Chapter 20 Kir
KIR
“You got me beggin’ for thread / To sew this hole up that you ripped in my head”
— “Beggin for Thread” by BANKS
The day after the alleyway, I sit at my desk and try to work. “Try” being the operative word.
I’ve got Lazarev Global’s quarterly reports open on one screen and a merger prospectus on the other, and I’ve gotten nowhere with either one. My head is somewhere else entirely. Split in two directions, actually, and neither of them has a single fucking thing to do with corporate finance.
Direction one: Jillian.
I can still smell her on my hands. It doesn’t matter how many times I shower; she’s under my skin now. Has been since that first night and she’s showing no signs of going away anytime soon.
It’s crazy how fast this has all spiraled out of control.
I learned about her existence three goddamn days ago, but the obsession has me in an absolute chokehold.
I don’t remember what life was like before her; I just know that I saw her, touched her, and breathed her in, and nothing since then has ever been the same.
Since the Jillian Pierce lightning bolt struck me, the situation has only gotten worse.
One night wasn’t enough. I went back the next night and fucked her on her kitchen floor.
I went back the night after that and she gave me her three little rules—no names, mask stays on, no falling in love—and I agreed to all of them while knowing I’d break every single one.
Then Thanksgiving happened. I followed her to a playground and watched her cry at a chain-link fence for reasons I still don’t understand, and a short while later, I had her pressed against a brick wall in a dingy alley with her jeans around her thighs, because I just couldn’t stay away.
Each encounter is dumber and more reckless than the last. This can’t possibly end well. Men like me don’t get happy endings. We get bloodshed, plain and simple.
Direction two: my father. He hasn’t followed up yet, but that’s worse than if he had. When Lukas goes quiet, it means he’s making plans.
I close both laptops and push back from my desk. I need to get the hell out of here. It feels like the walls are closing in around me and the roof is going to crush me flat any second now. I need open sky and space to think.
But just for good measure, I grab a fifth of liquor from my personal cabinet on the way out.
The stairs convey me up to the roof service access. Nobody comes up here. It’s not officially off-limits, but there’s nothing up here except HVAC units, pigeon shit, and a half-decent view of Midtown if the weather cooperates.
I sit on the concrete ledge with my back against an air handler and crack the bottle. It’s still early in the day, but I don’t give a shit.
The city is loud from up here. Horns, construction, a siren or two.
It sounds a lot like the chaos in my head, actually.
The wind is cold and it cuts right through my suit jacket.
I don’t mind that, funnily enough. The cold keeps me from getting too comfortable, and comfortable is the last thing I deserve to be right now.
I drink straight from the bottle and watch a barge cross the river, losing myself in numb thought for a little while. I don’t realize there’s someone behind me until they’re almost on top of me.
Footsteps on gravel. I brace myself, but it’s not Lukas.
It’s Rae.
Maybe I’m not the only one having a shit day.
My former assistant looks pretty fucked-up, too.
She’s standing about ten feet away, arms wrapped around herself, and shivering because she’s not wearing a coat.
Her eyes are red and her cheeks are wet.
She’s been crying. I know what crying looks like on a woman now.
I’ve become something of an expert this week.
I can’t blame her. She’s had a hellacious month.
I had a role in that, I know—she used to be my executive assistant, after all.
And one bad night at the beginning of November, when I was messed up in the head off booze, drugs, and angst, I deluded myself into thinking she was the answer to my problems. She wasn’t, of course, and I should’ve seen that.
It didn’t go too far, thank fucking God—but that’s only because my father intervened and made her life way worse than I ever could have done.
It would have been bad enough if Lukas had simply taken her away from me that night.
He went farther, though. He’s made her his little pet.
At the Lazarev Global charity gala last Saturday, he contrived a whole fake date auction just to get her on stage in front of all of New York’s richest and most famous assholes.
I tried to save her from him, but he outbid me, throwing five million dollars out just to prove he was the big swinging dick in the room.
Since then, he’s taken her off my floor, moved her to his, and gave her a job that doesn’t exist, simply because he can.
That’s Lukas. He doesn’t just beat you. He makes you watch while he does it.
“… Kir?” She sound surprised to see me, like she’s not quite sure I’m real.
I almost laugh at the sight of her. Of all the people in this building, on this day, it had to be her. The fact that she’s a dead ringer for my dead mother doesn’t make my psychological shit any easier to deal with.
“Rae.” I know I sound awful, but at this point, there’s no hiding it. “Fancy meeting you here.”
She sits down next to me. Not too close, which is wise on her part. She’s already learning the risks of fraternizing with the Lazarevs.
“You look like hell,” she observes.
“That’s funny. I feel like it, too.” I lift the bottle and take a pull, then hold it out to her. “Want some?”
She doesn’t answer. She just looks at me, and I can feel her cataloguing the damage.
My wrinkled shirt. The untucked everything.
The bruise on my cheek that’s gone yellow-green at the edges, courtesy of my father, who smacked me across the face after the gala to establish his authority when I dared to tell him that I had no interest in murdering Jillian Pierce.
As we all know, I lost that argument—badly.
“Kir,” Rae whispers, “what happened to you?”
I laugh in a way that’s harsh and grating even on my own ears. “What do you think happened?”
“Your father?”
“Give the girl a prize, folks.” I clap a few times, slow and sarcastic, then take another drink. “Though I suppose, technically, he already did. Five million dollars’ worth.”
She flinches. “I didn’t ask for that.”
“I know.”
And I do know. That’s the worst part. Rae didn’t ask for any of this. She showed up to a job, did it well, and had the misfortune of catching the attention of not one but two Lazarev men. One of us wanted her. The other one wanted to make sure the first one couldn’t have her.
She never had a say in any of it. Poor thing.
I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. “Doesn’t matter, though. You’re his now. That’s how this works.”
“I’m not his,” she says feistily. “I’m not anyone’s.”
I look at her, and I wish I could tell her that she’s right. After all, she’s a grown woman who can make her own choices, and my father doesn’t own people.
But that would be a lie, and I’m too drunk and too tired to lie to anyone except Lukas right now.
“You don’t get it yet,” I say. “But you will.”
“Get what?”
“He’s going to ruin you, Rae.”
I look out over the gray city. The snow matches the buildings matches the sky. Everything looks the same color as my father’s eyes.
“Whether he means to or not,” I explain, “he will. That’s just what happens to people he puts his hands on.”
The wind picks up. She shivers. I should offer Rae my jacket or tell her to go back inside, but instead, I’m thinking about Jillian.
What was that about at the playground yesterday, watching other people’s children play?
Is it related to all the fear and neuroses she has about sex?
Is there something in her past that explains all this?
Who hurt you, little fox—that’s the right question, I think, but she’s a long way from giving me an honest answer.
What’s clear is this: Someone broke Jillian before I ever climbed through her window.
And now, Lukas is going to do the same thing to Rae.
I can’t stop it, though. I can’t stop my father, that’s for fucking sure, but I also can’t stop what’s happening between Jillian and me. It’s like we’re both strapped into this crazy fucking roller coaster. I’m high on her, stuck on her, fixated and obsessed in a way I didn’t know I could be.
That’s dangerous. For everyone involved.
“You’re drunk,” she accuses.
I shake my head. “Not nearly drunk enough for what’s coming.”
We sit there for a quiet minute. I take another pull from the bottle and feel it hit the empty pit of my stomach. The alcohol is the only thing I’ve put in my body since yesterday’s coffee, and it’s doing exactly what I need it to do, which is make everything softer and dimmer and further away.
“This has happened before?” Rae asks.
I go very still. Then I nod. Barely. I’m not even sure she can see it. “My mother,” I say.
Two words—that’s all it takes to crack me open. I haven’t said them out loud in years. I’ve thought them a thousand times, of course, but saying them to another person is different. That makes it all real in a way that thinking never does.
Rae doesn’t push. She just waits. I can feel her holding her breath beside me. “What… what happened to her?” she finally ventures.
I laugh again, just as miserable as the first time around.
“She wanted to leave him.” I turn and look at Rae.
She’s pale. The wind has blown her hair across her face and she hasn’t bothered to push it back.
Fuck, she really does look just like my mother, both my memories of her and the few pictures I managed to hide from my father before he could destroy them.
There’s a kindness in her eyes I remember so well. “Look where it got her.”
Her eyebrows furrow. “What do you mean?”
“I mean she’s dead, Rae.” I hold her gaze. I want her to see that I’m not being dramatic or exaggerating for effect. “Eighteen years in the ground. And my father’s the one who put her there.”
She pulls back from me. Not a lot, but enough. I don’t blame her. I just told her that the man who bought her at auction murdered his wife. That’s not the kind of thing you lean into.
“Kir…” she stutters. “Are you sure?”
Am I sure? I almost choke on that. Am I sure that my father killed my mother?
Well, I watched him feed her poison and then carry her corpse out of our home.
So yeah, Rae, I’d say I’m pretty fucking sure.
I finish the bottle. Then I toss it over my shoulder without looking. It shatters somewhere behind me on the gravel, which is almost kind of a nice noise. Shit breaking—that’s the soundtrack of my whole existence. The Lazarev family theme. I’m kinda used to it by now.
I stand up and wobble. Rae reaches out to steady me, but I wave her off. My legs are numb with pins and needles and the rooftop tilts and bucks under my feet, but I don’t want her help. Hell, I don’t deserve her help. She should be running for the door right now, not trying to catch me if I fall.
She stands with me, biting her lip, looking at me with those brown eyes that are too much like my mom’s.
And all I can think is: I have to end this thing with Jillian before she ends up the same way as Rae here. Before Lukas finds out and adds her to the list of women I couldn’t protect.
“No one leaves my father, Rae,” I intone. “Not my mother. Not you.” I turn and walk toward the roof access. Just before I reach the door, I add in a quiet voice, “Not even me.”
I make it back to my office without falling down the stairs, which feels like an achievement given how much liquor is sloshing around inside me. I shut the door, drop into my chair, and pull out my phone.
My fingers know what to do. The camera feed loads in a few seconds.
Jillian is working from home today. She’s at the desk in her bedroom, hunched over a mess of papers and folders spread out in front of her.
Her laptop is open to the left. A half-drunk coffee sits near her elbow.
She’s got a pen tucked behind her ear and another one in her hand, and she’s writing something in a notebook, fast, not looking up.
Behind her, on the wall, she’s got a corkboard.
I’ve seen it before on the feed, but it was mostly bare.
Not anymore. Now, it’s covered. Index cards, printed-out documents, sticky notes with arrows drawn between them.
Red string connects some of them, which is so on-the-nose for a journalist that I’d laugh if it weren’t taking the shape of a smoking gun aimed directly at my family.
She stands up and walks to the board. She’s holding a red marker. She circles something in the upper right corner, then steps back and looks at the whole board with her arms folded, head tilted.
I try to zoom in. The phone camera is good, but the pinhole lens in her vent wasn’t designed for this kind of resolution at that distance. I can make out shapes and colors but not text. Whatever she circled, I can’t read it.
I try zooming more. Useless. The pixels turn to mush.
She’s getting closer to something. That much is obvious from the sheer volume of material on that board and the way she keeps going back to it, connecting pieces, reorganizing. She’s building a case. That’s what reporters do, and Jillian is a very good reporter.
What’s incredibly fucked-up is that part of me wants her to find it all. I want her to blow the lid off everything Lukas has built and burn it all to the ground with him standing in the middle of it.
But there’s another part of me that remembers I’m still his son.
The empire she’s trying to dismantle has my name on it, too.
And, problematically, hating Lukas and wanting to protect him from Jillian aren’t opposites.
They’re the opposite of opposites; they’re the same twisted thing, braided together so tight I can’t find where one ends and the other begins.
Nobody else gets to destroy my father. That’s my job. Mine and mine alone.
As for how I’m going to solve any of this shit…
… that remains to be seen.