Page 67 of Emperor of Corruption
“At least I didn’t have to watch mine die.”
I roll my eyes. “It’s not a competition.”
“Everything’s a competition,” Killian retorts.
I save all the investigative work on my second laptop, shut the screen, and stand to go to my room, hiding it in the drawers beneath my bed, under a mountain of pillows.
I return to the couch, still on the phone with Killian, listening to his breaths. I can’t reconcile the cruel man who does terrible things to me, treats me like a commodity to be bought and sold, with the young boy who once cuddled a dog for comfort. I can’t reconcile the brief, fleeting glimpses of softness I’ve seen when Killian praises my manuscript with the version he is with everyone else.
To the outside world, he has the mask of a complete charmer, and he’s charismatic enough to pull it off. With people closer to him or those who run in his circles, he shows glimpses of the uncaring, callous asshole he really is. And I can’t seem to level the cold asshole with the little boy who once had big dreams.
“Why are you doing any of this with me?” I ask quietly.
Killian doesn’t respond for so long, I check to see if he’s hung up. Finally, he speaks. “I don’t know. You drew me like a moth to flame. I saw something in you—I’m not sure what—that made me want you. And then youdeniedme, which I haven’t experienced in a long time. Youstilldeny me, even though you’ve seen the power I wield. Youknow I could pay you well enough that you’d never have to work again, but you’re not interested in that. You know I could get you an editorial job at the New York Times, but you don’t want that, either. You don’t wantanythingfrom me.” He pauses. “You don’tneedme. Everyone around me needs me in some capacity—to sign their paychecks, to rub elbows with them, to donate to their foundations, to boost their careers. You’re singular.”
“I’m not,” I tell him honestly. “You just live in a world where everything’s completely transactional—the upper class. I live in a world where kindness and decency is still a currency.”
“Both of those things are abstract concepts that change each time a person says them,” Killian retorts. “I don’t subscribe to such false notions. Icertainlydon’t value them as currency.”
I let out a long sigh. “I’m going to go to bed.”
“You really won’t come to see me?”
“Not unless you make me,” I reply honestly. “Is that the route you want to go down tonight?”
He pauses. “No,” he finally says. “Not tonight. I’ll see you on Wednesday, Lyra. Maybe sooner.”
“Wednesday,” I say, and hang up the phone.
Chapter Twenty-Five
On Monday, Sarah decides to outfit me with overseeing a new project.Anotherprofile, this time on a supermodel who crashed into the modeling scene and swept the world by surprise with her beauty and innovation. She’s launching a new high-fashion line, and Sarah wants the three Staff Writers I oversee to dig into her, interview her, and do a profile.
I spend all of my workday on Monday in meetings, coordinating interview times with the model’s agent and PR manager, breaking the project down into bite-sized pieces, and dealing with headache after goddamn headache. Annalise is extremely useful and wrangles the two other writers into line while I divvy up the workload.
I think Sarah’sstillmad at me for pushing back on the Killian profile, even though it’s beenweeks. Or maybe she noticed I spend a lot of my workday writing or editing my novel. If it’s the latter, she hasn’t brought anything up… but, for now, I just have to endure the bullshit.
I stumble out of the office, blurry-eyed and exhausted, close to11pm. I haven’t pulled these sort of hours since I first got hired, and I remember just how tiring it was then. I’m itching to get back to my novel, but I’m so tired I can barely see straight.
My prolonged bout of insomnia, combined with a 13-hour workday, turns out to be a pretty bad mix.
When I make my way toward the subway, I see that there are several homeless guys getting drunk in front of the staircase… which means that option for getting home is out. I pull my phone out of my pocket to order an uber… only to find it’s dead. A car zooms by, honking for no reason like ithasto disturb a snippet of quiet.
There are no cabs out and about, and I need to get home and try to get a full night’s sleep… so I start trudging over the city blocks. The next-closest subway station is 15 blocks away—usually, that’d take me 20 minutes, but I’m too tired to walk fast.
People call New York the city that never sleeps—and in some parts, it is. Times Square is lit up 24/7, with constant foot traffic at all hours of the day or night… but my office isn’t in that area. It’s downtown Manhattan, which gets very quiet and very uncomfortable at night.
I should start carrying pepper spray with me again. In the dead of night, every shadow looks like it houses unspeakable horrors, and every homeless person I pass makes me increasingly nervous and uncomfortable.
Damn Killian. If I hadn’t met him, I wouldn’t be so jumpy, and I wouldn’t be soexhausted. My time in his orbit feels like a fever dream, and right now, I can’twaitfor it to end. I can’t wait to be able to sleep through the night again…
A hand wraps around my arm, yanking me into a dark alleyway. My lips part to release a piercing scream, but a hand covers my mouth, and my body’s slammed up against a grimy stone wall. A forearm presses to my throat, belonging to a bulky man wearing aski mask.Panic claws its way up my throat, and I can hear each beat of my racing heart in my ear.
“Purse,” a gritty, unpleasant voice says, scraping over my skin like a cheese grater. “Money and phone. Hand it over.”
I drop my purse to the alleyway floor, trembling all over. I’m not going to play a hero; I’ve been mugged once before, when I was much younger, and I learned then that negotiating and talking doesn’t reap any fruits. It only aggravates the mugger and makes things worse for the victim.
The man’s forearm presses hard against my windpipe, and I whimper in sheer terror.
