Page 144 of Cruel Lies

Therefore, option two is out.

I've only got one real choice left.

I have to go to Ronan.

Not to forgive him. God, no. I have no intention of falling back into anything. But I can walk into that glass office on the forty-first floor with my own dashboard on my own laptop, sit down in one of his intentionally uncomfortable chairs, and show him that I am not a victim or a puppet.

I'm the only one who knows what he truly is.

So, if he wants any chance of getting out of this without all of us going down together, he needs me.

That's all I can do. Fight for what's mine. The company. The kids. My own name. All of it. With the only weapon I've ever been any good at.

Truth is, there's no clean answer. I'm running on hope, fumes, and caffeine. And everything I've ever loved is hanging in the balance.

I rise, pick up the knife, and return it to its space in the butcher's block. When I go back to the kitchen table, I see my phone is face-up next to the laptop. The last message on it is from midnight.

You're beautiful, Calista Meadows.

Read 12:01.

I never answered. And I don't intend to answer now.

I don't need Ronan Akov to tell me what I am anymore.

OnlyIget to decide that.

39

CALI

The Akov Firm lobby is exactly the same as I remember. Silver letters. Cold marble. The whole thing polished to a mean shine.

Alyssa is at the desk. She sees me coming, and her face falls in horror. "Ms. Meadows!" she says, lurching up to her feet. "He's not expecting?—"

"Send me up," I tell her. "He'll want to see me."

She hesitates. Then she picks up the phone and mumbles something quiet into it. A second later, face ashen, she waves me toward the elevator.

The ride up is forty-one floors of a staring contest with my own reflection in the brushed steel. I don't smash this one. I just look.

At last, the doors open to reveal Ronan standing in the middle of his office.

He looks like he hasn't slept a single minute more than I have. Stubble lines his jaw and the sleeves of his shirt are rolled up, just like they were the first day he showed up on my steps. His eyes go to me, but his face doesn't change one bit.

"Calista," he says.

"Sit down, Mr. Akov."

He blinks at my formality, but he does it. He walks around the desk and lowers himself into his chair. I take one of the ones across from him, the intentionally uncomfortable ones. It's the same chair Todd sat in, if I recall correctly.

I set my laptop on his desk and open it, then turn it so the screen faces him.

"I built this to catch supply chain fraud," I say. "You know that. Turns out it works just as well on a lying husband. And it works evenbetteron a lying lawyer."

He doesn't move. He just watches me, saying nothing.

"I have eight things to show you," I say. "I'd like you not to say anything until I finish."