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Seth nodded. “She suggested I have someone look into him, and?—”

He opened something on his computer and jerked his head in invitation, so I came to stand behind his shoulder while he read the email.

Donnie was on Igarashi’s payroll.

He wasenormouslyon Igarashi’s payroll, by the looks of it, bringing in six figures consistently for the past five years, starting when he was a freshman in college.

That was longer than we’d been working on this deal with Igarashi. And Dakota?

“Do you think Dakota knows?” I asked Seth, doubt already rolling through my stomach.

Strangely enough, it wasn’t doubt about Dakota. More, I was worried he’d gotten into a situation he hadn’t realized he was in.

Seth scrolled down through the financial records, frowning. “Looks like Dakota pays the lion’s share of the rent. Hard to imagine he’d be okay with that if he knew Donnie was stacking this kind of cash. I...” Seth folded his hands on his stomach and leaned back in his chair to look up at me. “I don’t think this has anything to do with our deal.”

“But then... what the fuck does it have to do with?” I scowled. What interest did Igarashi have in Dakota’s roommate?

Igarashi Minori hadn’t seemed particularly strange to me the night before. She’d been pleasant, open, and decent, even in a room mostly full of werewolves.

When she’d shown up in the office, I hadn’t expected that.

But had she reacted strangely to seeing Donnie? I’d been so wrapped up in Dakota’s reaction to him that I hadn’t much thought of it, but if she knew what was going on, I’d damn well have answers.

Dakota deserved them too.

29

Dakota

It wouldn’t leave me be after practice, even as I drifted my way home, walking the distance instead of getting a ride, or even a bus.

If Jax bit me the way he wanted to, the way I kind of wanted him to as well, I’d probably die.

We could never have that.

There would always be this wall between us, no matter what either of us wanted, just because he was a wolf and I was a mage. It was like some shitty star-crossed lovers story where the people pine for each other, and possibly die tragically, alone and miserable.

I did not want to be a character in gods-damned Wuthering Heights.

Should I quit my job, walk away, stop torturing us both?

Maybe if I read enough old magic books, I’d find a way to make myself immune to the werewolf bite. Or... something. There had to be a solution, didn’t there?

Or I could spend a lifetime researching and find nothing, after forcing us both into a hell of my making, waiting in limbo for an answer that didn’t exist.

I almost dropped the key to the front door twice before managing to get it unlocked and heading inside. I flipped the living room lights on, wondering if Donnie was already out clubbing for the night, only to find that he’d been sitting there alone in the dark.

And now he was blinking against the lights but staring right at me.

I cocked my head at him. “Are you sick?”

He shoved himself up to standing—a sudden, violent motion, and it startled me so much that I took a step back.

“Donnie?”

He was wearing the same outfit he’d been wearing at karaoke the night before, which was weird, because he was in our apartment. His clothes were all there. Even I’d changed, because I had an extra suit at the office, but he’d had no barrier to changing clothes, and yet had not.

“So you’re fucking your boss,” he said, artless and strangely annoyed by something that didn’t even affect him.