Page 210
Kir’s head lifts slowly. His eyes find the camera lens and look right through it at me.
He doesn’t have to say anything for me to understand. The message is crystal clear: Whatever I thought we had, whatever I felt in that brownstone, in that bed, in his arms—it was a fever dream.
Lukas Lazarev is incapable of love.
On screen, Kir gives his father one last unreadable look. Then he pushes back from the table, straightens his jacket, and walks out of frame. The interrogation room door swings shut behind him with a dull metallic thud.
A second later, the feed cuts to black.
72
RAE
LAZAREV GLOBAL — EXIT INTERVIEW
Subject: Everett, Rae
Reason for Separation:
? Voluntary resignation
? Termination
?Heartbreak
The screen stays black. I stay still.
I keep waiting for the moment when what Lukas just said will start to make sense. Any second now, my brain will catch up and explain how this could possibly be true.
That second does not come.
My reflection stares back at me from the dead monitor. I look pale and hollow-eyed. Pathetic, really. A woman who fell for the oldest trick in the book: She convinced herself that a monster could love her just because he fucked her tenderly and whispered pretty things in the dark.
A distraction. Nothing more.
I gave him everything. My body, my trust, and my trauma, all wrapped up in a neat little bow. I spread myself open and let him see the ugliest parts of me: the guilt over my parents, the fear that I’m fundamentally unlovable, the desperate need to be chosen by someone who wouldn’t leave.
And he took it all.
He took it, and he used it, and now, he’s sitting in a cell calling menothing.
My hands are shaking. When did they start shaking? When will they stop? When will this nightmare be over?
The door swings open behind me, but I don’t turn around. If I move, I might shatter into a thousand pieces, and I don’t trust Kir to help me pick up a single one of them.
His footsteps are quiet on the linoleum. He stops somewhere behind me, close enough that I can hear him breathing. I brace myself for the inevitably smug, smirkingI told you sothat we’ve been building toward.
But he doesn’t say anything for so long that, finally, I force myself to look at him.
He’s not gloating. He’s not smiling, either. He looks almost as wrecked as I feel.
“I thought you should know who he really is,” he explains quietly. “Before you threw everything away for him.”
“Why do you care what I throw away?”
I sound like a bitch, but I’m long past caring about that. I’m just so tired. I’ve been battered and bruised by these Lazarev men and I just don’t think I have any more fight left in me.
Kir doesn’t answer for a long moment. He stands there with his hands in his pockets, staring at the blank monitor like it might offer him something I can’t. When he finally speaks, his voice is stripped of its usual sardonic edge.
