Duncan slowly nodded. “Yeah. Like it was foretold.”
“Eh, what?”
“Nothing,” Duncan said, draining his bottle. He tossed it in the recycling bin and grabbed another one from the fridge. “I’m going to take a shower and unpack. Need any help with dinner?”
“Naw, I’ve got it.”
But as Duncan grabbed his bag and left the kitchen, Badger couldn’t help there was…something else. Something different about his friend from before.
Well, sitting through something like that will sour any man with a heart, I guess.
He went back to working on dinner prep, shoving those thoughts out of his mind.
Because if he didn’t, his thoughts would drag him into thinking about his own Tahlia.
And those were memories he didn’t want to relive right now.
CHAPTERELEVEN
MIRANDA
Miranda Segura tapped an elegantly lacqueredred nail against the paper currently sitting atop a file folder on the desk in her home office in her condo. Deep in thought, she let her eyes unfocus and the printed words blurred across the page, devolving into illegible nonsense.
Much like the various threads tangled in her mind at this moment.
Nothingmade sense.
Atall.
Not unless she was completely willing to suspend her belief in the world at large and entertain ideas that would normally be written off as insanely ludicrous fairy tales.
Ideas such as humans weren’t the only intelligent race of beings populating the earth, and that those other…thingsfreely walked among humans.
Masqueraded as humans.
But if this was true…
How could she best get her hands on one to start testing them? Or to sell them to the highest bidder so they could test them?
And how to accomplish all of thatwithouther father finding out about it?
She had a couple of lower-level informants from Manuel’s cartel operations keeping their ears to the ground. While not well placed, a few of them had family in the States and were also making quiet inquiries.
Then again, most of the remaining cartel personnel were lower-level, because Manuel’s best men died in Idaho.
Leaning back in her chair, she laced her fingers together and stared up at the ceiling for a long moment and pretended she was settled in her father’s chair behind his desk at the his compound.
A place that she wished she could occupy as the rightful heir and owner and not just as a daughter being allowed to sit there by her father.
None of this other stuff was business she would ever dare conduct around him. She wanted him to know nothing of her thoughts about what was going on, no risk of any of his men rifling through her things and bringing it to his attention.
She loved her father fiercely but knew he would definitely snoop if he suspected she was up to something he didn’t have a hand in controlling either directly or from the shadows.
And none of this was easily explained to him. If she told him about any of it he would—rightfully—strip her of all corporate power and appoint someone else to be his successor in the business. Or, worse, perhaps sell it outright. Because Manuel had failed so miserably in his quixotic quest that now any discussions of the reality of it were rightfully tainted by doubts and derision.
No, best to conduct this entire enterprise cautiously and keep it clandestine.
Only if it bore fruit she could pluck and sell would she consider talking to her father about it.
