Fated Blades (Kinsmen #3)(9)

If he knew, he was a great actor. She’d have to approach this carefully, choosing just the right words . . .

“Did you pay my wife and her husband to steal from us?” Matias asked.

Damn it.

Silence claimed the office.

Haider blinked a few times and looked at her. “Is he serious?”

She shrugged. “I’ve never seen him smile, in person or in an image.”

More silence.

Haider opened his mouth and laughed.

“Is that a yes or a no?” Matias growled.

Haider shook, bent forward, and held his hand out.

“I think he needs a moment,” Ramona told Matias. “I don’t think he’s involved.”

“I can see that, but I still need to hear it.”

Haider choked a little bit and kept laughing.

There was no point in standing. This would clearly take a while. Ramona walked over to an elegant couch and sat. Matias remained standing, looming over Haider like some dark shadow.

Finally, Haider straightened. “Worth it. Do you know how long it’s been since I laughed like that? It was an ugly desk, anyway.”

“I need an answer,” Matias demanded. His voice was cold enough to freeze the marrow in one’s bones.

“No,” Haider said. “I wasn’t involved in any shenanigans with your spouses. Let me open a window into my life. My company is on the verge of bankruptcy. I’m reduced to borrowing money from distant relatives I hate and swore to never talk to again. Our precious son, who is now four months old, somehow inherited the Tarim mutation, despite numerous assurances by the best genetic firm on the planet that nothing of the sort could ever happen. That means he could simply stop breathing at any moment until he clears his first year. My husband is the carrier. He blames himself, no matter how many times I explain that it’s patently absurd, and he obsessively watches our son every waking moment, and when he should be sleeping, he takes boosters to keep himself awake to watch him some more, because he doesn’t trust the best medical personnel our dwindling money can buy. In the past four months, I had to watch Damien, the calmest, most rational being I know, turn into a paranoid, anxious ghost. He doesn’t sleep, he doesn’t eat, he barely lets me take care of him. I worry about our baby. I worry about my husband. I worry about my five-year-old sister, whom I adopted after my parents passed, because she keeps asking us every five minutes if her nephew is going to die. I worry about keeping the food on our table and salvaging the legacy my family has built. The only time I get any peace is at work, here in my office, when my brain gives out, exhausted by my frantic efforts to keep us afloat, and I shut down into a blissful stupor, which the two of you so rudely interrupted with your unnecessary acrobatics. Have you forgotten how to place a call? Have you considered the painfully obvious method of having your people contact my people, so all of us could peacefully meet in a nice neutral setting? What is wrong with the two of you?”

The office went silent. She saw the signs of fatigue now, the bloodshot eyes, the slight sagging in the skin of the face, and the deeper lines. This was a man on the verge of collapse. Considering that, his response to her attack was doubly impressive.

“His wife is screwing my husband,” she told him. “They have the entirety of our seco research, and they’ve disappeared.”

Matias pivoted to her.

“He deserves an honest answer,” she told him.

“Well.” Haider took a deep breath, pulled his chair from behind his ruined desk, and sat in it. “I am sorry. I know nothing about this. They didn’t come to us, probably because they realize we can’t pay them. Not as much as they would need to make it worth your combined wrath, anyway.”

As she suspected.

“Even if they had approached us, we would pass,” Haider continued. “Davenport, Inc., has abandoned its seco initiative.”

What?

“Since when?” Matias asked.

“Since the beginning of the month. We can’t stabilize the field fluctuations. I can no longer justify throwing good money after bad. We simply can’t afford it.”

Wow. The shock must have shown on her face because Haider shrugged. “It is what it is. Have you been able to stabilize the field?”

“Yes,” they said at the same time.

“I hate you both.”

She still struggled with the enormity of the loss his company would take. “Walking away after all this time . . .”

“It’s not a complete wash,” Haider said. “We’ve stumbled on a significantly more efficient way to calibrate the Kelly-particle agitator to sustain a constant flow of energy. It has multiple industrial applications.”

He caught on to the expressions on their faces and leaned forward, his eyes suddenly bright. “The two of you haven’t figured it out.”

Neither of them answered.

“Ha! I have something you don’t! You are running out of money. You can’t afford to keep researching it indefinitely. You and you are going to pay me for that tech. All the money.” He leaned back in his chair, spread his arms wide, and howled at the ceiling. “I’m the smartest man in the world!”

Matias looked like he was considering cutting Haider’s head off out of sheer irritation.

“I’ll pit you against each other and make you bid for it,” Haider continued. “Or, better, I’ll want a percentage of each sale. I’ll own this planet.”