I’ve been managing Landon Webb for four years. I know how to survive a meeting with him. Smile enough, but not too much. Answer questions directly, without elaboration. Don’t apologize unless necessary. Don’t let him see the fear.
I walk to Rolan’s office and pause outside the door long enough to feel ridiculous, then knock twice.
“Come in.”
He’s behind the desk as always — jacket off, tie knotted. The lamp is still on even though the windows let in enough light that it’s unnecessary.
“I wanted to confirm,” I say, from the doorway. “For today. That I’m cleared to leave.”
His eyes move from the papers in front of him to my face. The assessment is brief and thorough. I’ve learned not to fidget under it, which has been a challenge.
“I’m a man of my word, Miss Calloway.”
He closes the folder in front of him, stands in a single unhurried motion, and reaches for the jacket on the coat rack by the door.
“Let’s go then,” he says.
“I’m sorry?”
He lifts a set of car keys from the hook beside the rack. The movement is so utterly matter of fact that I spend two full seconds checking whether I misunderstood.
“You—” I stop. Start again. “I don’t need?—”
“It’s not safe for you to go alone.” He checks his phone and pockets it. “The city isn’t the estate.”
“I lived in the city for three years before I came here.”
“Mm.”
That’s not going to work, I can’t risk having Rolan meeting Landon. He would find out everything, I would be fired, and life is already hard enough as it is.
“Mr. Belov, that’s genuinely not necessary. I’m going to a shopping center in the middle of the morning. I’ll be in public the entire time. There’s no reason?—”
“Don’t argue, Elizabeth.”
He shrugs his jacket on without looking at me. It’s charcoal and perfectly cut. He turns toward the door and pauses.
“Have you changed your mind?” He’s looking at me over his shoulder with a neutral expression, completely relaxed.
I have not changed my mind. I have a meeting with Landon in less than two hours and absolutely no plan for what happens if Rolan is standing beside me when it happens.
“No,” I say.
“Then come.”
I follow him through a part of the house I’ve never seen.
In almost two months, I’ve mapped maybe sixty percent of this place.
He opens a door at the end of the corridor, and I follow him through it into an underground garage.
It’s fully climate controlled. The lighting consists of precise, commercial-grade LEDs, and lined along the walls and the center of the space are cars. Too many for one single person.
I stop walking and count seven cars. Eight, if you include the black sedan tucked in the far corner, which looks more like a work vehicle than anything else. I recognize a couple of the black SUVs — I’ve been driven in one, I’ve seen Alexei climb out of another.
Rolan heads for the BMW.
It’s parked slightly apart from the others and is a beautiful midnight blue.
