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“Why didn’t you expect me to smile at you?”

I arch an eyebrow and tilt my head. She knows why, but she wants me to admit I’ve noticed the way she scowls at me.

“Okay, okay.” She rolls her eyes, but I can feel her softening as she smiles down at her lap.

“My turn,” I say. “How do you know who I am?”

Her fingers sit in her lap, and I notice her squeezing them together. She rolls her bad shoulder, and a flicker of concern takes root in my chest.

“Do you know someone called Danny?”

Yes. More than one. My brain calculates who could be linked to Olivia.

“It’s a common name.”

“Danny Daniels.”

Danny Daniels, Olivia Daniels. They’re related. She’s doing this for a family member. Brother perhaps? They have similar coloring.

I think about what I know about Danny. He’s young and eager to please. A ruthless motherfucker when he wants to be. But he’s not only a dumb worker with a penchant for fist fights, although he does have that. He’s smart, keen, logical. He installed our new security software. He’s quick on a computer. Orphaned, if I remember rightly, which fits with my knowledge of Olivia. I’d technically poached him from my father’s company, offering him a better deal that had a muchlonger life expectancy. But I vet my staff, especially those who have worked with my father, and from memory, nothing came up about a sister. I’d certainly know, given that I’ve been all but stalking his for the last two years.

“I know him,” I concede.

“You’re his boss.”

If she thinks The Unseen is a part of my father’s business, then he obviously hasn’t told her what he’s really up to. Seems odd, given that what he’s doing now is significantly safer than what my father had him running around doing.

“His boss’s boss, if we’re being technical.”

Not technically a lie, as he does report to Luca, who, in turn, reports to me.

“You’re no one’s boss at the moment, if we’re being technical,” she quips, causing me to grin.

“Touché.”

She grins back. Olivia Daniels, angel on earth, has a bad streak. Fuck me, she couldn’t be any more perfect.

Come lie your head in my lap again, sweetheart.

“Okay, so I’m technically Danny’s boss’s boss. How does that get me into your basement?”

“I want him out.”

“Out of what?”

“The Unseen.”

“How exactly would you know he’s in The Unseen? It’s, without sounding obvious,unseen.”

“Listen, your ‘first rule of fight club is that no one talks about fight club’ crap doesn’t really work when my idiot brother is coming home at all hours of the day and night, covered in blood, bruises, and god knows what else. I found a burner phone, and I saw his tattoo. It didn’t take a genius to work out what it meant.”

Ah, yes, the tattoo that new recruits had started getting. It’s rather dumb, but I can’t say I hate the design. A beautiful brunette, blindfolded, chin tilted up toward the sky. What relevance the brunette has to my organization is anyone’sguess. But it’s subtle, and the work of the resident tattoo artist, Andre, is second to none.

The burner phone, blood, and bruises must have been from under my father’s tutelage. I poached him when I first set up my business. Around two years ago.

“If my understanding is correct of these types of organizations, it’s that, once you’re in, you’re in. There is no leaving.”

“I thought you might say that,” she replies quickly and coolly.