I watch as he starts to spin oh-so-casually in his chair. My eyes narrow.
It has to be something to do with infiltrating the system. If there was a device or a cloning system hacking into us right now, someone in this room should have picked it up right now.
The fact that none of the alarms are going off is worrying. I’ll have to reset the firewall immediately.
“You’re stalling me. Why?” I demand.
Teo’s grin only gets wider. “I could ask you the same thing.”
“Perhaps I just wanted to talk to you.”
“Or you’re waiting for reinforcements to arrive and surround us.”
Shit.
I grind my teeth together before responding. “You don’t seem particularly put out by the possibility.”
I watch as he shrugs. “I figure you need something from me.”
“I figure you think too highly of yourself.”
On my screen, Dante approaches the door and glances out into the hallway before stepping back in. He approaches Teo, whispering something too low for the cameras to pick up.
Teo simply nods in response. “You have the upper hand here,belle.You may as well ask your questions.”
The IT tech waves for my attention and gives me a nod of confirmation.
“It’s not exciting now that you’ve taken all the fun out of it,” I reply childishly as I check the other monitors. Twenty or so men have now pulled up to the Princes’ Hand and are waiting for my signal.
“I’m sure I could still make it worth your while.”
I shove down the fluttering feeling in my chest.
“I wasn’t lying when I said my brother wanted war. In fact, I think it’s very possible that you owe me a favor. He wouldn’t have stopped at only taking your life. Your precious Dante was absolutely next on his list. Him and that insane redhead.”
Something visibly cools in Teo’s expression, even through the pixels on the screen.
“He would have been dead before he could touch them,” he growls back.
“Perhaps. Perhaps not,” I concede. “Either way, I think it’s in both our best interests to stop that from happening, don’t you agree?”
“If I don’t, will your reinforcements allow us to leave here alive?”
This time, I let him hear me chuckle. “I think you know the answer to that.”
“What do you want?”
“Dinner, eight o’clock tomorrow,” I all but sing, basking in the shocked expression on his face. “There’s this gorgeous place on Mia Park.”
“You want me to…take you to dinner?” he asks uncertainly.
“Of course. I think our next discussion about the future of our organizations should be done face to face, don’t you?”
The Eleven at Mia Park isn’t just gorgeous. It’s a Michelin-star restaurant that is more exclusive than even our private poker tables, with a waiting list that could leave you hanging for years.
This makes it quite convenient that the head chef is in a tremendous amount of debt to the Prince’s Hand, courtesy of said private poker tables.
I walk up the steps confidently, my short cream dress perhaps slightly scandalous in comparison to the other restaurant’s patrons attire, but they turn a blind eye. This is my domain, after all.
