Page 63 of Never Bound

I moved back, eyes warily on her nails. Like I was ever again going to make the mistake of letting them anywhere nearthere. She saw where I was looking and giggled again, her light blue eyes dancing with amusement in the atrium light. “You do learn fast. I’ll give you that.”

“I know you’re lying, Resi,” I said, forcing calm into my voice. “You don’t have my sister. Max told me that.”

She laughed lightly and bounced a little on her heels. “Ah, the old calling my bluff trick. God, Icannotget over how cute you are when you think you’re outsmarting someone.”

Heat flowed into my face. Oh, that was a low blow.

“And by the way? When we’re alone, that’sma’amto you.”

I rolled my eyes. “If even Max doesn’t want a title, what the fuck makes you think you deserve one?”

Lightning-fast, she reached up and grabbed a handful of my hair at the roots. With an iron grip, she jerked my head down to meet her at eye level. I struggled to swallow as she wrapped her weaponlike nails around my throat, her breath cool and cinnamon-like as her lips brushed my face. “Because Idodeserve one. From you, anyway. And nothing Max says will change that.”

“Fuck that. You think I’m not going to put it to the test?” I muttered, trying to jerk my head back against the sharp pain. I’d never had the occasion to throw a 120-pound woman to the floor, and as much as I wanted to, I wasn’t going to start with Langer’s head of R&D.

“Well, just try it. Go ahead. Tell him everything. See whose side he takes. He may own this company, but he’s loyal to me in ways you couldn’t possibly understand.”

“I thought you said you used to be a slave,” I choked out, indignant.

“I did,” she said and released me nonchalantly, tossing her sleek, wispy blond ponytail, then directing the toes of her stilettos down the hall. “And doesn’t that explain everything?”

“I ask one and only one thing from the people who work here with me,” Max Langer said as we walked side by side down a row of sprawling glass-paneled offices. Transparency seemed to be Langer’s thing, at least when it came to decorating. Actually, his corporate headquarters, for all its brand-new crystalline trappings, was surprisingly intimate—besides Langer himself, it played host only to a couple of assistants, a small accounting team, an in-house legal counsel, one HR manager, security, and formerly—in the office at the end of the hall that I would soon be occupying—Corey. In fact, Langer currently hadnoother staff that worked in his core business on a daily basis. He kept his circle small, in other words. “Complete trustworthiness.”

“Right,” I replied, trying—as I had all morning—not to sound intimidated. Not to avert my eyes. To ask questions of anyone, at any time. Sure, I may not be here by choice, but that was no reason toactlike it. “Then how do you explain me?”

An amused smile appeared on my boss’s lips. “I have different requirements for you.”

I nodded and flicked my eyes toward the people working on the other side of the glass. They didn’t look up, but that couldn’t shake the feeling that Resi—and Wainwright-Phillips, and Corey, and everyone who kept reminding me of the same damn thing—had left me with. That despite the trappings Langer had provided me with, I wasn’t some up-and-coming corporate hotshot—or an engineer, or a rocket scientist, or even an intern. I was just—as always—a slave who refused to learn his place. And everyone who looked at me could see it. “Dotheyknow that I’m, well—”

“Yes, they know,” he cut me off. “And if anyone tries to treat you even the slightest bit differently because of it, you come to me immediately, and I’ll handle it. But that won’t happen.”

It’s already happened.And for the sake of my sister, I wouldn’t be coming to Langer about it. Nor would I, as I’d found out to my dismay only a few minutes ago, be sneaking into Langer’s office after hours and going through the file cabinets because there were none. Langer Enterprises had evidently completed its digital transformation, since everything the least bit proprietary was stored in a database locked down tighter than a bullion depository. Of course it wasn’t like I hadn’t expected to encounter something like this in the course of my search for Maeve. I’d even managed to teach myself some rudimentary coding (read: hacking) in the lab in Heidelberg, but my skills were nowhere near what I’d need for this kind of job, and I wasn’t sure how much I remembered, anyway. Luckily, I was about to get my own computer and almost unlimited access to the internet, so I’d soon be able to dive back in. But like everything, it would take time.

I was gripped, not the first time in these past few days, by the cold of the void of ignorance, of having no way of learning whether Erica’s team had found anything during their search of the two addresses. I was working totally blind.

Realizing I was probably supposed to say something, I remarked, “Well, that covers your office. And what about the rest of your companies? What about Orbital Dynamics?”

“They don’t know you exist, nor will they,” Langer replied. “That’s for your own good—and mine, given my public views about slavery. It shouldn’t be an issue, since you’ll be reporting to me and only me, but if they, or anyone, find out I have a slave, even one that’s not mine, it could compromise everything we’re working on. And then you’re back at Keith’s mercy, and I won’t be able to help you anymore.”

I swallowed and nodded. “Ah. So I’m living proof that you’re a gigantic fucking hypocrite, but I can’t say anything, or I’m the one who’s going to pay the price for it.”

“Exactly. But it beats the alternative. And I’m not reminding you of that because I’m trying to hold it over your head. I’m reminding you of it because it’s true.”

Itwastrue, but still. Fuck him. “What about Project White Cedar?”

“That’s offsite.”

I had a feeling I knew where the site was.

“Resi and the girls work there. In fact”—Langer glanced at his diamond-studded Rolex—“we’re due there in a half hour for a tour. I’ve called for a car.”

Good. I knew Resi would do her damnedest to make sure I didn’t see anything even remotely interesting, but I sure wasn’t going to make it easy for her.

We’d reached the elevator in the atrium—also clear glass—and Langer pushed the button that would take him up to his office on the top floor. “Before we go any farther, I just have one request.”

“Which is?”

“For the sake of keeping me from going absolutely batshit insane, can you please give me something,anything, to call you? It doesn’t even have to be a name. You can be fucking Superman if you want. Justsomething.”

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