I quickly pushed the button to turn it off.

“I thought your brother said no one could tap me here?” Armen said.

He was looking at Elias now, and the apparent placidness of moments ago was completely gone. His bushy eyebrows were raised, and he was clenching his fists.

“They can’t tap you here.”

“Then what was that?” he said.

The phone buzzed yet again, and I wanted to throw the thing out of the fucking window, or better yet, throw the person who was blowing it up out the window.

I did nothing.

Instead, I smiled and said, “I’ll turn it off. It’s rude to have devices at dinner anyway.”

“Yes, especially if they are attempting to catch someone doing something incriminating,” Armen said. Then he looked at Elias again, clearly annoyed. “Davit said that couldn’t happen?”

“And like I said, it can’t. Kayla has a modified device, one that has been given permission to go through the geo-fence Davit set up, but one that also has special safeguards to make sure it can’t be used as a recording device.”

Elias spouted that off with little fanfare and then took a bite of his dinner. The two women who had served it had come in, placed the food, and faded away without so much as a sound.

“Papa, nothing will happen. So you can relax,” Elias said.

His father looked at him hard for a moment, but I saw the instant he decided to go along with Elias.

“Fine.”

“Well, I’m glad I was mistaken,” he said, looking at me.

“Mistaken about what?” I asked.

I forced myself to take a bite of the food that had been placed on my plate. The flavor of lamb and rosemary exploded across my taste buds. Objectively, it was delicious, but after tonight, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be able to eat lamb again without reliving these tense, awful moments.

“About the services you were providing to my son to alleviate your father’s debt,” he said.

Another attempt to bait me, and another that I avoided.

“Me too. After all, some things are sacred, and you can’t put a price on them. Like love,” I said.

I wasn’t naive enough to think that Armen bought what I was saying completely, but it was the best I could do. He was pissing me off with his innuendo and suggestion, but I knew the smart thing would be to keep my mouth closed.

And I would, or at least I hoped I could.

“It’s a shame that your father let you get into this predicament in the first place,” he said.

“Perhaps, but we do the things we need to do for our family,” I said.

“Family is the most important thing,” he said.

“I agree completely,” I responded, knowing I’d said the only thing I could.

And one that might actually be true.