Page 56 of The Billionaire's Baby

"Thank you." I place my hands in my lap. Even after all these years, it isn’t easy to talk about her passing. I hadn’t considered how much of a rock she was in my life until I realized that I’d never see her again. I tug on my hair, then wrap a strand around my finger.

"Mine died not long after the incident." He glances down at his bowl, then back at me, "But you knew that already."

I nod. As their security consultant, I was privy to the details of the personal lives of all of the Seven. Still, Arpad sharing that part of his past with me? It means something.

"You miss her?" I ask softly.

"Every single day." His expression grows bleak. "I often wonder how the seven of us would have turned out if the incident hadn't marred us."

"It also united the lot of you, made you all friends for life."

He grimaces, "More like uneasy passengers on a boat where each of us has to pull our weight behind the paddles to keep afloat."

"I can't figure you guys out." I frown. "Sometimes I am sure you can't live without each other. Other times it seems you hate each other."

"More often, it's a little of both." He smirks, "And you? So, you weren't tempted to join the family business at all?"

Something in his voice makes me peruse his features. "No," I shake my head, "I want nothing to do with it."

His gaze narrows. "You sure about that?"

"Of course, I am." I frown at him. "Why do you ask?"

"Relax." He laughs. "All I meant was, it must have been difficult for your family to let you go, and then, it wouldn't have been easy to run a company on your own. But you didn’t stop until you made it a success."

My cheeks flush. "Thanks." I busy myself looking into the depths of my stew… Or what is left of it. It really had tasted yummy, or maybe, I’d just been hungry.

"And you?" I ask. "Is this your life then?" I wave my hand in the air. "Footloose, fancy free, and able to do what you want, when you want?"

"That’s the power of passive income." His lips curl. "My money’s busy earning more money for me, while I am here with you, sheltering from a storm."

"You’re deflecting."

"What was your question?"

"Doesn’t matter." I scoop up the last of the stew and finish it off. "I was simply trying to have a conversation. If you’d rather I not speak, you simply have to say so."

There’s silence. He blows out a breath, "The incident," he says. "You know about it, obviously?"

"You asked me to investigate the perpetrators, remember?" I point out.

He nods, then takes a bite of his stew before glancing up at me. "It’s what brought the Seven of us together. We’d known each other before that…but that occurrence ensured we’d have a common background, unique to just us." He leans back in his chair. "It changed our lives forever. One second, we were average—well, as average as you could get with the kind of money most of our parents had—but still, we’d been preteens with the usual problems—football practice, videogames, and sneaking off to use our remote-controlled planes to spy on girls… The next… We’d been imprisoned in a basement without knowing if we could make it out alive."

"It affected all of you in different ways. I get it."

"Do you, though?" He holds my gaze. "You were eighteen when you had to grow up. We were preteens… All except Damian, who, at sixteen, was the oldest…"

A chill runs down my spine. "You were all very young."

He nods. "And then we weren’t." He places his elbows on the table, then joins the tips of his fingers together. "Isn’t it strange that, despite your best efforts, we’ve never managed to track down the brains behind the operation?"

I stiffen. "Are you faulting my capabilities?"

He tilts his head. "It was merely an observation; one professional to another."

I take in the earnest look on his face. Should I believe him? No reason not to, right? I nod, "Fine." I blow out a breath, then rise to my feet and begin to pace. "It’s not for lack of trying. But every lead I’ve followed has turned out to be wrong, every clue I’ve unearthed seems to lead to a dead end. I’ve had my best operatives on the job, but nothing has come to light."

"Whoever they were, they are too well-hidden, probably in broad daylight, where you can’t tell them apart from an average person."