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That was not reassuring, knowing what I did about his honor, but I pressed onward. “Then let’s tell her team,” I said. “Let’s talk to Cirillo and Lukas, this minute.” I pulled out my phone. “We’ll see what they say. Has this treatment been tested? Have there been human trials yet?”
He cleared his throat. “Well, how could there be, with a disease so rare? I admit, it’s an experimental treatment, but I have seen astonishing results with my own eyes. Bear in mind, Cirillo and Lukas have no idea how the treatment works. They’ll be worried, suspicious, they’ll drag their feet and cover their asses. They’ll slow things down and cost Regina precious time she can’t afford to lose. But I have doctors on call who can treat her right now. No delays. No learning curve.”
I pulled out my phone. “So? Call these doctors in. Let’s get this moving.”
His lips curled into a self-satisfied smirk. “It’s not so simple. Regina would have to be discharged and admitted to one of my private clinics. You would have to sign waivers, a non-disclosure agreement. The whole thing must be discreet.”
“Why? Are you working on a patent?” I demanded. “Jesus, are your hundreds of billions not enough? Would anything ever be enough to satisfy you?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he snapped. “There is zero money to be made from researching Varen’s Disease, Cassandra. I pursue it because it’s the right thing to do, and no other reason. Projects like that are a stress-reducing side gig for me. Hail Marys, lost causes. They’re my guilty pleasure. I find cheating death very stimulating.”
“Are you trying to redeem yourself for all the shitty things you’ve done? You’ve got your work cut out for you.”
He looked pained. “I would never have guessed how judgmental and unpleasant you are up close, Cassandra. You weren’t that way the last time I saw you.”
True thing. The last time we were together, I was a terrified little kid, and the man I remembered, with his hair-trigger temper and his huge, inflamed ego, would have crushed me like a bug for being so disrespectful.
But he hadn’t done that so far. So he must have an agenda.
“What do you want from me?” I demanded.
His eyebrow slanted up, wryly amused. “Filial respect, to start with?”
“Dream on,” I retorted.
His nostrils flared. “Fine. Forget that. Baseline common courtesy is mandatory, however. I’ll just lay it out for you. I want you to come work for me, Cassandra.”
I blinked. “You are the last person on earth I would ever work for,” I blurted. “If I were working right now at all, which I’m not. If you haven’t noticed, I have more important things to think about at the moment. So that’s a hard no.”
“You’re referring to your sister?” His voice was soft and insinuating. “So am I. She’s your top priority, of course. But I need your particular skills. I also need an exclusive licensing deal for Glow-worm.”
I gasped, startled. How could he know about Glow-worm? No one knew about it, not even my most trusted employees at Red Queen. It was my private, off-hours home project, and I wasn’t even finished with the structural design, let alone all the code. Glow-worm wasn’t even meant to be its final name. It was just a working handle.
“Did you hack me?” I demanded. “How did you know about Glow-worm?”
“We’ll talk about how I arrived at my intel another time. Your malware is brilliant, Cassandra. Glow-worm, in particular, is incredibly powerful and innovative. I need it urgently, and I need you along with it. Glow-worm will require its own creator to get it up and running. You’re the only one in the world who can do it. That, more than anything, shows that you’re my daughter. You make yourself irreplaceable. Which gives you power. Just like me. As if I’d coached you myself. It makes me very proud.”
“Don’t be,” I snapped. “And don’t try to butter me up. I legally can’t do what you’re asking, even if I wanted to, which I don’t. I already have a client that I’ve promised first crack at Glow-worm, so as soon as I?—”
“That is a lie,” he said calmly. “It’s still completely secret. And I know the players who will be jockeying to license Glow-worm when it’s finished. You haven’t offered it to them yet. But even if you had, I can outbid them all. By a huge margin.”
“It’s not about money,” I said.
He waved that away impatiently. “I’ve followed your career. You’re known all over the world in certain circles, young as you are. You’re on the radar of defense contractors, arms dealers, government intelligence agencies, and probably terrorist organizations as well, through no fault of your own, of course. You demand astronomical fees. You get that sense of your professional worth from me. I need that get-it-done energy. It’s so hard to recruit that quality. I’ll pay top dollar for it.”
“No,” I said flatly.
“My payment, of course, includes access to my resources to treat Regina.”
The implications hit me all at once. “Wait. But… I can pay for Regina’s care myself,” I said stiffly. “Whatever it costs. I’ll cover every penny. I don’t bargain with that coin.”
“I do,” he said coolly. “And I will accept nothing less than your exclusive professional services as payment for Regina’s treatment. That’s my offer.” He started to laugh at the dread in my eyes. “Oh, don’t you worry. You’ll still get the money you’re due for the licensing deal, the whole massive sum. But I get Glow-worm, and I get you. For as long as I need you. That’s the deal Cassandra. Take it or leave it.”
I felt the walls closing in around me. I thought of my mother, her empty eyes, her broken will. Her horror stories about this man’s twisted mind, his grotesquely swollen ego that was never satisfied. How being in his sphere of influence was like a terminal illness. It truly had been for her, in the end.
“I… I can’t do it,” I whispered.
“Ah.” He pulled a sad face. “Well, then. I’ll leave you to make those end-of-life arrangements. Will you scatter Regina’s ashes in the redwoods with Laurel’s? I’m sure she would want to be with her mother in death.”
