HANNAH (Silicon Valley Billionaires 3)

“What was that?” Lauren asked.

“Fiona wants to go ahead with what we discussed. She wants to exclusively license her technology to Li Na, and then have Dave and Leo infect it with the code they reverse-engineered.”

My sister’s eyebrow arched. “Li Na’s going to go ballistic with all this new technology. My new prototype actually dovetails with Fiona’s—she’s not going to be able to resist either one of them. She’s going to be excited. You know what this means, don’t you?”

“We’re getting rid of Li Na once and for all? We might actually make her cry?” The idea made me giddy.

“No. It means that if we don’t take her down for good this time, we’re screwed.” She raised her gaze to meet mine. “All of us.”

I swallowed over a sudden lump in my throat. “Well, we know what we’re doing.” I hoped. “And the time is now—after killing Jim, and everything else that she’s done, we have to stop her. We can’t keep living like this.”

Lauren nodded. “I know. It’s crazy that we all have round-the-clock security. And trust me, I want to make her pay for what she’s done.”

“We all do.” I went quiet for a second, wondering how to broach the next topic. “I actually had another idea.”

“I’m listening.”

“What if we—and I should preface this by saying that not only have I not thought this all the way through, you aren’t going to approve, but—what if we hire someone at Jiàn Innovations to work for us? It would be helpful if we had someone on the inside to keep us updated so we’re not sitting over here, holding our collective breath while we wait to find out if and when Li Na’s plans are going to implode.”

“How do you propose we do that?”

I shrugged. “Li Na had Clive Warren working for her.”

Clive Warren had been a board member at Paragon, but he’d been lured to the dark side and had worked with Li Na to try to steal the company from my sister.

Unfortunately for Clive, the only place his allegiance had got him was jail, where he was murdered.

Lauren looked unconvinced. “Li Na threatened Clive Warren—that was the only reason he worked for her. That, and because she probably made him all sorts of wild promises in the beginning.”

I shrugged again.

“Hannah! We are not getting involved in that sort of criminal activity!”

“But we need someone to let us know if Li Na’s working on the specs you plant and what the status is with the Protocol technology. We need an informant. I’m not suggesting we stab them.”

Lauren crossed her arms. “Then what are you suggesting?”

I took a deep breath. “We could always just threaten them, a little…”

She shook her head. “I’m willing to entertain all possibilities, but this is moving in a questionable direction awfully fast. Listen, it’s Friday. I want you to take the weekend off.”

“Since when did we take weekends off?”

Lauren planted her hands on her hips. “You take weekends off when I order you to—last time I checked, I’m still your boss. You’re going full throttle, but you just got back on your feet. I want you to take a couple of days.”

I sprang out of my chair. “You’re saying that as my big sister, not as my boss, and we both know it.”

“That may be true”—her face softened—“but that doesn’t mean I’m taking it back.”

“Fine. But we need to move on this. I’m done waiting for Li Na to terrorize us again.”

Lauren sighed. “I want you to think this whole thing through and then come back on Monday morning with a clear line.”

“What kind of line?”

Lauren’s blue eyes, so much like my own, bore into me. “The kind you aren’t willing to cross. We’ll go from there. Now, go away with Wesley and have fun. Be young. Be carefree.”

At the mention of Wes, I frowned, playing with the pages of my notebook.