Kat needed to go back to LA as soon as possible. Like, immediately. Right freaking now—Okay, so Lissy hadn't really said that her appointment with Evelyn was urgent. Actually, Kat could go back any time she pleased and Evelyn wouldn’t give her a hard time, but Kat just couldn't wait. The simple thought of being offered her dream job was enough to make her a jumping bean. But of course, her path to that event was still riddled with loose ends and hurdles.And the biggest hurdle was no other than Calix.

The slap of Kat's heels against the white tiled floor was music to her ears, but the weight of familiarity became heavy when she saw the colorful paint splash logo of Beaufort Farlowe, which occupied the seventeenth to twentieth floors of this thirty-story building called Pacific Blue.True to its name, Pacific Blue had a blue-themed interior and exterior, but the Beaufort Farlowe floors were pretty much a rainbow wonderland. The offices, the décor, the dividers, and even the flowering plants were blooming with color. The only drab thing in the whole place were the conference rooms, especially the one at the twentieth floor, which the senior executives occupied.

Russia? China? Sweden? Somewhere far. Somewhere with a different language.Kat laid on the hotel bed, clutching her phone and poring through the list of flights for tomorrow. There were a lot, but for her purpose, the place should be as far away from Los Angeles as possible, so Calix would not have any means to find her. Well, honestly, she wasn't even sure about staying in L.A. but—

By the time they arrived at apartment B3, Kat was just done. She was sweating bullets, she'd just paid a hefty amount to cancel Calix's Japan flight and book him another one, and she'd sat next to a screaming child the entire hour-long plane ride back to Vegas.Oh, the absolute pain. The sheer torture. She couldn't wait to call it a day.

"Stop!" Baby-Calix yelled, his voice still high and reedy, probably a couple of years away from being deep and developed. Still, he managed to sound commanding. "Leave him alone!"Okay, Kat thought as she followed him, this should be interesting now.The two goons froze at the sight of the kid barging in, their whips still high in the air in preparation for a fresh strike. The wounded man, after casting a dazed, absent look at baby-Calix, promptly collapsed on his own puddle of gold blood.Baby-Calix stepped forward as though to help the man, but the woman's sudden movement stopped him.She inclined her pretty head. "Who told you to interrupt, youn