His brows pulled together as he drummed his fingers on the desk. He took a long moment before he looked up at me. "We've thought about that risk before. But if we want to break into AI, we need outside expertise. You don't hire someone you can't trust, and once you've hired them, you trust them."
I held his gaze. "What if I found a team of elite local technicians and guaranteed a real breakthrough in the AI field? Would you be willing to let me try?"
He paused, then a slow smile crossed his face. "How could you possibly be sure of that?"
"I'm not," I said honestly. "But I want to try." If this project worked, it would give me something real to stand on against the Moore family. Most of their dominance in the business world was built on technology, and that was exactly the kind of ground I needed to challenge.
Marcus was quiet for a beat, then he nodded. "Go ahead."
