The person who came behind me through the door cursed as he bumped into me, and I was shoved forward by his momentum.
“Oi. Watch where you’re standing.”
“Sorry.” I kept my voice low, because God help me if Denning heard me.
He had his hand on her ass, and I felt like I was going to throw up a little bit in my mouth.
But you don’t want him anymore, right?
I pulled my hair up, scraping it back off of my forehead and dragging it up into a bun at the top of my head. Then I remembered I had a bruise to cover, so I couldn’t even do the whole nonchalant, I-don’t-care hairstyle thing. I tugged my hair back down. It was better I not get asked why I was bruised. I’d done a decent job with the makeup, but my father would see through that.
God, you’re a mess.
I could do this. I could walk by them and give no shits. Not a single one. This was not going to hurt at all.
Lies.
Luckily, the lobby was crowded. People were milling about, deliveries coming in, couriers going out. It should be easy to mix into the crowd. So I tried that. Join the throng, make it past the barricades, ID out, swipe, swipe, hand over my bag for gate check and—
“Nyla?”
I forced out a slow, steady breath. “Sir.” I spat the word out like an epithet. The fact that he insisted on all of us calling him sir was such bullshit. A year ago, he’d been one of us.
Apparently, he’d been able to separate himself from his octopus of a girlfriend. I didn’t know how he’d managed it.
“Why are you in such a rush? Are you going somewhere?” His gaze narrowed, and he scanned my face. “What’s wrong with you?”
I injected a note of sarcasm into my voice. “No greeting, just ‘What’s wrong with you?’” I rolled my eyes. “Try this instead. Good morning. Now, you just repeat that.”
He sighed. “You don’t have to be so sensitive.”
“Not the word I’d use, sir.” I swiped my way through the barrier, collected my purse from the other side of security, and swung it over my shoulder. I wanted to remind him of the HR seminar on employee relations and how microaggressions were a no-no. But I was already exhausted.
He scowled at me. “You know full well that’s not what I—”
A sing-song voice came from behind Denning. “You’re Nyla, right?”
I held my breath. Today was shaping up to be all kinds of shitty. I squinted at the lithe brunette. “Yep. That’s me.”
She patted her chest. “I’m Hazel. Denning has told me so much about you.”
The hell he had. “Somehow I doubt that.”
“Oh no, he has, really.” Her smile was bright and saccharine. “He talks about his entire team. He’s so proud to lead all of you.”
I had to get the hell out of here. “Well, that’s nice. If you’ll—”
“Actually, before you go, I want to make sure you’ll be at dinner at our place at the end of the month. I sent an email, but I never heard back.”
I’d filed that email in my trash. “I’m so sorry. I’m just so busy. I won’t be able to attend.”
Hazel’s smile went tight. “I have to insist. Why don’t you email me with a better date and time after you’ve thought about it?”
“Sure, I’ll do that.” Never gonna happen. She was out of her mind, because there was no way I was going to subject myself to that.
I turned and left them where they stood in the lobby, not even knowing what Denning wanted to talk to me about, but certain I wouldn’t want to give a shit. I went to my office first, dropped off my bag, and made a cup of tea, all before the morning briefing.
When I finally sat in my usual chair at the briefing, Amelia took a seat next to me before sliding over a glazed doughnut in my direction. “Here, eat this. Chances are, you haven’t eaten.”
“Yeah, that’s me. Constant diet of tequila and bad decisions.”
She rolled her eyes. “Eat.”
I took a little piece of the doughnut and nearly moaned in ecstasy as the sugar dissolved on my tongue.
At the head of the table, my father stood to his full height. His mostly dark auburn hair, rich and full, caught the overhead lights and reflected reddish glints.
People always did a double take when we were together and wondered how, with my olive skin and darker hair, we were father and daughter. He always just said I looked like my mother.
Although, I didn’t really. My mother had been stunningly beautiful with her dark hair, her big eyes, and her soft pouty mouth.
Denning took his usual position across from me, and the rest of the team filed in. Dad gave each of them a withering glare for being late, since he considered being on time late.
“All right, team, let’s get our status updates out of the way and then move on to team assignments.”
Amelia leaned over. “Here we go.”
Amelia and I had been trying to get our own dedicated cases for well over a year. We both had the proper experience. We both were general badasses, if we did say so ourselves. And we were both ambitious. The funny thing was that, even though my father had a few female special agents, there were some whispered rumblings that they always got the shit cases.
I’d never agreed with that. The father I knew wouldn’t do that. He wasn’t a misogynist. But recently, I’d been starting to wonder.
Dad called for the status checks. Around the table we went. Denning had been working on a drug case that was just now coming to an end. They had found the perpetrators in Ibiza. But somehow, Denning had to be there for several weeks trying to suss the guy out. Ibiza wasn’t that big.
Finally, my father reached me. His gaze just roamed over me, narrowing slightly as he looked at my cheek. Was the bruise visible?
I stared back, fighting the instinct to reach up and touch my face. “Nyla, why don’t you tell the team where we are on your assignment.”
Amelia and I both shifted in our seats. The shitty thing was I was back at square one with few leads. “Well, we’re still waiting for an update on the jewelry heist. Right now, I can’t get anyone to report anything stolen out of Grimwald Authenticators. Even though I know for certain something happened there that night. The cameras were taken out in precise fashion, as if done deliberately and not by malfunction, so we’re still digging.”
For the last year, I’d been on the hunt for a ring of jewelry thieves. It had led me down a path of human traffickers, whom I’d caught, but I’d never solved the diamond heist. And my theory was why I was currently sporting a bruise and taking the arse kicking.
“Leads?”
It didn't matter what I knew my father was going to say, I had to try. I pulled out photos of this year’s Gem Gala. “I’d like to take a run at Prince Lucas Winston. He was at the Gem Gala. He and his sister, but still neither he nor his sister, a prince and princess, had anything stolen.?” I left out his connection to the London Lords on purpose.
My father shook his head. “No. You already spoke to Jessa Ainsley, yes?”
“Well, yes, but I think he could be helpful if you just let me talk to him. We’re running out of leads.”
“You are a very good agent, Nyla. Find another angle to work.”