Page 125 of Boardroom Mask

He recovers faster than I expected. Credit where it’s due, I suppose, though it won’t save him in the end. He throws a short elbow that catches me across the mouth, splitting the inside of my cheek against my teeth. I feel blood burst on my tongue. He follows it with a knee aimed at my groin that I barely turn in time to catch on the muscle of my thigh.

Fine. We’ll do it this way.

I drop my own gun. I want my bare fucking hands for this.

I slip his next reckless punch, grab his wrist, twist his arm behind his back, and slam him chest-first into the hallway wall. A framed photo of the Manhattan skyline crashes to the floor. He bucks and tries to headbutt me, smacking the back of his skull against my chin hard enough to make my teeth clack together. I answer by driving his face into the wall once, twice, and on the second impact, I feel bone give way under the plaster.

Fuck, that feels good. I can’t get my hands on Jillian’s rapist—not yet, at least—so this piece of shit will have to act as aninvoluntary stand-in for now. Beating his face to a fucking pulp is a hot and savage pleasure.

This is for her,I think grimly.My father thought he could touch her. He was wrong, but I am not yet close enough to pay the price, so you get to bear his pain instead. You getthis,andthis,andthis.

On everythis,I break another one of his fingers. They snap like matchsticks. So fucking easy. I barely have to try.

By the third mangled finger, all the fight is gone from him. He drops to his knees. Blood is pouring from his nose and a gash across his forehead where the drywall split his skin open. He’s done and he knows it. The eyes are huge and afraid as the end of his pitiful life hurtles closer.

I crouch down, grab a fistful of the balaclava, and yank it off. Underneath is a face I don’t recognize. Blond-haired, beard stubbled. Forgettable. Just some hapless contractor Lukas found and pointed at the woman I love.

“Who sent you?” I ask, even though I already know. I want to hear the name from his mouth.

His bloodied lip wobbles as drool and snot dribble down onto Jillian’s hardwood. “Lazarev.”

“Which one?”

His eyes find mine. Whatever he sees there, it tells him everything. “The old man,” he rasps.

I nod. “That’s what I thought. Well,thisLazarev is here to tell you that your services are no longer required.” I stoop down to snatch his silenced pistol off the floor.

He opens his mouth to scream, but he gets no further than “N—!” before a bullet in his brain stem snuffs out all that’s left of him.

The body crumples sideways onto Jillian’s hallway floor. One leg twitches. Then nothing.

I stand over him, breathing hard, the suppressed pistol still warm in my hand. Blood is soaking through the front of my shirt. It’s his, not mine, though I can taste my own where he split the inside of my cheek.

“… Kir?”

Jillian’s voice comes floating through the bathroom door, small and steady, but perhaps a bit less afraid than she might’ve been otherwise. I like to think that that’s my doing. ThatImade her feel safe, despite the chaos storm swirling all around her.

I don’t answer her right away, though.

I’m looking at my hands. They’re more like my father’s hands than I ever realized before. The same broad knuckles, the same long fingers. Scars and tattoos like his. As for what’s on the inside… Well, I always swore it was the polar opposite of Lukas Lazarev. I’m not so sure anymore, though. Ten minutes ago, my little fox sat across from me and told me what a violent man did to her. How he pinned her down and took something that wasn’t his to take. How her brain left her body to survive it. How she spent five years struggling simply to exist inside her own skin again.

And then, in the very next room, I became exactly that.

A violent man with blood on his hands and a body at his feet.

Maybe Lukas was right about me. Maybe I am his son, through and through.

But as long as it’s forhersake…

… maybe that’s okay.

50

JILLIAN

“I found peace in your violence / Can’t tell me there’s no point in trying / I’m at one and I’ve been quiet for too long”

— “Silence” by Marshmello ft. Khalid