Page 87

Status: EXECUTED

The roof access door booms shut behind Kir. He’s gone.

I sink back down and claim his vacant seat, with my feet hanging over the edge of oblivion. Pavement looks up at me hungrily from fifty-something stories below. Up here, though, it’s just me and the birds and the merciless wind. It’s carving right through my blouse and my skin. My teeth are chattering, but I stay put. This feels like a decent place to sort my thoughts out.

Or to try to, at least. But no matter how hard my overworked little brain tries to process everything, it just isn’t working.

Maybe it’s because of how fast everything has changed. Two weeks ago, I was justRae Everett.Executive assistant, orphan, big sister, virgin. Nobody special. Hardly worth noticing.

Then Kir cornered me at my desk. His hands went places they shouldn’t. He whispered things that made my skin crawl. And before I could figure out how to make him stop, his father appeared out of nowhere and made things that much crazier.

Two weeks ago—to me, at least—he was just Lukas Lazarev. Chairman of Lazarev Global. Billionaire. Widower. An enigma, as remote and distant as a mountain.

Now, I might have to add…

… Murderer?

I wrap my arms around myself. The cold is seeping into my bones now.

In those two measly weeks, Lukas has given me a whole United Nations’ worth of red flags.

He transferred me to his floor:red flag.

Gave me a raise that matched Gideon’s rehab costs down to the penny:a very creepy, invasive red flag.

He knew things about me he shouldn’t know. My brother’s treatment. My bank account. My bust, hip, and waist size:red, red, super-duper red.

Then, speaking of red, he twisted my arm into getting dolled up tohisred-hued specifications, then had the gall to treat me likeutter trash in front of everyone who’s ever been anyone in New York City.

To buy me like that… from under his own son’s nose, no less, when Kir was just trying to protect me… I shudder. Every time I close my eyes, I still see that spotlight’s glare and the horde of people calling out numbers, each bigger than the last, and I feel that hot sting of shame.

Five million dollars.

The bidding is over.

The girl belongs to me.

If that was the end of it, it still would have been a lot.

But it wasn’t the end. Not even a little bit.

Once he’d finished humiliating me in front of everyone in the five boroughs, he’d dragged me off that stage, shoved me in a car, put his hand where it didnotbelong, and reprimanded me for—*checks notes*—not wearing thepantieshe prefers?!?!

All that from a man who, it has now been all but confirmed, killed his wife. Talk about focusing on the speck in my eye instead of the log in his.

Yet that didn’t stop him from throwing in a bonus threat, like a baker’s dozenth in the night’s red flags.

Next time you receive instructions from me, you will follow them to the letter…

… or you might find yourself at the next gala wearing nothing at all.

I feel weak. I feel woozy. I feel very, very unwell.

And I think I know why.

It’s because despite all of it… despite all of that ghastly, nightmarish awfulness…

… when I think of Lukas Lazarev…