Page 36 of Her Wolf

“No, of course not.”

“But…wait a minute.” Cora tilted her head to the side. “How could they have wanted a shipment today? I mean…weren’t the poppies still supposed to have been harvested?”

“Now you know all about how to cook heroin?”

“I don’t think you cook it, either,” Cora said, frowning at him. “I looked it up on the internet, and—”

Neo cut her off with a hard bark of laughter. “You fucking looked it up on the internet.” He laughed again, slapping his hand into the wall beside the closet where he still stood. “Fuck, am I glad one of us at least knows what the fuck we’re doing.”

She blushed hard and hot, and gritted her teeth until she could hear them creaking. “Don’t you dare speak to me like that.”

“I can speak to you however the fuck I want,” Neo said, storming up to her.

It took everything she had not to retreat. As it was she trembled, but hopefully Neo didn’t see.

Surprise widened his eyes before they narrowed with irritation again. But he didn’t touch her. Didn’t grab her.

Maybe there was something to what Finn had said.

Don’t show emotion.

Even her blush was receding.

So what if she’d had to Google how the hell heroin was made? Just because her father had been a drug lord most of his adult life didn’t mean that knowledge had rubbed off on her.

And from what she knew now, she could tell Neo was lying.

Not about the dealers, but about the timeline.

But why?

“Look, whatever,” she said, swiping her hand between them as if to dismiss the argument. “This is why I wanted to talk to you. We have to decide what we’re going to do. Like now, with these dealers.”

He opened his mouth, but then closed it again as she went on.

“I mean, we don’t have anything to give them. So what are we going to do?”

He crossed his arms over his chest, and leaned his weight on his back foot. Then he shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Shit,” she murmured, jamming her hands into the pockets of her jeans. She inhaled deep, glancing around her room as her mind scrambled for a thread of a plan. “Do you know anyone who can get them heroin? Or get us heroin to give to them? We have money…” she trailed off. She had money, but it was locked up in her trust until she turned twenty-one. She doubted Nick could free anything, especially the kind of money they’d need for a shipment of heroin. It probably cost like a billion dollars or something.

Shit, she had to get back on the internet. Maybe there was a cartel start up plan she could download.

She gave Neo a grim smile, which he didn’t return.

“Maybe we should meet with them,” Cora said. “We can try and straighten this out. You know—” she moved her hands between them “—try and get an extension or something.”

Neo shrugged again, staring up at the ceiling for a moment before looking down at her again.

It had worked. Finn’s trick had worked. She’d never seen Neo this calm before. This…in control.

Now that she was taking control.

“If we both sit there and just lay it out, what are they going to do?”

Neo pressed his lips together, and let out a soft, “Hmm.”

“I mean, someone burned down our poppy fields,” she said, with a laugh in her voice. “Who does that? How could we possibly have known that was going to happen, right?”

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