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He said something that had obviously amused her, because she burst out laughing, then punched him in the chest.
“Not flirting,” I muttered to myself. I knew Evie. She didn’t play games like that with people. Especially not with people she already thought she had hurt.
The boy thinks to take what is yours,a voice said in my head.Kill him quickly, painlessly, and Evie will forgive you.
I frowned. No, she wouldn’t. Evie would never forgive anyone for killing someone she considered innocent.
My hands came up to my temples. I had a vicious headache.
“Nathaniel?”
I turned, finding Naomi watching me. After a long moment, she finally spoke. “Hunter said to tell you he’s on the way back. No sign that Frederik has been sending his wolves to HFE, although he’s been approaching other wolves in an attempt to form an alliance and take you out.”
A growl left my throat. “I should’ve killed him all those years ago.”
Naomi just shrugged. “The power vacuum would’ve been a pain in the ass. Is everything okay?”
“Fine.” I glanced at Evie again. Liam had left, and she was walking toward me.
“I have work to do,” I said. Turning, I attempted to ignore the hurt flickering over Evie’s face as I stalked back toward my car.
* * *
Evie
I swalloweddown my hurt as Nathaniel walked away from me. Beneath the hurt was confusion. Heknewthere was nothing between Liam and me. He likely even already knew Liam was dating someone else, thanks to his compulsive need to knoweverythingthat was happening in his pack.
Annoyance battled with concern. As much as I wanted to fight it out with Nathaniel, he’d made it clear he didn’t want to talk. If he needed his space, I’d give it to him. To be honest, after that reaction,Ineeded a few hours of space.
Changing course, I headed back toward the road. I had work to do anyway. We needed to find the remaining labs—not to mention, we also needed to come up with a plan that would allow us to hit them all at the same time.
Rose was in my office when I arrived.
“You look glum,” she said, and I sighed.
“Relationship stuff.”
“I heard about the mating. Congrats.”
“Thanks. What have you got?”
She nodded at the board. “Your uncle got in touch. He decided to follow the thread Keigan left when he spilled everything to Danica.” Her face twisted, and I couldn’t blame her. Keigan had been a Discipulus mage and my sister’s mentor. Rose had worked with him too. And when Danica was held in the underworld, she learned he’d worked at the very lab that had kidnapped and imprisoned our mom.
“What did Eachann say?”
Rose’s mouth twisted. “He’s obviously the mysterious type. He said to tell you he found something, and that Keigan is just the start.”
Well, that was cryptic. Thankfully, I was due to meet my uncle here tomorrow. I’d pick his brain then.
Rose planted herself at Kyla’s desk, and we worked quietly for a few hours. The biggest issue with narrowing down the labs was digging through the various shell companies. If we were going to take HFE down, we had to make sure they could never reorganize again.
Pulling the lapis lazuli out of my pocket, I studied it. I’d been compulsively checking it every day, but so far, Hellaphine was still in the seelie realm. As much as I hated how she was being treated, the longer she stayed there, the more time it would give us to find all the labs.
Eventually, Rose left to meet with Steve. “I’ll keep you updated,” she said as she strolled toward the door.
Nodding absently, I dove into my research. Excitement shot through me. I was seeing the patterns now. HFE thought they were untouchable. Sure, they’d buried their labs in those shell companies, but they used the exact same pattern each time. As soon as I dug deeper, their cover fell apart.
“Evie.”
