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I already had my mostly-empty box, my car keys gripped in one hand, Panther’s leash looped around the wrist of the other. I began walking the wolfhound out of my now-defunct clinical office. I glanced around at the reception desk, the waiting room with its saggy chairs, the coffee table covered in years-old magazines. I only spared one, brief look at the stained carpet where Black and Nick had found Gomey.

I decided I didn’t want anything in that box.

I didn’t want anything from here.

I dumped the box on the reception desk, and slid the leash down to my hand.

“Absolutely,I’m in,” I told Black. “Do you want me to bring bagels back? Or breakfast burritos? I’m kind of hungry.”

Another plume of heat erupted in my chest.

I felt so much of him in it, I shivered.

“Burritos,” Black growled. “Make mine with sausage. Then get your goddamned ass to work,ilya.You’re already late. I’m going to have to dock your pay.”

I scoffed. “Big words for a guy who just got down on his hands and knees andbeggedme to come work for him again,” I said. “Incidentally, I want a raise.”

“You’re getting a house on the beach,” Black scoffed back. “That’s not enough?”

I finished locking the door behind me and began descending the concrete steps to the street, now bouncing on my heels. Panther walked ahead without pulling on the leash. He sniffed the sidewalk, trees, and stoops with interest, his tail wagging lazily as he led us back to the car.

I could feel me and Black’s light like a tangible, living force, moving between us, strengthening and coiling and growing hotter with each step. It was like the cord that tied us together had suddenly snapped back into place.

It’s stupid, but I almost wanted to cry.

Since everything that happened the previous year, I’d felt so lost. I’d dealt with it by pushing Black away, figuratively and even literally in a lot of ways. I’d taken my name off his businesses, signed everything back over to him. I told him I needed myownjob, myownlife, that I needed to feel independent of him again, married or not.

He’d said he understood.

He’d promised not to pressure me, or give me a hard time.

He probablydidunderstand, and hehadn’tpressured me, but I think I’d been approaching the whole thing the wrong way.

Black himself had never been the problem.

I’d made it about him, blamed him, but it had always been about me, and now I could feel something in me had changed. I still didn’t want to be co-CEO of Black Industries. I didn’t want to help him run his company; that was his thing, not mine. But I wanted to work with him again. I wanted to work with my friends. I just didn’t want to lose myself.

I didn’t want to lose the person I’d been.

You never will, doc. Never, never, never. I won’t fucking let you.

“It’s arealjob, then?” I inquired coyly. “You’re sure? You’re not going to go on some mad power trip in a week and fire me?”

“Of course it’s real,” he said, mock-indignant. “What kind of a liar do you think I am? Of course, Istillmight fire you. You arevery verylate coming into work this morning. And I don’t have my burrito yet, and now I’m hungry.”

I snorted, and felt his heat coil liquidly in my chest.

Then, just to be a brat, I clicked the red phone symbol on the glass screen of my mobile phone, and hung up on him.

8

THE JOB

“Someone’s dead?” I frowned, feeling strangely let down. “So this is a murder case.” Still thinking, I looked over at Black, unable to hide my disappointment. “Who’s the victim?”

“Lucian Rucker,” Black said.

My ears did prick at that.