Now that everyone had full bellies, they were hard at work. Ishmael was busy finalizing and organizing the notes from yesterday's impromptu team meeting and reworking the contract to reflect the added security measures that were needed.

Seeing how this may be a hard sell, she knew a demonstration would be needed.

"Hey Josh?"

"Yup!"

"Do we have an extra Bodybot band?"

"Yeah... Hey Kim, where are the extra bot bands?"

"Seo has them in his office."

"Okay thanks." She got up to head to his office.

"Where are you going?" Sean had a very concerned look on his face.

"To get one of the bands for tomorrow's meeting."

"You can't just walk back there."

"Oh for pete's sake! You guys need to relax, he's a man, not God Almighty!" Ishmael had work to do and she needed one of those bands. Walking to his office she came across Ito, whose office was across from Seo's.

"Well if it isn't the little lady."

Ishmael just ignored him as she kept on walking.

"Hey!" Ito made the mistake of grabbing her arm when she turned around and yanked it from him.

"Do not touch me again." The look of anger was nothing to mess with as she clenched her first, ready to end his existence. She let it go and went to walk away.

"Hey woman!" He grabbed her again, mad that she had stood up to him. Ishmael didn't say anything as she turned and landed a right hook to his face. Ito stumbled back into the wall behind him as he was caught totally off guard.

"You fucking bi-!"

"ITO!"

Seo was there having heard a commotion outside his office. Ishmael was holding her hand having hit him harder than she thought.

"My office, NOW!"

Ishmael thought it best that she leave, plus she needed to calm down because if Ito said one more syllable to her, she was going to unleash on him. Seo turned to her, his face still holding frowns.

"Did you need something!" Now he was almost snapping at her.

"I needed one of the bands...sir."

"I'll put it on your desk later, excuse us." Seo turned to deal with Ito. Ishmael left to get some fresh air in the lobby on their floor. She didn't realize that she was stomping down the hall and at a fast pace as she stormed out the door, ignoring the rest of the team. Sean and Haru looked at each other confused. Sean decided to go and see what was wrong. As he got up to leave, Miko was there, putting one of the bands on Ishmael's desk. She came over to him and leaned down to whisper, exposing far too much of her manufactured cleavage.

"Say good-bye to your dark skinned... sister. Hope she doesn't get arrested for assault." Miko smirked and sashayed back down the hall.

"What the hell is your problem Ito?! You do not put your hands on anyone!"

"What do you care? You know, ever since you hired her you've been acting strange!"

"You're the one acting strange, you've been targeting her since day one!"

"Hey can you blame me? Have you seen that ass of hers?"

Seo had to look away before yelling again. If he could fire him, he would but Ito's had invested heavily in the company so Seo could get it off the ground. In a way, Ito had him by the monetary balls and he knew it. It was one of the reasons Seo had been targeting high profile clients. If he could land a couple of high dollar contracts, he could buy Ito out and be done with him.

Ito wasn't always a womanizing asshole. They used to be best friends with dreams of owning their own multi-million dollar business someday.  Ito inherited a large sum of money when his mother died. Initially he was his usual self and offered to fund the Cyber security firm to get it off the ground. Seo had sunk every cent he had into the company. Once Ito saw what money could do, it changed him for the worse. Seo had worked hard to pay off half the sizable loan that Ito had given him. $50k more, and he would be done with him.

"Leave her alone Ito and the rest of the women in this building, don't think I haven't noticed."

"Ha! Half of them should be so lucky." Ito took his smugness and left the office. "Good luck with that meeting tomorrow. Hope she can keep it together long enough to even finish it. I'm out! See your beautiful face Monday...boss."

Ito left out the private back exit and headed to the elevators, just missing Ishmael. Soon Seo was walking through the office reaching the front door before Sean, who was worried about Ishmael.

"It's okay Meng. I'll check on her."

Sean didn't know what to say as he stood there for a few minutes. Returning to his desk, Haru had an equally worried look. He leaned over to Sean.

"The three of us need to talk."

"Yeah, no shit."

The two men kept their eyes trained on the door.

Seo found her sitting by one of the water features, feeding the koi.  The front door was propped open as delivery men brought boxes inside.  A gentle breeze filled the lobby. 

He quietly walked over to her. "Ms. Turner."

Ishmael stood and bowed to him. "I'm sorry for earlier. I...I understand if you want to fire me." She was looking off to the side, mad at herself for losing her temper so easily.

"No one is going to fire you."

"You're not?!"

"No, do you want me to?"

"Well no!"

"Good, because you have a meeting to conduct tomorrow."

"Yes, sir."

He waited for her to reach him as the two of them walked back to the office together.

"I'm sorry about Ito. He won't bother you again."

"I see, did you fire him?"

"...no." With that Seo didn't say another word.

The two walked back into the office to the inquisitive stares of the others, even Min was there, a plate of mochi and Daifuku in her hand.

"Uhh..I was going to give some to the ladies next door."

"Ah! Thanks Min, I'm sure they'll appreciate that."

Ishmael tried to play it off as she took her seat at her desk. Seo walked back to his office without acknowledging anyone. Before she started on work again, she waited, Ishmael already knew Sean would be demanding answers. But he didn't, instead Sean sent her a text.

Sean: Family meeting right after work.
Ish: fine

Ishmael returned to revising and proofing the contract. That took her the rest of the day as she ended up working through lunch as did the rest of the team. Ishmael wanted to have all her ducks in a row so she printed off her analysis against the data from Aikaba. She also made sure that the bot band she had been giving, had the same security flaws as the one Josh was working on and it did. In fact it had some additional issues. She asked Seong and Kim to help her video the test simulation she did where the band could be accessed by any nearby bluetooth device.

She saved all her work to not only her work laptop but an external thumb drive. The thumb drive she would take with her when she left. Now it was time to call it quits. She shut everything down and locked up the data and her laptop, she even added an extra lock. It was one that she always kept with her, placing the key for it on her badge lanyard. Ishmael went to the kitchen to gather her cookware from breakfast, hoping that she wouldn't run into Ito. Luckily she didn't as she quickly gathered the crockpot, and the empty containers, the desserts were still in the fridge which was perfect. She did get three pieces of the eclair so they could have them later. Returning to her desk, Sean and Haru were ready to go as they also had their things. They quietly walked out of the office and into the lobby.

"Meet at my place in about 30 minutes." Sean and Haru both had serious looks on their faces. Ishmael just wanted to eat and go to bed, it had been a long and now stressful day and she was ready for it to be over with.

Sean took the items from Ishmael and placed them in the back seat of his car. The ride to their apartments was fairly quiet.

"You okay sis."

"Yeah."

"You want to tell me what happened?"

"I punched Ito."

"Ohh....fuck."

"He deserved it."

"Seo going to fire you?"

"He said no."

"Thank God.  What did he do?"

"He grabbed me. I told him don't touch me and went to walk away then he started to call me a bitch, and I punched him. Seo came out of his office and stopped him. Can we not talk about that ass hat anymore?"

"Sorry sis, me and Haru were just worried about you."

"I know. So what is this family meeting about?"

"I don't know, Haru wanted to have it."

"Mn."

Walking to her apartment it was already going on 7. Sean sat her stuff down while she hung up her back pack. From there they went to Sean's and waited for Haru. He was there in five minutes to find Sean and Ishmael sitting on the couch, Sean flipping through movies.

"Hey guys."

The both smiled at him as he grabbed a chair and sat in front of the tv. Sean and Ishmael knew it must have been serious so he shut the tv off.

"What's going on ge?"

"I've been thinking. I really have loved hanging out with you two. You've been just so welcoming and made me instantly feel like I belong. So this morning I met with my parents to finalize some dealings. They...they have disowned me because of...things. Anyway, my grandmother passed away last year and left me her house. I found out about it 2 weeks ago. My parents were going to sell it out from under me when an estate lawyer contacted me due to the pending sale."

"Wow." Sean didn't know any of this was happening as Haru never shared much about himself.

"So!" Haru brushed off his somberness and perked up. "I've been thinking, ever since I've started spending time with you two, it just feels right. We do feel like family. I want us to move in together!"

Sean looked at Mel and Mel looked at Sean. Suddenly they erupted into laughter, holding onto each other to somewhat contain themselves. After 5 minutes they had regained composure. Ishmael surprised Haru with a huge hug as she sat on his lap, surprising him even more.

"Tell him Sean!"

"Oh man!  So me and Ishmael were talking this morning and we decided that after our leases are up, we should move in together. We thought about asking you also but figured it would be weird to ask that."

"Seriously!"

"Yeah! I love having you two around. My two brothers and me! But I am sorry about your parents though er ge."

"Ah. It's okay. They are how they are."

"Mn."

"So what do you think?" Sean was happy but still a bit reluctant.

"I say we do it, can we see the house Haru?" Ishmael had returned to the couch and was patting Sean on the back as she knew he was still worried. 

"Sure! What do you think Sean?" Haru was looking at him in anticipation. Sean looked over to Ishmael; she already knew he was wanting to talk to Haru alone.

"Will you give us a minute sis?"

"Yeah, come to my place when you're done."