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I step through them and end up in the lobby. Above, concentric ovals reveal glass-tipped balconies. A man waits in front of an expansive reception desk. A black suit. Earpiece. Close-cropped haircut and cold eyes.
“Mr. Hill,” he says. “They’re expecting you.”
Based on his accent, I’m going to guess he’s ex-MI6. And probably armed to the teeth. Not one of the usual receptionists. I give him a short nod, and he leads me through the building to a bank of elevators near the back. After a fingerprint scan and voice recognition, doors open.
I follow him through.
If I was fucking someone for information, this would be the moment my mind left my body.
It does the same thing now, but the distance doesn’t last. I’m right back in it.
Lighted numbers carved out of brushed steel mark our progress. We start on the floor marked L. The number two lights up. We come to a pressurized stop.
It’s too early. Bettencourt’s office is on the twenty-sixth floor.
My first thought is that this is one of his power plays. Choosing a lower floor would keep everyone off-balance, especially if they’re expecting to be welcomed into one of the Bettencourt International offices.
But if he truly wanted that, we’d be up at the top. At those windows, it’d be easy to feel like you were falling. Maybe that’s why he keeps them covered with those shades.
Is Bettencourt afraid of heights?
I file away the idea. Either thing could be possible. If I make it through tonight, I’ll have a chance to find out.
The elevator door opens, and the guard gestures me toward a long hallway. I travel miles of gray carpet.
Don’t do this.
It’s Mason this time, not my mother. As if he knows I’m thinking about him. Our father pushed him out of a window on the fourth floor of a brand-new high-rise.
I try not to think about it. I try every day, and I always fail. He must have been so terrified before he fell.
He’s the reason I’m here.
Mason, out of everyone, deserves to have the consortium dead and buried. He deserves to know they’re gone while he lives the rest of his life with his fucked-up knee and the woman he loves.
I mean that literally. These people don’t deserve to live. Ideally, it won’t come to that for quite some time. Killing them outright would be too easy. Too painless. I could burn down this building, sure. There are other options for murder. I’ve considered and discarded most of them in the years since my parents died.
It would be fitting.
Except it wouldn’t clear my father’s name. He lost everything to his supposed debts to the consortium. His business wasdismantled. His children were left to starve. People blamed him for the fire.
They still talk about him. These days, most people assume he must have been evil. Or foolish, which is almost worse.
Meanwhile, the men who betrayed him have flourished. They have hospitals and university libraries named after them. They have garden parties. They attend their children’s weddings.
I want the world to know what they did. I want their secrets unlocked and exposed. I want them dragged through the tabloids, just like Mason’s wife was when their sex contract was leaked.
That news was nothing compared to what these people have done. Mason and Charlotte love each other. TheTimescovered their wedding like there had never been a contract at all.
I want photos of Bettencourt and the rest of the consortium bankrupt and humiliated. I want photos of them in orange jumpsuits on the front page of every magazine. I want them to know that it’s over.
And then?
It doesn’t matter what happens after that.
If I’m alive, maybe I’ll buy this building so I can raze it.
The odds of my survival probably aren’t good. I know I might not make it out. And if I do, a man like Bettencourt will have a contingency plan. Even if they’re all safe behind bars, there will be other people out here, waiting. The same man he used to kill my parents, probably.
