Tracey pulled the phone away from her ear and pressed the mute button on the screen. “It’s security downstairs. They said they stopped a man from entering the building. He wants to see you. Claims he’s your brother. Do you even have a brother?”

Raj felt her stomach pitch and nausea roil in her gut. Her first instinct was to have security throw him out, but that would only delay the inevitable. Guru had endless patience. Even when they were kids, he’d been able to wait her out. She remembered that he’d hide in the poppy fields during Holi and then blast her with colored water from a squirt gun when she got tired of hiding.

She refused to hide in her own damn office now.

Raj tapped her red nails against her desk as she debated her options. If she tried to ignore him, he would just wait for her to leave work.

No, ignoring was a coward’s way. It was what her mother would do, and she was not her mother. She wasn’t going to just let someone walk into her life and make demands that she accepted without argument. No, this was her company, her territory.

“Boss, what do you want—”

“Ask for his name.” She knew what it would be, but it was important for Guru to realize that she wasn’t going to welcome him into her life.

Tracey unmuted the phone and spoke into the receiver. She paused as security responded to her question, and then said, “Guru Hothi.”

“Okay, tell security to send him up. Move my call with Kia at Gen One by ten minutes. Harnette, you can head out, too.”

“Raj, are you sure?” Harnette asked. “Tracey and I, or one of your other senior VPs can stay with you.”

“No, I’m fine. Guru is an old . . . acquaintance.”

They looked at each other, as if trying to determine whether or not to believe Raj’s brush-off, before they walked to the door.

“Let us know if you need us,” Tracey said.

“Thanks, Tracey.”

She watched them walk toward their desks through the glass wall of her office before she turned to her windows. Her view wasn’t as impressive as that of the Singh brothers, but she was still proud of it.

“Gudiya.”

The endearment was spoken in a rough, deep timbre. She turned slowly, and barely controlled her jaw from dropping.

The last time she’d seen her brother he was thirty and looked like a walking advertisement for how not to wear designer clothes. He was the son of a Punjabi mob boss with a gold spoon tucked between his teeth.

And now he looked like the mob boss himself.