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But it was surrounding her now, a hug of sound to help her decompress after a crazy day.
She was leaning over her desk, wiping the surface with a cleaning wipe when she heard the code being punched into the lock.
She didn’t bother to look up, knowing Gunner was working a job that might bring him back into the office.
The two hadn’t gotten along since the day she started working there, always grating on each other’s nerves, so there was no reason to look up, possibly initiate a conversation neither of them wanted to have.
But as soon as the door slammed, she heard a voice that was decidedly not Gunner’s mumbling.
“Just an easy two-minute meeting,” Kai’s voice grumbled, making her head shoot up.
Mainly because Kai was not one prone to things like mumbling and grumbling.
Kai was all light and heart and a laid-back kind of charm that made him easy to be around, a good balance to all the overly strong personalities in the office.
She hadn’t known he’d been out on a job. It must have been something Quin threw at him last minute after he had already left for the day.
But there was no mistaking it, he’d been on a case.
Because he had been roughed up.
His long hair was barely still wrapped in the bun it’d been in earlier, hanging loosely on the side of his head.
His eye was darkened, his lip split, blood splattering his white tee.
Rough.
She had never seen him look so rough before.
In fact, sometimes it was easy to forget that his particular niche in the business came with a certain degree of danger. More so, in some ways, than many of the others on the team.
Because Kai was the one who showed up and delivered news that was most often unfavorable to the person receiving it.
He was like a real-life version of the old saying about shooting messengers.
And, clearly, whatever news he had just delivered had not gone down the way Quin had suggested it might if it put the usually jovial Kai in a sour mood.
“Are you alright?” she heard herself ask without having been conscious of even thinking the words.
Kai’s head shot up, almost like he hadn’t expected her there. Even though the light was on, the music was playing, and, well, she was almost always there.
“Fine,” he growled.
Growled.
And with nothing more, stalked down the hallway to his office, slamming the door a bit as he went.
She found her eyes watching the space he had vacated. A strange, undeniable tightening in her core had her stiffening, sure she was misinterpreting it, trying to convince herself it was hunger or cramps or a miserable case of stomach flu.
Not what she had a sneaking suspicion it actually was.
Not when she was engaged to someone else.
Not when she realized several months before that Kai was, well, over her.
Once and for all.
That that door was closed.
Slammed shut.
She’d swore she even heard steel bars clicking into place, locking her out.
Shutting off a possibility she had convinced herself she didn’t want in the first place.
But this feeling, this one she was trying to deny, yeah, it was making her realize she hadn’t proved it to herself.
Not completely.
Maybe in her head.
But not the other parts of her.
Damn.
TWO
Jules
There had to be something.
There was always something.
No matter how small.
Small things led to bigger things that led to figuring it all out. If you looked hard enough. If you were dedicated enough.
I knew this because I had eaten, slept, and breathed this world for years. Because I learned from the best of the best.
A team of fixers with various skills who took me in, trusted me, allowed me to learn the secrets of the trade, all the little ways dirt could be hidden, so I knew how to uncover it for myself should I need to.
And now I needed to.
So I had to find something.
Some breadcrumb.
Some speck of dust.
Some piece of paper.
Some freaking reason.
Yes, a reason would be most welcome.
Least logical, of course.
I had learned from Quin that the why was not all that important in the grand scheme of things.
But that was back when it didn’t matter, when it was impersonal, when it was someone else’s life being turned on its axis.
I suddenly had a lot more respect for the men and women in the office who held it together when their lives turned chaotic, sending them to Quin for help.
I mean, sure, a lot of them broke down. Raged. Cried. Shut completely off from the world and themselves.
But there were some stoic ones, the ones who listened to Quin as he detailed exactly how their lives were going to change, who didn’t bemoan their fate, who simply accepted things as they came.
I never anticipated my life would turn on its head, of course. I was too careful. Too regimented.
But you couldn’t help but have your mind wander sometimes. Lying in bed at night waiting for sleep to claim you, imagining yourself in odd, crazy situations you knew logically you would never land in, but pretend to navigate your way through it anyway, thought about what you would say or do, about how you would handle it. Somehow develop badass self-defense skills despite never having taken a class, spout an elegant diatribe despite the fact that you were the sort to choke on your own tongue and spit in tense situations.
