They concluded their business with a forced civility that left her angry. Mia went from the conference room to her hotel room, changed into workout clothes, and then spent an hour pummeling a target at the gym. She didn’t often lose her temper, but few things set her off as much as bigotry.

Then she wrapped up negotiations with the old couple, sealing the deal on their arrangement. Their condo would do nicely, it seemed.

It was under less than ideal circumstances that she got ready for work on Monday. Last night, the nightmares had come before she enjoyed more than a couple hours’ sleep. Mia loathed herself for being so weak, but she couldn’t seem to shake the trauma of how helpless she’d felt, tied to a chair with a dirty rag in her mouth. It seemed as if she should be over it, since she’d come to no physical harm.

To offset that sense of vulnerability, she dressed in a black suit with a blue, lace-trimmed camisole beneath it: strength underscored with softness. Mia knew what men saw when they looked at her; she planned that reaction, from her coral-frosted mouth to the matching lacquer on her nails. She had long since learned to make the exterior camouflage the computer within. Men were never impressed that she could add a column of twelve four-digit numbers in her head in less than ten seconds.

Mia took a last look around the place she would call home for the next three months. Unlike most of her contracts, this job wasn’t situated in a city large enough to offer corporate housing, but she’d gotten lucky with a snowbird couple heading to Arizona for the winter. Mia didn’t think Virginia winters were terrible, but the old folks did.

They’d given her a great deal on the place-almost no rent at all-saying she was doing them a favor and they could rest easy knowing someone would water their plants and look after their fat, lazy cat. Mia wasn’t a pet person, but she figured she could handle food and water for three months. The ginger tabby glared at her from its hiding spot beneath the coffee table.