Chapter 14 Rae
RAE
NYPD INCIDENT REPORT #[REDACTED]
Reporting Officer: Det. M. Kowalski (Badge #[REDACTED])
INCIDENT TYPE: Missing Person / Suspicious Death
SUBJECT: [█████████ LAZAREVA], Female, Age [██]
LAST SEEN: [REDACTED] by husband [█████ LAZAREV]
CAUSE OF DEATH: [████████████████]
WITNESS STATEMENTS:
- [NONE WILLING]
The stairwell is cold and gray and empty. I sink down onto the concrete steps and let the tears come.
This is stupid. Why am I crying over this?
He’s my boss! He can fuck whoever he wants! It’s none of my business if he has naked Russian supermodels waiting for him in his office. That’s his life. His choices. It’s got nothing to do with me.
But the tears keep falling anyway.
I’m mad at myself for caring. I’m mad at myself for having that dream. For touching myself to the thought of him. For letting myself feel anything, the slightest little morsel of anything at all, about a man who is so clearly out of my league in every possible way.
He’s a billionaire. I’m nobody.
He has women like Natasha. Women who look like they stepped out of a porn video. Women who know what they’re doing.
I’m a virgin who gets flustered when he says my name.
I press the heels of my hands against my eyes. Get it together, Rae. He doesn’t want you. He was never going to want you.
The stairwell door opens above me.
Shit, shit, shit! I scramble to erase the evidence of crying from my face, but it’s too late. Footsteps ring out on the steps. Someone’s coming down.
“Well, well.” Kir’s voice bounces off the walls. “What do we have here? Oh, fuck… Rae?”
I don’t look up. “Go away.”
He doesn’t listen. The footsteps keep coming until I can see his shined leather shoes on the step below mine, blurry through my stubborn tears.
“Rae,” he says again, “what happened?”
“Nothing.” I keep my eyes fixed on the floor. “I’m fine. It’s allergies.”
“To what? Concrete?”
I almost laugh. But then another wave of humiliation crashes over me and I have to press my hand against my mouth to keep from making what would surely be a really pitiful sound.
Kir sits down next to me. “Hey.” He bumps his shoulder against mine. “Talk to me.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Clearly, there is.”
I shake my head. The tears are slowing down now, but my face is a mess. I bet I look like a wet raccoon.
“Is it my father?”
I flinch. He notices.
“What did he do?”
“Nothing.” I wipe at my cheeks again. “He didn’t do anything.”
“You’re sobbing in a stairwell because of nothing?”
“I’m not sobbing.” For the record, I am definitely sobbing. Or I was. Now, I’m just slowly leaking. “I just needed a minute.”
“Okay. Sure. Your minute has begun.” He’s making a joke, I think, as he checks his watch with a flourish. But it doesn’t feel like it comes with ill intentions. He doesn’t push anymore, either. He just sits there next to me, close enough that I can feel the warmth of him through his suit jacket.
Little by little, my breathing evens out. The tears dry up. When they’re gone, I feel hollow and wrung out, like someone squeezed all the emotion out of me and left behind a dry, empty husk.
“You don’t have to tell me what happened,” Kir says eventually. “But if he hurt you—”
“He didn’t.” I cut him off before he can finish. “It’s not like that.”
“Then what’s it like?”
I shake my head. “I can’t explain.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Uh… both?”
He exhales. “Fair enough.”
I finally look at him. His gray eyes—so like his father’s, but warmer in all the ways that matter—are watching me closely.
“I’m okay,” I tell him. “Really. I just had a moment.”
“Hell of a moment.”
“Yeah.” I force a weak smile. “Hell of a moment.”
He shifts and sighs next to me, leaning against the inner wall. Then he clears his throat. “You know, I’m glad I found you,” he says. “I owe you an apology.”
I blink at him. Did I hit my head when I ran out of Lukas’s office or something? This turn of events does not compute.
“… What?”
“For that night in the office.” He runs a hand through his dark hair. “I was out of line. Way fucking out of line.”
I don’t know what to say. This is not what I expected from him. Not even close.
“I’ve been going through some shit lately.” He’s not looking at me now; he’s looking at his hands, like there’s something on them he can’t see. “That’s not an excuse. There is no excuse, truthfully. But I just… I need you to know it wasn’t about you.”
“What was it about, then?”
He laughs. It’s a sad sound. “Everything. Nothing. My father. This company. The fucking mess my life has become.” He shakes his head. “I took it out on you and that was wrong.”
I study his profile. The angular jaw. The tired eyes. He looks far older than thirty right now. He looks exhausted.
“What kind of mess?” I ask, curious despite myself.
“The kind I can’t talk about.” He finally looks at me. “Can’t—or won’t. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But I’m working on it. Trying to, anyway.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah.” I shrug. “Okay.”
He frowns. “That’s it? I basically assault you in my office and you just say, ‘Okay’?”
“You didn’t assault me.” I pause and amend. “Almost, maybe. But you stopped.”
“Because my father walked in.”
“Still.” I pick at the continually fraying thread on my sleeve. At this rate, I’m gonna unravel the whole coat before the month is out. “You stopped. And you’re apologizing now. That counts for something.”
He stares at me like I’ve grown a second head. “You’re a strange person, Rae Everett.”
“Yeah, well. Takes one to know one.”
That gets a real smile out of him. Small, but real. “I mean it,” he says. “I’m sorry. For all of it.”
I think about that night. His hand on my thigh, his breath on my neck. The fear and the confusion and the painful thud of my panicked heart.
Then I think about him sitting here with me now. In a cold stairwell. Checking on me when I’m crying.
People are complicated. We all have hidden traumas. I know that better than most.
“Apology accepted,” I tell him.
He exhales. Some of the tension leaves his shoulders. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.” I scrub at my face one more time and try to pull myself together. “Seriously—don’t mention it. To anyone. Ever. I have a reputation to maintain.”
He laughs again. “Your secret is safe with me,” he promises.
I push myself to my feet. My legs are wobbly, but they hold.
“Let me walk you back,” Kir offers.
“No.” I shake my head. “I’m fine. Really.”
“Rae—”
“I need to get back to work.” I force myself to sound steady. “Thank you for checking on me. But I’m okay now. Pinky promise.”
He looks like he wants to argue, but he doesn’t. “Alright,” he says. “But if you need anything—”
“I know where to find you.”
I leave him in the stairwell and take the stairs back to 50. I push through the door and take a handful of steps toward my desk.
Then I freeze.
… Because Lukas is back.