The Devil Wears The Same Suit Twice
1311 Words
Chapter 2
The Devil wears the same suit twice
She almost cancelled. Three times. She had the message typed out to the recruiter and everything something came up, so sorry, perhaps another time but every time her thumb hovered over send, Jerry's voice played in her head like a broken record.
You are not letting that cheating, mediocre, tragically average man derail
your entire career trajectory, Lily Marie Hayes.
Jerry had a point. He usually did, even when she hated him for it.
So she got up. She did her hair. She put on her best blazer navy, structured,
the one that made her look like she had her life together even when she absolutely
did not and she went.
📞 Jerry 8:47 "Okay, rundown. Addams & Co. What do you know about them?
Lily had her phone wedged between her ear and shoulder while she attempted to
apply mascara in a moving cab."Import-export. Private firm. Extremely
well-funded, extremely selective about who they hire. The listing said executive
assistant to the CEOs.
"CEOs. Plural."
"Twin brothers, apparently. Run the company together."
A pause. Then Jerry, slowly: "Twins."
"Jerry, don't."
"I'm not doing anything. I'm simply noting cosmically that the universe
has a very dramatic sense of humour
"Goodbye, Jerry."
"Call me the second you're out! And Lily you look amazing. Go get it.
The Addams & Co. building was the kind of architecture that made a statement
before you even reached the door. All dark glass and clean lines, rising above
the street with the quiet arrogance of something that had never needed to prove
itself. The lobby was marble and shadow, staffed by people who moved like they'd
been trained not to make eye contact with anyone below a certain net worth.
Lily smoothed her blazer, lifted her chin, and walked in like she belonged there.
She rode the elevator to the forty-second floor alone. Checked her reflection
in the polished steel doors. Told herself the slight flutter in her chest was
ambition and not last night's ghost.
The elevator doors opened.
The receptionist was warm and efficient and walked her down a long, dark-panelled
corridor that smelled faintly of leather and something expensive she couldn't name.
At the end of it were two large doors matte black, gold handles that looked
less like an office entrance and more like something you'd find in a place that
made decisions about the world.
"They're ready for you," the receptionist said, and knocked twice.
From inside, a voice. Low. Familiar in a way that made no sense yet.
"Send her in."
The office was vast and dim and deliberately intimidating floor-to-ceiling
windows behind a desk the size of a small country, the city sprawled below like
something they owned. Which, Lily would later learn, was not entirely inaccurate.
Two men stood as she entered. One by the window. One behind the desk.
Identical. Dark suits. Amber eyes.
The folder in Lily's hand slipped. She caught it. Barely.
The one by the window tilted his head that same barely-there curve of the mouth
she remembered from last night, the one that said he found her reaction extremely
satisfying and was too composed to show it.
The one behind the desk simply watched her. Patient. Still. Like a predator
who already knew exactly how this was going to go.
"Ms. Hayes," he said."Please. Sit down.
Lily sat. Because her legs, quite frankly, made the decision before her pride could
intervene. She set her folder on the desk with hands that were steady through
sheer force of will and met their eyes first one, then the other.
You," she said. It came out flatter than she intended. More accusation
than greeting.
"Us,"the one by the window confirmed pleasantly. Tyson
she would come to learn. Always the one with the almost-smile. Always the one who
looked like he was quietly enjoying a joke no one else had been told yet.
"Small world," said Jason, from behind the desk.
His voice was the quieter of the two. The more deliberate. Every word placed
like it had been considered and chosen carefully. He opened her folder without
breaking eye contact. "Shall we begin?"
The interview was the most disorienting forty minutes of Lily's professional life.
Not because they were unprofessional. Quite the opposite. Jason asked sharp,
precise questions about her experience, her organisational skills, her ability
to handle high-pressure environments and confidential information. He was thorough
and exacting and gave nothing away. Tyson occasionally added something quieter
a question that seemed simple on the surface and felt deeper the longer she
sat with it.
They were, infuriatingly, impressive.
What made it disorienting was the way they kept looking at her. Both of them.
Not unprofessionally nothing she could point to and object to. Just this
steady, unhurried attention that made her feel like she was simultaneously
being interviewed and catalogued. Like they were collecting information that
had nothing to do with the job.
She answered every question. She was good she knew she was good and she
refused to let amber eyes and a disorienting sense of déjà vu rattle her out
of showing it.
When Jason set her folder down and folded his hands on the desk, she braced herself.
"The role requires discretion,"he said. "Absolute discretion.
You will manage our schedules, our correspondence, and at times our more
sensitive arrangements. You will ask no questions you haven't been invited
to ask. You will not discuss this office outside of it."
"Understood," Lily said.
"You'll start Monday."
She blinked"I that's it? I have the job?"
Tyson, from across the room: "Did you want us to deliberate longer?"
That almost-smile again. "We don't make a habit of it. When we see
something we want, we don't waste time."
The room felt suddenly smaller. Lily stood, shook Jason's hand firm, warm,
held exactly one beat longer than necessary and turned to collect her things.
"Welcome to Addams & Co., Princess."
She stopped. Turned back slowly. Both of them were watching her Jason with
that quiet, unreadable steadiness, Tyson with the ghost of something that was
almost warm.
"My name," Lily said, very clearly, "is Ms. Hayes."
"Of course it is,"Jason said. And then, unhurried, like a door
closing on an argument she hadn't won: "Monday, Princess. Nine o'clock.
Don't be late."
She walked out of the office. Down the long corridor. Into the elevator.
She waited until the doors had fully closed before she pressed her back
against the wall, tipped her head up at the ceiling, and let out a very
long, very controlled breath.
Her phone buzzed. Jerry. She picked up before the first ring finished.
"Well?"
"I got the job," she said.
"LILY! Oh my God see? I told you! I told you, you
"Jerry." She closed her eyes. "The twins from the club last night."
Silence.
"...run that by me again."*
"They're my bosses, Jerry. They're my new bosses."
A long, dramatic pause. Then, with tremendous feeling:
"Lily. The universe is not subtle and I respect that about it."
On the forty-second floor, the office was quiet again. Jason stood at the window,
looking down at the street below at the small figure in the navy blazer
stepping out of the building, hailing a cab, disappearing into the city.
Tyson appeared beside him. Neither of them spoke for a moment.
Then Tyson, quietly: "She has no idea."
"No,"Jason agreed. His jaw was tight. His eyes hadn't moved from
the street even though she was long gone. The pull in his chest that
deep, territorial, wolfish thing that had slammed into him the moment she'd
walked through the door was still humming. Still insistent. Still
annoyingly, inconveniently undeniable.
"This complicates things,"Tyson said. Though he didn't sound
particularly troubled by it.
Jason finally turned from the window.
"Everything worth having is complicated.”
End of Chapter 2
- Writer
