"You're awake," he says.
"Come to gloat?"
"My daughter was almost killed by your ludicrous toy," he says, his voice a thin hiss. "You have a lot of balls taking a tone with me."
Lilah's eyes narrow. "Get. Out."
Roland glares right back. "Who do you think is paying your medical bills, you ungrateful little harridan? You—"
Lilah's heart rate rockets up, and I round on him. "If you don't get out now I'm going to drag your liver-spotted ass out of that chair and throw you out the window."
Roland smiles. "You should be careful what tone you take with your new boss, boy."
"You think that matters? Congratulations, I surrender. Only Lilah matters right now. You're agitating her. Leave."
He glares at me, at her, at me again.
"Get out," she repeats, softer this time.
With a flick of his wrist, he backs the power chair out of the room. I sit down in mine, and wheel up to hold Lilah's hand.
"Try to relax," I tell her. "Sleep. Everything is going to be fine."
Lilah
God, I feel weird.
I have good reason—a bajillion volts of electricity was run through my body yesterday. It's deeply unnerving to be on my feet today, up and active and walking around. I'm still not used to this idea, that my heart went wrong.
It almost broke when I thought Aiden was dead. That's why.
Now I'm sitting in a recliner chair in his hospital room while he sleeps. For all that, he's the one that's worse for wear. The doctors and nurses lectured him for an hour after that spectacle yesterday, when he got up and stormed through the hospital with his ass hanging out of his gown and came to rescue me.
I don't know what to do, what our situation is. Jason sort of follows me like a puppy, like he expects me to collapse at any second, but I feel fine. I keep insisting I feel fine, but everyone looks at me differently now.
Aiden is the only one who doesn't.
Curled up with a book on my phone, I can't stop thinking about what comes next—I'm not going back to New York. I'm going home. Home with Aiden. My fiancé. I keep wiggling my fingers, expecting a ring to appear. I picture myself in a wedding gown.
My lips curl at the idea of our wedding night. There's not much he and I haven't explored, but there has to be something.
I hear footsteps and head to see who it is before Aiden is disturbed. The boys are sleeping in the waiting room. Later on I'll head down to the cafeteria with them, bring back food so we can all eat together.
I don't know this person, an older man dressed like he just left the office, with an unbuttoned tie. "I need to speak with Doctor Byrne."
"Talk to me," I say, leading him into the hallway.
"With all due respect, miss…"
"Greymane. My father is one of the largest shareholders in the company, and I'm Aiden's fiancée. Let's talk."
"I see. Very well. Nick Stanfield. I'm the senior engineer on the teardown on the prototype. I think we've identified the problem."
"Go on."
"There was an unplanned, unregistered update Sunday evening. A software update. That means—"
"It means someone sabotaged the car," I blurt out.
I grab my neck, pressing my fingers into the veins to feel my pulse, and close my eyes, breathing until it slows. Eventually I'll stop doing that, but not today.
"Have you figured out what it did?"
"I was planning to show the boss," he offers, hefting a laptop, "but I can run you through it if it's best not to disturb him."
"Show me."
I sit down with him in the waiting room, and he quietly goes over the software with me. I might as well be looking at ancient Greek, but I can understand the explanations well enough."
"See here? This was no bug in the coding. Someone put this object in the code here. White_rabbit.obj. It did it all. Whoever coded this knew the sequence of tests we were going to run—someone involved in the project itself, or working for the company. They slipped this in and right here, the car's safety protocols were all disabled, and it went crazy, trying to ram things instead of avoiding them."
"I see," I say.
My stomach drops through the bedrock.
Someone tried to kill us.
"Any idea who did it?"
"We're working on that. The place was in a bit of an uproar on Sunday night. We expected the boss to come through and go over everything again before the demo, but he just up and went home and wouldn't take any calls. We had to do the final checks ourselves."
"Why would someone do this?"
"Paid off by a competitor, maybe? The other tech companies are sitting on lots of development cash for—"
I blink.
"I need to see all trading activity on Byrne Industries stock for the last week."
"Ma'am, I'm an engineer. I don't even know where to look for that."
"Then go find me someone who does and get them back here, five minutes ago. Run."
He stands uneasily and darts off into the hospital.
I lean back in the chair, my head propped against the hot glass window looking out over the city, and snooze. I'm roused by someone else walking into the room—the engineer and another person.
He looks like an accountant. I don't know how I know, I just do.
Two hours later, I'm walking into Aiden's room. He's awake now.
"There you are."
"Listen," I say. "I have to tell you something. Your people were here, and I talked to them."
"About the car?"
"Aiden, someone shorted millions of dollars in Byrne stock on Friday before the closing bell. They made a mint when the stock tanked this morning, and a huge amount of stock was purchased two hours later. It's almost the same amount. Like someone shorted the stock, waited for the fallout from the car test, then bought a bigger interest in the company."
Aiden stares at me.
"The car was sabotaged. Somebody tried to kill you."
"Us," he corrects. "My God."
"What do we do?"
"Phone," he says.
I move the nightstand to the bed and put the receiver in his hand.
"Dial this number for me."
After I push the keys, I glance at him. "That's an international number, but I don't know the country code."
He nods. "This is Aiden Byrne. I need to speak to Prince Kristoff as soon as possible."
My eyes widen.
"Then wake him," Aiden growls.
After speaking to the prince, Aiden has me dial another number with a Pennsylvania area code.
"Hello, Jennifer. I take it you saw. Yes, I'm a little banged up. No, she's fine. I need your help. We need to investigate something. Quietly. What do you know about shorting stocks?"
When he hangs up he says, "Call Maria in."
I nod and move to the door, motioning his assistant inside.
"Maria," he says, “What were you going to tell me? You told me twice you had something important to say.”
She shifts uncomfortably on her feet.
“Aiden, I didn’t want it to come to this, you have to understand…”
“You know?”
She goes quiet for a while, and turns paler, if that is even possible. “I’m not saying anything else to anyone without a lawyer.”
“Out,” he says. “Out.”
Maria slinks out of the room and rushes off.
When she's gone, I turn to him. "What was that about?"
"I saw her whispering to your father before the demonstration. She was acting oddly for the last week. Propositioning me. She came to me right before your father called me, said she had something important to tell me but she… She behaved inappropriately, and I sent her out before she could tell me. She tried again Sunday night after you were gone. Same thing. I rebuffed her, then she refused to tell me whatever it was."
I swallow hard.
My heart begins to race. I dig my fingers into my throat, feeling my pulse.
&
nbsp; “Lilah? Lilah, what is it?”
Breathe. Breathe and focus. I raise my other hand with a warning gesture, trying to calm him.
“I’m trying not to explode,” I tell him. “I can’t stress now. Can’t do this.”
“Tell me what’s wrong.”
“All my life that sick animal treated me like a doll, tried to groom me to be his fucked-up successor, paraded me around like a sex toy in front a bunch of old creeps, and now he tried to kill us. Him and Maria. She was working for him.”
Aiden
I'm finally ready to walk out of here on my own two feet. My leg is stiff, but I can flex it just enough to walk slowly, leaning on a cane with my good hand. Lilah walks with me. There's no point hiding it now.
When we step outside the press are waiting. I usher her forward to the car. Jason opens the door for her, and we all climb inside. I go last, grunting as I ignore shouted questions about the death of my dream.
All that matters is in here with me now, but I'm not letting this go until I find out who is responsible for all this. Someone tried to take Lilah from me, tried to take me from my sons and leave them orphans.
Now we play hardball.
Lilah has taken to Maria's job like a fish to water, now that she has access to everything. You'd think she was an old hand at organizing my affairs. I like her for this, my trusted partner and executive officer. Assistant isn't good enough. I should make her a full executive.
The press will tear me apart for making my nineteen-year-old fiancée an executive at my company, but that bird has flown. Let them come.
Grunting, I take my phone in my good hand and check the news, readying myself to weather the storm.
Byrne Industries Stock in the Basement, one headline reads.
The others are curious. They describe my actions on Monday in glowing terms. They're…they're calling me a hero. Does Lilah know about this? I glance at her, trying to read her as she talks to someone on her phone and types an email. Did she see this?
The Inquirer has painted me as a doomed hero, destroying my life's work to save the woman I love. There's only one, brief mention of her age.
At the bottom of the article is a stunning picture of a collapsing Lilah reaching for the wreckage, my children clasping to her while the emergency medical technicians pull me out.
"Dad?" Jason says.
I bite back the first real tears I've felt in ten years, unable to look away from her. I give my son a weak hug with my uninjured arm.
"Let's go home."
When we arrive, I hobble into the elevator, then into bed.
Lilah sits with me while she works on a new, company-issued laptop.
"Do you want to send for anything from your old home?"
"I don't have an old home," she says. "I have places I was made to stay. This is the only home I've ever had."
My heart swells as she settles in with me.
"I've set up a meeting for tomorrow morning with all the interested parties. I ordered this system diagnostic you asked for, too…and I called the FBI." She leans back and sets the computer aside. "What's the diagnostic for?" Lilah asks.
"It's going to cause a rolling blackout in the building as the engineers check over every single system. My handpicked people are going to go over the entire building with a fine-toothed comb. Also, there will be a shutdown of the security system at 2:14 this morning, lasting approximately thirty-seven minutes. The security guards will have to use their mark one eyeballs."
"You sound like you're planning something for that."
"I'm not planning a thing," I tell her.
If something should happen to occur during that time, I have what they call plausible deniability.
"How is this prince guy involved in all this?"
"We met in DC six months ago at some ambassador's house. I was starting to feel out foreign investors. I think I found one. He's a critical supplier, as well. His nation is one of the world's top producers of rare earth metals. I need them for my batteries."
Lilah yawns.
"You're thrilled. I see."
"It's not that," she laughs. "I'm exhausted. It's not every week a murderous car tries to kill you and then you get electroshocked."
I take her hand.
"Normal. I feel normal. I'm not made of glass, Aiden."
"I know. You're made of iron. But even iron can be brittle if you hit in the wrong spot."
She sighs, curling against me. "I could sleep for a year."
"Too bad. Meeting in the morning."
Yawning, she tucks up against me and closes her eyes.
Lilah
Aiden moves around the office easily, his cane leaning against the desk. He still has a limp, but it's not as bad as even yesterday.
"You have magic healing powers," he says. "Every time I get a handful I feel a little better."
He grabs my ass through my skirt, and I push his wrist away.
"Not in front of people." I sigh.
"We're alone."
"For now," I say, lifting my wrist to check my new watch. "They'll be here any—"
The elevator chimes. When the doors open, Prince Kristoff escorts his wife into the anteroom to Aiden's office, observing Aiden's collection of weapons.
"I've always wondered why a man so dedicated to peace collects the tools of war," he says, glancing around.
"One day the tools of war will all be museum pieces, after we've built a world where no one needs to fight."
Kristoff offers his hand, and Aiden shakes it, but they grip each other wrist to wrist instead of palm to palm.
"An older way," Kristoff explains to me. "Warriors would clasp hands this way to show they were unarmed."
"I'm no warrior," Aiden says.
"A peaceful warrior," Kristoff offers, nodding. "You look as if you've seen battle, at least."
"He always talks like this," Penny interjects. "Lilah, are you all right?"
"I'm fine," I say sharply, more so than I meant to. "If you'd join us inside?"
"Can I offer you a drink?" Aiden says.
"Tea," Kristoff says.
"Just water," Penny says. "I'm expecting."
"Oh, good," Kristoff says. "I'd thought there was someone you hadn't told me yet."
Penny sticks her tongue out at him. I break into a grin. Her husband is unruffled. "I'm used to this." He sighs. "When are the others—"
The elevator opens again.
The other pair from the gala stride in, dressed in casual clothes.
Kristoff glances back at them and stands, offering the woman, Jennifer, his seat.
She waves him off, and they leave Penny the only one sitting.
"So," Aiden says. "We're all here. I'll come right out with it: Someone reprogrammed the prototype self-driving car to destroy itself and kill me. I think they meant for it to take Lilah out, as well. This came after someone shorted large amounts of our stock, followed by a significant sale and rebuy. With no public offering the stock issue hasn't changed, but it's been consolidated. I may no longer have a controlling interest."
"Have you contacted your own authorities?" Kristoff asks.
"We're talking to the FBI."
"I'll speak to the President on your behalf."
I gape at him. "What?"
"We have these," Jennifer says, offering a pair of envelopes.
"Where did this come from?"
"Can't say," she says with a smirk. "They might have come from Roland Greymane's office."
"They might have," Aiden says, passing me the envelopes. I undo the little metal clasps and dump some USB drives in my hands.
Jennifer takes one from my palm and offers it to Aiden. I try not to stare; her palms and fingers are heavily scarred.
"Car accident," she reassures me.
Aiden slips behind his desk and presses the drive into a slot underneath. His actual computer is built into the room—no laptop or box under the desk itself. His bookcases pull in and slide down, revealing a large screen. It
flickers to life, and Aiden rocks in his chair, pulling at his chin with his good hand.
Prince Kristoff's teacup shatters in his hand, crushed. Penny rushes to grab the hem of her dress and dab the spilled tea and blood from his hand, but he's too busy watching the screen.
Aiden flicks through the files, his face going stony flat, then twisting to rage, then fury. He surges to his feet.
"Weapons," he hisses. "Lilah, your father wants to turn my company into a weapons manufacturer."
"No. I will deal with this myself," Kristoff says, turning for the door. "This will not be allowed to—"
Penny grabs his arm. "You made me a promise."
He looks back at us and softens, the hard clench of his jaw releasing. "Yes. I did. What, then?"
"We confront him," I say.
"He's gone back to New York," Aiden points out.
"Then we go to see him."
Chapter Fourteen
Lilah
I've lived in New York my entire life, but I've never really been here. It's as distant to me as a television set on some soundstage; like a TV show, it's something that, to me, has only ever been seen from behind glass. Aiden asks me a million questions as we ride downtown, and the answer to everyone is no. No, I've never been to the Met, never walked in Central Park, never been to the Empire State Building. Despite everything he sounds so exuberant about all of it.
My father lives in an apartment on Central Park West. I used to live there, too, until very recently. Occupy it would be a better term—what I did there was not living.
When we arrive, it's in a small motorcade. The car ahead of us carries Prince Kristoff; little flags bearing black eagles on gold fields flutter from little plastic flagpoles on the windows. Aiden and I ride behind in an understated town car.
Passersby stare as the police-escorted motorcade pulls to a stop in front of my father's building.
I walk into the lobby flanked by a world-famous billionaire and literal royalty. I have to admit it, I feel pretty badass. The doorman stares at us. He recognizes me.
"Miss," he says, rushing forward, "Miss Lilah. Are you here to see your father?"
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