Page 49 of In Prey We Trust

Dolly’s jaw drops and she pops out of her seat, striding over to me with a furious expression. “Are you fucking kidding me? She’s trying to profit off a story about my pain?”

Felix tilts his head back and I know he’s trying to rein in his temper. The tail that flicks over my ankle tells me Rennie is doing the same. Chess has his fists balled on his lap and his face is red, but the real surprise is Fitz. His expression has gone completely neutral and everything about him is almost…blank.

That’s not good.

“I’m sorry, cupcake, but it seems like she is. The email had a whole script prepared for public promotion and a schedule for all the places online and in person she plans to send releases to. I assume she put it in motion the minute someone confirmed you’d be attending school here.”

“No worries. It won’t be an issue if they can’t find any pieces.”

At the tight words from Fitz, our bunny moves from me to him, sitting in his lap and stroking his hair off his face. “I love your crazy, baby, but we can’t do that right now. Anyone who knows her plans could bring the Council or Sibbies here. If she’s a plant for one of our other enemies, it will tip them off.”

“Excuse me, psycho family?” Rufus grins as he arches a brow. “While I love me some chaos and blood, I think Coco and I are a bit lost. We’re not privy to all of the enemies and whatnot.”

“Why are you here then?” Fitz grinds out as our girl tries to soothe him.

“Because we can help,” the bear says as she bounces in her seat. “I don’t know everything, but I think Rufus has a possible solution to this one thing. Tell ‘em about Farley.”

Who in the fuck is Farley?

Can’t Break Me

Delores

Leaning back against Fitz, I tilt my head as I wait for Rufus to speak. It occurs to me that with the overarching drama at Apex and my personal shit, I don’t know much about either of my best friends. It makes me feel bad and I rub my arms as the feeling of unease spreads through me. Have I been a bad friend? I’m not sure, but I know that’s because the only friends I’ve ever had were the Heathers. The dynamic there is nothing like what I have with Rufus and Cori which means I don’t have any comparison to examine.

“I’ll try to be brief since all these alpha males seem set to pop,” Rufus says with a smirk. “Dollybear, you don’t know a lot about my family, but I’m sure your knuckle draggers checked me out. They run a specific illegal trade throughout the Northeast because they moved from the South about a hundred or so years ago. We were well known bootleggers even then and had a huge feud with another family in the area. It was a long one and a lot of people died, so near the end, a splinter faction moved up North to start a new empire.”

My eyes narrow because this sounds pretty familiar, but I know Rufus’ family is a predstasy cartel or something. Surely no one was selling that in the 1800s? “Okay. But what does that have to do with this?”

“Patience, D.” Cori winks and socks Rufus’ arm. “Get on with it, drama queen.”

The badger chuckles and shrugs. “I can’t help myself. Anyhoo, my great-whatever grandpappy and granny and some of their bazillion kids moved up North to similar country to what they left. They started a new empire that over the years, morphed into what it is now. But they took the structure their daddy used to be successful and expanded it with some very stringent rules. Each generation would have enough children to supply a few heir possibilities plus children who will go into legal, business, and political pursuits. That way, everything we need stays in house.”

Felix gives him a sharp look. “So the McCoys basically breed a never ending supply of badgers to keep their community isolated and non-infiltrated? Sounds like something my father would do.”

My friend shrugs and gives him a toothy smile. “As I’m the top of the heap for heir apparent despite my ‘handicap’—as Granny calls it—I have access to damn near everything in the family. That’s where Farley comes in.”

I bristle at his sexuality being called a handicap, but it appears Rufus has made peace with it. He’s fought his way to the head of the clan status regardless and I assume that came with a lot of blood and teeth. “Who’s Farley?”

“And what the hell good will a drug dealer do us?” Aubrey grunts. “Except for possibly making Fitz jizz in his pants.”

“Oi, Snarky Salamander! My love juice is reserved for Baby Girl and Chessie. None of it’s getting wasted in my fucking sweats.”

“For the love of Hades’ sweaty nuts, Fitz,” Felix growls, “let the gangster speak.”

“Why, thank you, Professor Khan. I’ve always depended on the kindness of strangers,” Rufus drawls in a sugary accent. When his joke doesn’t land except for Cori and I, he rolls his eyes. “Tough crowd. Okay, so like you surmised, we have an entire firm of lawyers who handle various specialties and it’s just your luck that the meanest, most vicious honey badger in that place is also the most skilled intellectual property lawyer in the country. Farley guards all of our proprietary blends of legal shit humans consume like pot and vapes with a wink and a blade to the kidneys.”

“We can’t kill her,” I blurt nervously. “I mean, not yet? Who knows what she’s shared? My reputation is in tatters as it is; I can’t have some ridiculous bullshit floating out there suggesting all sorts of crazy shit I didn’t do.”

“Relax, Dolly,” Rennie says with a slow grin. “I think I see your tattooed friend’s point. He’s saying his relative is a skilled litigator in both the shifter and human realms. He’ll be able to dig into putting the kibosh on this lying bitch legally. If he’s as vicious as Rufus claims, this should tie her hands for long enough that we can knock some other players off the board.”

“Exactement!1” Rufus snarks. “Farley will do anything I ask because he owes me for saving his bacon when we were kids. You don’t have to worry about some insane bill—not that one of these assholes wouldn’t foot it—because this is a quid pro quo situation. Should I let him loose on the corpse gobbler?”

Looking around at my guys, I read their responses on their faces. They think it’s a good idea, but they’ll go with whatever I decide. Cori squeezes my hand and I sigh, knowing she’s in, too. “Okay. Send your honey badger to fuck her up. Anything that gets some of the pressure off that nonsense is good. I haven’t even considered how Lucille will react if it gets out because I’m savoring her lack of contact.”

“You know that’s bound to change soon, Baby Girl,” Fitz says as he buries his face in my hair. “Just like Felix knows we’ll hear from our asshole father soon.”

Another growl rumbles through me and everyone laughs. I know they all think it’s cute that I consider the current Raj one of my targets, but I’m serious as a fucking heart attack. I’m coming for that man for what he did to the cats and he’d better sleep with one eye open once I get the resources. My new ‘Fuck ‘Em Up Sis’ list is extensive and much more ambitious, but I’ll get through it if it kills me.

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