“Tsk.” Shanley leaned back, his tall frame relaxing into the chair, a faint smile playing on his handsome face. “A love for cilantro can be cute. Just as long as she’s not a stone-faced grump like you.”
“One look at my face, and you know my sister can’t be anything but gorgeous,” Jimmie retorted with a cold sneer. “Definitely better looking than your girl.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Shanley said, his eyes narrowing as a devilishly charming smile spread across his lips. His little girl had a beautiful smile. Most people couldn’t compare.
Juniper’s brow furrowed as she listened to Shanley’s words. She thought, “What does he mean? Judging my looks based on Jimmie’s face? Does he think I’m as ugly as Jimmie? When did he go blind?”
As expected, birds of a feather flock together. Neither of them was any good.
Just as she was stewing in her thoughts, her phone rang.
“Juniper!” Luella’s excited voice came through the line. “I heard that pretty boy Jimmie hired Borealia’s Cybernetic Shadows, part of the Sigma Network, to find you! The nerve of that guy, going to our mortal enemies for help!”
Luella was furious.
Juniper’s mood soured even further. The Sigma Network was her biggest rival. They competed for clients, for territory, for hacking rankings… for everything. The leader of the Sigma Network must have been a bandit in a past life. And now her cheap, long-lost brother who had told her to get lost had hired her arch-nemesis to find her? Hilarious!
Her mood was now officially in the gutter.
“Juniper?” Luella asked tentatively when she didn't get a response.
“I’m here.”
“I remember you had me investigate that pretty boy last time,” Luella recalled, sensing there was more to the story. “What’s going on?”

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