"You don't need to tell me anything, Eric. I know that you are doing an excellent job in all the operations that your team is carrying out, but you must also understand that everyone is in the same situation as you. None of them has resources to carry out new possibilities, but they are stretching their limits to do everything they can. I know it frustrates you to no end that you don't have the sort of resources that cannot be stretched and I cannot help you in any way, Eric." Eric sighed, knowing that what had been said was true. I, on the other hand, was feeling useless standing there like a dumb person doing nothing much concentrating on narrating the conversation that was taking place in the room.

"Anthony, do you mind if I intercede?" I asked as politely as I could manage. Both the men in the room turned to look at them. One looked utterly bewildered and a bit shocked at my reaction while the other seemed pleased and proud. You must figure out which is which.

"Yes?" he smiled as he spoke to me.

"I'm probably the only one who's doing mostly nothing while others are drowning with work. Would you mind terribly if I took on the task of finding out about Joe and relieved Eric of this particular duty?" Eric was the one who seemed most surprised. Anthony broke into a loud laugh, and I waited for him to finish.

"I suppose I was waiting for you to say that," Anthony said and then turned to Eric. "There you go, problem solved." And just like that, Eric left the room with his mouth slightly open and an expression of shock on his face.

"Thank you for that, Mia."

"You didn't have to be so harsh on him, you know," I chided.

"I didn't, but I needed him to sympathise with his colleagues. I knew that he wouldn't be able to do it, and I would have assigned the job to you when he left, but I knew you would volunteer, my genie."

"Why am I not surprised?" I mumbled with a shake of my head. "And when did I become your genie? I thought I was the kitten?"

"You became the genie when you started giving wind to my dreams, Mia."

"Very dreamy, Anthony." I rolled my eyes at his cheesiness.

"And you'll always be my kitten." My head rolled back as I gave in to uncontrollable bastard. The man was dreamy, indeed.

.

I had been stuck at the mansion for the next two days. The reason for staying over would be Cienna's panic attacks and refusal to let anyone near her. Despite her apparent hatred towards me, she only trusted food that I served her and slept only when I was in the same room. To say that my backside was aching would be an understatement. I could feel my eyes burning from exhaustion as I tried to stay awake after the restless sleep I'd achieved on the couch for the past two days.

Currently, I was staring silently at Cienna, who seemed to be engrossed in the fish roll in her hand. She was better now, one could say. She was showing definite signs of progress, and the after-effects of consuming drugs were slowly fading. She wasn't zoning out any longer, and it was a definite sign that her immune system was regaining control over her cognitive system. I could swear that she was keeping me around on purpose to torture me, but I couldn't be sure because I'd never been in a situation such as hers.

I was pissed off at her for being such a dimwit and forgetting that she was a woman in power. Even though she didn't have a gun on her, it was expected of her to know some self-defence if she was socialising with mobsters. And I could assume from her track record that she could pass colourfully in attacking someone if the opportunity arose. All of these inferences were based on assumptions that I had made in the span of the past few days, and I had found a way to justify her actions. She hadn't known what to do when she was directly at the line of fire, figuratively. What she had been doing for the past years and why she had condoned the torture that was her former boss was beyond me, but I wondered if she was somehow emotionally attached to him.

The way she had called him a monster... a beast had been a dead giveaway. She appreciated the man at one point of time in her life, and the infatuation had not entirely dissipated. But did that mean that she was smuggling information from under Anthony's nose? No. I had made it a point to check about the sort of contact that the two had shared in the past few years, not out of curiosity but as an opportunity that placed itself in front of me when I started investigating about Joe.

My investigation was basic in nature and it was mainly focusing on the relationship that Cienna and Joe had shared. The man didn't seem to have any financial problems, yet he had continuously extracted money from Cienna. That had been the first thing that struck me. I had gone over the arguments dozens of times before I conquered that no one had enough money and that Cienna was exceedingly stupid.

Anthony agreed.

The contact between the two of us has been limited for the time being as I have turned out to be the butler for none other than Cienna or Cee Doll as many lovingly called her. She sneered at me when I teased her about my nickname, though. I don't know why she bothers to annoy me with her needs. Coming back to the topic at hand, I was pretty sure I was talking about the lack of communicating between Anthony and me.

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