Page 75 of Boardroom Mask

Snarling, he releases me and turns away. He fixes his cuffs as he calms himself back to his usual ice king mode.

“Kill the reporter by the end of the month,” he growls. “Or I give her everything she needs to destroyyouinstead of me.”

The windows rattle as Lukas slams the door behind him on the way out. I turn back to my desk and my eyes land on the Harvard citation plaque hanging on the wall behind my chair.Kirill A. Lazarev, Master of Business Administration, with distinction.Framed in heavy black wood and mounted on the wall the day I moved into this office.

I lift it off the nail. The glass catches the city lights and throws a thin bar of reflected gold across the ceiling.

Then I hurl it at the opposite wall as hard as I can.

The frame detonates on impact. Glass sprays across the carpet, the wood splinters at the corner joints, and the diploma itself flutters down in a slow, lazy arc like a fallen leaf.

Fuck, it feels good to break things.

Glass crunches under my shoes as I walk back to my chair and drop into it. I pull out my phone and call Mat.

He answers right away. “What’s up, bro?”

“I need a favor.”

“You needing shit from me is basically the foundation of our whole friendship.” I can hear traffic in the background. He’s walking somewhere. “What kind of favor?”

“The legal kind.”

He sighs in relief. “Those are my favorite. Also my most expensive, but you already know that.” A car horn blares on his end. “Go ahead.”

I look at the shattered frame on the floor and the bare nail jutting out from the wall where it once hung. Things are falling apart even faster than I expected. I need to get out of the danger zone.

And I need to bring Jillian out with me.

“I need you to pull the company bylaws,” I tell Mat. “Specifically the section on votes of no confidence in the chairman of the board. It’s time for my father to take his leave.”

29

JILLIAN

“Dig up her bones but leave the soul alone”

— “Bones” by MS MR

Turns out that I never fall asleep at all. Hours pass by while I stare at Rae’s ceiling. In the end, it’s only a Signal notification buzzing my phone at a quarter to five in the morning that rescues me from more fruitless tossing and turning.

The message on the encrypted app is from a potential source I’ve been trying to lure into the light since I first sunk my teeth into this story a couple weeks ago. Their contact is saved as F.T., which stands for Forensic Tech. That’s because they are a forensic tech. It’s not exactly the most creative alias that’s ever been dreamed up, but hey, I’m a reporter, not a fiction writer, alright?

F.T.

I’ve got a small window first thing this morning. Back alley behind the office. Be here before 5:30.

I read it twice, then a third time to make sure I’m not hallucinating from sleep deprivation. Then I’m moving, easing out from under the covers in slow motion so I don’t wake Rae, grabbing my jeans off the floor, and stuffing my feet into my shoes without tying them.

Rae doesn’t stir. I text her so she knows I didn’t get abducted in the nighttime—Had to run. Source finally agreed to meet. Will call later. Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone. xo Bean—then slip out the front door and pull it shut behind me as gently as I can. It’s 4:53 AM.

The forensic tech in question works out of the NYPD crime lab in Queens. He has access to evidence databases that would cement my entire investigation if the stubborn bastard would just agree to talk on background. I’ve been texting him on Signal for weeks, ever since Ochoa let something slip about this person maybe knowing something useful, but until right now, all I’ve gotten back is radio silence and one very firm “lose this number.”

Something changed his mind. What that something might be, I neither know nor care. I just need to get to Koreatown before he changes it back.

Against all odds, I make it to the alley behind the crime lab just before my time is up. F.T. is already there, leaning against a dumpster with a coffee in one hand and a manila folder tucked under his arm. When he sees me, he doesn’t smile. His eyes roam around, everywhere but on me, like I might’ve brought spies along for funzies. “I’ve got about four minutes before shift change,” he says abruptly. “So let’s make this quick.”

I know the drill here. What I’m doing is not, strictly speaking, legal or ethical, but when you live with one foot in the dirty worldof crime like I do, you quickly learn that some lines simply have to be crossed if you’re going to do your job correctly.