The fact that Santeneo decided to go to war and cause a bloodbath in my territory in retaliation for the death of his son wasn't as surprising as what Ian's supposed daughter did. Even after extensive research, I still found absolutely nothing about her, but that was until she dropped my mother's stolen ring back into my hands.
After I discovered that my penthouse was the main aim of yesterday's robbery, I immediately searched for any stolen items, but the only things that were missing were my mother's ring and two useless documents. I would have just left that as is, however, I was curious to know who was able to come into my top of the state art secured building and leave with only one camera catching them jump out of a 2nd-floor window.
My curiosity was negated when the ring was returned, my only guess is that her motive was to get some sort of blackmail from my office and force me to release Noah. However, she didn't luck out, I never keep important documents at any point of access, and it seems she had to figure that out the hard way.
Now other than knowing that she is Ian's supposed daughter, I know she is either a hacker or connected to a hacker because all my cameras and security alarms were kept quiet the whole time she was in the building, she is also clearly very athletic as she was able to get through the elevator shaft. Beautiful, smart, and athletically able, as well as the possibility she has connections to some powerful people. The more I learn about her, the more I can't help but be impressed.
While I still have my mind wrapped around one woman, I didn't notice the insistent buzz coming from the elevator door until it became too loud to bear. Lazily, I hesitantly stood and made my way to the elevator, moving slower than I would like due to the shot wound that was cleverly dressed by my current obsession.
"What is it?" I ask into the intercom that leads to the lobby and can be accessed only by my concierge.
"A woman named Keres is here to see you."
I've never heard of that name. I turn on the security cams for the lobby and I instantly get the answers to all my questions.
"Let her up," I say with the most amusement I can muster in my voice. I did not expect to see her so soon, she must have realized her little blunder yesterday, returning a stolen item to the scene of the crime. She seems to be unaware of how to commit robbery.
The elevator doors open, and I try to hide the smile on my face while there is an insistent scowl on hers. Keres, it's a beautiful name, a Greek name that just makes everything seem a bit too coincidental. As if fate is playing some sort of twisted game.
"Did you leave something yesterday?" I say as I walk towards her with a smirk on my face as I tease her about the fact that she left the stolen ring yesterday.
"No, I wanted to talk to you."
"About what?"
"Releasing Noah." The smirk I had on my face completely disappeared, as if it was never there in the first place. The fact that she was here for another man's sake irritated the hair on my skin.
"Ian already knows the terms of his release, you can leave now if that's all you wanted."
"I want to help Ian in settling his side of the agreement." Ian owed me a lot of money, too much money, It was unsettling enough that I had to abduct his only child, or so I thought. For her to be able to help him, even selling her body wouldn't be enough. However, looking at her a bit closer now, with her body she would be able to at least get half the needed amount in a matter of about 50 years. Ian surely screwed up.
She caught me staring at her never-ending curves and started squirming around.
"Not like that!" She looked like she was about to lunge at me like a ferocious animal and rip off my face in one fell swoop, and imagining her as just a little irritated animal made me smile, And that only seemed to get her even madder.
"I can help with security in your building, Ian told me that someone broke in and I could… help you… Um, catch them." This was the second time she was able to shock me to speechlessness. Was she just offering to catch herself?
That brought the smirk right back to my face. "And how exactly can you do that?" The fact that she came here offering to help means she doesn't know that I know that it's her, or at least she hopes so. Which means I have to play along with her.
"Even though I am a woman, I have a skill set that can very much help you, so you should just stop looking down on me because of my gender."
I wasn't looking down on her, I was far from it. She had utterly amused me from the moment I had met her, and it had absolutely nothing to do with her gender. But I guess my smirk gave off the wrong message. I quickly wiped it off before she continued getting the wrong message.
"And what is this skill set exactly?"
"I am a hacker and I can help you by bypassing the encryption that the thief left that wiped out your cameras, and hopefully we can get some sort of image of the thief."
She didn't know how to rob a place, and the fact that she assumed that the thief left an encryption reveals that she was the thief, but I will humour her.
"I'm a rich businessman, I can have any sort of professional hacker I want, so what makes your skills so extraordinary?"
"Professionals are extremely expensive, I'll do the job at the price that Ian owes you."
She was right. It was going to be expensive to hire a hacker, however since I already knew that it was her, I didn't need to go through all that trouble. But that meant I couldn't humour her any longer, because I would just end up forgetting about Ian's humongous debt just for a pretty face.
I scowled at the predicament that I was currently facing."I'll think about it." I turned around and walked back to my office.
She was staring daggers at my back, probably mad because she thought that I would immediately agree, but unfortunately, it wasn't going to be that easy.