Page 119 of Boardroom Mask

I leave him lying there, spluttering, as I charge out into the world.

This mercenary motherfucker wants to shoot through me to get to Jillian? Let him try.

Idarehim to fucking try.

47

JILLIAN

“And there’s a storm you’re starting now”

— “Hurricane” by Halsey

Rae picks me up early on Saturday morning so we can drive upstate to go visit her brother at his rehab facility. The Honda’s heat is cranked to the max and still barely winning against the December cold seeping through the windows. I take control of the aux, obviously—Rae’s taste in music is notoriously awful.

“I’m just saying, if there arethatmany deer, maybe we should be worried,” I remark, squinting at another yellow animal crossing sign as I slurp the last watery dregs of my iced coffee.

“Think they’re plotting something?” Rae teases. “Rebellion?”

“Don’t mock,” I warn her, keeping my face dead serious. “You’ll be the first one against the wall when the deer uprising comes.”

She giggles. It’s the first real laugh I’ve heard out of her in weeks, which is a pleasant surprise. She’s being really tight-lipped about everything that’s happening in her life, but I’m glad to see I haven’t lost her completely.

“There she is,” I say, giving her a warm look. “I was starting to worry my bubbly best friend had been body-snatched.”

“I’m just tired,” she promises. “Late night at work.”

“Did he do something new?” “He” meaning Lukas, of course, the bane of both our existences, albeit in very different ways.

“No, no, no. I was just stuck on a… a hard project.” She swallows and looks away toward the passenger window. “Nothing untoward.”

“Mhmm.”

I don’t push. I want to. God, do I want to. Every instinct I have is screaming at me to pull this car over and shake the truth out of her about whatever Lukas Lazarev is doing to my best friend. But Rae has that look in her eye and a death grip on the steering wheel, and I know from long experience that poking at that particular dam right now will only make it crack in a way neither of us is prepared for.

So I give her space. I’m good at that. I’ve had a lot of practice needing it myself.

My phone lights up on my thigh. I glance down. Kir again.

I press my lips together to keep from grinning and/or word-vomiting about how disgustingly happy I am. I don’t want to believe in this good thing, because good things and I have a complicated history. It feels like a mirage in the corner of my eye: If I don’t look at it too hard, it’ll stay right where it is, just how I want it.

“Speaking of distant and distracted,” Rae says, glancing over at me, “you’ve been kind of out of it lately.”

My fingers tighten around my iced coffee. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that you, MissI Never Set My Phone Down For Longer Than I Can Help It,have been taking for-freaking-ever to respond to my texts this week. And now, this morning, you keep looking at your phone like you think you’re gonna get news that you won the lottery.”

I pretend to puff out a weary exhale. “Work stuff” is the vague non-answer I offer up.

“Still can’t talk about it, I’m guessing?” asks Rae.

“No.” I shake my head, thankful that she bought the lie. “Soon, but not yet. It’s sensitive. And honestly, the less you know right now, the better.”

That’s true in a multitude of ways.

Things are good. Since Wednesday night’s post-date kiss in the rain, I’ve been living on Cloud 9. When I’m not texting Kir incessantly, I’m flying through work, and I can finally see the light at the end of this Elena Lazareva tunnel. I know the core of the story, thanks to Kir, so what it comes down to at this point is just verification, proof, evidence, all that stuff that’s part and parcel of my job.

But I can’t tell Rae any of it. Not the Kir stuff or the article stuff. She’s drowning in her own Lazarev mess and barely keeping her head above water. Even with Kir promising he’ll keep me safe, I can still hear that stranger’s warning from Sleep No More rattling around in my skull. People close to me are targets. By definition, that includes Rae.