buried things it didn’t like or didn’t find useful, numbed traumas without resolving them, and stunted Black’s ability to process a hell of a lot, or at least to process them in a healthy way. Black now felt like he’d been toyed with.

He’d been far more of a fucking puppet than he’d ever realized.

He wondered if Miri felt like that, too.

“Boss?” Kiko quirked an eyebrow at him until he glanced up.

She was still standing there.

She’d been standing there that whole time.

“Shall I send the two suits away?” She sounded puzzled now, verging on concerned.“Do you want me to tell them we’re not open for business yet? They’re pretty adamant they won’t let anyone else take their information.”

Black frowned. “Did they give you anything at all?”

“Not really. Just names––”

“Which are?”

She flinched at his directness, but answered at once.

“Mr. Gold and Ms. Silver.”

There was a silence. Then Black snorted humorlessly.

“Great.”

“You think they know about Manny’s project?” Kiko asked cautiously.

Black considered that. “Did you have Jax check them out?”

“He didn’t get anything.” She paused, clearly waiting for direction. “Did you want me to send them away? Or not?”