“Testing?” Her mother snorted, knowing of Commander Sutton’s impeccable honesty. “You and your tests. You only engage in them because you’re bored with your position. You think I don’t know that?”
Lila had no desire for a lecture when she had so many other pressing matters to attend to. She stood, breakfast half eaten, and bowed her head curtly. “A pleasure as always, madam.”
“Sit,” the chairwoman commanded. The word was a leg swinging at Lila’s knees.
She toppled back into her chair.
“Yes, you abdicated your role as prime heir. Yes, you will no longer take over the role of chairwoman when I retire. Yes, your younger sister has taken up the whitecoat and become the president of Wolf Industries because you continue to shirk your duty. Yes, you have abandoned your responsibilities to the entire Randolph family—”
“Yes, sometimes I cheat at cards,” Lila said, threading her fingers together and propping them on her knee. “Yes, I drink far too much hot chocolate and eat too few vegetables. Yes, I sometimes chug milk straight from the carton. Yes, I—”
“Elizabeth Victoria Lemaire-Randolph, it would be wise not to bait me so early in the morning.”
“I’m sorry. I thought you were listing every single fault you have with me. I was only trying to help. Yes, I am sarcastic when—”
“I allowed you to circumvent your birthright in order to engage in this foolishness,” the chairwoman said, waving absently at Lila’s uniform. “I thought you’d tire of it and eventually accept your duty by my side. A decade has passed while I’ve waited, a decade spent clawing your way to the top of the mountain, but I see the boredom on your face, child. You’re not having much fun at the summit.”
“It’s a job. It’s not meant to be fun—”
“The right job is.”
“It’s meant to be meaningful. I never wanted to become chairwoman of Wolf Industries, or its president. You know that.”
“Yes, and haven’t I been a benevolent matron in allowing you to play in your security office?”
Lila frowned, unsure how to answer the question. “Your security office, madam. We have a contract. What exactly do you want from me?”
“Want? Need is more like it. I need a lot of things. I need a competent prime, yet you refuse, leaving your little sister to flounder with every decision she makes. I need a granddaughter, an heir for the next generation. Yet Jewel has not been able to produce one, and you continue to insist that you will remain childless.” The chairwoman poured herself a glass of wine. “Since I can’t have either of those things, I want the best chief of security in all of Saxony. This explosion happened hours ago. You should know more by now.”
“My people are on it. Let me remind you, chairwoman. You have the most secure estate in the country. Out of forty-seven attempted intrusions last year, only three even made it over the wall. My people caught each of them in less than sixty seconds. We had one hundred and eighty foiled attempts by hackers on our system, and those are only the serious intrusions. In fact, the last successful large-scale attack on our system was six years ago before I was promoted from sergeant to captain of our tech division. If you remember, that’s why I became the captain.”
“I remember, Lila.”
“Good. I didn’t become chief because I’m your daughter. Don’t talk at me as if I don’t know my job.”
“Fine, but one day, you’re going to look at your life and wonder why you settled for the security office instead of Wolf Tower.”
“That’s unlikely. I don’t have any regrets.”
“Not now, perhaps. But later? I suspect you will, Lila. What am I supposed to do when I don’t have enough time to teach you all that you should know?”
“I don’t want—”
“You don’t want, you don’t want, you don’t want. It’s always about what you don’t want. That’s what got us both into this mess. Ms. Wilson wanted a lot of things. Now her entire family will fall because Chairwoman Wilson has no prime and the woman is too old to bear another daughter. That’s where wanting gets you, Lila. That’s where—”
“We’re not a dying family like the Wilsons, and I’m not the only heir to Wolf Industries,” Lila said, annoyed that she must rehash a very old and frequent argument. “Alex lost her mark because she was the only heir left in a generation, a daughter surrounded by half a dozen boys.”
“No, she lost it because her business failed.”
“It failed because you helped tank it. Then you scooped up her mark at a discount. Now you’re gambling that her mother won’t bear another daughter. You’re hoping she won’t since you control the only living Wilson prime. They were our friends.”
“Ms. Wilson was your friend. Her mother is an embarrassment.”
“Alex didn’t even have a real chance.”
“That’s business. That’s competition. We live on a razor’s edge, Lila. Within one generation, the Wilson Empire will fall and come into our hands because we control its only heir. We will assume possession of all their interests because they could not manage
them effectively.”