He clenches his jaw tightly and grimaces.
“I just want to know… if the time comes, when I have no other choice…”
“Simon,” I interrupt his struggles, reaching up to touch his arm. “If the time comes when the choice is between my children being safe… and my father dying… the choice is easy.”
He looks into my eyes, and I see the relief there, a weight that is quickly fading.
I smile sadly. “He is my father, but he was never… he was never mydad. I wouldn’t want him to die, I don’t wish for it to go that way, but if it must, then it must. And I appreciate you talking to me about it first.”
He smiles too, as tight as mine. Then he pulls me into a hug and sighs deeply.
He pulls away when his phone rings.
“Sorry, I need to get that,” he says, reaching behind me to pick his mobile up off the desk.
“Simon here,” he says into the phone.
He paces as he talks. I pick up enough fragments to understand the topic of conversation. They are confirming information about another attack on the family business. I listen, watching him walk up and down until the call is over.
“Another one?” I ask.
He nods. “Last night. We’ve been investigating. That was Matvei. He says they finally went through the security footage. It was the same as last time. Guys from the rival family who sent the sniper. The same guys who were working for your father,” he sighs. “We can’t pin it on your father but…”
“But who else would be so hell-bent and persistent?” I sigh.
Simon nods. “Exactly.”
He drops his phone back down on his desk. A sly smile touches his lips when he notices the mess of papers that we knocked off the desk earlier. He bends down to pick them up with a chuckle.
I grin, my cheeks warming as I drop down to help him with the other things that we knocked off.
“You should visit me every lunch hour,” he muses.
“Oh, we would definitely get caught. I’m surprised no one heard us earlier. It’s not like we were being that quiet.”
“This office is soundproofed to block out the warehouse noises below. Otherwise, I’d never get any work done.”
“Mm,” I muse. “In that case, I will visit you every lunch hour,” I grin.
We repack the desk, making it look reasonable again. Then Simon flops into his office chair, and I sit in the one opposite him.
“What are you going to do about my father?” I ask, brushing my fingers over the surface of his desk.
“I’m not sure. It feels like we are always reacting to him, never ahead of him. It feels like he gets to make the first move every time, and it’s starting to get annoying.” He leans back in the chair and stretches his arms behind his head as he stares at the ceiling thoughtfully.
My eyes trace over the bulge of his bicep muscles against his shirt.
“What if we weren’t one step behind next time?” I say thoughtfully.
“How so?” he asks, his eyes drifting from the ceiling to me.
“What if,” I say with excitement building, “What if we called him and invited him to have lunch with us. Public place, neutral territory, guards close by just in case… we get him talking and hope like hell that he slips up somewhere along the line and reveals something we can use.”
Simon sits up, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the table.
“We invite him to lunch?” he says, processing the idea with his brows knotted. “It’s so blatant. In your face. Not hiding, not covert. Just there, out in the open. Lunch in front of everyone.”
I raise my brows, waiting for him to think it through.
