Mia pulled him in and made sure to shut the door behind her.
"Alright—say what you wanna say."
He glanced at the newly designed office, stunned by the architecture and design.
"Seriously, when was this done? Has it been that long I haven't been here?"
"It doesn't really matter, Liam. Say why you're here so we can get on with it," Sera muffled on the couch, grabbing a bag of chips from the center table to eat.
"Still the same as always, huh."
He walked up to the office couch close by and relaxed on it, his sore bones jubilating inside him.
"Well, I haven't been here at the bakery in weeks, and so a lot has happened while I was gone—both for me and you guys," he started.
"On your end, you were growing and gaining more customers, while on my end, I was investigating more into my father's company, and I did discover a lot as I initially planned."
Mia turned to him, a small form of emotion visible in her eyes.
"Investigation? You investigated without us, Liam? I thought we planned to always work together."
He slowly turned his head toward her direction. "It's not like that, Mia. I just didn't want to put you guys in danger."
"You're pretty caring for someone who hardly knows me," Sera interrupted, chewing her chips in between words.
"You should have invited me. You know how I love these kinds of tasks."
"Yeah, I know. But you wouldn't give a clean work better than the person I worked with. There was a lot of risk in this investigation."
Mia turned to him immediately at the sound of "risk" in his sentence.
"Risks, Liam? Do you really want to get yourself killed? It's not like I care or anything, but Liam, you have to be a lot more careful. This is not a joking matter!"
"Don't worry, Mia," he said, smiling faintly at her concern.
"She did the job accurately without messing up anything. I was actually surprised by how clean she did it. She's way better than Sera at tracking and investigating this stuff," he said, turning to Sera with a faint smirk on his lips before it immediately disappeared.
'Oh no, I said the word she in front of Mia,' he realized, turning slowly toward Mia, whose expression was now unreadable.
"She?" she asked, exactly as he expected. "A she, Liam? Sorry, it's not like it should bother me or anything."
Sera noticed the tension, and Mia's jealousy at his mention of another female.
"Ohh, I see someone's jealous of his upgrade," she teased, avoiding her gaze by staring at the ceiling.
Mia snorted, turning back to Liam. "So, when did you two meet?"
"Well, like three weeks ago at an abandoned server café."
He removed his shoes and laid comfortably on the couch, resting his head on the soft part of the arm.
"At an abandoned server café? What were you doing at an abandoned server café?"
She seemed quite interested in his story now. She folded her arms and sat up, resting on the office desk.
Sera also seemed interested and therefore sat up as well, leaning in closer with her chips still in her hand.
He turned and noticed their interest and immediately knew he was in for a long while.
"It was an investment interest. Don't forget, I'm not entitled to stay at the bakery for the rest of my life. I'm still an investor."
"Yeah, I know, but that doesn't answer my question, Liam," her voice was a bit hoarse with jealousy, and it was very obvious.
"Right. So we met up at the café to discuss the project and stuff, and I ended up investing in it," he continued, laying his hand on his forehead, staring at the golden chandelier dangling from the ceiling.
"Wait, you're the anonymous investor that went viral several weeks ago? You invested in one company, uhh... I can't quite recall the name," she stared up at the ceiling, trying to remember the name.
"You mean NetVigil?" Sera interrupted, trying to keep the conversation flowing so she didn't feel bored.
"Yeah, NetVigil. You're the one?"
Liam nodded. "Yeah, I was the one. But that's not where it ended. We continued meeting up after that because part of the agreement was that while I invest in her company, she would work for me privately to investigate my father's company."
"To think you were Investor Panda all along. By the way, what do you mean by 'she will work for you privately'? Why privately?"
"I can't have her doing this stuff in public, Mia. And stop overthinking it so I can complete the story," noticing Sera's annoyance at her dumb questions due to her jealousy.
"Right, right. I'll stop overthinking everything," she said sarcastically.
"I didn't see her face though. She covered it with a mask and a hoodie—though she later pulled off the hoodie because I already figured she was a girl, and it didn't make any sense to keep hiding it."
"You didn't see her face and you trust her? Shouldn't you be worried the so-called person you're working with doesn't have a profile but has a secret identity you aren't aware of? Do you even know her name?" she blasted questions his way.
But he simply dodged all the questions with a single line. "There's a saying that quotes, 'The devil you know is better than the angel you don't know.'"
Sera immediately started clapping. "Bravo! My dude became a motivational speaker a few weeks after leaving the bakery."
'It isn't a motivational quote though, right?' he thought for a while.
"Well, so what did you achieve with the partnership at the end of the day?" Mia asked, drifting the conversation back.
"Well, I achieved more than I would have achieved alone, and I'm grateful I decided to include her in this. Now I have so much knowledge about everything that was happening behind closed doors in my father's company."
"Not bad. I must meet this skillful individual. There seems to be a lot I must learn from her," Sera muffled with chips still in her mouth.
"There's one thing though," he finally cut to the chase. "I have a question for you both."
His words grabbed their attention. Even Sera stopped munching on her chips.
"Will you be willing to cut off from me? Because where I'm going is very dangerous—even for me. And when we start, there's no going back."
His question lingered, causing silence as they both stared at each other. Thinking about his words, they turned back to him and answered.