Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 66565 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 333(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66565 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 333(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
I want to get up, roar in rage, and tear his fucking face off. Anyone who really knows the guy would understand and cheer me on.
But that’s the thing. Nobody does know the real Adam Archer. He’s that plastic for a reason—so everyone believes the benign Ken-doll act. It’s his secret weapon.
And what happens to Daphne if I suddenly go to jail for assault and battery. Because if I started in on Adam, I don’t know if I could stop. Where does that leave the girl who’s always left behind, last in everyone’s considerations?
I can’t be one more person she counts on to just up and disappear from her life.
Even thinking of her makes all the shit I’m feeling a little less oppressive. I pull my phone out of my lab coat and call her. I know it’s old school, an actual phone call, but I’d kill to hear her voice right now.
She doesn’t answer, but I still close my eyes and sink back against the wall while I listen to her message: This is Daphne’s phone. I’m not here right now but leave a message and…yada yada, you know the rest. Bye!
It would be creepy to call back just so I can listen to her chipper voice on the message, right? And I know it was recorded a long time ago, back before her mom died. She’s having a hard time with everything, not that you’d know it by the way she’s absolutely disappeared into her studies.
Some kids would’ve abandoned working so hard after losing the parent all the work was intended to save, but not Daph. Never Daph. It was like there was a new fire under her butt now that Battleman’s had taken her mom, like she wanted to say F you to the disease even more, and was more determined than ever to figure out what made it tick and how to stop it.
Like father, like daughter, except that I suspected if Daphne ever had children, she’s take all the time in the world to love and cherish them.
For just a brief second, I let the fantasy take shape, Daphne and I coming home from the lab together, picking the kids up from school, then all going home to cook a rambunctious dinner…a family, a home, everything I never had but always dreamed of…or really only let myself dream of since meeting her.
Everything seems possible when I’m with her. It’s her magic.
But she’s still so young, and vulnerable after her mother’s death. I can’t go with all this to her—she’s still in college, already working too hard and the last one I want Adam pointing his sights on is her if he decides she’s a threat to his plan.
And that means I need to fight for her company. Because she can’t yet.
Which leaves only one person left to put a stop to Adam’s ambitions before he destroys us all.
I need to go have a chat with Dr. Logan.
When I knock on the door to Daphne’s father’s office, at first I don’t hear anything.
“I told you, he’s asked for no visitors,” his aged assistant chides.
“Well, he needs to speak to me or he’s going to have his company stolen right out from under him.”
She purses her lips but then sits back in her chair and picks up her yarn needles.
“Dr. Laurel,” I pound on the door again, since her calling his office had no effect. “It’s Logan. I need to speak to you.”
Finally, finally, there’s movement from within and the doorknob creaks open. He doesn’t stay at the door to greet me, He just pulls it open and then disappears back into the dark room.
There are no lights on. The blinds aren’t open. Maybe my eyes will adjust but after the bright fluorescents of the waiting room, it first appears pitch black in here. I can only barely make out the shape of a man sitting behind his desk, and it’s only when he moves, to take a drink of something, that I’m sure.
I clear my throat. I’ll just pretend like nothing’s wrong. Probably the best way to play this. “Look, Sir, I don’t know what the best way to tell you this is, but Adam Archer is trying to steal your company out from underneath you and turn it into something completely different than you ever envisioned.”
I wait for him to say something, to sound aggrieved or apologetic or appalled by the situation, but I’m only met with silence.
“That is to say, sir, as you can see here,” I pull the papers recounting the minutes of the board meeting and thrust them on the desk in front of his face, “Here Archer clearly states that the lab discoveries of the new molecule were made by him, with no mention of you or me. And he further proposed that a full 95% of Belladonna’s resources be poured into cosmetics research and production instead of our core mission to cure pernicious diseases—”