The Return of the Watchers (Armageddon Rising Book 1) by Denny Bennett

happened?” he asked Yuki.                                                                       Trying not to upset her father, she carefully worded her response. “I met with Mr. Dantanian as you asked, but I could not provide him with the information he was looking for. He seemed to think the Professor I am working under has some secret research going on. I believe he is wrong and now he is trying to force me to spy on Dr. Lystad.”                                           Her father put down his paper and turned his head towards her with  a very stern look. “Is that all he wants from you? What harm is there in giving him some information? Do you see what he's done? He’s going to destroy us if you don’t cooperate! Give him what he wants, Yuki. You can always work for the company if you lose your position there.”                             “You tell me to calm down, look at you! You’re going to end up back in the hospital!” she shot back. “I will go to this meeting and in your place Hiroshi can come with me. You’re not well enough to go.”                            He looked back at her with consternation. “Get Aki to set up the camera and I will attend the meeting by video conference. I need to speak with this man myself,” he huffed with shortened breath, as the stress of their conversation began taking its toll.                                                                      Some time later a driver took Yuki and Hiroshi to the company headquarters in Tokyo. The two of them discussed the upcoming meeting and shared some small talk on the way. They arrived a bit early to set up the equipment, making sure everything worked properly.                                           Five minutes before six o’clock Theodore Dantanian and his assistant April arrived, along with several of his bodyguards who inspected the room prior to standing at their posts outside.                                           “Miss Yuki, I’m happy to see you again. I see that you received my message,” he said, as if they were old friends.                                                         “What message would that be, Mr. Dantanian? The one for this meeting, or the one you delivered by taking over our company?”                             He responded in Japanese: “Touché, miss Yuki. I didn’t want things to have to come to this, especially since Sukekuni is such an old, stagnant company; it wasn’t something I really wanted to acquire. Since I had to deliver a message, I felt it should be one that you would pay attention to this time.”
    Yuki shot an icy glance at him.
    “Now that you know how serious I am, I will give you one final opportunity before I dismantle this company and four thousand people lose their jobs. I need you to convince Lystad to give up the source.              You can tell him what he’s up against, and let him know that once I’m finished with you I’ll move on to someone or something else he cares about,” he said casually.             
    “Mr. Dantanian, why are you involving us like this? If you need something from him why don’t you just go to him yourself?” Yuki’s father asked.                                                                                                                                             “As I told your daughter, we went through that phase already.  Now I’m giving him more of an incentive to cooperate.