Harry shook his head, his jaw tight. “The hell they’d get it out of me. I’ll just act like I don’t remember. They can’t make me confess something I refuse to confess.”
Mara’s heart beat a tribal call of love for Harry. Even though he hated the idea of being one of them, he was protecting her anyway.
“And that’s all well and good, Harry, but is it fair? To you? To put you through a rigorous investigation, have the council invade your life? Mimi’s and Fletcher’s lives? Because that’s what’ll happen.”
Harry squared his shoulders, his jaw tight. “I don’t care. I’ll do whatever I have to do to keep Mara safe.”
“You know,” Keegan shook a finger at Mara, “if you’d come to me sooner, Harry’s suggestion might have worked, Mara. But you didn’t. You didn’t trust me enough to handle this—or to help you. Now, what if this information I have is leaked, accusing you directly, and it spreads like wildfire through the pack? You know what gossip is like. It’s hard enough to deal with weres and humans working together side by side. Then there’s the fact that in the thirty-five hundred employees we have here, there are a total of twenty or so humans.”
“Actually fourteen, if my records, and my nose, are correct,” Harry offered.
Keegan nodded. “There’s a reason for that. First, office affairs happen whether we like it or not. There are some pack members who are single. Single plus working closely together can create trouble and unwanted drama. Add in paranormal trouble, and we’ve got a problem. We’re careful about who we hire, not just because of this purity law, which I also think is ridiculous, but because what if the wrong human, one who becomes involved with a were, finds out, freaks out, tells the world?”
“We end up an episode of The Werewolf Diaries?” But her attempt at the joke fell flat. Much like most jokes fell flat with Keegan.
“No, funny girl. We’re a little sunk. You know why the rule to keep to your own was implemented in the first place. Sure, it’s a little more lax since Marty and I happened, but we didn’t just do it to protect our own kind. We did it to protect humans from the trauma Marty, and now Harry, have experienced. We’re as equal opportunity as we can be in the situation without risking the wellbeing of thousands.”
Everyone stood silent. No one could deny Keegan’s logic.
Tears streamed down Marty’s face. If Mara regretted one thing, it was that Marty had brought them all so close together, and now she was ripping them apart, leaving Marty the challenge of making peace with both sides of the issue, Keegan’s duties and her friendship with Mara.
Wanda held out a hand to Marty, squeezing it, just as Nina grabbed a tissue and blotted her friend’s tears before shoving it under her nose and dabbing. “Don’t cry, blondie—you get all blotchy and it’s damn ugly,” Nina snarked, pulling Marty into her embrace.
But Keegan wasn’t done. Yet Mara saw the effort it was taking for him to steel himself against his wife’s tears. “Harder still is keeping our paranormal business from leaking to the outside world. If pack members are all abuzz about this, what if someone slips? It isn’t like employee A slept with employee B and folks are whispering about it behind their hands. That’s harmless gossip about an act with consequences meant only for the two people involved. You created a baby-making formula—or at the very least, a formula that produced an actual werewolf. How can I hide that from the council? Pack members will want answers, and as well liked and respected as you are, you have a dangerous mind. What that mind made in a lab with some hormones and whatever else you used to do this will scare the hell out of everyone. I’m scared by it.”
The lump in her stomach hardened until she thought she might vomit. The chaos she’d created had a domino effect she had, in all her smarts, never considered—making the choice she’d been toying with in her head since Keegan had called them up here clearer. “Which is why I’m turning myself in. No guilt. No conspirators. No blame—just me,” Mara said before breaking away from Harry and jumping out of the fourth-floor window to the tune of crashing glass and Harry’s howling roar of protest.
* * *
“DUDE!” Nina roared in Harry’s face as he struggled to break her grip, clenching his wrists so tight he forgot all about the badass he’d been back at the office today with Lloyd.
Fighting a very unmanly wince, he relaxed like he was the one who’d decided to give in, rather than Nina forcing him to submit. “If you don’t sit the fuck down in this chair, I’ll break off your nerd fingers one by one and you’ll never play Call of Duty again. Got that, dork?”