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I heft a box with no label onto the desk to peruse through. “I’ll give you that. It’s weird, but I also haven’t gone looking for him, either.”

“Valid. I’ll be curious to see how long you can go living in his house without spotting him.”

“You sound like you’re taking bets.” I narrow my eyes at her.

“And if I were?”

I purse my lips and shake my head. “Aria!”

“I didn’t. I was just asking, jeez. Anyhow, I don’t think you’ll have time to go looking for demons when you have this much work ahead of you. Kyrin downplayed how bad things had gotten here.”

“You think?”

I’ve been working here for a week and still haven’t made heads or tails of anything or filed even one sheet of paper.

I’m still working on separating boxes of crap from boxes of papers, and I need to go through them one by one.

Kyrin had been right; I’ll be asking for a higher salary if this is what I’ll be dealing with.

Not to mention the noises and weird shit that happens in my room at night, but I can’t confide in Aria now that I know she might be feeding information to people in town.

Not that I think she’s that kind of person, but she told the story of the Demon of Ironwood Estate with an air of belief.

I don’t need to fuel that, especially since I’ll need more of her help in the upcoming days.

“So, speaking of Kyrin… What’s going on there?” She shifts the convo as Stanley walks in with two fresh mimosas on his tray and a furrowed brow that says he disagrees with our choice of conversation.

I wait until he’s gone, my eyes following him out before I take a deep breath. “Nothing. Nothing is going on there.”

“Come on! There was a palpable sense of something in that meeting. You can’t move here and hole up in this estate and not feed your carnal urges, Sera.”

“The what?” I laugh, patting myself on the back for having asked her to help me today. I needed this.

“Your carnal urges. We all have them. If you don’t feed them, they’ll become ravenous and devour any old passerby.” She tosses a legal pad into the discard pile we’ve started to the right of the door and shrugs.

“I have toys for the urges. I’ll be fine.”

“Oh, come on. Bob can’t fuck you like Kyrin can, I guarantee it.”

“Aria!” I scream as the door flies open, and in walks the reason for having to charge Bob the vibrator multiple times this week.

“Ladies.” He looks around.

Fuck, I wonder if he heard?

Aria snickers. “Boss.”

“Are you drinking on the clock?” he asks, his brow lifting as I sip my mimosa.

“I’m always on the clock.”

“Touché. Making heads or tails of anything?”

“Hah!” I huff out. “I can’t make heads or tails of shit until I clean this place up and figure out what’s worth going through, but I’m getting closer.”

“I’m sorry I let it get this bad. Sometimes, it’s easier just to…”

“Look the other way?” I ask, watching Aria slip out the door, not so subtly, with a smirk on her face. Her purse is over her shoulder, and she winks at me before leaving.