MAISIE
The morning arrives not with a gentle nudge, but with a sledgehammer to my skull. A dull, throbbing ache pulses behind my eyes, and the sliver of sunlight cutting through the blackout blinds feels like a personal assault.
I groan, rolling over and burying my face in the pillow. My mouth tastes like something small and furry crawled inside and died a tragic death. The champagne at the gala, followed by that bottle of vintage Dom Pérignon Lena and I annihilated on the couch… a terrible, terrible idea.
"What a great way to start the day," I mutter into the mattress, my voice raspy. "Feeling like absolute shit."
I somehow manage to drag myself out of bed, my body protesting every movement. I shuffle out of my bedroom and into the living room, squinting against the painful light.
And I stop dead.
Lena is already there. She looks… apocalyptic. Her normally sleek black hair is a wild, tangled mess shooting out in all directions, like she just starred in her own personal horror movie.
She's holding her glasses in one hand, squinting blindly at the coffee machine as if it's a complex ancient relic. She takes a wobbly step and lists dangerously to the side.
"Jesus fucking Christ," I startle, my own headache spiking. "You look..."
She turns her bleary, unfocused eyes toward me. "Like shit?" she croaks, her voice sounding like gravel. "Right back at you, sunshine." She gives up on the coffee machine and collapses onto the sofa with a dramatic groan.
"I was going to say like a demon freshly summoned from the pits of hell who lost a fight with a lawnmower," I say, stumbling over to join her. I fall onto the cushions beside her, the impact sending a fresh wave of nausea through me. "But I guess 'shit' will suffice."
"We are a pair, aren't we?" Lena moans, draping an arm over her eyes. "I think my soul might have left my body sometime around that third glass of champagne. I can still smell the bubbles. It's haunting me."
"My stomach is currently debating whether to stage a full-scale rebellion or just commit seppuku to end the suffering," I reply, leaning my head back and closing my eyes. "I can hear it plotting."
"Tell it to get in line. My brain is currently trying to tap-dance its way out of my skull. And it's wearing lead shoes." She peeks out from under her arm. "Please tell me Roy is programmed to make hangover cures. Like, an emergency intravenous drip of greasy food and regret."
"I programmed him to fetch things and not judge me. I think asking for a medical miracle is beyond his scope."
"We need to fix that. Top priority. Right after we figure out how to make the room stop spinning." She lets out a long, pathetic sigh. "Remind me never to declare war on a hot billionaire after consuming my body weight in alcohol ever again."
"Noted," I groan, a faint smile tugging at my lips despite the agony. "Next time, I'll do it sober. It'll probably hurt less."
"Doubt it," she mumbles. "That man is a walking, talking headache. We just pre-gamed for the main event."
We sit there in shared, miserable silence for a moment, two wrecked souls on a very expensive sofa.
"Okay," Lena says finally, forcing herself to sit up straight with immense effort. "Game plan. I will use my last remaining brain cell to order the greasiest, most disgusting breakfast known to mankind from the diner downstairs. You... you just stay there and look pretty."
"I look like a bog witch," I correct her.
"A very innovative, brilliant bog witch who is going to crush her enemies," she says, fumbling for her phone with the determination of a wounded soldier. "Now, pass me my phone. The mission for bacon begins."
– – –
The greasy breakfast and a truly heroic amount of water have taken the edge off the hangover, leaving behind a dull, manageable ache.
Lena has rallied, showered, and headed to the office to "hold down the fort," leaving me in the profound quiet of the penthouse.
I don't go to my sleek, modern office. Instead, I walk to the other wing, to a door that's always closed. I push it open.
This room is different. It's not for show. It's my archive, my memory bank. The air smells faintly of ozone, solder, and old paper. Sunlight slants through the window, illuminating dancing dust motes.
My eyes go straight to him. Zeek. The first project. A clumsy, boxy little robot with mismatched sensors and wheels that always got stuck.
My father knelt beside my eight-year-old self, his large, gentle hands guiding my smaller ones as we soldered the wires. I can almost hear his patient voice. "Easy, Maisie-girl. The solder needs to flow, not blob."
I run my fingers over Zeek's dusty chassis. A sanctuary.
My gaze drifts to the walls, covered in a carefully curated chaos. A faded blue ribbon from the state science fair for a Rube Goldberg machine.
A framed photo of me at thirteen, covered in grease, beaming next to my dad under the hood of his old Ford pickup. Another of us, older, standing proudly beside the first functional Rory Robotics arm.
This room holds the proof. It's not just a company. It's every Saturday spent in the garage, every burned finger, every triumphant cheer when a circuit finally lit up. It's his belief in me, made tangible.
I sink into the old, worn swivel chair he loved, the leather cracked and comfortable. The silence here isn't empty. It's full of him. Of us.
This is why I can't lose. This is what that soulless bastard, Shinki Soma, will never understand. He sees assets and liabilities. He sees a failing stress-test percentage.
I see my father's legacy. And I will burn his whole world down before I let it become a line item on a Soma balance sheet.
I sit there for a long time, drawing strength from the ghosts in the room, the fire of last night hardening in my chest into something colder, sharper, and far more dangerous.
My gaze drifts past the photos and lands on the simple, elegant ceramic vase on the highest shelf. The morning light catches its curves. I don't need a label to know what it is, or who it is.
I stand and carefully lift it down, the weight of it both physical and profound in my hands. I sink back into the old chair, cradling the vase in my lap.
"Hey, Dad," I whisper, my voice rough from last night's wine and this morning's emotion.
I tell him about the company. The good stuff first—the successful beta test, the new hires who are brilliant and passionate. Then I tell him about the stress-test failures, the investors getting skittish, the constant pressure.
And then I tell him about last night.
"There's this… guy," I say, the word feeling inadequate. "A bastard, honestly. The smug, incredibly good-looking kind that wears a Kiton suit like it's armor and looks at you like you're a bug on a spreadsheet. His name is Shinki Soma."
I tell him about the speech, the public challenge, the way he called Roy a "glorified nanny." The heat of the anger returns, flushing my skin.
"I think I might have started a war with him," I confess, running my thumb over the smooth, cool glaze of the vase. "A real one. And I was just sitting there this morning thinking… what would you have told me? To keep my head down? To be the bigger person?"
A sad, soft laugh escapes me. I already know the answer.
"You'd have told me to punch harder, wouldn't you? In your own, calmer, wiser way. You'd have said, 'Maisie-girl, don't get mad. Get even. Out-build him.'"
Tears well in my eyes, but I don't fight them. Here, in this room, I don't have to.
"I miss you so much it hurts sometimes. Every single day. This would all be so much easier if you were here."
I hold the vase tighter, as if I could somehow transmit my resolve through the ceramic.
"I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I promise you, I will do everything in my power to keep that asshole in check. He will not get his hands on what we built. He doesn't get to win."
I sit there for a long time, just holding on, drawing a shaky strength from the silence, from the memories, from the promise I just made.
The fire is back, but it's cleaner now. Focused. It's not just for me anymore. It's for him.