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Colter frowned and turned to face me.
“I think Mykel might be the one working against you.”
Colter blinked at me. “What?”
I explained to him that he’d been late for our session this morning and that he hadn’t wanted to say where he’d been.
“Did you know he was out?” I questioned.
Colter splayed out his hands in disbelief. “I didn’t, but that doesn’t mean I should keep tabs on his every move. We’re all free agents, and if he had something personal to take care of—”
“Or a lab to raid—”
“Why are you so set on believing it’s him?” Colter snapped. “Mykel is my beta. He’s the closest to me anyone can get.”
“And he has access to everything as a result; he knows what’s going on, what your plans are, and probably how to sabotage it.”
“It’s not him,” Colter said hotly.
“Why won’t you consider it could be?” I asked. “It might be that he’s working against you, but you trust him with everything because he’s your beta, and that just plays right into your hands.”
“Look,” Colter said tightly. He was trying very hard to hold back his anger. “Mykel isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Yeah, he can be an ass, but that doesn’t mean that he’s a bad guy. He would never go against me, and I resent that you’re suggesting it at all.”
“You’re the one who doesn’t know what’s going on. Don’t you think it might help if you investigate him? If he’s innocent, then I’m wrong, and it’s all good, but if he’s the one—”
“He’s not!” Colter snapped. “I know you have all this power now, but you don’t know what this world is like, and you have no idea what my life and the people in it are all about. This has nothing to do with you.”
I stared at Colter. “This has everything to do with me! It’s my blood they used, it’s my magic that broke the spell so we could take the machine, and it’s because you decided you want me on this project that I’m involved in the first place.”
Colter shook his head. “When it comes to your blood and who you are was because one thing led to another, but this machine and this project have very little to do with you. Mykel is trustworthy. He’s one of the few I can actually trust. If he was in on it, I would know. Just focus on your magic and looking after yourself. You have your hands full enough as it is.”
“Maybe you should just consider—”
“No,” Colter said simply.
I stared at him before rolling my eyes. Colter was being an ass. I knew this was a touchy subject, and Mykel was his right-hand man. They’d been friends for a long time, but something was clearly wrong. Someone had to figure out what the hell was going on, and I’d just tried to help.
“Fine,” I said. “You’re right. It’s not my circus, right? Not my monkeys.”
I turned around and stormed to my room. I’d slept in Colter’s room since we’d come back from the island, sharing his bed, but this room was still my space, and I wanted to be left alone.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d waited before I went back out to the living room. I hated fighting with Colter. I wanted to talk it out with him. If he didn’t want me involved, I would stay out of it, as long as he and I were okay with each other.
Colter was nowhere to be found when I walked through the apartment. Maybe he’d left with the help of his ring again. I went to the kitchen to get a bottle of water from the fridge. When I headed back toward my room, Mykel appeared in the living room. His back was to me, and I froze. I hadn’t known he had a ring like that, too. He glanced around, and I stepped back so that he wouldn’t see me. When he thought he was alone, he stepped forward and picked up the document Colter had put on the coffee table. He opened the file and flipped through the pages, taking out one or two, before he put the file back where it had been. He glanced around one more time before he twisted the ring on his finger and disappeared again.
Damn it, he had to be in on the whole thing. There was no way he could be innocent, sneaking around like this, stealing pages from a document… I just didn’t know how I was going to convince Colter of the fact that his right-hand man was betraying him.
26
LIV
How did Colter live in a penthouse with a glorious kitchen such as this and never want to cook? He always had staff coming in to prepare meals, to cook and wash up afterward. I didn’t even know if he chose the menu, or if he let the cooks and staff surprise him.
Tonight, I’d asked the staff to leave the ingredients behind, but let me do the cooking. The chef hadn’t liked the idea of handing over what he considered to be his kitchen, but he’d agreed, and I stood in the kitchen alone, chopping vegetables, and listening to music.
I hummed along to the tunes while I worked.
I wasn’t a fancy chef, and the food I made was very basic compared to what the chefs usually did for Colter, but I could make a mean lasagna, and I made a pudding for dessert. The recipe was an old family one. Not my family—it had come from a woman I’d met in the shelter, and she’d been the one to teach it to me, but I liked the idea that it wassomeone’sfamily recipe, and I’d made it my own.
