Page 134 of The Payback

“No, he’s just salty that he’s losing his best girl,” Olivia says with an eye roll.

Viraj crosses his arms over his chest. “Rory became her favourite and stole her away from me. Fucking brownnoser.”

Roark laughs from the other end of the line. “I didn’t brownnose!”

“You bought her a zebra, Rory! How am I supposed to compete with that?”

Olivia chuckles and pats Viraj’s shoulder. “You’ll think of something. Come on, let’s go back to the house. I wanna hear all about their adventures, and I’m starving.”

Ellie crosses the divide again and plucks Bella out of Dimitri’s arms. “Bellatrix, are you charming your daddies?” Our girls embrace, and Ellie tweaks Bella’s little space buns on top of her head.

“Is that your kink, then?” Olivia asks aloud, and Ellie just smirks.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Our girl just smirks and turns, heading towards the house along the path we used earlier.

Following her, I make faces at Bella as she looks over Ellie’s shoulder. Her gaze pings between me and Dimitri. The others follow behind us, and I distinctly hear one of them say, “Daddy? I could get behind that.”

There’s a thud and a harsh exhale, and I’m pretty sure Olivia just socked whoever said that in the gut.

“Wait, did she name her kid after that god-awful cat from school?” Zach asks in a disgusted tone.

Olivia laughs. “Took you long enough to put that together, Zach. I’m worried about you in your old age.”

“Oh, Little Thief, keep teasing me and see what happens.”

CHAPTERFORTY-EIGHT

Eleanor

Bella clingsto Nik through our meal, the man never putting her down or listening when I offer the chair between us. Bella is delighted sitting on his knee and letting him feed her by hand whenever she bats her pretty eyelashes at him.

What surprises me more than anything is Dimitri joining in, taking turns with Nik to pop little morsels of food in Bella’s mouth. My child just tips her head back, opens her mouth, and waits to be fed like the tiny princess she is.

“So you’re off work for a while,” Olivia says, her tone falsely curious. She’s clearly up to something.

“Yeah, I have the usual time off after an undercover job, and I asked for a sabbatical to spend time with Bella after being away for so long.”

“Bella or...” Olivia says, swinging her eyes over at the men beside me, wholly ignoring the conversation in favour of our daughter.Ourdaughter, because as much as she’s mine and Nik’s, she’s Dimitri’s too.

The three of them hold my heart, and I don’t want it back.

I shrug at Olivia’s question, grinning around a bite of the rice bowl Rory put together for each of us. “What are you guys up to?”

Viraj tears his eyes away from my guys and Bella, whom he’s been staring at longingly for the last ten minutes. “No sharing until we have leverage.”

“We have leverage. Oi! Nik, Dimitri! I will bury you if you tell anyone we live here and what we do. I have enough evidence to put you both away forever, and if that isn’t enough of a warning, I have guns that shoot more than penis glitter.”

I tense as Olivia’s words land, but my anxiety disappears when Nik speaks. “Our child’s godparents are safe from any misdeeds on our side. We owe you for so much, but protecting and watching over Bella while Ellie made her way into our lives is more than enough. Bury us if you need to. We’d welcome it if it keeps them safe.”

Zach nods. “Worst case, I’ll kill you outright.”

Dimitri and Nik nod respectfully, the latter looking more fearful than the former.

“Fine,” Olivia says. “We’ve been on a much-needed break with Bella, but it’s time to return to work. There’s a queue of jobs on the app, and we’ve been sorting through it to see what we’d like to do next. Fuck, is it tedious.”

Olivia and the guys use their connections to do... less than reputable work. Max is connected to the upper crust, Rory is a hacker with too much skillnotto go rogue, Viraj loves the adrenaline, and Zach patches people up when they get hurt on these outings. And Olivia... well, she’s a thief and one of the best I’ve ever heard of. Though I didn’t know the full scope of her operation until I roped her into helping me recover the diamond Natasha is still pretending she has.

“Anything tickle your fancy?” I ask, knowing she’s probably got a list fifteen-deep of jobs she wants to take on.

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