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Suddenly fearful for Layla’s life, I stood. “Then I’ll quit. I’ll take her away, so she won’t endanger your family. Please, she never hurt anyone—”
Leo let out a heavy sigh while Mrs. Cordova rolled her eyes. “Sit down, Mark. I’m not going to kill the poor girl. I want to help her, and I really think we can do it. Leo and I have discussed her situation, and I believe programming could be the tool she needs. We have a unique opportunity here to really make a difference in her life. To let her be the woman she was meant to be. I want to help her, not hurt her. Let us help her.”
While she made it sound like an offer, I knew what she was really making it an order.
The programming was going to happen—the only thing I could do now was try and advocate for Layla as much as possible.
“I want to be involved in every step of the process.”
“Of course,” Mrs. Cordova said, the deep lines around her mouth lightening.
“And I want final say on how she’s programmed.”
“No,” Leo said. “I get final say.”
“Unacceptable.”
Looking hurt, an expression I’d rarely seen on Leo’s harsh face, he said, “You don’t trust me?”
“I do trust you. Hell, I’d let you program me, but this is Layla. I don’t trust anyone with her but myself.”
“Stubborn males,” Mrs. Cordova muttered. “Gentlemen, I have some pressing matters to attend to. Now that we’ve hashed this out, do I still have to worry about you killing my son, Mark?”
Feeling oddly chastised, I said, “No, Mrs. Cordova.”
“Good. Then, if you’ll see yourselves out? I have some calls to make.”
Dismissed, I stood and followed Leo out of the room after he’d gathered his laptop.
We were quiet on the walk back to his office, and I had to resist the need to fidget with my clothes as we once again walked through the corporate floor of the Cordova Empire.
Once his door was closed, I took a seat in my usual cowhide chair situated across from his desk. What was once a barren, functional space now had pictures of Leo’s family filling the shelves, and I took a moment to look at a picture of a smiling Leo holding his daughter. A pang of longing went through me, and I wondered how soon I could talk Layla into having a baby. Yeah, I was getting ahead of myself, but I wanted her bound to me every way possible.
And if—God forbid—anything ever happened to me, I don’t want her to be alone like I was after I lost my wife. If we’d had a child to bind me to the world, my life might have ended up differently. We’d wanted kids, but it was never the right time, and we were young and in love. We thought we had all the time in the world.
How very fucking wrong we were.
Leaning against the edge of his desk, Leo asked me, “I’d like to get this done as soon as possible. We have no idea when, or even if, her enemies will strike again, but if they do, I want Layla to be as prepared as possible. That means training her to fight back and informing her of certain…realities of her new life. You cannot hide who we are and what we do from her. Trust me, I made that mistake with Hannah, and it almost resulted in her death.”
For a moment, I stared out the window of his office, taking in the downtown Phoenix skyline fading back into the distant mountains. “No, I plan on being honest with her, but I have a feeling she already has an idea. She hasn’t come right out and said it, but she’s dropped little hints here and there about my job. As curious as she is, I bet she researched the Cordova Empire and my role in it. No doubt she came across the various conspiracy websites detailing some of our darker side.”
“Fucking social media,” Leo grumbled. “It was a lot easier to keep shit secret before camera phones, I’ll fucking tell you that.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Yeah, yeah, old man.”
He gave me a silent snarl, but his attention was on his phone. “I know you probably want some alone time with Layla, but I feel it’s best if we do her programming tonight. Bring her up to my house for dinner. We’ll do it there.”
“Don’t you need time to assimilate her DNA for the serum?”
He gave me a dry look. “I’ve had her DNA for three years.”
“What?”
“I knew from the moment I saw you together, that night you were trapped in the elevator, that you’d never let her go. I’ve had her serum processed and waiting for you to pull your head out of your ass for years.”
“How could you possibly know how I felt about her? Three years ago, I just wanted to be her friend.”
