“Embarrassing,” Hark acknowledged, “but not driving related.”

“Or”—Eli circled to Sul—“the guy who forgot his vows in the middle of his wedding ceremony.”

“I would like to be excluded from this narrative,” Sul requested.

“Rein in your wife, then. If the marriage is even legal.”

“Oh, it is.” Minami beamed, tapping Sul’s cheek with her socked toe. Some might have felt self-conscious about this level of PDA in their ex’s house, but Minami had been reassured, over and over, that Hark didn’t mind. Only Eli knew how much of a lie that was.

Silence dropped, comfortable, familiar, the product of years of being together in the same room, tireless and stubborn, always after the same goal. “Today went well,” Hark said eventually. “Not like I’d imagined.”

“How so?” Eli asked.

He shrugged a single shoulder, which meant that he did know, but wasn’t ready to put it into words.

He would soon enough. He was the angriest out of all of them, and the one most likely to let his rage coalesce into something sharp and focused. Nine years ago, Eli had been drowning in student debt while epically failing at taking care of a tween, and Minami had been drowning in something else, something that made her struggle to get out of bed to brush her teeth in the morning. Hark had been the one to drag them out of their wallow, to go to the father he despised and ask—beg—for the firm’s starting capital. “This is how we get even,” he’d insisted, and he’d been right.

“We should name the firm Harkness,” Eli had suggested a week before signing the paperwork, sitting at a table lined with his sister’s homework sheets, wondering why she could solve collegelevel math but not spell spaghetti for her fucking life, wondering what the hell he should be doing about it.

“It’s a shit name,” Hark had grunted.

“It’s not. It’s just your father’s name,” Minami had said, not without compassion. “I think it has the sophisticated supervillain flair we’re going for. Plus, what’s the alternative? Killgore? Too on the nose.”

Eli had given her the finger. Nearly a decade later, and look at them: still giving each other the finger on a daily basis.

“Dr. Florence Kline,” Hark said now, like the words tasted bad in his mouth. “Have any of you talked to her yet? In private?”

“Sul did, for some minor logistical stuff. And the lawyers, of course,” Minami added.

“Not you or Eli?”

She shook her head. And then, after a beat, “She reached out to me via email.”

“And?”

“Just asked if we could talk. Alone. Outside of Kline.” She rolled her lips. “I bet she thinks I’m the weak link.”

“She clearly hasn’t seen you open a jar of pickles,” Eli muttered, and she smiled.

“Right? Kind of amusing, given that I’m the one most likely to push someone under a lawn mower.”

“Did you reply?” Hark asked.

“Nope. I’d rather drink battery acid, thank you very much. Why? Do you think I should?”

Hark glanced at Eli. “Any benefits you can think of in Minami having a one-on-one with her?”

Eli mulled it over. “Maybe in the future. For now, let Florence sweat it a bit.”

Minami nodded. “She’s properly freaked out, I can tell. Despite her bullshit speech today, she must be hiding something.”

“I, for one, really appreciate the collaborative environment she’s trying to foster,” Eli said dryly, which had Minami sniggering and Sul snorting.

“You know what it means, right?” Hark asked. “If she’s hiding shit, it’s not just from us, but also from the board. And she’s dead certain that we won’t find out.”

“That’s fine.” Eli drained what was left of his beer. “I don’t mind proving her wrong.” The biofuel tech was as good as theirs. That was all that mattered.

“Tomorrow I’ll meet with the core research and development team,” Hark said. “Reassure them that they’re not going to get caught in the cross fire.”

“Yeah. They’re not the ones who should be worried.” Eli stood to leave. “I gotta get to Tiny. I’ll see you—”

“Wait,” Minami interrupted, eyes on her phone. “About Rue Siebert.”

Eli halted.

It was a problem, knowing her name. It made conjuring her image that much easier—a shortcut his brain did not need. “We’re still talking about her, aren’t we?”

“Well, I googled her. Just to know what your type looks like these days.”

Eli sighed.

“Apparently she was a student athlete just like you, which is interesting. But even more interesting is this fluff article that came up, from the Austin Chronicle.” She held out her phone, and he read the title aloud.

“‘Industry Mentor Offers Exciting New Opportunities for Women in STEM Who—’ Is this about Florence?”

“Yup. She has become a champion of the underclass, clearly.” Minami snorted. “Rue Siebert and Tisha Fuli were hired by her a year ago. Your girlfriend has no social media that I could find, so I looked up Tisha—who, by the way, is a rock star. Summa cum laude at Harvard, scholarships, awards. She’s hot shit, and judging by her unlocked Instagram account, she and Rue might be besties. Look at this #tbt pic of them. They can’t have been older than ten.”

Eli did look. Rue was angular and gangly, eyes and mouth too big for her face, holding hands with her friend as they skated side by side in the middle of an ice rink. The contrast with the adult she had grown to be, tall and strong and lush, made Eli lean in for closer inspection, but Minami had already turned the phone away.

“Love Tisha’s bio, by the way. ‘No im not looking for a sugar daddy and ur not Keanu reeves stop DMing me.’ Might steal it. Anyway, this is the biggie.” This time she handed him her phone. It was a picture of three women hugging in front of a rainbowcolored brick wall. The redhead in the center was much shorter, a little older, and very familiar.

Since my little sister @nyotafuli STILL won’t follow me back, I’m officially swapping her for Florence Kline. Best friend, best boss, and now best sister ever. Ilu, happy birthday!

He glanced back at the picture. Florence’s and Tisha’s grins were ray-of-sunshine wide. Rue’s was more subdued, closemouthed, like she felt the need to hold back. Eli had to pry his eyes from her face.

“I see.” He did. There was clearly a personal relationship here. Rue’s words today, her hostility, suddenly made much more sense.

What did she know? What had Florence Kline told her about Harkness? About Eli?

“There’s more. Guess where your future wife got her PhD?” Minami asked.

“Don’t say UT engineering, please.”

“Okay. I won’t.”

“Well, shit.” Eli turned to Hark. They exchanged an uneasy look.

“Tisha and Rue, they might have better access to Florence than most other people at Kline,” Minami continued. “We might want to keep an eye on them. See if they know anything.”

Eli pinched the bridge of his nose. “Let me guess. ‘We’ means ‘me’?”

“You know her already. Just saying.”

“Going by what I walked into earlier today, I’m not sure it’s an advantage,” Hark pointed out.

Minami only smiled in a curious, secretive way. “Why don’t you go to her lab tomorrow, Eli? See what she’s working on. Snoop.”

Eli’s “ fuck” was soft. “Is this some abortive attempt at match-making?”

“Who? Me?” She slapped her chest. “Never.”

“Minami. Her work is not even related to biofuels. She’s beyond irrelevant.”

“What do we have to lose?”

Eli opened his mouth to protest—then closed it when he realized how unhinged his response would sound. He couldn’t say it out loud, that he felt like he’d already lost something, or at least the possibility of it. That he needed distance from Rue. It was bullshit, since they were distant, miles apart on parallel streets, and inserting himself in her life was not going to bring them any closer. “You’re so generous with my time.”