Chapter 52 Lukas
LUKAS
LAZAREV GLOBAL
Board of Directors Emergency Session
Motion: Vote of No Confidence in Chairman L. Lazarev
Proposed by: K. Lazarev (CEO)
The elevator doors open at 8:45 A.M., and I step out onto the executive floor.
Afon falls into step beside me. I’m grateful he’s here. He’s a silent reminder that loyalty still exists in this world, even when blood betrays you.
Behind us, the steel doors slide shut with a whisper.
The fortieth floor is quieter than usual. Secretaries pretend to work and junior executives suddenly find their shoes fascinating. News travels fast in corporate America—faster still when the CEO’s son is attempting a coup.
So be it. Let them stare.
I walk the corridor I’ve walked ten thousand times before, past the conference rooms where I’ve brokered deals worth billions and the portraits of board members who owe their positions to my patronage.
In the polished steel of a display case, I catch my reflection. Hair in place, suit immaculate, silver rings bright.
I look like a man in complete control.
But that’s a fucking lie.
Something changed last night. I’ve been stained with so many things—Preston Howell’s blubbering, Reaper’s blood, but worst of all, Rae’s tears and taste. I’m becoming someone I no longer recognize.
The boardroom doors swing open at my approach, and I step into the arena.
Every seat is occupied. On my left sit the loyalists. Men who understand that Lazarev Global is merely the legitimate face of something far older and far darker.
On my right is Kir’s coalition. Younger faces, American faces, MBAs from Wharton, Booth, and Harvard. They think they know it all because they understand spreadsheets and stock prices. But they’ve never seen what happens in warehouses after midnight. They don’t understand a goddamn thing.
Kir himself occupies the throne at the far end of the table. His fingers are steepled in front of him. He’s wiry, simmering, dark hair raked straight back from his proud forehead.
Then I see her.
Rae sits against the back wall among the other assistants. Her face is pale and her hands are trembling. Our eyes meet for a fraction of a second. She looks away first.
And just like that, all thoughts of fighting back disappear.
It’s shocking how fast it happens. I spent all night cooped up with my lieutenants, planning how to crush this rebellion. My head is full of tactics and leverage points.
Or rather, it was.
One look from a girl is all it takes to render that irrelevant.
I won’t fight this. I can’t. Not if there’s even a fraction of a chance that she’d get caught in the crossfire.
Kir rises from his seat. “Ladies and gentlemen of the board, thank you for accommodating this emergency session.” There’s no trace in his voice of the furious tremor I heard when I had him pinned against the window in his office.
He sounds fucking lethal. Part of me is almost proud.
“I want to be clear that what I’m about to share comes from a place of deep respect for my father’s legacy. ”
The first slide appears on the screen behind him. It’s a tabloid headline: BILLIONAIRE BIDS $5M FOR MYSTERY BLONDE.
“Concerning patterns have emerged over recent months,” Kir continues. “Patterns that, as members of this board, we have a fiduciary duty to examine.”
He clicks to another slide. This one shows Rae’s salary adjustment, highlighted in red.
“Unauthorized compensation changes made outside standard HR protocols.”
Next is a timeline of “personnel reassignments” that traces my every move to isolate her on my floor.
“Absenteeism. Ludicrous, inexplicable expenses. Increasingly erratic behavior… The list goes on.” His gaze finds mine across the table.
“My father has given this company everything. Perhaps too much. Perhaps it’s time he stepped back before his…
personal complications… compromise everything we’ve built. ”
The room erupts.
Mordecai Mays is on his feet before Kir even finishes speaking. He’s been on this board since the IPO, back when Lazarev Global was nothing but a shipping company with ambitions above its station.
“This is absurd,” Mordecai spits. “The company has never been more profitable. Stock price has tripled in five years. Tripled! And you’re calling for a vote of no confidence because the chairman adjusted an assistant’s salary?”
“It’s not about the salary, Mordecai.” Alanna Lambert’s voice cuts through the murmuring. She runs the audit committee. “It’s about pattern of behavior. Lazarev Global can no longer be Lukas’s sordid little piggy bank.”
Kingston Fernandez clears his throat. “Has anyone else heard about Preston Howell?” When he gets blank faces in response, he explains, “He withdrew from the San Francisco partnership last night. ‘Personal reasons,’ allegedly. But I have sources saying something happened, a hospital visit or something, it’s unclear. But the rumors are ugly.”
I watch it all unfold like it’s someone else being executed. Blyat’, it would’ve been so easy to fight back. Some bribe money here, a reassuring word there, and poof, the board members would be put at ease, the uprising reduced to nothing but dust and distant memory.
But then I look at Rae, and I stay silent.
She’s sitting there, pale and shaking. Because of me. Dragged into this circus because I couldn’t keep my scarred hands off her. She’s there because I’m selfish and obsessed and have been compromised in exactly the way Kir is describing.
Eighteen years ago, I buried Elena and swore I’d never let anyone matter again.
This empire is crumbling now because I forgot my oath.
So fuck it. It ought to crumble.
Soon enough, the vote is being called. “All those in favor of removing Lukas Lazarev as Chairman, please—”
I stand.
The motion to vote dies in the secretary’s throat. Every eye in the room pivots to me.
I look at Kir across the endless conference table. I see his mother in the shape of his jaw. There, right fucking there, is the boy who used to climb into my lap and beg me to keep the monsters away. But that boy is lost to me now. He’s become a man who hates me for reasons I long to fix but can’t.
Yet I feel nothing but a strange, liberating love for him.
“You want the company, Kir?” I say quietly. “Take it.”
The gasps are audible. Kir’s face goes blank with shock. His hand hovers in the air, forgotten. For the first time since he walked into this room with murder in his eyes, he looks like a child again.
I button my jacket.
“But you don’t get her.”
All around me, the room detonates. Voices overlapping. Outcries, roars, confusion, madness. Kir is shouting something and my lawyers and lieutenants are shouting something else, but I hear none of it, because I’ve stopped listening.
I’m walking toward Rae.
The assistants scatter like startled crows as I approach. All except for her—she doesn’t move an inch. Those brown eyes are wide, wet, and fixed on me like I’m a hallucination she can’t quite believe.
I take her hand and pull her to her feet. Shielding her with my body, we hurry to the door and out into the hallway. People spill out after us, calling my name, calling hers, but I don’t look back.
“Where are we going?” asks Rae in trembling confusion.
I pivot in place. She nearly crashes into my chest. I catch her face in both hands, tilting it up, and kiss her the way I should have kissed her from the very start. It feels like my whole soul comes out of my mouth and goes to live in her body from this day forward.
When I pull back, her lips are parted and her breath comes in shallow gasps.
“Home,” I tell her. “We’re going home.”