Page 94 of HANNAH (Silicon Valley Billionaires 3)

I studied his face. “Why’d you do that?”

He shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “I don’t know. He just seems…invested.”

“Maybe he’s just throwing himself into his work.”

He looked unconvinced. “Maybe. But you think you can call him this time? You’re his favorite.”

I rolled my eyes as I turned off the water. “We’ll see about that. You don’t know what I need to ask him.”

Wes raised his eyebrows, questioning, as he toweled himself off.

“And trust me, you don’t want to know.”

“Tell me when the afterglow’s faded. I can handle it.”

I sighed. “I know you can.”

The question was, could I?

Chapter 26

Hannah

“What if she can’t get the samples to him?” Ellis paced my office, looking uneasy—probably because Fiona was locked in a meeting with Lauren and he couldn’t see her, and also because of what I’d asked him for.

“She will. She promised.”

Biyu hadn’t promised, exactly, but she’d said she would try.

She wanted to get the samples. I believed that. In addition to the trust fund, I’d offered her plane tickets to California and a fresh start here for her and her son, which included a new car, a condominium, and a position at Paragon—if she could deliver.

; I hadn’t shared the parameters of my offer with Wes. A good, conservative Midwestern boy, he thought I was being a little too extravagant of late.

He might be right, but I needed those samples, dammit. I needed evidence that the claims I was about to make against Li Na Zhao were real. So I’d charged Biyu with the task of stealing lab results for both the gene therapy and the sensor. We could run the labs at Paragon, and then we’d have the proof we needed to show that Jiàn’s technology was faulty.

I had to document the process every step of the way, so I’d invited Calvin and a Wall Street Journal photographer to join me in Silicon Valley. They would organize and catalog all the evidence, and then we’d reveal the entire story in a front page exclusive.

I paced, waiting for Ellis to say something. Anything.

“I don’t think he’s going to like being an international courier of corporate-espionage-inspired stolen goods, but he’ll do it if the price is right.”

I nodded fervently. “The price is right. Whatever he wants, I’ll do it.”

“Okay.” Ellis didn’t look like he really thought it was okay.

I continued to pace, not letting myself consider that he might be right.

* * *

“I have a Mr. Carey for you on line two,” my assistant said.

“Send him through.” I waited until the line clicked over. “It’s Mr. Carey now?”

“It’s just Carey.” As usual, my informant sounded humorless and slightly pissed.

“What’s going on?”