Page 49 of Boardroom Mask

Since when do you care about my work-life balance?

Take the day off. That’s an order.

I drop the phone on the nightstand and roll over. He’s right, but that doesn’t mean anything—I’m not going to relax. Doug has to know that. He’s worked with me long enough to know that telling me to take a day off is about as effective as telling the tide not to come in.

I’m going to find what the Lazarevs are hiding.

And then I’m going to put in on the front page of theNew YorkfuckingTimes.

18

KIR

“Why were you digging? / What did you bury?”

— “Like Real People Do” by Hozier

The penthouse is quiet on Thanksgiving. My holiday gathering consists of me, a bottle of Beluga Noble, and a powered-down TV that functions like a black mirror reflecting my own face back at me. No one else will be joining—my mother is dead and my father isn’t exactly the turkey-and-gratitude type.

I’m on the black leather couch with my feet up on the marble coffee table I flipped two nights ago. I put it back myself. There’s a crack running through the marble now, a clean split right down the center that I covered with a book so I wouldn’t have to look at it. The book is Dostoevsky.Crime and Punishment.My father’s idea of a joke birthday gift when I turned eighteen. I never read it. Probably should. Though I doubt even dear old Fyodor had any good advice for what to do with the clusterfuck of a situation I’ve found myself in.

I pour another glass and drink it the way Lukas taught me—no chaser, no wince, straight down the gullet. The vodka is cold andclean, but I feel no better after it’s gone than I did before I drank it.

Across the city, Jillian Pierce is doing whatever Jillian Pierce does on Thanksgiving. Eating with friends, I’d assume. Probably Rae Everett, if Rae isn’t currently tangled up in whatever web my father is spinning around her.

Or maybe Jillian is alone, too, just like I am. Maybe she’s at that kitchen counter where I left her, with a glass of whiskey, same as me, staring at the same wall I had her pinned against.

I shouldn’t be thinking about her. I know that. The math hasn’t changed: Kill her or Afon does it for me. Those are the only two outcomes Lukas will accept, and every hour I waste sitting here is an hour closer to the second one.

But I keep going back.

For two nights running, I’ve gone through that window and put my hands on her and heard the sounds she makes when she stops pretending she doesn’t want this. It took everything I had not to laugh in her face when she delivered her little speech about “the rules.”

Rules won’t keep us safe, little fox,I almost purred.Because I’m already damned… and I intend to drag you down with me.

But she either doesn’t know that or refuses to believe it. She thinks the mask keeps her safe. She’s wrong about that, but I’m not going to be the one to tell her.

Not yet.

As I’m staring out over the rim of my tumbler out at the Manhattan skyline beyond, it takes me a moment to realize that the irritating buzzing sound is my phone vibrating from whereit’s fallen between the couch cushions. I fish it out and wince when I see who’s calling. But if I don’t answer, he’ll just keep ringing until I do—or worse, show up here in the flesh.

“Happy Thanksgiving, you miserable bastard,” Mat says when I click Accept. “What are you doing right now?”

“Drinking.”

“Alone?”

“Dostoevsky’s here.”

“Christ. That’s worse than alone.” I hear noise behind him—music, voices, the dull thump of a bass line. “Listen, I’m heading to Sapphire with Dima and a couple of his guys. Come out. It’ll be good for you.”

“A strip club on Thanksgiving,” I drawl. “How classy of you. And people say you aren’t family-oriented.”

“It’s festive! They’ve got a turkey special. Two-for-one dances or something. I don’t know, I didn’t read the fine print.”

“I’m good here.”

“Ha!” he snorts. “Judging by that miserable, self-loathing note in your voice, you’re the farthest thing from ‘good.’ You sound like you’re about to write a manifesto. When’s the last time you left your apartment?”