“Great. Thank you.”

“Just let me know if you change your mind.”

Kera stopped again. “Change my mind about what?”

“Needing an office.”

Kera scratched her head and finally asked, “What?”

Paula relaxed back in her office chair. “Look, kid, you’ve gotta do something with your life. You can’t just sit around here during the day doing nothing.”

“I just saw a room full of women doing absolutely nothing.”

“They’re all actors and models. They’re waiting for callbacks and job offers. But with your thighs—”

“Yes! I know!”

“So you need to find something to do. Maybe when you were a kid you wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer. So be a doctor or a lawyer. We don’t give a shit. We’ll pay for it. All you gotta do is help a sister-Crow out when she needs it and be there for your night job.”

“And when would I sleep?”

“Crows need two to four hours’ sleep. Tops. What I’m saying is, the world is your oyster. Fucking shuck it already.”

“I just got here!”

Paula rolled her eyes and went back to her computer. “Like that’s an excuse.”

Fed up, Kera walked out of the office, slamming the door behind her.

She stood in the middle of the hall for several minutes, her mind all over the place, anxiety creeping up on her like a vicious house cat.

It suddenly occurred to Kera she had no control. Not of her life. Of her situation. Of anything. And that realization led to the realization that she was about to have one of her panic attacks.

Unwilling to let that happen, Kera did what she did so naturally. What she’d done for ten years while in the Marines. What she’d threatened Amsel with.

She got organized.

CHAPTER SIX

Erin was happily lounging by the pool, her body slathered in a lotion with the highest SPF she could find on the market and two giant standing umbrellas protecting her from the harsh rays of the Los Angeles sun.

She’d cleared her schedule at her shop for the next week so that she could work with the new girl, but since the new girl was off . . . doing something, she’d decided to relax. Erin loved to relax. And she was really good at it.

Even better, she wasn’t the only one relaxing. Three members of her team were relaxing by the pool as well.

Leigh was a painter and a really good one. She had a show coming up soon in Santa Monica, which meant she was doing her best to procrastinate until the gallery owner called her in a tizzy. Then Leigh would bang out the most amazing paintings in three weeks instead of using the two years she’d originally had.

Maeve, convinced she was dying, was taking her temperature at ten-minute intervals and noting the tiniest changes in her laptop. Now, to the layman, that might seem like Maeve was doing nothing, but she actually was. Because Maeve owned and ran a medical blog that tracked deadly diseases across the world and her site was huge. Absolutely gargantuan. She made afortune off her site, too, although Erin didn’t really know how any of that worked. But Maeve was rich, and she’d used that money to build a medical fortress about ten miles outside of Malibu. There she was hoarding all kinds of medication and the latest medical equipment in a panic room under the house. Word was she’d just gotten a standing MRI machine. From money she made off her blog.

The whole thing was bizarre, but in Maeve’s weird way, she was really happy. Disturbed and a clinically diagnosed hypochondriac convinced that zombies would be taking over the world in the next twenty years . . . but happy.

Alessandra Esporza came from family money that she still had access to, despite her death six years ago. But like most Crows, she didn’t just sit on her money and do nothing. Three years back, with the help of some other Crows, she’d bought a Spanish-language TV station and began producing Mexican soap operas. They’d become so popular in the States, Mexico, and Central America that Alessandra made it to the cover of Fortune magazine as the new face of television.

She was one of those power brokers in the industry that most of Hollywood knew nothing about. Of course, she was currently on the phone with her long-distance boyfriend, who lived in Germany. They were in one of their arguing moments, which meant that Alessandra yelled at him in Spanish and he yelled back at her in German.

But . . . again . . . Alessandra seemed happy, so who was Erin to question?

Besides, Erin had bigger issues to deal with right now. Like the new girl. Ex-military types could be such a pain in the ass. They were used to everything being spelled out for them in detail. Usually in writing. They were told how to do everything, including folding their clothes, cleaning their living quarters, even how to wear their hair.

Crows didn’t do any of that. They had kind of a uniform when they went out hunting, but even that was open to personal style. One Crow painted the Hello Kitty logo on her jeans. Another, instead of wearing a racer-back tank so her wings were unhindered, wore full T-shirts with slits cut into the back of the cotton so that her wings could come out. And at least three Crows wore designer boots on their hunts with six-inch heels. It was all about what a Crow was comfortable in. There was only one hard and fast rule among the Crows: Never betray a sister-Crow. Ever.

And Erin didn’t doubt the new girl’s loyalty, but she did doubt that she was a girl’s girl. She seemed like one of those chicks who was just more comfortable around men. That would be a problem for her in the long run. Maybe Erin needed to find her a loyal friend. Maybe Jacinda. They called her Jace for short and she was . . . uh . . . shy. Yeah. You could call her shy. Great in battle, but said little otherwise. Even now, she could be lounging by the pool with the rest of her team, but instead she was behind the toolshed on the other side of the yard. It used to bother the other Crows when she first got here, but after realizing what a benefit she was in battle, they let Jace’s terrified reaction to basic conversation go.