Page 123 of Boardroom Mask

I stop and breathe.

“I haven’t been with anyone since then. For five years, not one person. Until you.”

Finally, I risk looking at him. Kir is completely still. His hands are flat on the table on either side of his plate, his food long forgotten. He is looking at me with the most careful, controlled attention I have ever seen from him, and I realize he is holding himself very, very still on purpose, because whatever he’s feeling right now, he doesn’t want it to spill out and make this about him.

“Which brings me to the mask,” I continue. “When you had the mask on, you weren’t… you weren’t a person. You weren’t a man with a face and a name and a history. You were just something in the dark. And something in the dark couldn’t hurt me, because it wasn’t real. Does that make sense?”

He nods, but doesn’t speak.

“It gave me permission to want something again. I found myself able to let someone touch me without every brain cell screaming at me to run. And that was enough to let me stay in my body for the first time in five years.”

I’m done. There’s more—there’s so much more, a whole chapter I skipped over, a hospital room and a baby’s scream and a bracelet on a tiny wrist—but that part stays locked. That part staysmine. What I gave him is enough for now. It’s the most I’ve ever given anyone.

The hundreds of candles basking us in heat waver as Kir reaches across the table and takes my hand. “I would have killed him if I’d known you then,” he says succinctly.

A normal person might have offered up anI’m sorry that happened to you.Maybe aHave you thought about therapy?

Kir Lazarev offers up cold-blooded murder.

And you know what’s funny? Not just that I believe him, because God knows that I do. It’s funny that I feel strangely reassured by the offer.

What does it mean that the thought of vengeance heals something in me? How fucked-up have I become? Was I always this way? Or did Kir make me this? Did my rapist? Am I happier in the darkness than I am in the light? Is a murderous masked stalker the only man I could ever love and let love me in return? Isloveeven a word that works for us?

All I have are questions, questions, questions. There’s an obvious reporter joke in there somewhere, but if we’re being real, I wouldn’t mind some actual answers at some point.

For now, though, all I get is this: hot gray eyes on mine, fingers intertwined, candles all around us as we burn up together. Somehow, the fire makes the darkness seem darker.

I kinda think I like it that way.

Then there’s a sound.

Something between a scrape and a shuffle, right outside my front door.

Kir’s hand releases mine. His spine straightens. His chin drops. His eyes go flat and cold, absolutely empty of anything Irecognize. He reaches under the table with his left hand and pulls out a gun. He doesn’t look surprised in the least, and I’m realizing suddenly that that’s because he isn’t surprised at all.

Whatever this is, he was expecting it.

“Go to the bathroom,” Kir orders in a calm, level voice. “Lock the door. Don’t come out until you hear me say your name.”

I don’t move right away. My hands are still wrapped around the wine glass. The candles are still flickering. The bread is still on the cutting board. Everything looks the same as it did ten seconds ago, but none of it makes sense anymore.

“Jillian.” He’s not looking at me. He’s looking at the front door. “Go.Now.”

I go.

I don’t think about it. My body just obeys, legs carrying me down the short hallway to the bathroom before my brain has time to form an opinion. I step inside, shut the door, and twist the flimsy little push-button lock on the knob. It’s nothing. It would hold for about half a second against anyone who actually wanted in. But it’s all I have, so I make do.

Then I press my back against the door and put both hands over my mouth.

I hear Kir’s footsteps cross the apartment. The creak of the front door easing open.

Then an eruption of noise. Grunt, crash, slam, shatter.

Scrape, scrape, scrape.

Then something I will never un-hear.

It’swet. That’s the only word for it. Wet, dense, and final, and I hear it a second time before it all goes as silent as the grave.