The Tyrant's Wife

318 Iron nanny

“Where’s Rosaly?” Zaria asked when they were close enough to the house. She had overheard Zeus say something about a daycare.

“She’s home, probably waiting for us.” He grinned mischievously. Zaria’s eyes went wide.

“Are you nuts? You can’t leave a child at home on her own! What if the nannies were bribed?”

“I only promised to make sure no one will take advantage of your absence to get her and trust me, that wouldn’t have happened under any circumstances.”

She didn’t know what he was going on about and was too anxious to try and make sense of his rambling. She left the car as soon as it stopped, with Desmond hot on her trail. What they didn’t expect was the scene that greeted them in the living room as soon as they arrived.

Rosaly was sitting on the floor, petting a robot.

“Okay, this isn’t what I was expecting.” She was surprised.

“If it’s Zeus, this is totally one of the things to expect.” Desmond wasn’t shocked by the scene, but he was relieved to see his daughter was alright. He picked her up for a hug but for the first time, she didn’t want to ditch her toy to play with them. She only hugged him briefly before returning to fawn over the robot and get it to play her favorite song.

“It’s not working anymore.” Her eyes drooped.

.....

“You didn’t tap the button on its wrist before asking.” Zeus reminded her.

Seeing him, she ran over to him and hugged his leg. “Uncle Zeus, Ajax is so cool! He played all my favorite songs and even read me a story.”

Desmond’s brows knitted. He knew Zeus had installed a security system that would automatically rain bullets down if breached but he didn’t know that included a nanny robot that could read his daughter’s stories.

Knowing what he was thinking, Zeus helped her set up the music and scoffed at him. “Don’t pretend it’s such an unusual concept. You have Alexa.”

“Alexa doesn’t shake my daughter’s hand and rub her head.” He looked over at the giggling Rosaly who had just requested a song. The robot was so articulate that it was disturbing.

“It won’t take over the house one day, will it?” Zaria asked, still fascinated by how advanced Ajax was. If it wasn’t all shiny metal, she would have been terrified.

“You watch too many movies. A robot cannot do that.” He smiled. “Oh, and he has a toy organizing function. As long as you feed him a picture of what Rosaly’s play area is supposed to look like, he will do his best to replicate it while putting every extra item in the basket—pets and children not included, of course. He has a temperature scanner so unless your daughter is doused in ice cubes…”

“Jesus Christ.” Zaria was caught in between admiration and terror. What in the alternate advanced universe was this? Seeing how happy Rosaly was, however, she couldn’t bring herself to tell Zeus to take it away.

“We can keep him. Rosaly sees him as a living being, it will break her heart to take him away.” She decided.

“Are you kidding?” Desmond playfully sulked. “I just got replaced by a robot and you think it’s okay to keep it?”

“To be fair, he would be quite a looker if he wasn’t all metal and codes.” She joked.

Desmond frowned. “And now, even my woman thinks it’s more handsome.” Though, something else caught his mind. Zeus was apparently super possessive over his robots. It was expected, since he was their creator after all. But why was he letting this one go and even convincing them to keep it? “What do you want in exchange for this fine piece of metal?”

“Des!” Zaria scolded.

“What? It’s not like it has feelings.”

Zeus laughed at what he assumed would be the source of many arguments to come. “This is my wedding gift to you. It was fake but it was a wedding nonetheless.”

“You’re not giving us something to distract us so we don’t find out you are the culprit we’re looking for, right?” Zaria joked. She had to admit, it was pretty distracting. Rosaly was yet to notice the bandage on her father’s shoulder and they had spent a great part of the car ride coming up with a plausible reason.

_______

The following day, Natalie finally met up with Zaria. The latter had just finished her workout and was having breakfast at the café nearby when Natalie arrived.

“Sorry I’m late. Did you wait too long?” She asked.

“No. She caught sight of a fading mark on Natalie’s mark and sipped her decaf so she wouldn’t make an awkward remark. It was surprising that she was this early.

“Let’s get to it, shall we?” Natalie placed an envelope on the table. “I just received this from Nathaniel’s lawyer. Though I have to warn you, he is suspicious about the timing of Nathaniel’s death.”

Zaria didn’t get why it mattered until she read the will and saw all the assets left in their names.

“Why would Nathaniel leave everything to us?”

“I had to make him believe I was gaining something from the arrangement. It would be too odd if he left everything to only one grandchild.” Natalie explained.

Zaira shook her head. “I’m not putting my hands on anything that scumbag ownd. Do you know how he earned so much money even when his business was going downhill?”

“I know. This is why I’m donating mine to charity. I heard from Aunt Lucy that Uncle Theo lost his home thanks to Nathaniel’s underhanded deals. I’m also aware that The Lux Hotel was built right where Uncle Theo’s home should have been. I’m going to use my part of his inheritance to demolish The Lux and build foster homes on those grounds.”

Zaria frowned. “Or just turn The Lux into one huge foster home. Use the inheritance to buy enough supplies and pay the employees.”

“That’s a good idea.” She had to admit. While they wouldn’t have the satisfaction of demolishing Nathaniel’s biggest project, he had made their work easier. Only, “what about the employees?”

“Most of them quit. Can you help me find out how many there are left and send me their details? I have a feeling I’ll have to fire dozens from The West.” Those Veronica had put in place to destroy the resort. She was keeping the good ones.

“I’ll transfer your share to you, and you can do whatever you want to do with it.”

Zaria thought about it. “Actually, just send over the legal papers for me to transfer the properties in my name to you. I don’t want anything to do with it and I’m sure, neither does Zeus.”

“Okay.”

Now that business was out of the way, Zaria brought up her remaining concern. “How do you know so much about Ximena?”

It didn’t take long for Natalie to know why she was asking but she answered her nonetheless. “Do you remember that time when documents were stolen from Preston and Fort Group and I had seen her leaving the company with a folder? I ran a background check on her. I was trying to find out what motive she could possibly have.”

“I see.” Zaria let out a sigh. That wasn’t as bad as she thought.