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“Only temporarily,” he reassured Black.

Black was not reassured.

“Who do you represent?” he asked sharply. “And don’t be coy about it. I don’t take anonymous clients, so you’re wasting my time and yours if you try to give me another bullshit pseudonym.”

For the first time, the two clients looked not at him, but at one another.

If they’d been seers, the look would have been pretty normal.

On humans, it was fucking bizarre.

When that too-long, silent stare ended, Ms. Silver turned her head. She gazed through the glass walls to the bullpen outside the conference room, her expression unmoving.

Mr. Gold’s brown eyes returned to Black alone.

“Have you heard of the Lion Hunter’s Academy?” he asked.

Black, who’d been in the middle of taking his next sip of the high-octane espresso drink Kiko made for him, nearly choked on that sip. He turned to glare at Mr. Gold openly that time, but again, the man held up his hands in reassurance.

Again, Black was not reassured.

“We are not affiliated,” Gold clarified.

Black scowled. “Why the fuck would you ask me that, then?”

The man exchanged looks with his counterpart a second time.

Again… it was weird.

“You are aware, we are told,” Mr. Gold said next. “Of the for-profit, international military support group that calls itself Archangel?”

Black felt his mood sour a few degrees more.

“Military support group” was quite the euphemism for a bunch of hired killers.

When he didn’t speak, or change expression, they exchanged another look.

He had to assume this was leading somewhere, but wherever it was, they’d better get there damned soon. He mulled locking them in a room with Jem and Nick, have them use their different but highly-compatible skillsets to pull every thought, piece of intelligence, nefarious plot, and potentially blackmail-worthy action committed by either of these two freaks.

Black was about to use his headset to sub-vocally suggest the same to Kiko, and to have her locate Jem and Nick, find out if they were in the building at least, when the woman, Ms. Silver, addressed him directly for the first time.

She still didn’t smile. She didn’t wear any expression on her face at all.

Maybe he’d been wrong about her being human.

Maybe she was a robot.

“We believe you’re the man we need for this job, Mr. Black,” she said.

Her voice was deeper than he’d expected, almost husky. She stepped in front of Mr. Gold, and held out a hand with an enormous diamond ring. What looked like a platinum and diamond bracelet fell down the thin circle of her wrist.

“I am Rania Gorren,” she said, matter of fact. “Chief Counsel over all of Rucker Enterprises, as well as personal lawyer of Lucian Rucker and his estate.”

Black blinked, unable to entirely hide his shock.

Lucian Rucker? What the fuck did that worm-faced parasite want with him?

He couldn’t read the woman, so he had to ask.