Page 65 of Boardroom Ties
The man who pulled me out of an alley fifteen years ago with my father’s blood drying on his hands.
The man whose freedom is twined with mine.
The man to whom I owe every breath I take.
I lied to him. For her.
No—forthem. Cass and our baby.
Jillian’s voice sneaks into my head.Lies live forever. You can’t outrun them.
Yeah. I’m starting to suspect she might be right about that.
I close my eyes for a moment and rest. Then I open them, turn the key, and start the engine. The dash glows up. Heat begins to push through the vents. I tuck the Glock back where it belongs, beneath the wool of my jacket, against the same spine that’s going to have to carry whatever comes next.
I’ve got two weeks now to figure out what happens next. Fourteen days to come up with a plan that works.
Not just for me.
But forall of us.
20
CASS
It’s been three days since the Pierre, and I’ve spent every one of them in the same panic loop. On each of those nights, I’ve found myself curling under the duvet next to Raymond’s snoring carcass, burning up with the knowledge that he is supposed to be dead, and it’s my fault he isn’t.
In all of those many lonely hours, there’s been not a peep on the burner cell.
I checked again around two in the morning, when Raymond’s hand landed on my hip in his sleep and I thought I might combust on the spot. I eased out from under him, made for the closet, and powered the burner up. The littleM.S.sat at the top of the inbox where I’d left it. No new bubbles underneath. I powered it down and tucked it back behind the hatbox, then stood there in the dark in my bare feet and tried to keep myself from falling apart.
He has nothing to say. Why does that sting so badly?
The Pierre keeps playing on a loop behind my eyelids. Mat’s face went so scarily still when I saidI’m pregnant. I thought hemight’ve frozen there forever, a statue, a testament to my real shitty sense of timing.
I keep getting caught on one specific moment, though. Not the part where I told him, but the part right before, when I grabbed him.
If I’d kept my hands in my lap and let the universe do its thing, Raymond would be a chalk outline by now, and someDaily Newseditor would be salivating over the headline:BOURBON-SOAKED BIG SHOT BUMPED OFF IN BOUJEE BATHROOM.He’d be done, Giana would be avenged, and I’d be free.
But did I save Mat from a complication he hadn’t accounted for?
Or was I supposed to let him walk straight into it?
I’ve thought about it endlessly, and I still don’t know. It would be one thing if Mat had texted afterward to sayGood catchorThank fuck you stopped me.I’d even accept something along the lines ofWhat the fuck were you thinking, Cass? We were thirty seconds out!Either of those I could make sense of and move on from.
What I can’t move on from isnothing.
But the burner stays dark, so here we are.
Instead of a body in a body bag, I’ve got a man in the bed next to me who keeps reaching for my hip in his sleep.
Which brings me to the other unsettling development of these three days: Raymond is in amood.
It’s not like his usual ones. Not theeggs-aren’t-runny-enoughmood, nor themy-secretary-is-an-idiotgrouse. Something different, and in so many ways, worse.
He’s beingpleasant.
He kissed the top of my head at breakfast yesterday and called meCassie. Cassie. He hasn’t called me Cassie since the early days of our engagement. But yesterday, his hot lips on the part in my hair:Good morning, Cassie.
