“Register a company?”
Jordan looked at Los with open surprise.
Los nodded.
Building more of what the Stark Industries knowledge base made possible was going to outgrow a two-person dorm room workshop quickly.
He needed a proper private space, large enough to function as a real manufacturing facility.
Registering a company with a tech industry cover was the straightforward way to get there.
Jordan shifted into assistant mode without missing a beat, phone out and ready.
“Boss.
Tell me your requirements.”
Los thought it through.
“New York.
Anywhere inside the inner ring works, as long as it’s reasonably close to Godolkin and Vought’s HQ.”
He paused, then continued: “You’re the registered legal representative on paper.
The official company type is a prosthetics manufacturing facility.”
Keeping Jordan as the nominal owner let Los stay completely out of the visible picture.
And a prosthetics manufacturing front gave him plenty of legitimate room to acquire materials and build components without drawing attention.
Jordan considered it.
“In that case, we’re better off finding a factory that’s already about to fold and buying it out instead of registering from scratch.
Cleaner paper trail.”
“Works for me.
Handle it.”
Los had no hesitation about delegating it.
The way Jordan had moved the gold sale had already told him what he needed to know about her.
A background in a business family, a network and perspective that was well above what most people her age had, and that poker face that gave nothing away to anyone.
She was born for this kind of thing.
Jordan was already feeling the energy of it, a new company actually taking shape.
She pressed for the last detail: “What’s the name?”
Los thought for a moment.
“Iron Body Industries.”
Iron, as an acknowledgment of his undead mentor whose technology was the foundation of everything being built here.
And Iron Body was also a description of what the company’s actual owner was working toward.
He looked across at Jordan, who had already pulled up a browser on her phone and was scanning listings for struggling facilities to acquire.
With Jordan formally on board, the next stage of taking control of Godolkin could also move forward.
One more person was still needed.
“Speaking of which.
What’s the situation with Cate?”
He had barely started the sentence when Jordan cut him off, suddenly urgent.
“Almost forgot to tell you.
I need to go home for a few days.” She was already moving toward the door.
“I put in a leave request with the school.
I won’t be back tonight.”
She didn’t give Los any room to follow up, grabbed her phone, and was gone.
Los tidied the room for a few minutes.
Then there was a knock at the door.
Not Jordan coming back.
His X-ray Vision told him who was standing outside before he reached the handle.
The pieces clicked together.
He put the Arc Reactor in the desk drawer and opened the door.
“Hi, Los.
Good afternoon.”
Cate.
Standing in the hallway, greeting him with a warm smile.
She had clearly put effort into today.
Her face, already striking, looked almost dreamlike, with delicate earrings and a necklace that worked with the rest of her rather than competing for attention.
The gold hair had been freshly washed and carried a faint scent that reached him immediately.
She was wearing the white button-down and very short skirt from the first time they had met, black thigh-high boots, and the figure underneath all of it was the kind that made you understand why painters ran out of adjectives.
“What brings you by?”
Los kept his expression curious, as though her visit was unexpected.
Cate pouted slightly, almost playful.
“I’m already at your door.
You’re not going to let me in?”
“Come in.”
Los stepped aside and let her through.
The cold metal workshop smell that usually filled the room was immediately replaced by something else entirely.
“Should I get the light?” Los offered, noting the curtains were still drawn.
With the door closed it was going to be dark.
“This is your space.
You’re in charge.
I’ll follow your lead.”
Cate put her hands behind her back and looked directly at him, posture open, her outline clearly defined even in the dim room.
Her usual composed, untouchable quality was still there, but her eyes had gone soft and open in a way that was entirely deliberate, and the slight part of her lips added a heat to the whole picture that was doing exactly what it was intended to do.
Los exhaled quietly, to himself.
Getting Cate on his side was necessary.
She was a critical piece of the Godolkin plan.
And apparently, with someone whose ability was mental control, what actually worked was demonstrating real strength in a more direct register.
He didn’t overthink it.
He reached back and closed the door.
In the instant the room went dark, something warm and soft pressed into him, and the sensation at his lips was immediate and unmistakable.
Stark wasn’t wrong, Los thought.
Rest was part of the process.
You couldn’t work every hour of every day.
He took the lead from there, and blocked his soul connections to both Injustice Superman and Stark.
Through recent testing, he had worked out that he could actively suppress the soul link for up to six hours a day.
It wasn’t something he needed often.
Tonight was an obvious exception.
That night.
New York.
The hospital attached to Godolkin University.
A private room.
Golden Boy pushed the door open and found Anderson lying in the bed, eyes empty, staring at nothing.
The upper half of Anderson’s body was still wrapped in heavy bandaging.
“Andre.
Get some rest.
You’re going to be okay.”
Golden Boy sat in the chair beside the bed and kept his voice steady.
Anderson said nothing.
He held out his phone, screen still lit.
Golden Boy took it.
A thread from the Godolkin student forum:
“After Jordan left campus on leave, Cate went into Los’s dorm room and hasn’t come out?”
There was a photo attached: Cate outside the building, fully made up, brilliant gold hair, unmistakably on her way somewhere specific.
Walking into his room and staying the night.
The rest of it didn’t require much imagination.
Below the thread, female students had been posting responses:
“Los is something else.
Lucky Cate.”
Golden Boy had been sitting there to give comfort.
Reading this, something snapped.
His grip on the phone went white-knuckled.
His clothes started showing faint heat at the edges, the first signs of ignition.
Everyone at Godolkin knew Golden Boy had been the first one to pursue Cate.
“I’ve been trying to keep it together, but I can’t.” Anderson’s voice came out low and raw from the bed, his hands balled into fists under the blanket.
“I’m lying here without legs and he’s with Cate right now.
How am I supposed to sit with that?”
“He’s going to pay for this.
Los is going to pay for what he did to me.”
As he said it, every metal object in the room started vibrating.
The bed frame.
The cabinet.
The window fittings.
The light fixtures.
The air conditioning unit.
All of it humming and trembling under his ability, the whole room alive with it.
Anderson’s eyes, red with burst blood vessels, fixed on Golden Boy.
“Are you really okay with this?
Handing Cate over to him?
Handing him the top rank?”
“What’s the alternative?” Golden Boy’s jaw was tight.
“I challenge him tomorrow?”
“No.”
Anderson shook his head and looked down at where his legs weren’t.
“You remember what happened to me?
He doesn’t fight clean.
He won’t face you straight up.”
His eyes went cold and calculating, the heat of anger running into something harder.
“We need to come at him differently.
Outside the rules.
That’s the only way to deal with someone like him.”