"Not anymore." Wolfe tossed me the keys. The man hated to drive! Weird, given everything else he preferred to control. "We need to talk."
My eyebrows perked at the red in his tone, and I nearly fucking laughed.
Here it is: my reward for dragging my dark, violent thing into hell.
"Just say it," I swallowed, throwing the marriage papers at his chest before climbing into the driver's side. "I am not in the mood to play games."
Wolfe paused, stared at them, then slipped into the seat next to me. Another odd move. Ever since I met him, he has been a back seat driver. Whatever he had to say must be bad if he needed to watch my face.
"She signed them?" he asked, blinking as he ran his seatbelt over his chest.
"You thought she wouldn't?" I watched, searching for the break, a crack, fucking anything.
I don't know why, but I wanted Wolfe to fight me, to fucking scream, to have any emotion but that cold, calculated expression that told me everything was falling into place.
"Ihopedshe would," he answered, tracing her name with the slow of his eyes. "Is she okay?"
Anger lined my insides at the tender way his voice fell into pools around her.
I did not want to share Daphne with Wolfe, not her soul, not her body, not her attention. That she had refused to let him go in her pathetic excuse for a kitchen made my throat swell. Wolfe was my placeholder, and eventually she would realize that. But for now, I respected her love. Understood that they formed together in shapes that weren't mine to play with, and graspedthat if I tore her from him without it being her choice, it would break her heart.
Her beautiful, pretty, fucking heart.
"She is pissed we left her behind," I grumbled, turning onto the freeway toward the licensing department. The sooner I get this done, the better. "But she has to wrap up matters with Golden Boy and explain to her Seattle preceptor why she is leaving the internship in Maine. She won't admit it, but I think we made things messy for her."
"Messy?" Wolfe breathed, lighting a cigarette and handing it over. "That's one way of putting it. How is she going to practice from inside the club?"
A real question that I couldn't answer.
"At some point, it will become too dangerous for her and those she serves to be associated with us."
"I know," I growled, taking the off-ramp into the clusterfuck that made up downtown Seattle. I was fairly certain whoever mapped out the road system was tripping balls off opium because nothing connected; you had to go six blocks to turn around, and it was all uphill until, of course, you slid into the dirt bag behind you for riding too close. "But it is not like we're going to ask her to give it up."
"More like redirect her services to the Underworld."
"Pff," I slammed on my brakes. "FUCK YOU, BUDDY!" I screamed at the douche with his pant leg tucked into his sock. Bike riders had a death wish, and I could give a shit about eco-friendliness. "All so what?" I tossed a glance at Wolfe. "So she can get shot in the face when a rival's baby is stillborn, or God forbid, they don't agree with one of her choices? Fuck no."
"Well," he said, bracing against the dashboard. "We're going to have to figure something out."
That Daphne had to give up any part of herself for me made me want to vomit.
"What did the cookie say?" I changed the subject, veering up the hill before turning right. "Also, thanks for stealing my clothes, asshole!"
Wolfe smiled, but it was tired, slumping off his face like a half-dead cat crawling from the center of the road.
"That is what I need to speak with you about," he sighed. "Plus, you didn't need to be Threx in Maine. I took your armor to help you turn it off."
"How poetic of you," I glared. "What did the fortune say?"
"It didn't say shit. It was coordinates," Wolfe said, pausing as I parked the car. "Do you want to file those first?" He signaled toward the door.
"No. Just tell me."
"It led to a camper way the fuck up in Bellingham. The guy was dead when we got there, but apparently, he had been running an acquisition report on our club for the last year."
"Fucking hell." I hit the wheel with both hands until my knuckles burned bright white. It was only a matter of time before Marianne's grubby hands went for our loyalty.
"There is more."