Chapter 6
Deal? What Deal? Did Someone Make a Deal?
Kit felt his gut clench in panic. Fairy deals were slippery, ticking time bombs, and if Coffee really had died with a deal in place, any number of existence-ending disasters could be now on the horizon.
Most people made expedient deals. Get me out of this problem, and I’ll give you my firstborn child.
Those were personal disasters. Not so fun, but really not his problem.
But a get-out-of-dead deal was something bigger.
It was long-standing, and it messed with reality.
Coffee would have had to give up something big in return.
Like the nuclear codes kind of big. No, not like that.
Fairies always wanted something weird. Turn people into donkeys weird or spin straw into gold.
Wait, he was mixing stories. He took a deep breath and tried to focus. What kind of fairy deal could Coffee have made? Best guess came down to—save me from death, and I’ll be your servant.
Given that Coffee was privy to a lot of Wulf, Inc. secrets, that could mean havoc on the organization. And it could explain all the weird disasters going on around HQ. Maybe.
Bottom line, they had to find out the details. But Coffee’s room was a disorganized mess of clutter and dust. Five minutes of searching told him that they needed a systematic search.
He looked at Yordan and realized the man was calmly moving in an organized pattern through Coffee’s desk area. It was reassuring, really, and it helped Kit clear his emotions away enough to breathe. Or he did until Yordan looked up at him.
“You’re panicked.”
“No. Maybe. Well, yes. I’m thinking about all the possibilities. Some of them are—”
“Horrifying. I know. But the only way to get more information is to find it.” Yordan clenched his hands into fists. “What the fuck was he thinking?”
“Now who’s panicking?” Kit shot back. It helped to banter a bit. “But randomly going through this disaster area will take hours. We’ll have to do it, but there has to be a better way. You knew him better than I did. Where would Coffee keep something important?”
“The man was a random collection of impulses and trivia. Look around. This was as organized as he got.”
Both their gazes landed on Yordan’s stack of bills. It was the one clear place in the entire room. They both had the same thought as they stepped closer to it.
“Why did you put the money there?” Kit asked.
“It’s where people paid their debts. Always. He had a ritual where they had to—”
“Come to his room to settle their bets. I remember.”
Yordan’s gaze cut to him. “You had a running bet with him, too?”
“Not a running one. Just one, but...” Oh God. It couldn’t be.
Kit felt the blood drain from his face. Holy shit, could that be the source of his problem? All this time, it was a fucking bet with a dead man?
Yordan caught his elbow as he swayed. It was just the contact he needed to find his focus again. But damn it, panic was half a breath away.
“You had a bet,” Yordan confirmed. “Did you pay it off?”
“It wasn’t that kind of bet.”
“It was always that kind of bet.”
Yes, it was. And it explained Kit’s horrifying, debilitating problem. The one that had begun days after Coffee had died. God, he was such an idiot for not thinking of that before. But damn it, who remembered drunken bets?
Meanwhile, Yordan shot him a look that promised to poke deeper into that little problem. Wow, that was going to be painful. But for the moment, Kit was able to distract him.
“If this is the only clean place in the room, then it stands to reason that—”
“He’d keep whatever was vital right here,” Yordan said as he began opening drawers on the dresser. It was the usual collection of underwear, sweats, and novelty T-shirts from every random place Coffee had ever been in. And he’d been in a lot.
“This is just his T-shirt collection,” Kit said.
That was the man’s favorite bet with new puppies.
How many novelty tees are in my dresser?
True or false, I have a tee shirt from a dive bar named Titty Galore Gives Blue Balls.
(True.) There was an endless supply of humor surrounding his T-shirts, and he never failed to bring them up with new puppies.
“I know, I know,” Yordan muttered as he systematically searched through the drawers.
He pressed into the back and the top, looking for secret compartments or hidden folders.
Nada. “It wasn’t that he was chaotic, you know,” he said.
“He was a creative thinker, always coming up with random facts and the like.”
Kit nodded as he looked around. “As if he had an organization that isn’t obvious to a logical mind.
” Which meant Yordan wouldn’t be able to figure it out.
The man was a straight shooter. His room probably had his clothing stacked in precise piles and his shoes had the toes flush with an invisible straight line.
Kit frowned, trying to imagine the situation. “When puppies came in to pay up, where would Coffee sit? What was his ritual?”
“You never saw it?”
Kit shook his head. He’d been in a different combat pack and only rarely coincided with Nero’s pack.
Yordan pointed to the office chair. “He’d sit in his office chair like a king on a throne. The puppies would stand there, holding their cash or whatever. Coffee had a lecture he’d give about always paying debts and then make them set down the money, one bill at a time right there.”
Just like Yordan had been doing a few minutes ago.
“And then what?”
“He’d ask if they wanted to try double or nothing, and eventually, everyone learned to say no.”
Kit nodded. He’d heard of double-or-nothing bets that ended up in the thousands of dollars range.
“When it was done, the puppies would have to say ‘I’ve learned my lesson’ and leave.”
“That’s it?”
Yordan nodded. “That’s it.”
Kit went over to the desk and sat down exactly as Coffee would have. He opened the desk drawers. Nothing.
“I already looked there,” Yordan said.
Yes, but Yordan was organized. Coffee was creatively organized.
Which was to say, where would Kit put something secret and important that he could grab right from this seat?
His gaze landed on the tiny bedside table just close enough to reach if one were as tall as Coffee.
The table had a drawer filled with random shit and a few condoms. Kit knew because it was half open and he could see inside.
But what wasn’t immediately visible was the back of the table.
He reached behind, fiddled around blind for a second to find the hidden latch, and then popped it open. He pulled out several thin notebooks and what looked like a kid’s diary.
“I would have found that eventually,” Yordan said without heat. “But I never would have thought my way there.”
“Wulf, Inc. has a lot of employees. I’ve learned some require more flexibility of thought when working with them.”
Yordan grunted. “Which is why I don’t work with them,” he said as he took the diary from Kit. “This kind of shit drives me crazy. Without discipline, everything falls apart.”
“Werewolves aren’t exactly known for their discipline.”
“Which is why we need it even more.”
“And just how disciplined was it when you poked Fuse into blowing up a gator mound?”
Yordan flushed and looked away. “I fucked up. I admit it. And that’s why I don’t deserve a promotion. You don’t reward fuckups.”
No, but you did move them to where they would be most valuable to the company after—theoretically—ending the screw-ups. That was what he was thinking. What he said, however, was even more important.
He touched Yordan’s arm, squeezing it until the man met his eyes.
“No one thinks you’re a fuckup, least of all me.”
“Then why haven’t I ever been given a combat pack of my own?”
“Because you never wanted one!” The need to deal with Coffee’s screw-up burned in Kit’s gut, but nothing would stop him from finally having an honest conversation with Yordan.
“I know your file word for word.” In fact, he’d developed an unhealthy obsession with it.
“You never push for alpha, you always take the beta role. You dole out the discipline with an even, fierce hand, and you’re great with new recruits.
There’s not an alpha here that doesn’t want you in his pack. ”
“Gummy does just fine for me.”
“Why? Why do you always accept the beta role?” He shook his head. “It’s not a lack of confidence. You know your worth.”
“I do,” Yordan agreed. “And I know what I’m not.” He glanced back at the secret compartment behind the table. “I’m not flexible.”
“But—”
Yordan cut him off. “Priorities, Scot.” He opened the first page of the diary, but Kit grabbed his arm.
“You’re just as much a priority as this.”
Yordan snorted. “Fairy-created Armageddon?”
“Let’s just say that you’re very high up on my list.”
Yordan visibly gaped at him. “Because Fuse blew up a gator mound?”
“Because you’re not a beta. And after the last eighteen months, we need you to get over your shit and start leading.”
He saw the weight of his words hit Yordan.
He watched as the man’s eyes widened and his shoulders stiffened as if he were being threatened.
And maybe he was. Wulf, Inc. was massively understaffed.
It needed all its people stepping up like never before.
Whatever the deal was with Yordan, Kit had made it his mission to figure out.
“You don’t know a damned thing about me,” Yordan countered, his tone angry.
“Maybe not, but I want to.” Understatement of the year.
“Uh-uh. Leave that to the shrink.”
“Uh-uh. This is not something I’m going to delegate.”
Kit stared hard at the man, making sure his intentions were absolutely clear. Yordan was not going to hide from him. Wulf, Inc. needed him desperately, but more than that, Kit wanted to find out what drove the man. What were his secrets? What were his loves?
And then, maybe, he would know if his obsession with the guy was built on fantasy or something a lot more interesting.