Page 63 of Old Secrets

“Still, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I truly fucked up in more ways than I care to think about, but a lot of my behaviors were cultivated through abuse. The only way I fix that is changing me, well, normally. In our case, you changed me. I would have completely broken had I remained a submissive. But before I completely shattered, your magic fixed the core problem.”

“I liked you just as you were before, Jake.”

“I’m still the same person, Karma. My wolf just isn’t being tormented all the time trying to be something he’s not. It was a gradual change, but you’re why I wasn’t crushed beneath the weight of it all.”

I added the discussion as something else to bring up to Mellisa to work on after we finished dealing with Greenwich. “You seem less cuddly.”

“You just want more attention,” he countered.

Grinning, I went for another piece of sushi, saluted him with it, and popped it into my mouth.

“That takes us to our independent work. Greenwich went underground, probably trying to track you down, but since you left the circles where their operatives could locate you, you essentially disappeared on them. Your file was locked in the FBI, so I’m betting the Greenwich operatives lost access. My file was likewise locked down. Not even my parents have access to it at the moment.”

“Will your parents be changing positions in the FBI?”

I foresaw a great deal of complexity if either of his parents were involved with CARD.

“I’ll be making the request that they focus on violent crimes while we work in CARD. The overlap should be minimal, and my mother can easily redirect CARD-related things to someone else’s work pile. I won’t enjoy the fight involved to make it happen, but I’ll see to it. The last thing I need is a heart attack from worrying about my lovely vixen of a wife eating my mother’s face because of territory disputes. I suspect that is already in the works, however. Mellisa wouldn’t put you in a work environment with my mother unless you are ready for it.”

“Knowing her, she’s going to do it just to make sure we’re kept on our toes,” I muttered.

“With the new intel, I suspect Greenwich was searching for you, probably as a live capture. After the London shooting, you would have established yourself as your parents’ daughter, and if they had you alive, they would be able to control your parents. Seeing what they can do, Greenwich might not even need weapon codes to do a lot of damage. If they know about their ability to mark souls as they do, they’d be able to mark assassination targets with ease—and eliminate them. And if they have figured out the Inquisition exists, then we’d all run high risk of exposure. I’m not sure our witches are strong enough to take on your parents.”

“My parents are terrifying when provoked.” I polished off my plate and set it on the table. “Your turn to eat while I do most of the talking, unless you have something to add?”

“That’s the core of it. What are your thoughts?”

While Jake attacked the food on his plate, I took a few minutes to gather my thoughts. “I think we have a few key problems on our hands. Greenwich’s infiltration of the military and American branches of government and law enforcement is certainly worrisome. If the Inquisition wasn’t so good at sniffing out who is a Normal and who isn’t, they might have managed to infiltrate the Inquisition. They haven’t, have they?”

“No, they haven’t,” he confirmed. “The Inquisition only brings in Normals once they’ve been heavily vetted—or they’re the mate or child of a witch or wolf. And some mates haven’t been inducted because they aren’t aware their spouse is more than meets the eye. That’s rare, though.”

I nodded. “What we need to identify is when my ma allied herself with Greenwich. I don’t think it would have been before London; everything was normal as far as I could tell. And since my ma hadn’t panicked about my affinity with foxes, I think this air fox clan are the ones who ultimately buried their son’s death and made sure I had a place.”

“And that means this fox clan would have been monitoring you and the situation.”

“That leaves us with the pack of papers that my ma was supposed to have. Have you heard anything about the safe deposit box?”

“Unfortunately not. If they found any documents, they haven’t told me about them yet.”

“So, that’s where I think we need to truly start. What documents had been brought over from China? Why did my ma hide them from me?” I hadn’t put much thought into it, especially as I had no reason to think there might be someone who understood my physical problems. “I’m going to be livid if it’s a basic guide on how to properly be a fox, Jake. Including life span, not actually sharing traits with cuttlefish, and important details like the length of pregnancy and so on.”

My mate snickered, devoured another piece of his tempura, and grinned at me. “I’m not sure if I’m thrilled or terrified of multi-year pregnancies with entire litters.” His expression sobered, and he added, “I’m also worried about how we’ll both handle the loss of any of the children. Your parents seem to always lose at least one.”

“You’ll be providing robust new genetics, so hopefully the additional diversity will prevent health problems.” I winced as the reality of the situation once again crashed down on my head and shoulders. “We’re going to be blubbering messes even if we end up with an entire flock of ten and we lose even one.”

“That’s why you’ll do well in CARD, Karma—that’s why you were always a good fit for CARD. You will absolutely fight the odds to save a kid, and you really aren’t the kind to take not trying to solve the case well.”

“I wonder how the CARD team handled the Johnson case—likely knowing my ma did it without finding the proof.”

“They’re still alive, well, and working in CARD, although they’re senior members now. But, I suspect they had one good reason to keep from flinging around accusations: you. They would have seen that they had a healthy, happy young child in their custody. Without proof, they would have risked turning your life upside down even more. And despite what your ma did, I do genuinely believe that your ma tried her best, in her twisted way. That doesn’t make what she did right, but she did try. In the end, she went back to her old ways and took your pa out with her when she went, but she did her job as a mother.”

“At only the basic level.”

“Karma, you’re a caring, driven, and successful woman. Your ma played her part in that. So did your pa. Was she a good or perfect mother? No, she really wasn’t. But she did more than just her job with you. In some ways, she made up for the sin of killing her son. That doesn’t make what she did right, but you didn’t become an FBI agent because she wanted you to. You became an FBI agent because you believed in the cause—and you had seen how a family with a lost child suffered. That was mostly your pa, but your ma played her act well. The more I think about it, the more I don’t believe Greenwich had any involvement in your upbringing.”

“Why?”