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"I grew up in a hotel with a wolf for a father. I've been studying security rotations since I was eight." She glanced at me. "Ready?"

Rosalind's suite was larger than my apartment. She was standing at the window when we came in. Still in the sunglasses, which she was apparently committed to. Her coat was not yet removed. Her hands were loose at her sides. She didn't turn when we entered. "You don't smell like handlers." The sunglasses made her expression difficult to read, which I suspected was the point.

"My name is Nell Odhiambo. This is Addie Blackwood. We're here to rescue you."

"From what?" Rosalind snorted. "The lap of luxury."

"From your upcoming marriage," I said. "You don't have to do this. You don't have to marry Magnus Blackwood. We can help you get out."

"That's very sweet of you. But, no." Rosalind shrugged out of her coat and let it fall to the floor, as though she expected someone else to pick up after her.

I looked at the coat lying on the ground, then at her. "No?"

"No," she said, with the pleasant finality of a woman closing a door. "The Elsa and Ana of it all is cute; sisters coming to the rescue. But I'm going to marry the Blackwood Alpha."

Something dropped in my chest. It was the descent of a floor giving way; fast, complete, the kind of internal event that clarified everything it touched.

I wanted to marry Magnus.

The knowledge arrived with a flat certainty. The way I had known in the cabin that I was going to help him commit corporate espionage simply because he'd challenged me. The way I had known in the elevator that I was going to spend more than one night with him. The way I had known on the boat that I would've done anything, said anything to make sure he got back on dry land alive.

I wanted to marry Magnus Blackwood.

I wanted the eggs in the morning. I wanted him to make me beg for my orgasms. I wanted his knot to keep me attached to him after he made me whimper and cry out. I wanted his name next to mine on the company sign.

I wanted all of it.

Well, maybe not all. I still wasn't sure about kids.

This messy, sunglass wearing, bitch was in my way. Not for long.

A growl rose up in my throat. Something pricked at my fingertips. A popping sound came loud as I rolled my head around neck.

"Easy, girl." Addie rested a hand on my shoulders.

I ignored my bestie and focused on the bitch. "You've never met him. You can't love him. You don't know him."

"Love is for fairytales," Rosalind said. "Marriage is strategy."

"He's a person, not a strategy."

"He's an Alpha and an exit. The only exit I have. From my mother. From the Lobo compound. It's out in the sticks… Jersey." Rosalind stage whispered the state. "It could be Magnus. It could be his sister. I don't care. Unless you can offer me a way to get away from my mother, Magnus is it."

Speak of the devil. The door opened. Sorsha Lobo stepped inside wearing her Prada heels.

She was in the same dark coat from the boat. Her eyes moved across the room with the rapid, comprehensive assessment of a predator who had walked into a situation and was already three moves ahead of it. They landed on Rosalind. On Addie. On me.

On me, they stopped.

"Ms. Odhiambo, I thought our business was concluded on the river. I can't imagine what you might want with Magnus Blackwood's fiancée."

A raise of the voice at the end of a sentence implied a question. Sorsha Lobo didn't raise her voice at any part in that statement.

"We came to speak to you about a business proposition," I said.

"What business is that?"

"I was behind the Volki liquidation. Three billion in assets, dissolved in three hours."