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“It does, and we’ll make that case to the jury, but they must have some sort of evidence—something that Kate’s word might have refuted but powerful without it—that is making them think they could win this case. Rossi Corporation doesn’t make any move lightly.”
Victoria knew that all too well. Rossi was their fiercest competitor, the second biggest business in the industry. They hadn’t gotten there by being reckless or foolish.
She turned to their head accountant. “Mike, if we lose the patent, what does it mean for the business?”
Mike seemed slightly paler than usual, and there was a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead. “It’ll be bad, Victoria. Thatpatent is our biggest asset. We’ve put millions into other projects knowing that we have the income from the Jacobs patent to back us up. If we lose that, we’ll be stretched thin—too thin.”
“How bad?”
“If we didn’t get more investors, and fast, we’d go under.”
Victoria closed her eyes for a moment, trying to contain her panic. “Jess?”
“More investors would be a hard sell. If we lose the patent, I guarantee some of our investors will balk, and once they do, getting new ones in will be that much harder. We need to keep that patent.”
“Okay. Okay.” Victoria realized she was pacing, and made no effort to stop herself, trying to push some of her anxiety into the movement. Her people needed her to be calm right now, not the frantic mess she felt inside.
“Luke, you get the legal process started. Jess, I want a press statement ready to go out by the time the media is awake tomorrow. Jillian, start sending emails. We need to get everyone who was involved in that project ready to testify. Mike, I want you to throw everything we have into this. I don’t care what resources it takes; do whatever you need to.”
“Victoria, are you sure?”
“You said it yourself. We’re going down if this doesn’t work. We need to fight with everything we have.”
Victoria looked around the room. “Does everyone know what to do?”
There were nods all around.
“Okay. Let’s get to work.”
One thing was for sure, none of them was getting any sleep tonight.
Victoria jolted awake when the door opened and groaned. She’d fallen asleep sometime near dawn with her head resting on her desk. Jillian poked her head in, looking nearly as bad as Victoria felt.
“Victoria, you can’t sleep here. You need to go home.”
Victoria glanced at her watch. She’d only been asleep for an hour or so, but it was enough to leave her neck and shoulders stiff from sleeping on the desk.
“I can’t. There’s too much to do.”
“Don’t worry—reinforcements are arriving.”
“It’s not eight yet. The rest of the staff won’t be in for several hours.”
“I made some calls. Most of them were willing to come in early so that those of us who were up all night can get some sleep. I’ve already handed over the basics of the situation. We’re free to rest.”
“I love you, Jillian.”
“I love you too, Victoria. Now come on, get your ass out of here.”
“I think I will. Do you want to stay over at my place tonight? Well, today, I guess.”
Victoria lived a lot closer to the office than Jillian did, and Jillian sometimes spent the night when things at work were tense and she couldn’t afford to take the extra travel time.
“Yeah, thanks. I’ll drive; you look like you’ll cause an accident if I put you behind the wheel.”
“Like you look any better.” Victoria didn’t argue, though. She felt vaguely ill, though she wasn’t sure whether it was from anxiety or exhaustion.
They were quiet as Jillian drove them back. Victoria helped her make up the spare bed before falling fully dressed into her own. Exhaustion finally overwhelmed the buzzing in her mind, and she was asleep in moments.
