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The secretary shows me in.
Bettencourt waits for me behind his desk, writing something on a notepad. Even light fills the office, filtered through translucent shades that obscure the view without making the space dark.
He doesn’t acknowledge me, so I stand across from him and look at the decorations on his walls. There are a few family photos in the floor-to-ceiling shelves directly behind his chair. One of him with his wife on their wedding day. One of his daughters, close together near the side of a pool. Lydia’s a toddler. The part of my brain still attached to my body does the math.
My parents could have been alive when the photo was taken.
They could have been at that pool party. We all could have.
A photo of the girls with their mother. Elise is wearing a graduation cap and gown. She’s smiling, but her eyes are sad.
I had nothing to do with her childhood, or the fact that she started her bakery instead of going to college. My heart twists anyway. The emotion is miles away and in my face all at once.
Bettencourt stands, blocking my view of the photos. He offers me his hand. “Glad you could find the time to meet.”
I shake his hand, calibrating my smile to be more vicious and less charming. “I wouldn’t have passed up this meeting for anything.”
Anything except Elise. If I’d called her, and if she’d said not to go, I might not have come.
Unsettling. I’ve been committed for so long. This new tether to my life isn’t a feeling I’m used to.
“Please. Sit.” Bettencourt is being magnanimous now, the fuckface.
I take my seat. “You said you wanted to discuss terms. I’m assuming you mean the terms for membership in the consortium.”
“Aren’t you clever.” He looks so much like Elise. Same dark eyes. She got her dark hair from him, too. But I doubt Bettencourt has ever felt even a whisper of guilt in his life. He places a portfolio in front of me and opens it with his index finger. “This is the legal paperwork. Our opening offer.”
It doesn’t take half a page to see that this isn’t an offer. This is a takeover. My signature on these documents won’t just transfer ownership of my company to them. It’ll transfer my personal assets into a trust controlled by the consortium. They’d be the only beneficiaries.
I don’t care so much about the cars. My brownstone, though? I hate the thought of Bettencourt having any kind of access. If I’m going to be dead, it should go to my family. It should go to Elise.
I won’t care when I’m dead.
I keep turning pages. It’s not a particularly long contract, but it’s a thorough one. The word I’d use to describe these terms isonerous.
At the last page, I scan to the bottom and look back at Bettencourt. “Fifty percent of the value of my house. Not the full amount.”
“Seventy-five.”
“That’s the only change I want made.” I flip the portfolio shut and push it back to him.
He doesn’t take it. Bettencourt just watches me, his eyes narrowed, the corners of his mouth turned down. There’s an odd brightness to his eyes. “If your plan is to come in here and pull one over on us, make a different plan.”
“Give me a pen. I’ll sign right now if you think a little light negotiation is a sign ofpulling one over.”
“So your personal property doesn’t matter to you?”
“I can buy more property.” This is a lie. I’ll never buy another brownstone that’s exactly the one I own. There are more like it in the city, but those weren’tmine.My stomach turns at the idea of Bettencourt getting handed the keys. But he won’t. If I do this, he won’t have the chance. If any of them survive, however… “What matters to me is reaching the next level.”
“You’re that desperate?” The light in his eyes dims, becoming something else. “Worried we won’t accept you?”
I lean back in my seat and watch him. “Did you lose all your pens?”
He laughs, reaching forward to drum his fingertips on the portfolio. “All right, Hill. No need to keep putting on a show. When we initiate you, it will become abundantly clear whether you’re with us or against us.”
“That’s an ominous warning. It’s not like the mob where you have to kill someone to get in, is it?”
He doesn’t smile at the joke. In fact, the laugh fades from his face like it was never there. A nonexistent breeze rakes fingernails down the back of my neck. I thought Chambers might have been overselling it to Jacob. Making it seem worse than it was so that his son wouldn’t be rattled when the time came.
