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Following a recent review of your compensation package, your annual salary has been adjusted to reflect your new role and responsibilities. Effective immediately, your salary will increase by $53,000 per annum.

Fifty-three thousand dollars…

… the exact amount I owe Westgate for Gideon’s remaining treatment.

I sit in my parked car and read the email again. The number doesn’t change.

I never requested a review. I never even hinted to a single living soul that I needed more money. The only person who knows exactly how much I owe…

… is Lukas.

12

LUKAS

OUTGOING CALL LOG - L. Lazarev (Private Line)

Saturday, 23:58

To: [ENCRYPTED NUMBER]

Duration: 00:32

“Come to the office Monday. Eight o'clock. You know what to wear.”

I close the laptop and reach for the vodka.

The bottle is already half-empty. I don’t remember opening it. I don’t remember pouring the first glass, either. But here I am, three fingers deep into my fourth, doing shit I shouldn’t be doing.

It’s too late to stop it now, though. The email is sent. The damage is done.

Fifty-three thousand dollars. The exact amount she needs.

I know this, because I know everything about Rae Everett.

I know her bank statements and her credit score. I know her brother’s medical records and the name of the facility where he stays. I know thelengthof his stay. I know thecostof his stay.

I know it all.

And Iusedit.

That much is clear. The reason why? That’s murkier.

On its way down, the vodka burns like the hellfire that’ll be waiting for me when my time on this earth is done. I’m not a good man. I stopped pretending to be one decades ago. But this thing with Rae feels worse than almost anything else I’ve ever fucking done.

Dirtier, somehow.

Like I’m corrupting something that should stay clean.

She’s twenty-five, for fuck’s sake. She types up her little meeting notes and drinks chai lattes and worries about her baby brother. She wears cheap blouses that gape open when she bends down. She blushes when I look at her too long.

She’s half my age.

She works for me.

She has no idea what I really am.

And I want her anyway.