Page 14 of Dancing with Daggers

"As soon as possible. If you find him in the next twenty-four hours, I'll triple your fee."

Samuel's bright laughter echoed through the phone. "She must be quite the girl."

"She is a pain in the ass." Ares pinched the bridge of his nose. "Just find the fucker for me."

"Will do, boss. Anything else?"

"No. Yes." Ares exhaled and repeated, "Yes. I need you to start looking for my brother again."

Samuel let out a low whistle. "I'll try, boss. I have a few contacts I didn't have when we tried last time. I'll give them a tap and see what they can come up with."

"Thanks, Samuel." They rang off, and Ares felt fractionally better. He just needed to be proactive, and everything would work out. He straightened his hair and tie.

Focus on finding where the money is missing from, he told his reflection. That was his only priority. Not Zia and how she would look painted with his come. Ares groaned. He needed to get a grip. Zia wasn't for him. After last night, it wasn't like she would let him touch her again. He had made sure of that.

Good one, dickhead, his reflection seemed to say.

For the first time in years, Ares had panicked. He had been so shocked by what had happened between him and Zia and so blinded by the smile on her face that was just for him... Ares looked at his reflection again and wanted to punch himself in the face.

Corven just needed to pick an heir, and everything would be okay. He needed to find the money leak, and most of all, he needed to stay the fuck away from Zia.

10

Zia punched the swinging bag and imagined it was Ares's perfect face. She gave it a hard kick where his balls would be and followed it up with an elbow to the face again.She had woken up mad, and her day had only gotten worse from there.

Zia had spent most of the day hacking into all the security cameras in the Volso building. She had been determined to wipe any footage of her and Ares's fighting and fucking the previous evening. It shouldn't have surprised her that the seventh floor didn't have cameras at all. Neither did Ares's office.

Too smart for his own good.

Camille hadn't been so smart. Zia had accidentally stumbled across her fucking one of the board members that Zia had met at the auction. He was also the one who Erik claimed was laundering money through the charity.

This family is something else. Zia had contemplated telling Camille she was on camera but had recorded a copy of the footage instead before deleting it from the company server. It was one thing to have a decent blackmail plan in place should the worse happen and quite another to have a weakness in Corven's armor. She liked Corven, and she hated that she could have liked Ares too. If he hadn't turned out to be such a raging dick.

Don't think about his dick. Zia couldn't help thinking about it because she was still wearing his bite marks and bruises all over her. She had to wear a turtleneck all day in case anyone asked her what happened. If all else failed, she would lie and say she had hooked up with someone at Erik's party.

Zia had half expected the siblings to all be banging on her door at sunrise to demand a blood test to confirm her parentage. It hadn't happened, which meant Ares really didn't want to risk her telling them he had magic. She hadn't seen him all day either, and she had so many witty barbs to throw at him. She was still pissed how he had left it the night before.

For all you know, he's been banging his secretary all day. Zia hit the punching bag harder. Not her business if he was. She didn't even care. She got what she wanted from him. Leverage, a few orgasms, and so much energy from his blood that she had been climbing the walls all day.

Zia drank from her water bottle. It was 9:45 pm, and she was still pumped. She wandered through the gym, and her eyes rested on the door leading to the steam room. She momentarily hesitated, remembering what Ares had said on the tour about his standing booking at 10 pm every night. She hadn't heard anyone else come in.

Fuck hi. He can wait his turn. Zia grabbed a fresh towel from the shelves in the change room and stripped off her workout gear. Maybe a steam was exactly what she needed to relax her. She looked down at her bruised knees and sighed. That was the last time she was fucking on an uncarpeted floor.

Zia stepped into the warm room of marble and blue tiles and some of the tension immediately left her shoulders. It was more of a hammam than a sauna, and Zia sighed at the luxury of it. No wonder Ares was in there every night. She filled a silver bowl with water and placed it on the tiled bench beside her for when she needed to cool down.

"I was born to be rich," she said to the carved marble around her.

Zia was starting to relax when something thumped heavily on the wall. She opened her eyes and saw Ares glaring at her through the glass window in the door. Zia's heart jumped at the absolute fury on his face.

That's right. We could have played nice, but you wanted to be a dick.

Ares's mouthed 'Get out' at her, but she pretended not to understand. She wiped the steam from her arms and noticed him tracking her moves. Hunger and desire flashed over his face before he could hide it.

Zia smirked and stroked her fingers up her thigh to the hem of the towel. He could always look away if he wanted to. It would mean that she would win the battle for the hammam, and if she knew one thing about Ares it was that he hated to lose.

Zia pretended he wasn't there and widened her thighs. Ares slammed on the wall again, but she ignored him and let her towel fall open. She palmed one of her heavy breasts and dared to look up. Ares's eyes had turned black, but he still wasn't coming in. Zia knew the game was going to backfire on her when those crazy eyes caught hers.

Fuck. He was so angry and so perfect.

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