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“Not necessarily,” Wren said. “Any hacker could get in.”

“Maybe Louisa can give us input about any outside hacks that compromised the database,” I suggested.

“Maybe.” Wren glanced out that way, her red hair tied in a ponytail and swinging the other way with the gesture. “She seems like she’s relaxing here. More open to talking about what we might need to know.”

I looked over at her too, almost smiling at how she darted around the small pool with Grady and Paloma both getting her with small water guns.

“I’m surprised that Owen Bilsen isn’t trying harder to look for her,” Igor said. “I know that she emailed her resignation and that would explain why she wasn’t coming in, but if he suspected she was looking at any footage that was supposed to be off-limits to her, wouldn’t he be trying harder to find her?”

“Maybe he did try,” I said. “He wound up in the ER last night, barely conscious after what he reported as a ‘bar brawl’.”

Maksim raised his brows at me. “Did you arrange for someone to get him?”

I shook my head. An asshole like him would probably have his own list of enemies, anyway. “I didn’t. But I’ve had men tailing him as a person of interest.”

“Because he worked at Pickering?” Viktor asked.

“Yes, and also due to what Louisa said about him. He got on her case about whether she was doing something she shouldn’t be while she was on the clock. She thought he was nagging her about being on her phone or being distracted. But she told me last night that maybe that meant something else. Like there were files off-limits to her.” I shook my head. “He seems like a shady guy. There has to be more to his story. I’ve got a couple of men looking into him, but that supposed bar brawl sounded more like an ambush in the alley. My guess is he’s pissing off the wrong person, maybe because of how that video was handled.”

“That means Louisa is still a target then,” Lev said, glancing at her. He laughed. “Uh-oh.”

I looked too.

Paloma now had all the water guns confiscated and was chasing mother and son.

“She’s safe here,” I reminded them.

Safe from me, too.

I had no order or interest in killing her off, especially now that she’d helped me. And especially now that I was getting addicted to having her be here. Both her and the ever-inquisitive boy.

Maybe you’re not safe from me.

The more I got used to her being in my presence, the more I imagined how else we could enter this strangely domesticated arrangement.

So far, I could keep myself in check. Rubbing one out in the shower prevented me from a perpetual constant state of blue balls around her.

No matter what she did, I noticed.

When she helped Paloma make dinners.

When she sat with Brady and helped him read harder books.

When she strolled outside to watch him play, the breeze blowing her long, black curls from her face that smiled a little more now.

When she strode toward me, the wet fabric of her white shirt clinging to her like a second skin, the black bikini a temptation beneath the sheer layer. Her hips swayed as she crossed the patio, her curves accentuated with that wrap tied around her waist. She didn’t get in the pool with her son, but she got wet playing around it with him.

I could imagine her at my home, jumping in my real pool and swimming through the water to reach me so I could untie her bikini and peel away the obstacles to her satiny skin, all mine so I could⁠—

I blinked, lifting my head to address her.

These instant fantasies were coming to hit me more often now. More intensely. I sat upright, adjusting the pressure of my dick hardening in my pants once more at the sight of her.

Brady barreled around her, rushing close. He was losing more of his shyness around me, but all my brothers and cousins intimidated him. We intimidated most people.

“Mr. Volkov?” he asked. Then he gave me a sheepish smile. “Um. That Mr. Volkov,” he clarified, pointing at me since he knew this was a table of five Mr. Volkovs, only Adrik being absent.

“What’s up, Brady?” I asked.