Smiling to herself, she logged into her work computer and printed the e-mail to take with her later when she visited her father.
While her conscience wanted to rebel at the ruse, Miranda easily justified it.
He’s old and will only get in my way. It is long past time he step aside. Were I a son he would have turned operations over to me years ago.
He’d brought this on himself.
It was time for her to make her own fortune, no matter how she had to achieve it.
If that meant climbing over her father to do it, so be it.
CHAPTERTWELVE
NAMI
Nami couldn’t help feelingapprehensive as the day of Reggie’s birthday party approached. She both wanted to attend and yet tried to think of excuses to get out of it.
If she wasn’t there, nothing bad could happen.
Right?
It meant Dewi and Badger and Duncan wouldn’t be able to assess Dania to see if she really was a shifter.
Just because the girl got a little bitey doesn’t mean she’s a wolf.
That was her story and she was sticking to it.
By Sunday afternoon, Nami could barely contain her nerves.
Or her bladder.
Even though she went before they left the house, she asked Beck to stop at a convenience store on their way to Reggie’s parents’ home.
And bless him, Beck didn’t even hint at being impatient with her about it.
I really got myself a good one.
“What time are Dewi and them coming?” Nami asked once they were on their way again.
“I told them 3:15. Not too late, but not right when most everyone else is arriving. I want to scope out the scene first, in case Joaquin and I need to give Dewi a heads-up.”
“You make it sound like a military operation,” she said.
He glanced over at her. “Babe, it kinda is. If Dania is a shifter, or has strong shifter genes for whatever reason, weneedto know that. And she’s got two little sisters. If Dania is a shifter, we’ll convince them to let us homeschool her, for now.”
“‘Convince?’ That’s a funny way to pronounce ‘hypnotize.’”
“It’s Prime powers, and you know it.”
“So Dewi and Badger will just tell her parents what to do?”
“Duncan’s coming, too. And I don’t know what you want me to say.Thisis what we do. While it doesn’t happen very often, if we find a shifter born to clueless parents, we figure out a way to bring them all in. Or, at least have them move close enough to other shifters so we can interact with them and the child. It’s a rare occurrence but it’s happened enough in the past we have a plan in place. It’s worked every time so far.”
“Then what happens?”
“Once the child is old enough to understand what’s going on and knows not to shift at inappropriate times, and why, then we can back off. But can you imagine what would happen if in the middle of a crowded lunchroom at school they got into a fight with someone and accidentally shifted in the middle of it? Do you understand how deep of shit we’d be in? Especially now?
“Everyone has cell phones with cameras. Places have CCTV. You can Prime a couple of witnesses to misremember or forget something. It’s harder to track down cameras. And once that footage is in the wild, there’s no getting it back. That might be the only good thing about AI exploding right now is footage can be blamed on that. But blaming AI doesn’t help if the government starts snooping and gets their hands on someone and starts experimenting on them.”
