Almost certainly. But not in the way Faiza meant. “Employers here can’t do anything but fire you.”

“This is a very strange, very wonderful country.” Faiza radiated goodness in a way Piper could only admire, and the wistfulness in her voice was heartwrenching.

They finally reached the hotel. Faiza touched Piper’s shoulder. “Thank you for what you have done, my friend. I shall pray for you every night.”

That seemed a little excessive, but Piper wasn’t one to turn down anyone’s prayers.

***

“When I said I’d be at the gym, it wasn’t an invitation for you to show up.” Coop had to shout over the scream of Norwegian black metal blaring through the speakers. A bead of sweat flew from his jaw as he delivered a violent left-right combination to the punching bag. Piper barely stopped herself from pointing out that it was not only bad form, but also counterproductive, to go after the bag with all that force.

Pro Title Gym was the smelly, windowless, hole-in-the-wall mecca of Chicago’s most elite athletes—a stripped-down space with cinder block walls, dented black rubber mats, and rusty squat racks lining a wall that held an American flag and a yellowed sign with a quote from Fight Club that read listen up, maggots. you are not special. The place reeked of sweat and rubber. No juice bars or trendy workout clothes. Pro Title was hard-core, expensive, and exclusive.

“How did you get in here?” Coop snarled like a Rottweiler.

“I slept with the dude at the front desk,” she retorted over the shrieking, distorted guitars.

“Bull.” An uppercut to the bag.

In fact, all she’d had to do was explain that she worked for Coop. Wearing her chauffeur’s uniform instead of being dressed like a football groupie gave her credibility, and the guy had let her in. “It’s my story, and I’ll tell it how I want.”

He delivered another punishing jab. “Go away.”

That was fine with her. She hadn’t expected to conduct their meeting here, merely to show him that she took her job seriously. But she didn’t immediately move. She couldn’t. Not when the muscles under Coop’s sweat-stained T-shirt rippled like wind over water every time he punched. She had to stop this. Right now. Because if she didn’t, she might start thinking about growing her fricking hair! She spun toward the door.

“Hold it!” Another Rottweiler bark. “Why are you dressed like that? You look like a mortician.”

She calmed herself down enough to tell him who she was driving for. “Only during the daytime,” she shouted over the music. “This is my chauffeur’s uniform.”

“It’s ugly.” Another annihilating punch at the bag.

“So’s your disposition.”

That bounced right off him. “Do you care at all how you look?”

“Not much.”