Chapter 4 Episode 4
1686 Words
I turn and rest my forehead against the window. The glass is icy to the touch and it fogs when I exhale. My reflection looks back at me: flushed cheeks high and pink, swollen lips, eyes stuck too wide.
I look like someone who just got caught doing something she shouldn’t.
God, I don’t know anymore.
My stomach churns. I can still feel the ghost of Kir’s fingers on my skin. My nostrils are still full of his cologne, cinnamon and fire. But even though I’m a muddle of a million things right now, I know it’s not really Kir that has me feeling so frazzled.
It’s a man of ice. It’s cigarette smoke and the memory of gray eyes that burned the way you get burned by the coldest water you’ve ever felt.
I shake myself out of it. Standing here mooning over what just happened isn’t going to change anything. It will probably just make things worse, in all likelihood.
I tuck my blouse back into the waistband of my skirt, try to do damage control on the wrinkles, and rearrange my hair into something slightly less disastrous.
Lukas’s card goes into my pocket. I’ll deal with that later. Or never. Preferably never.
My coat is hanging on the back of my chair. I grab it. My bag is under my desk where I left it this morning, back when I was just a sweet, naive summer child. I grab that, too.
The office is eerily quiet. It’s like walking through a forbidden graveyard as I head for the elevator. Even on the carpet, my foot strikes are loud enough to make me cringe.
I press the button to summon the elevator, step back to wait…
Then a hand flies out from the darkness to grab me by the elbow.
I scream and spin around.
It’s Kir. He’s ghostly in the shadows. His tie is gone now. His shirt is half-untucked. He looks like hell.
“Jesus!” I yank my arm back. “You scared me.”
“I’m sorry. I just— I needed to talk to you.”
“Where did you even come from?”
He gestures vaguely toward the hallway, the one that leads to the back stairs. “I didn’t leave. I just... I couldn’t. Not without explaining.”
He chews at his lip. “You talked to my father.”
“What did he say to you?”
“After I left,” he snaps, like I’m being deliberately dense. “What did he say?”
“I don’t know.” I shake my head, still confused. “He offered me a job.”
His eyes bug out. “Did you accept?”
Kir’s grip tightens on my wrist, hard enough to hurt. “Ow! Kir, let go.”
“I don’t know! He didn’t really give me a choice.”
“There’s always a choice, Rae.” Strangely enough, he sounds just like his dad when he says that.
But unlike Lukas, Kir’s eyes are wild and darting. This is nothing like the calm, controlled corporate titan I thought I worked for. This man knows something I don’t. “You can still say no. You can quit. Tomorrow. Tonight. f**k, you could quit right now.”
“Quit?” I try to pull my arm free, but this time, he won’t let go. “I can’t just quit. I need this job.”
“You don’t understand.” He stoops closer. His breath is hot on my face. “My father isn’t… He’s not what you think he is.”
“I don’t think he’s anything. I just met him. I barely know him.”
“Exactly. And you should keep it that way.”
The elevator chimes as it arrives behind me. The doors open. Neither of us moves.
“Kir,” I say as panic rises in my chest, “you’re scaring me.”
He looks down at his hand on my wrist and his eyes widen. He almost seems surprised to find it there. He lets go.
“Sorry.” He runs his fingers through his hair again. It’s sticking up at strange angles now. “f**k, sorry. Just…” He trails off.
“What is going on with you?” I ask.
He laughs bitterly. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
He doesn’t. Instead, he takes a step back. Then another. Putting distance between us like I’m the dangerous one.
“If you say yes,” he says, “when you go to the fiftieth floor, when you meet with him, just... be careful.”
He glances around like Lukas might be in the vicinity. That’s almost funny—the thought that we could overlook a man that huge or that foreboding. “My father collects things he finds interesting, Rae.”
A sudden chill runs down my spine. “What does that mean?”
“It means what it means.” He’s retreating further now. Backing toward the shadows he came from. “I tried to warn you. Remember that.”
But he doesn’t. He disappears, swallowed up by the darkness of the hallway. I hear his footsteps on the back stairs, fast and fading, then gone altogether.
The elevator doors start to close. I shove my hand between them just in time and step in.
As I do, I shiver. I don’t quite know why. I’ve done five years’ worth of rides up and down in this brightly lit box. This time feels different than all the others, though.
It feels like something’s changing.
I hit the button for the lobby. My reflection looks back at me from the mirrored walls. Gaunt-eyed, weary, and shook.
He collects things he finds interesting. What the hell is that supposed to mean?
FROM: L. Lazarev, Office of the Chairman
DATE: November 8, 2025 | 03:11 A.M.
Relocate workstation 50-E-217 (R. Everett) to Floor 40 by 0600 Monday. Remove all evidence of prior occupancy.
Ms. Everett is not to be consulted.
The weekend crawls by in a haze of boiling anxiety and cold pizza.
I rehearse my speech a hundred times, everywhere I go. In the shower. On the subway. Late at night, while staring at the ceiling when I can’t sleep.
Mr. Lazarev, I appreciate the offer, but I’m going to have to decline.
Mr. Lazarev, I’ve thought about it, and I don’t think this is the right fit.
Mr. Lazarev, thanks but no thanks; pretty please don’t murder me and chop me up into little bite-sized pieces.
I practice all the different possible tones, too. Firm. Polite. Professional. Apologetic. Nice Rae. Stern Rae. Hot Rae. Cold Rae. Red Rae. Blue Rae. One Rae. Two Rae.
With every variety, I try to imagine his reaction. Every time, I come up blank.
Truth is, I don’t know Lukas Lazarev. I don’t know the first thing about him. And yet my brain keeps circling back to the brief, hazy outline of what I do know and trying to fill in new details.
Someone once told me that you can fix bad dreams by writing a new ending for yourself. That’s kind of what I end up doing, in a way.
Because even though every dream starts the same way that it did in real life—with Lukas emerging in that hallway like a larger-than-life statue of Zeus climbed down from its pedestal—they each end differently.
Sometimes, he touches me. His hands palm my hip, big enough to snap me in two, and spread me across the conference room table. His beard tickles my inner thigh.
Sometimes, he gives me orders, and I don’t dare disobey. Sit. Stand. Kneel. Beg.
Sometimes, in these fuzzy not-quite-daydreams of mine, he says and does nothing at all. He simply stands, smokes, and stares at me with gray eyes that see far too much.
Stop it, psycho, I snap at myself for the billionth time.
But I can’t. I just cannot.
Case in point: Sunday morning, I wake up from a dream I refuse to dwell on. My sheets are tangled around my legs, my skin is hot, and if that weren’t proof enough that I’m losing my mind, my pajama shorts are damp.
What is wrong with me?
He’s old enough to be my father. He’s literally my boss’s father. He’s probably married, or has a girlfriend, or seventeen of them.
He is worldly. He is powerful. He is the kind of man who’s done everything and seen everything.
Is that why I keep thinking about him? Because I’ve done nothing?
Whenever my thoughts start to stray too far, I focus on the task at hand: telling him no. By Sunday night, I’ve almost convinced myself I can do it.
I can walk into that office on the fabled fiftieth floor, look Lukas Lazarev in the face, and tell him no.
Monday morning, I get to the building at 7:45. Fifteen minutes early. That gives me enough time to stop by my old desk on Kir’s floor, grab the things I need, and mentally prepare myself for what’s coming.
The elevator opens on the fortieth floor. I step out, turn the corner toward my desk, and—
It is actually, physically, no-longer-there gone. The spot where I’ve sat for eighteen months is now occupied by a potted fern and a decorative end table with a bowl of mints on it. Even the imprints of the desk’s feet on the carpet are completely wiped away. It’s like I never even existed.
I stand there, blinking, stunned.
“Oh, you’re here!” A woman I don’t recognize pops up from out of nowhere. She’s young, blonde, and has a perky, golden retriever energy that makes me want to crawl back into bed. “You must be Rae. I’m Madison. I’m taking over for you.”
“Taking over for me,” I repeat stupidly.
“Yeah! Mr. Lazarev—the younger one, I mean—he said you got promoted. Congrats, by the way! That’s so exciting!”
My mouth falls open soundlessly.
- Writer
