“I need you to get him out of here for a while.” I jerked my chin toward Zephyr, who frowned.
“Why do I have to go?” he asked.
I circled the desk and crossed the room, then offered my hand to help him off the lumpy, sunken couch. “Not far, and not for long,” I told him. “Maybe you can pick us up some lunch? I need to have a meeting with your boss, and I’d rather you weren’t around to see it.”
Or hear it.
Maslow had never minced words in my presence, ready to slander or demean Zephyr without a second thought. For this negotiation, I needed to keep my head, and I wouldn’t be able to do that with the wraith tossing out cutting remarks and making my Beauty bleed.
Zephyr stared at my hand for a beat, then slipped his fingers into mine and stood. His palm was warm and a little sticky from the candy, but I didn’t let go.
“You’re talking to Mazzy?” Concern flickered in his amethyst eyes. “What are you going to say?”
“What Isayis just window dressing,” I replied. “It’s what I’m going todothat matters.”
Behind him, Colette rose from the couch and folded her arms. “Which is?” she asked.
When I met her gaze, a smile curled the corner of my mouth. “I’m going to give him everything he wants.”I paused.“At the cost of everything he has.”
Maslow arrived with fanfare. I saw him through the window, climbing out of an Uber along with one of his hellhound beefcakes. I hadn’t expected him to bring backup. Maybe he was savvier than I gave him credit for. Not that I planned to harm him, at least not in the physical sense. I was a bureaucrat, not a brawler.
Which was why it had taken some convincing to get Colette to leave.
Still, I wasn’t worried. I could manage the wraith and his muscle. If I played my cards right, Maslow would walk away from this encounter feeling every bit the victor. Pride notoriously came before a fall.
Standing near the door, I waited for the inevitable knock.
This building wasn’t exactly welcoming. With faded signage out front, a parking lot riddled with potholes, and an elevator that stuttered and shimmied, it definitely didn’t live up to Maslow’s standards.
I’d seen his club. His office. I was intimately acquainted with the bathroom. The whole place had been designed to dazzle and intimidate. Every inch of it said power, control, spectacle.
Mine was the opposite. The furniture was mismatched, the blinds didn’t hang straight, and the hum of the old fluorescent lights was anything but aesthetic. But it was familiar. Comfortable.
This office wasn’t about show. It was about work. About history.
Maslow had built his world to be seen. I’d built mine to last. And if he thought peeling paint and the path worn from pacing the floor meant weakness, he didn’t know a damn thing about me.
The knock came. Sharp, deliberate, and right on time.
I opened the door to find the wraith there, glossed with sweat and bulging out of a too-small suit. His lumbering brute of a shadow loomed over his shoulder.
“Maz,” I greeted while stepping aside. “Come in.”
He did, unhurried, his eyes sweeping the room like it might stain him. I shut the door behind them, sealing the three of us in quiet tension.
“Beckett,” Maslow began while strolling casually forward. He searched the small room like he was looking for something. Or someone.
“Ending things early again?” he mused, voice light with mock concern. “I figured you’d want your full time with the boy, considering how desperate you were to win him. And how desperatehewas by the time it was over. I bet he was begging before he even hit the sheets.”
He paused mid-step and glanced back at me, wearing a smirk as slick as oil. “I made sure he was nice and hungry for you.”
Rage spiked, stirring the demon beneath my skin. It was a battle to keep my expression neutral. “Oh, was that for me?”
His grin spread. “Who else?”
My jaw tightened, locking down the retort that clawed to get out.
Desperate didn’t begin to cover it. My Beauty had been in agony, barely conscious and delirious from whatever Maslow had done to him. I’d carried him home, helpless to do anything but bear witness to the pain swimming in his eyes. I’d held him while he trembled, cried, and yes, begged.
