Five years later, Elias would sometimes look back on that conversation and marvel at how simple the answer had been. Yes. He did want more.
The rest of life, of course, refused to be simple.
Clarke Industries hummed around him with its usual low roar of controlled brilliance: engineers running simulations, departments exchanging information like a living organism, and meetings overlapping with meetings that required meetings to process. It should have felt overwhelming.
But in the middle of all of it, in the CEO's private office, Elias sat with a toddler on his lap and the same steady composure he used to handle billion-dollar acquisitions.
His toddler, dark-haired, wide-eyed, and currently gnawing on a silicone dinosaur, seemed determined to prove that chewing was a full-time career.
"Otis, don't bite his head off," Elias murmured, adjusting a spreadsheet with his free hand.
