Nearly three weeks had passed since the Ivan incident. My face was mostly back to normal, just still a little tender at times, as was Dillan. He was still handsy, but not nearly as much. We were getting better at the cuddling without the molesting each other bit. We also were doing better at waiting for a private room.

  We stayed at the studio for a couple days, that way he could catch up on some much-needed work, and not have to go far from me. After the visit from the Russians, he went into Uber-overprotective mode. He even doubled the guard on Randy. I also learned he had one on my Dad. I couldn’t help but wonder how that went over.

  I made a habit of joining him in the office at night. He even showed me where a speaker was if I wanted to listen to the music. We danced together every night - which always led to me against the window without my clothes. Dillan liked to tease Keith about his kinks, but he had them too.

  Now, here I stood, staring at the elevator that would take me up to my office. I was excited to finally be back to work. Yet, I couldn’t make myself push the dang button.

  “Hey, you’re back.”

  I did a jump spin, startled, and saw Chris walking up. “Oh, yeah. At least, I hope so. I have a meeting with the Senior Partners in a few minutes. You know… once I actually get up the guts to go up there. Do you think they are going to fire me?”

  Chris laughed and called the elevator. Butthead. “No one has said anything one way or the other. Your office is still yours. Your secretary is still your secretary. There have been no signs of replacing you. Which they would have done by now if they were going to.”

  “That’s true enough, I guess.” I let him half drag me onto the elevator car, by the upper arm. “Unless they were waiting to officially talk to me.”

  He let go of me and pushed for our floor. “Yeah, but I doubt it. You’re a valuable member of the team, Fi. We need you.”

  “Thank you. And thanks for helping Dillan when… you know.”

  He nodded and cleared his throat. “When did you, uh, start dating him?”

  I hid the grimace. I wished I hadn’t put off going upstairs. I could have avoided this conversation altogether. Or at least postponed it.

  “Around the time I got promoted. We didn’t start anything official until a couple of weeks later.”

  He nodded twice before speaking again. “Why did you lock him out of his own company?”

  I laughed. He seemed incredulous about that, but at least he wasn’t dwelling on the fact that I sort of dated them both for a week.

  “It’s a long story. Basically, it was because the night we met, he ticked me off by lying to me and being a sneak. So, I locked him out of everything digital. Just like most of the world, that means pretty much everything. His techie couldn’t crack it, nor could they find me. They resorted to following my brother, who I meet every week for family dinner with our father. By the time I came out of the building, Dillan was there, fuming.” I laughed. It was a good time.

  “Then how…” He scratched his head, still confused.

  I shrugged. “Who knows with men, you all don't make sense to us womenfolk.” I teased and stepped off the elevator. The distraction had helped, and I was more relaxed now.

  When I reached my office, Linda nearly knocked me over with her hug. We had messaged a few times but had not seen each other yet. She patted me down like a mother hen, inspecting me.

  “I’m fine, Linda. Really.”

  She ended on my face, both hands holding my head as she took in every detail. “You look good, but that could be make-up.”

  I licked my finger and wiped it across my cheek. “You know I don’t wear much.”

  She finally relaxed and let me go. “Alright. I won’t badger you anymore. At least not right now. The Senior Partners are waiting in conference room B for you.”

  I cringed and looked down the hall, but the door was closed. “Any ideas which way the wind blows?”

  “Not a clue, but you are a brave girl. You’ll be fine.” She spun me and pushed me to get me walking.

  I huffed in annoyance at her. She didn’t realize this was worse for me than dealing with Ivan.

  I knocked on the conference room door and waited until Lawerence opened it. He was usually my direct line supervisor. His smile was there, but not as light as normal. My heart sank. They waved for me to take the seat at the end, all the way across from them.

  I smiled, barely. Then I decided to hell with it. If they already had their minds made up, how did my behavior matter?

  “So, what’s the verdict? Am I being kicked to the curb because of my idiotic brother or because I fell for a moron who happens to own a club?”

  Gary guffawed. “What?”

  “My contract said that I could not associate with criminals while working here. My brother has a gambling problem, which he is finally seeking help for, and my boyfriend runs a club that the mafia frequents. He’s not part of all that but likes to have a roof over his head. I’m not saying he is innocent - we all know that would be a lie after what happened a few weeks ago, but still. I broke my contract.”

  “I love this girl.” Gary said in a sigh. “No, you are not being fired. As for the contract, that is more for those who would take advantage of their position here. We all know you don’t do that.”

  “Eh. I kind of do.” Oh, will you shut up, Fiona! Apparently once I got started… “I mean, mostly because hacking is fun, and you all seem to get a kick out of me freaking out the clients. Here I get to do it without getting in trouble. Although now I hack my boyfriend and his friends just for kicks and giggles. His IT guy thinks it's the best game ever.” I cringed. “Sorry, I get mouthy and ramble when I’m nervous.”

  “I’d be curious to know what all you said to Ivan.” Gary was still leading the charge.

  I gulped. “It wasn’t pretty. It nearly got me, and my brother killed. Or rather him killed and me a fate worse than death. I got a couple good shiners out of it though. Sorry, I’ll shut up now.”

  “We asked for this meeting so we could talk about what happened.” Kurt cut in, before Gary could get his next words out. He looked a little glum about that. “You were taken from our offices, right under our noses. We thought our background checks were good enough. It’s not often that our own security system fails us.”

  Oh, cool. I could work with that.

  I told them the story of going to pay off Dillan and locking him out (not the why, of course, that would be a bit too much info). I told them about Bunny and Ivan, and then how Ivan used my brother. I told them what Ivan wanted me to do, and how I got around him (I left out the tidy little nest egg I made for myself. I still found it funny that the Russians hadn’t asked any questions about their missing money). Finally, I told them how we got out.

  When I was done, they all looked at each other like they were having a silent conversation.

  “We need to create a list of the major criminals in the area, at least.” Lawerence said. “We can’t promise safety for our employees if we aren’t actually being safe.”

  I raised a finger part way into the air. “I can help with that. I actually have access to a database that tracks them all. Dillan can be a bit on the paranoid side, especially now. And I only gave him access again to his system, I never gave him control back. It’s all good, he knows and doesn’t seem to care. Not like he knows what to do with all that anyway.” I cleared my throat like an idiot, trying to remember my point. “I, uh, can transfer that info over to the company server, which I promise only has me in the correct category for access permission. I’ve never messed with it here. Well, not completely anyway. I did do a little peeking around when I got hired. A girl has to be safe; ya know? I should probably shut up now.”

  Gary was doing a horrible job at hiding his amusement. The other two just looked at me like I had two heads.

  I grimaced. “I’m fired now, aren’t I?”

  “No. As I said before, we’re better off with you on our side.” Lawerence looked like he wanted to laugh but wasn’t sure if it was that kind of funny or not.

  “How is your brother, Ms. Reynolds? Is he better now? And I remember your father had a heart attack recently, yes?” Kurt was always the killjoy.

  “My Dad doesn’t know much yet. We’ve been careful about what we tell him. I was sick and Randy had to work. Randy’s surgery on his leg went well. He was released from the hospital a few days ago. We had a home health aide reserved for him before then. He will go visit our Dad when he doesn’t look like he died and came back from hell. In the meantime, he seems to have finally had his wake-up call and has already started sessions with a therapist for his addiction. As for my Dad, he loves the nursing home. He’s made many great friends. Thank you for asking.”

  “Good. Let us know if you need anything. And, please, if you wouldn’t mind, send us that information.”

  I gave him a stupid thumbs up and high tailed it out of there. Linda and Chris were both waiting for me near my office.

  “Don’t you all have work to do? I know I do.” I winked and stepped into my office.

  Home sweet home.

  Epilogue

  Dillan

  I exhaled before taking a swig of beer and picked the report up again. It was from the security team I had rotating around Randy. He didn’t know it, but his home health aide was a former Army Corporal, dishonorably discharged. A fellow soldier had tried to take advantage of her while she was sleeping. If only he had known that she slept with a knife under her pillow.

  She had great aim, even half-asleep.

  Unfortunately for her, his father was a General. He didn’t believe her claim and insisted she get some type of punishment. Her commanding officer believed her, but his hands were tied. He was at least able to keep the sentence down to a dishonorable discharge.

  Randy was in good hands. Literally. She was strong enough to lift him if he fell, and tough enough to go drill sergeant on him when needed.

  That wasn’t what bothered me though. There was an increase in tourist traffic around his apartment building. Of the Russian kind.

  Viktor had found him.

  If I was being honest with myself, I always knew this day would come. I’d been wracking my brain for months trying to come up with a solution. Outside of selling my soul to the Italians, I couldn’t think of anything else. I didn’t have the might to go against the Bratva. Not yet. In a few years… maybe.

  Keith and I were currently searching for a location for our next club, Exposure. I would need more personnel and more security. I would be doubling my own army. I wanted to better protect the family I was planning to create with Fiona.

  She was at the hospital with Katia now, holding one of her hands while she birthed twin boys.

  We were set to get married within the next month. I popped the question one week after we moved into our new house together. It sits on the beach. A private one. Where I proposed to her. She surprised me by saying she had her IUD removed the day before. The game was on now.

  I just had to figure out how to better protect our family.

  No matter how much I didn’t want to, it looked like the Italians were going to be my only option. But I knew what Bruno would want. 65% of my company.

  I lifted my head at the ding of the elevator, confused at who that could be. Fi was still at the hospital. BoBo had driven her there and was waiting for her. Jorge and Kent were on vacation together. And Keith should still be monitoring the fights. I was supposed to be too but couldn’t focus so I came back here.

  I slowly opened the top right drawer in my desk, reaching for my gun.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” A deep voice called from the hallway. “We are just here to talk. We will come in when you remove your hand from that drawer. I’m not worried about our safety. I’m worried about yours. Fiona has suffered enough in her life. I wouldn’t want her to lose you as well.”

  I dropped my gun and closed the drawer. “Who the hell are you?”

  Two tall men entered my office, before I could even tell them I had put the gun away. When I looked at them curiously, the younger one tilted his phone back and forth, then pointed at the camera in the corner.

  I gave them both an incredulous eyebrow as the older one sat down. The younger one stayed standing behind him. While he looked relaxed, I could tell he was far from it.

  “How did you hack into my cameras? That should be impossible.”

  The younger man smirked. The older man snorted. “Nothing is impossible when it comes to my nephew. I will say this though. Your fiancé is probably the first to challenge him like she did. I thank you for that. Punk needed deflating.”

  The smirk on the nephew turned to a scowl.

  “Guess that explains how you got access to my elevator too. Who are you?”

  The older man placed his right ankle over his left knee, feigning comfort, and ease. Just like his nephew, it was an act.

  “My name is Mitch Anderson. I am the underboss to the American Mafia on the West Coast.”

  My eyes widened. “Cooper?” I mentally cursed.

  What the hell was going on now? How did I offend them? I’d never dealt with them before. They were headquartered in San Francisco, but I knew they had a presence here as well. They weren’t as flamboyant about their dealings as the Russians and Italians were. Even still, everyone knew they were there, hiding in the dark.

  Mitch tipped his head in a silent nod. “Yes, the Coopers. And no, you did nothing wrong. You have not offended us in any way.

  My heart stopped. How did he know what I was thinking?

  This time it was Mitch that smirked. “We are incredibly good at reading people. I heard you and your people are as well.”

  I opened and closed my mouth, completely stunned by what was happening.

  “Your club has always been of interest. But our men knew you were not interested in a partnership. So, out of respect, we have kept our distance. Still, we had our eye on you and yours, waiting for a foot in the door. Smirnov seems to have given us that. You are in a tough spot. You want to protect your family, but you don’t know what the safest route is. A plight we all can understand.”

  I swallowed and leaned back, letting my body relax, since it was obvious they were not here to cause problems.

  “How would you be able to help? What kind of deal are we looking at?”

  “We want a partnership. We want to build our presence here in LA.”

  “You have a presence here in LA. And I don’t want to lose control of my company. That would lead to more problems in the future. Ones I would have no control over. It’s bad enough that the Russians and Italians already know my weak spots.”

  Mitch lifted a single eyebrow. “You call Fiona Reynolds a weak spot?”

  I snorted. “No, not even close. But my enemies would be able to come to me through her. If not directly through her, then her father or her brother. Online, she is a powerhouse. Outside…”

  Mitch nodded. “I understand. Which is one of the reasons Levi thought you might be ready to hear our offer now. We believe in family. We believe in protecting our family. We do not want them becoming a target because of what we do. We can help you with that.”

  I huffed and shook my head. “And cost me, what? What will I get from it? More enemies?”

  Mitch dropped his foot to the floor and leaned over. “How much is the safety of your family worth? Is any price too steep to keep Fiona and the children you want with her safe?”

  Well, when he put it like that… I closed my eyes for a brief moment. “There is nothing I wouldn’t be willing to pay for that. What is your offer?”

  Mitch leaned back in his chair again. “25% of your company.”

  My jaw dropped to the floor. That was not what I was expecting. “You only want 25%? Are you serious?”

  “Yes. We don’t need the money from your income. Besides, you do a successful job running both the club and your side hustles. We have no need to take over.”

  “Then what do you get out of this?”

  “We get a stronger foothold here in LA. Even just that much will send a message to anyone who would come after your people. We will also help fill your ranks as you open the new club. If you wouldn’t mind my opinion, the old warehouse near the garment district that you and Keith saw last night would be perfect.”

  I glanced up at the silent nephew, he stared back. If I wasn’t used to the way Fiona randomly snooped around, I’d be unnerved. She had desensitized me to the way of hackers.

  I nodded. “I could work with that. What else?” There had to be more that they wanted.

  Mitch tipped his head up, indicating his nephew. “He and a few other boys will start at UCLA this Fall. We want them working, not partying. We taught them the skills, and we don’t want them going to waste. It will also help us to know they are in a safe place, with people looking out for them. Not so much Noah here, but some of the others. I know my wife would appreciate him having someone looking out for him.”

 

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