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This isoursto figure out. And if I need to be the one to take it on the chin to keep it that way, so be it.

“No,” I say softly, protecting Blair once again. “There isn’t.”

20

Blair

My stomach is in knots as I ease open the door to the basement filing room in the Records department.

Kenna is leaning over a table, flipping through a stack of folders, but her eyes snap up immediately to meet mine when I step into the room.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

I fight back a flinch at the venom in her tone, even as I’m well aware I deserve it.

"Ember,” I start, and she cuts me off.

“Don’t ‘ember,’ me. What do you want, Blair?”

Despite the tension in the room, some base, lizard part of me savors her fire this morning. Burning brightly, not cowed for a moment or holding anything back now that we’re at work and I’m back to being her boss’s boss’s boss. That spark of hers is still blazing despite what must be a mountain of stress she’s dealing with.

“I want you to know that none of the information in the media has come from me,” I tell her.

She lets out a short, harsh laugh. “Yeah, I already know that. It was the wolf shifter I was on a date with that night.”

The mention of that male sends a flash of irritated heat over my skin. My body sways unconsciously toward hers with the instinct to either protect or comfort her. Hell, maybe both.

Kenna narrows her eyes at me. “Stop it. I already told you that you don’t get to be so—”

“Ember,” I say, more sharply than I mean to, but I don’t want her to finish that sentence.

Crossing the room to stand in front of her, I watch as Kenna’s lips press into a thin line and she regards me with suspicion. Which… fine. I don’t blame her for being suspicious, but nor can I shake the gnawing guilt in the bottom of my stomach. All of this is happening because of my actions, and she’s the one who’s being forced to deal with the fallout.

“I’m not happy about any of this, either.”

“Yeah, well,” she says, bitterness creeping into her voice. “I’m the one who’s dealing with it. So forgive me if I don’t have a lot of energy to deal with your emotions, too.”

“You don’t need to be the only one dealing with it.”

Kenna looks at me warily, eyes narrowing as she studies my expression. “What do you mean by that?”

“If you’d like to… make a statement. Either to the police or to the media about what happened. That’s entirely up to you, and I wouldn’t begrudge you if you did.”

She frowns. “That would be bad though, wouldn’t it? For the Bureau? And for you, I guess, if I brought your name into it.”

I grimace. “It wouldn’t be great. But that’s no reason for you not to handle this how you want to.”

“Would I lose my job if I said something?”

“No,” I say emphatically, shaking my head. “You wouldn’t.”

Another long pause before she answers. “Butyoumight.”

“It’s a possibility.”

“And you’d just… let me tank your career? You wouldn’t try to stop me or, I don’t know, kidnap me again to keep me from talking?”

The laugh I let out is brittle and humorless. “No, Kenna, I wouldn’t. You’d be more than justified in bringing the whole damn world down on my head if you wanted to.”