Kathy's POV

The gasp was torn from my throat, raw and involuntary. It wasn't just the sheer audacity of the man—Basil Cavendish—it was the chemical reaction he provoked. Every nerve ending in my body felt suddenly stripped bare, exposed to the charged atmosphere of his royal suite. The moment he stripped, making himself as vulnerable, as exposed, as he demanded I be, the balance shifted again. This wasn't just about my compliance; it was about his own profound lack of control around me.

His kiss-when it finally came-was a revelation: possessive and consuming, nothing like the soft teasing mouth that had just been on my skin. His tongue was a demand, his hands anchoring me, lifting me, and finally dropping me onto the decadent expanse of his king-sized bed.

The world narrowed down to the feel of his weight, the scent of expensive cologne mixed with something earthy and purely masculine, the agonizing skill of his mouth and hands. He was right; he was highly trained. Every stroke, every suckle, every deep, investigating kiss was designed to unravel me-not just physically but mentally. He was laying siege to my control, mapping my weaknesses.

Let him map the wrong ones, I coached myself, even as a tremor of pleasure shook my core when his fingers expertly found the most sensitive, needy part of me.

“Tell me what you want, Kathy,” he breathed against my ear, his voice ragged with his own need, but the command was still sharp. “I want to hear you say it.”

"You already know," I managed, clutching the silk sheets beneath me, trying to hold on to some semblance of clarity. I couldn't be weak now. Not when I was this close. "You told me you saw it in my eyes."

He chuckled-a dark, triumphant sound. "Oh, I saw the lust, yes. But I also saw the ambition. Which is it that's screaming right now, nanny? Are you ambitious to finish what you started, or just desperate for this?" He flicked his tongue over me again, harder this time, and I bucked beneath him.

“Both,” I confessed, the word a shattered whisper. It was an admission of defeat, but somehow, it was also a weapon: I was feeding his ego, granting him the power that he coveted, allowing him to overlook just how deep my true motive ran. He thinks he controls the terms of this exchange.

He shifted, rising up onto his elbows, his eyes glinting down at me—a predator surveying his catch. “Good girl. I like a woman who’s honest about what she takes.”

His hand had slipped down before I could process the meaning of his words and guided his rigid cock to the slick entrance of my body. Friction was immediate, demanding. It was wild, fast, utterly unhinged. No lubrication, no pre-amble, just raw, hot need slamming against me.

A sharp, sudden pain took my breath, a sensation not altogether unfamiliar, yet forgotten for many years. He was unrelenting, pressing forward until I was stretched and full, the pain eased into a throbbing heat that felt both dangerous and exquisite.

"Look at me," he ordered, his eyes searing into mine. And I had to, harnessed by the sheer power of his presence. "You're in my world now, Kathy. You belong to the secrets of the Sky Tower. To me."

I wrapped my legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, matching his aggression with my own. My mission was here, buried beneath the beautiful, toxic surface of this man. I needed him to talk, to trust, to reveal the flaws in the Cavendish International Holdings fortress. If this was the price of entry, I'd pay it-and make sure the receipt was addressed to him alone.

I stared back, refusing to let my real emotions-the fear, the calculating victory, the unexpected jolt of connection-bleed through. "You're the one who needs something, Basil," I replied, tilting my hips and forcing a deeper connection. "Don't forget that you hired me because Tifania is alone. You might control this room, but I control the access to the rest of the house."

His jaw clenched, a muscle jumping in his cheek. The haze of his lust had been pierced by my challenge.

He slowly began to move, deliberately at first, then quickening into a rhythm that stole the air from my lungs. The pace was insane, the contact brutal. It was pure, unadulterated passion-toxic and utterly compelling.

The tension mounted, but not merely in the physical sense. Each thrust was a question, each moan a lie, each shared gaze an unspoken struggle for supremacy. That's how I got in; that was the first brick laid in my foundation of deceit.

Just as the pressure became unbearable, just as my vision started to white out, he stopped, pulling back almost entirely, his body suspended above me, chest heaving.

“We have a sister who knows things, Kathy,” he said, his voice husky, eyes black with sudden gravity. The switch was instantaneous, chilling. He was talking business, secrets, danger, while still inside me. “She needs to be watched. Closely. If you are going to be living under my roof, you need to prove your loyalty isn’t to the paycheck, but to the family.”

I knew what he meant. He was looking for a spy, not a nanny. He was looking for someone to monitor Tifania's frighteningly insightful observations.

I reached up, wrapping my fingers around the back of his neck, pulling his lips to mine in a searing, breathless kiss that felt like a secret exchange of vows.

"Tell me what I'm looking for, Basil," I whispered against his mouth, my legs clamping down, holding him prisoner inside me. "And I'll make sure you never regret letting me in the door."

Kathy's POV

It had been a calculated weapon, that shift in rhythm. Basil's breathing was ragged against my neck, so different from the cold, calculating strategist I'd met minutes ago. Now, he was only a man consumed, driven by this raw, chemical connection we'd forged. I felt him gather the pace, pushing faster, deeper; the urgency in his eyes reflecting the chaos blooming in my chest.

He was right about the connection. It was impossible to separate the purely physical pleasure from the surge of power that ran through me, knowing I could reduce this formidable man to a grunting, frantic lover. Every gasp he took was one small chip in the armor of the Cavendish empire I was here to dismantle.

But as the pressure built again, focused and relentless—his thumb expertly riding the edge of my climax even as he plunged into me—the analytical part of my mind began to waver. I was lost in the sensation, clawing at the muscles of his back, desperate for more, desperate for him to finish this destruction he had started.

“Say my name, Kathy,” he said, his voice strained, raw with his own approaching peak. “Basil.”

“Basil,” I repeated-the name tore out of me, a surrender that tasted like fire.

The world dissolved in the electric shock of a second orgasm, powerful and immediate, and I cried out, arching violently against him. The force of my climax seemed to ignite his own. He groaned—a deep, guttural sound that vibrated through my core—and drove into me one final, devastating time, emptying himself into me with a shuddering urgency.

He collapsed, his heavy, damp weight pinning me to the bed, his forehead coming to rest against my own. For one long, heated moment, the only sound in the opulent room was the sound of two people trying to reclaim their breath.

When he finally pulled back, he didn't look at my body; he looked directly into my eyes. The lust was still there, hot and possessive, but beneath it, the cold strategist was already returning.

"That," he said, his tone low and serious, "was a contract, Kathy. Signed and sealed. We are not a normal family, and you are not a normal nanny. Everything you see, everything you hear-it comes to me first. No exceptions."

I swallowed, the lingering heat from the climax mixed with a rising sense of danger. I was inside now, but I was exposed.

“I understand the terms of employment, Basil,” I said, putting a subtle, professional distance back in my tone. I reached up and smoothed his sweat-dampened hair back from his brow, a gesture of faux tenderness. “But a contract is a two-way street. You said Tifania needs watching. What exactly is she saying, and what exactly does it have to do with Elena Cavendish de Rivas’s sudden vacation?”

Then he rolled off me with sudden, startling efficiency to grasp his discarded shirt and tie. He was no longer even trying to mask the transaction in the slightest way.

"Tifania has an imagination. That's what we tell the outside world. But she doesn't just see shadows, Kathy. She talks about memory leaks. About people who 'shouldn't be there' when she's alone. She talks about the Blackwell Vault." He pulled the shirt over his head, effectively covering the glorious evidence of our recklessness.

The mention of the Blackwell Vault-the supposed secret facility for Cavendish International Holdings-sent a cold spike of adrenaline coursing through me. It was the same location I had been tasked to find.

"Memory leaks?" I repeated, sitting up and pulling the silk sheet up to my chin, mimicking his sudden return to decorum. "What kind of leaks?"

“She said her mother, Elena, didn’t leave alone. She said her friend did it. And she named a place,” Basil said, eyes scanning the room as if checking for hidden cameras. “The Rivas Regency Hotel. That’s where my mother was last seen, according to the official—but very discreet—police report.

"She knows the location of her mother's last known whereabouts?" I asked, focusing on the sister, trying to maintain the nanny persona even as my mission intensified.

“And more. She mentions a ‘green file.’ She says her mother hid something important, something that was taken from the Blackwell Vault. And she says, ‘The man with the snake tattoo is still waiting.’” Basil fixed me with a gaze that had returned to its habitual, icy detachment. “We need to know how much she truly knows, Kathy. And how much of it she’s learned since Elena vanished.”

He finished dressing, his movements sharp and precise. Walking back to the bed, he tossed me a luxurious silk robe.

“Get dressed. Your room is the suite opposite mine. The key card is in the pocket of the robe. Get acquainted with the house rules from Amanda Quispe tomorrow morning. But let me repeat the only important one: Tifania is not a normal child. Find out who she's been talking to. And if she mentions the green file again, you come straight to me.”

He turned to leave, his hand already on the doorknob. “What about your brother, Baxon?” I asked, stopping him. “Does he know about the memory leaks and the green file?” Basil's hand tightened on the metal handle; he didn't turn around.

“Baxon trusts Tifania too much to see her as a liability, and he's too emotional to handle the truth of our mother. He believes in the simple version of the story. You will keep it that way, Kathy. He sees you as a distraction. You will make sure he stays distracted from the real danger.”

He opened the door, but before he stepped out, he delivered the final, chilling instruction.

“You aren't just working for the Cavendish family, Kathy. You're working for me. And if your mission here involves anything other than keeping Tifania quiet and safe, you will regret ever setting foot in the Sky Tower.”

Kathy's POV

The post-climax silence in the Royal Suite was shattered by the sound of his flippant dismissal. He had just staked a biological claim on me, and now his only concern was whether I'd complain about the size of the pizza slice.

“You-you came inside of me.” The words emerged tight, strained, the residue of my pleasure instantly replaced by a cold spike of professional and personal terror.

He sat up, utterly unconcerned, his body still magnificent, radiating a predatory ease. “That’s a problem?” Basil withdrew, and the sudden emptiness, coupled with the slow, disconcerting seep of his warmth, made my panic immediate.

I sat up, holding the sheet to my chest, my gaze fixed on the place where the liquid proof of his carelessness slowly dried onto the fine Egyptian cotton. “I’m not on anything. No pill. No IUD.”

He raised an eyebrow, a flicker of something calculating-not worry-crossing his eyes. “Well, I certainly didn’t feel the last one, so no, you’re not.”

The sheer audacity of his logic paralyzed me. My internal script-the one dictating my mission, my professional facade, my controlled life-had no contingency for this. Pregnancy? With the target?

“Do you want to get me pregnant or something?” I demanded, my voice rising.

He looked me over, his gaze slow, appraising, settling on my breasts and belly before returning to my face with a terrifyingly sincere smile. “Fuck, that would actually be incredibly sexy. I thought you couldn’t get more perfect, but those milk-filled boobs and that little baby belly? You’d be even hotter.”

The breath left my lungs. He wasn't joking. This was the dark, twisted reality of the Cavendish world: their desires weren't just met; they were instantly manifested, consequences be damned. What was more frightening than his exposed cock had been was the fact he was already mentally dressing me in the maternal uniform of his own perverse fantasy.

“I have not even known you for one day, and you want to father a child with me?

“You're the one who likes taking care of kids. I thought you would be thrilled at the prospect.” The sardonic grin told me he knew exactly how much he was twisting the knife. He wasn't dense; he was deliberately provocative. He was testing the absolute limits of my composure.

"God," I whispered, rubbing my temples. My head was spinning. The best sex of my life—the rush of breaking my own rules for a high-stakes entry—had just delivered the ultimate landmine.

Basil stood and began gathering his bespoke clothes. The motion was efficient, cutting the conversation short, reducing the intensity of the moment to a logistical issue. “Don’t worry about it. Anything happens, I’ll take care of it. It’s not like I don’t have the money. I could afford you giving me two dozen kids and not even put a dent in the bank.”

Two dozen. Hyperbole. But the casual confidence with which he claimed ownership over my reproductive future made my stomach churn. It wasn't about the money; it was the control. The child wouldn't be a product of love, as I'd always believed, but an extension of his wealth and ego.

He stretched languidly. “Mi casa es su casa. I'll get a key made for you and get you all the codes and stuff you need—garage passwords, Wi-Fi info, you know, the works.”

“You’re just going to walk away?” I asked, forcing myself to look past the financial reassurances and back to the immediate, reckless act.

"I hate to fuck and dash, but I still have business to attend to. All of this stuff with hiring you, you know, was just so damn sudden." He said this while getting his trousers on, not looking at me at all.

It came on so damn suddenly. The reckless abandonment of caution, the immediate penetration, the finish without protection was part of his spontaneous, toxic control.

“Take it easy. I think Tifania is back. You should go introduce yourself and get to know her; form a bond, a rapport. She's a playful girl, even if as her brother I'm also supposed to inform you that she's an utter brat.”

My head wobbled again in utter disbelief: he had just finished explaining that my main job was to spy on his sister and now he gave me trite nanny advice.

“Actually, it's getting on toward her bedtime. Proper introductions might have to wait until tomorrow,” he said, tugging on his jacket. The transformation was complete: demanding lover to detached CEO.

Why was he prioritizing his business, why when I was stuck in a biological crisis? Because that was his world. My fear was an inconvenience; his data trading paramount.

The logical part of me screamed: Run. Get the morning-after pill. Expose him.

But a deeper, more dangerous voice whispered: You can't run. You have the access. You have the leverage. He thinks he won, but he just gave you the ultimate tool to destroy him or his brother.

I needed a focus. Something simple. Something honest.

Tifania.

“I’ll go,” I said finally, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed, reaching for the silk robe he’d thrown earlier. “I’ll start with Tifania.”

He shot me a quick, approving glance. “Good. See you in the morning. And don’t worry about anything. I told you, I’ll take care of it.”

I watched the door close behind him, the lock clicking softly but definitively. I was alone, naked beneath a strange man's silk, his semen warm and heavy inside me, and potentially carrying his child. But I had the key to his suite, the code to the house, and the lead on the Blackwell Vault and the "green file."

I stood, the robe cinching around my waist, and suddenly felt less like a victim and more like a mole deep behind enemy lines. I had a crisis on my hands, but I also had a mission to complete for my family, Rafael Montalvo and Mariela Montalvo.

First, find a pharmacy. Second, find the girl who knows the secrets.

Baxon's POV

“You got a minute, Liam?” I muttered into my phone as Tifania and I stepped back into the elevator. The ride down from the Cavendish Sky Tower Residence had been typical—Tifania chattering about St. Aurelia Academy and me pretending to listen while running logistics in my head. The ride back up was completely silent. She was focused on her triple scoop of dulce de leche ice cream, and I was focused on the unsettling tension I’d left behind.

The bro-code I shared with Basil was less about shared loyalty and more about carefully managed distance. We ran the business together, we defended Tifania together-but we kept our romantic and emotional lives strictly separate. It was the only way two identical, ambitious men could coexist without trying to murder one another.

“Yeah, Mr. Cavendish. Just finished the perimeter sweep,” replied Liam Calderón, one of our main security guards.

"I need you to pull the file on Kathy Montalvo. Full, comprehensive deep dive. Everything. College loans, past employment, Director Amelia Whitford's full report, and especially that Mrs. Honor Whitcomb client who accused her of poisoning her kid. I want to know if she's legit crazy, or just desperate."

“Already on it, sir. Mr. Basil asked for the same file twenty minutes ago. But he just wanted the quick scrub—credit score and basic employment history. I already started the deep dive on my own initiative, considering the urgent placement.”

My fingers squeezed around my phone. Of course, he did. Basil was never content with the surface. Whenever he wanted a file, that usually meant he was searching for something-a liability to use against or manipulate.

“Good, Liam. Flag any unusual financial activity for the past six months. Anything indicating she's more than a student in debt. And don't mention to Basil you're sending me the full file until I ask you to. This is just for my. due diligence.”

"Understood, sir. Encrypted file to your secure server by morning."

“Perfect.”

I hung up just as the elevator chimed, depositing us back onto the penthouse level. The door hissed open, and the silence greeting us wasn't normal. It wasn’t the comfortable quiet of an empty home; it was the tense, post-conflict silence of a room that had just seen a storm.

"Where's Mama Amanda?" Tifania asked, her voice small, a spoon halfway to her mouth.

“She went home to her girls, sweetheart. She had a long day,” I replied, but my eyes were already scanning the living room. The glass table was empty, the crumpled agency paper gone. Everything was tidy, except for this lingering scent of expensive men's cologne mixed with something floral and wildly alluring.

"Uncle Basil?" I called out.

“In his suite, Baxon,” Basil’s voice answered, calm and perfectly flat, carrying from the far end of the hallway. “Just finishing up some calls. Kathy Montalvo is here. She’s getting settled in the spare room. She’s already accepted the position.”

Already? I stared at the closed door of Basil's Royal Suite. An immediate interview and an immediate hire, without even a basic background check confirmed? That wasn't like Basil. Unless…

"Tifania," I knelt down, forcing a smile. "Go wash your hands. Your new nanny is here. Be polite. Be a good girl."

“Okay, Baxon.” She skipped off to the bathroom.

I walked down the hallway to Basil’s suite, stopping right outside the closed, mahogany door.

“She signed a full contract, Basil?” My voice was low, but my question wasn't soft.

The door creaked open an inch, and Basil's eye appeared in the gap, chilly and inscrutable as always. He was fully dressed, but his hair was faintly rumpled, and there was a faint, almost invisible flush high on his cheekbones.

“Yes. She’s highly qualified. She’s already unpacked and ready to start with Tifania tonight.” He didn’t elaborate, didn’t invite me in, and the look in his eyes warned me against asking more. “Any issues?”

"Just one," I said, leaning in close to the gap, dropping my voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "The contract should have been joint custody. We need to be aligned on who's running the nanny. I don't want her coming to you every time the kid sneezes."

A genuine smile-cold, triumphant, and utterly devastating-curled upon his lips.

“Don’t worry, Baxon. The nanny won’t be coming to me about Tifania’s sneezes. She’ll be coming to me about the things that truly matter.”

He shut the door, leaving me standing alone in the hallway with the phantom scent of sex and expensive cologne, a suspicion nagging in my brain that Basil hadn't just hired a nanny, but had laid first claim to a dangerous weapon.

Find out who she's been talking to, Kathy. And if she mentions the green file again, you come straight to me. It wasn't spoken aloud, but the words reverberated in my mind nonetheless. I didn't need to hear it. I knew my brother's game. And now, I had to play it, too. Kathy Montalvo was here for a reason, and if Basil was trying to control the access to the secrets, I needed to make sure I was her alternative path.

Baxon's POV

The residual heat and faint, alluring floral scent of Kathy Montalvo seemed to cling to the air around Basil's Royal Suite, a silent, damning testament to the reckless speed of their connection. I watched him disappear into the home office-our financial war room-and felt a complex mix of irritation, possessiveness, and genuine concern.

"Hey there, little brother," I said smugly, pouring him a generous measure of añejo rum, already knowing he was too disheveled to care about my teasing. "You look rough."

"Two minutes does not a little brother make, Baxon." He snapped the correction automatically, but his eyes were too bright, his posture too rigid. He was buzzing with the aftermath of what I now knew was more than just a quick conquest.

"Just going with the technicality. It's not important, though," I dismissed, handing him the drink. "What is important? You having a bit too much fun with the babysitter in there."

In an instant, his expression went defensive, and the Basil I knew fell into place. “You’re going to give me shit about going after a girl I found hot? Are you that petty and jealous?”

“It’s not that, man. It’s…” I hesitated, sipping my own wine. Obviously, I couldn't tell him I heard her scream his name, or that I heard the panicked question about contraception. I had to use the pre-agreed boundary—the financial one. “The fact that I heard you apparently planted some seeds, if you know what I mean.” I let the lie about the door crack hang in the air, a necessary cover for my snooping.

He raised an eyebrow, taking a slow sip of the rum. “It’s none of your business how I enjoy myself, Baxon.”

“But it is. Dude, we agreed. We hit it big. We're going to be smart about it. No buying dozens of Lamborghinis, no high-class call girls who cost thousands an hour, no stupid shit like caviar. Just functional stuff, like a nice place, relief for Mom, and all that. We go to school, we learn how to manage the money. All and all, be smart about it.” I set my glass down, forcing him to meet my gaze. “Fucking the babysitter and knocking her up so she can baby trap you seems pretty counter-productive to all that, don't you think?”

He shook his head, looking genuinely annoyed. “It’s not like that, man. Kathy’s not going to do that.”

“How do you know? We’ve barely known her for more than a few hours.”

“It’s just this feeling. This intuition.”

I crossed my arms, stifling a sharp laugh. “Really? Mr. Cold Logic Basil is going off the feels. Especially with a girl.”

"Man…she's different. I mean it. When I'm in the throes of passion with her, she feels like the one. Like I'm there with my soulmate. Like I want to build a future with her, all while doing dirty, nasty things to her." His confession was raw, a momentary glimpse into the vulnerability he usually hid beneath layers of strategy. It shocked me. Basil, the man who treated human emotion like a flaw in an algorithm, was talking about a soulmate after a single, reckless encounter.

“So you're trying to knock her up,” I concluded flatly.

He leaned in, his eyes sparkling with an unnerving, almost possessive challenge. “Dude, when you get around to fucking her, I’d like to see you try not to do that.” He knew; he knew I wanted her, and he was using her to play his loyalty game.

My eyebrow shot up. “When I get around to it?”

“I’m not blind, man. You were fucking her with your eyes as hard I was. This? This is just jealousy. I’m betting dollars to donuts you won’t be responsible either.” He leaned in further and whispered into my ear the ultimate toxic suggestion: “You’re not with her. You saw her. Now imagine her swelling with my child. Your child. Our child.”

The idea struck like a physical blow-the mutual fantasy of possession. It was manipulative and disgusting, and yet, in that twisted world of twins that shared everything from genius to fortune, it was terrifyingly potent.

Just then, she appeared.

Kathy Montalvo walked into the room, wrapped in one of Basil's expensive silk robes-the dark, sensual color emphasizing her skin. She had the flushed, slightly wobbly gait of a woman whose body was still settling after an aggressive climax. She looked like she had been thoroughly, wonderfully ravaged, and the sight sent a fierce, jealous pang through me.

“Where's Tifania? I suppose she's asleep already?” she said, still blushing and glancing around the room as if searching for the invisible spectators to her indiscretion.

"She's pretty punctual about passing out half past eight," I replied, taking a sip of the wine to hide the sudden dryness in my mouth. "Mark eight-thirty as your quitting time with her."

She turned to Basil. "I thought you had important things to do. Drinking is important?"

“I'm just loosening myself up before I get to the stresses of the day, dear.” Basil shot me a warning look, desperately trying to mask the celebratory rum as a necessary release. “But yes, I do have business to attend to. Trades and the like to confirm and deny. It never ends.” He finished his drink, gave Kathy one last possessive look, and strode off towards the office, leaving me alone with the woman who was already dividing us.

"Does he usually work this late?" she asked me, taking the stool across from the counter.

I leaned back, taking my time to reply. I had to establish myself as the counterpoint to Basil, the emotional refuge. “I do, too, sometimes. The day gets a hold of you occasionally, but things need to be done. Today? Our whole Elena-freaking-out-and-taking-off thing ate a lot of what we were going to do earlier. It’s why we need you, you know.”

"Taking care of your little sister is unmanly, huh?" she challenged, her eyes direct and perceptive.

“Nah, it isn't like that. It's just a time thing. We grew up poor, our mother never having time for us just due to having to pay the bills. Basil and I just learned to fend for ourselves, and it was rough. The last thing we want is the same thing for Tifania. We want her to have the caring upbringing we were denied.” I laid out the emotional core of our family, the vulnerability Basil never showed. This was the truth I offered, a soft spot she could leverage.

“People usually just say that about their kids, not their little sister.”

“The age gap is enough that she's sort of both, no?” I shrugged. “Like all brothers, we're her heroes, but we take care of her like a dad. Life is just weird sometimes. It's not going to turn out like a storybook, so you take the good as it comes.”

"That's something very easy going coming from a guy in a collared shirt and khakis."

"The collared shirt and khakis came my way, so I rolled with it." I matched her easy confidence. "I feel you'll get along fine here."

“I haven’t even met the girl I’m supposed to be taking care of.”

"Eh, Tifania loves everyone if you're not an asshole, and if you're getting along with my brother how you are, well, you're definitely no asshole. Basil usually has a stick up his ass."

“Does he?” She cocked her head with the mischievous, knowing look in her eyes that told me she fully understood the implication of my question—and the answer to her own.

"He does," I confirmed, setting my glass down. I looked her over, letting my gaze linger on the robe.

"But sometimes, when he gets too stressed about the business, that stick gets. repurposed. You should probably make sure you have a few escape routes planned for when that happens."

I gave her a half-smile, a warning wrapped in a flirtation. I wanted her to know that when it came to protection from my cold, calculating brother, I was it.

"I'll keep that in mind, Baxon," she said, her eyes locking with mine, suddenly deep and serious.

"I'm good at finding ways out." I knew she was lying. She wasn't looking for escape routes; she was looking for access points. And I was about to give her one.

“The wine is good tonight. If you need anything for your room—or anything else at all—just send me a message on the house intercom. I'm usually the one who answers.”

I paused, leaning closer, dropping my voice to the same whisper Basil had used hours earlier.

“And if you need to talk about anything that makes you nervous about this job, you don't have to go to the man with the stick up his ass, Kathy. You can come to the one who knows how to listen.”