Maybe it made a funny kind of sense. Shifters had embraced capitalist greed, and money bought a certain insulation from the human world. A wolf with a few thousand acres didn’t need to worry about where he’d run or someone edging into his territory. When you weren’t running, why not live in the finest comfort the human world could provide? Julio had been embarrassed to inherit this sort of wealth, which was its own sort of privilege. Patrick had done pretty damn well for himself, but not so well that he could go around feeling sad and awkward over how many swimming pools he had. Not that Patrick would be invited to swim in those pools any time soon. He’d made Anna Lenoir cry. He’d made her weep, and any dreams of sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner with the Mendoza family had to be put to bed, unless he wanted Sera carving up him instead of the turkey. He had to be hard. He had to be steel. See the job through, because putting one foot in front of the other was what mattered.
