It’s no surprise that Janine’s deduced that we’re seeing Miki. Not much gets by our assistant, but she’s both loyal and discreet, and we have nothing to worry about.
When she asks about Miki, a sharp stab of pain pierces through me. I open my mouth to tell her that Miki’s never coming back, but I can’t yet face the chasm of grief that looms in front of me. “She’ll be out for the next week as well,” I tell my assistant. “If someone asks, she’s out sick.”
“Okay.” To my relief, Janine moves on to the next item of business. “The only meeting I couldn’t reschedule was with Gabriella Alves from Aventi; I couldn’t get in touch with her. She’s due here in ten minutes. Do you want to see her, or should I apologize on your behalf?”
Gabby is Miki’s friend. She has no reason to help me, but I cling on to that last straw of hope. “No, I’ll meet with her.”
“Oliver, you look like hell.” Gabriella Alves doesn’t mince her words. “Did you get any sleep last night?”
She doesn’t know. “Finn’s grandmother fell and broke her hip,” I explain. “We spent most of the night at Mount Sinai.” Before she can jump in and ask me questions about whether she’s okay, I forestall her. “There’s more. Something else happened yesterday.”
Her eyes narrow at my expression. “What?”
I tell her everything. Miki’s hack of Lippman’s information, which led to our plane journey. I confess that our online friendship was initially motivated by our need to keep an eye on her. “But things changed,” I end unhappily. “Miki thinks that everything we had together is a lie. It isn’t. I’m in love with her.”
“Oliver.” Gabby shakes her head helplessly. “What a fucking mess. Why are you telling me this?”
“She’s not picking up her phone,” I reply. “I’ve tried all morning. She’s not answering her texts. I was hoping you’d talk to her.”
She gives me a troubled look. “You were one of her online friends, and I know she told you everything, even more than she told us. You know how badly she took Aaron’s lies. You know she felt like a fool, like everyone around her was laughing at her and pitying her. And you still didn’t tell her the truth.”
“I screwed up.”
Gabby gets to her feet. “I think you’re a good person, Oliver,” she says. “I admit I formed a snap judgment about you, and I was wrong. But I’m not going to help you with this. Miki has every reason to feel betrayed, and she needs to work through her feelings on her own. Without pressure from her friends, and definitely without pressure from Finn and you.”
She looks at me steadily. “If you care about Miki, then the kindest thing you can do is leave her alone.”
25
If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Miki:
The rest of the week, my only focus is putting one foot in front of another. I wake up at the crack of dawn. I shower and get dressed, and I head to my morning shift at Mr. Greene’s convenience store.
My evenings I fill with sappy TV. I avoid my laptop, and I don’t log in again to the DefCon forums.
Gabby drops by on Wednesday evening. “I met Oliver yesterday,” she says, settling down on the couch and giving me a concerned look. “He told me everything.”
“Did he?” I can’t seem to summon up the energy to care. “Did he send you here to check up on me?”
“He suggested it. I told him to leave you alone. I just came by to see if you were okay.”
“I’m not,” I reply. “But I will be, eventually.”
She nods. “Oliver told me once that you were stronger than I gave you credit for. He’s right.”
A warm rush of pleasure fills me, and I suppress it ruthlessly. Nothing Oliver Prescott or Finn Sanders did was without an agenda. “When?”
“It was when I went to apologize for assuming the worst about him. I told him you were in a fragile place after Aaron. At that time, I remember thinking that he was being presumptuous. After all, he’d only known you for a week or so at that point.”
“I think they knew me better than anyone,” I reply sadly. I’d poured my heart out to Lancelot and Merlin, night after night. “I’ll have to be more careful about who I talk to online.”
“So you’re not working there anymore?” Gabby probes. “You’re done? You don’t care what Lawrence Kent is up to?”
“Oliver really did tell you everything, didn’t he?” On TV, a kitten jumps on the lap of its owner and falls asleep. I never did get a cat, even though it was on my list. And I went and fell in love, even though I’d sworn to myself that I wasn’t going to do that. “That’s not my problem anymore, Gabby. I have another job now. I’m working at Mr. Greene’s store.”
I can tell she wants to comment on my life choices, but she holds her tongue. “Okay,” she says agreeably. “Will we see you on Monday for girl’s night out?”
“Maybe,” I lie. “I get up at five to open the store at six. I don’t want to be out too late. Come to think of it, it’s almost bedtime.”
Gabby gets the hint. She rises to her feet and folds me into a hug. “I know things feel terrible right now,” she says gently, “but time really does heal all wounds.”
She’s almost out of the door when she pauses. “I thought you’d want to know that Finn’s grandmother is recovering well,” she says. “She’s going to be discharged from the hospital the day after tomorrow. Janine told me.”
A flood of relief fills me. “Thanks for finding out.”
She squeezes my hand. “Whatever decision you make, Miki,” she says seriously, “don’t make it out of fear. Okay?”
Finn:
“Welcome back,” Mary greets me with a smile. “How’s your grandmother?”
It’s Monday morning. I’ve taken four days off work, probably the longest stretch of my life. On Friday, my grandmother was discharged from the hospital, and I moved her to my apartment. “It’s just until you recover, so don’t argue with me,” I’d told her.
“I wasn’t going to,” she’d replied, to my surprise. “It’ll be nice to stay with you for a week or two until I’m back on my feet.”
It’ll take more than a week or two, and both my grandmother and I know it. She faces weeks of rehab before she can walk again. Still, things could have been so much worse.
“She’s in my apartment,” I reply to Mary’s question. “I asked her this morning if she was sure she didn’t want me around, and she shooed me out. Thank you for finding me a home care worker.”
Mary pats my hand. “I was happy to help,” she says. “Shayna took care of Bob’s mother when she was bedridden. She’s wonderful.”
“My grandmother really likes her.”I transfer my attention to Imperium. I’ve tried to reach out to Miki a hundred times in the last week, but she won’t return my calls, and she won’t reply to my texts. I don’t blame her for her decision.
My life is in shambles, and there’s a gaping empty hole inside me. The only thing I can do is try and fill it with work. “You wanted to see me about Alessandra?”
“I talked to her on Friday,” Mary replies. “She’s itching to get back to work, but she was hoping to ease back into it by working from home four days a week. I told her I didn’t think it would be a problem, but Sachin wanted to check in with you.”
“As long as she’s ready. I don’t want her to feel pressured into coming back. The most important thing is her recovery.”
“I checked with her,” Mary says. “She assured me that she’s ready. I think she’s bored. But if you’re really concerned, you could visit her and ask her yourself.” She gives me a stern look. “It would be a nice thing to do. Sachin visited her in hospital, as did I.”
The only thing that’s left intact in my life is work. I might as well do it properly. And Mary’s right. I should have visited Alessandra after she got back from the hospital. “You sound like my grandm
other,” I tell our HR Head with a grin. “She tells me off with exactly the same note in her voice. You’re right; I should have dropped by to see her. Can you set it up for me? I’ll drag Oliver too.”
“I already did,” she says smugly. “Janine put it on your calendar. Five this evening.”
I shake my head at her fondly. “Sounds good. I’ll drop by on my way home.”
Oliver and I have seen plenty of each other in the last week. He’s dropped by to check on my grandmother every single day. We’ve had several conversations about everything under the sun.
But we haven’t talked about Miki. That wound is too raw.
He’s in our office when I return from my meeting. “Mary’s arranged that we visit Alessandra this evening,” I tell him.
He winces. “We should have done that earlier.”
Miki. Lawrence. Claudia. Fitzgerald. The IPO. There are a thousand reasons why we haven’t, but none of that matters.
Alessandra’s husband Yuri opens the door of their Queens apartment. “Oliver, Finn, it’s good to see you.”
We’ve met Yuri several times at happy hour. He’s a nice guy, friendly and interesting. “Sorry it’s taken us so long to visit.”
He waves away my apology. “I’m sure you’ve been busy,” he says. “Come on in. No need to keep your voice down. Alessandra’s mom took the baby for a couple of hours.”
We remove our coats, and Yuri takes them from us. “You didn’t have to send Sofia away on our behalf,” Oliver says, walking into the living room. “I’m good with babies. Really.”
Alessandra waves from her spot on the couch. “Hey, you guys,” she greets us. She’s got a plaster cast on her leg but looks otherwise well. “Sorry I can’t get up.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” I sit down on the couch. “How are you, Alessandra? Mary tells me Yuri’s driving you crazy and you can’t wait to get back to work.”
She grimaces. “Something like that.” She takes a deep breath and forces a smile on her face. “It’ll be good to think about something else other than the accident.”
I exchange a glance with Oliver. Mary had made it sound like Alessandra was in great spirits, but the woman in front of me is distinctly subdued. “Is everything okay? You seem upset. Did we come at a bad time?”
She shakes her head. “No, it’s not you.” She sighs heavily. “NYPD assigned a detective to investigate my accident. It was a hit-and-run, and they finally made an arrest.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?” I ask her.
“I thought so,” she replies. “But Detective Larson said that two days before the guy ran into me, someone wired fifty thousand dollars into his account.”
“He thinks someone paid the guy to hurt or kill Alessandra,” Yuri says. “Ever since he left, we’ve been freaking out. I mean, who would want to hurt her? It doesn’t make any sense. We’re normal people. We’re not mixed up in anything.”
I stare at the young couple, not knowing what to say. “Anyway,” Alessandra says, after a minute or two of uncomfortable silence, “I’m totally looking forward to work. I told Mary that I couldn’t deal with the J-train with my cast, but she didn’t think there would be a problem with me working from home.”
“There isn’t,” I assure her. “If you’re ready to get back to work, we’ll make it happen.”
Her smile lights up her face. “Thanks, you two,” she says. “I really appreciate it.”
“I want to see this Detective Larson,” I say when we’re back in my car.
Oliver’s already on his phone. “You want the 105th Precinct,” he says, punching the address into my car’s navigation system. “What’s bothering you?”
“Alessandra’s right. Someone putting a mark on her head doesn’t make any sense.”
“And?” Oliver prompts.
“And Alessandra got hurt two days before the party at the Waldorf Astoria. I’m going on gut feel here, Oliver. This feels off.”
His face wears a thoughtful expression. I drive to the precinct. We find a parking spot, feed the meter, and enter the nondescript two-story brown brick building. Inside, we ask for Detective Larson. “My name is Finn Sanders,” I introduce myself. “Detective Larson is investigating a hit-and-run involving one of my employees, Alessandra Mirova? I was hoping I could talk to him.”
“Take a seat,” the woman behind the counter says, gesturing to the scratched, dented plastic chairs against the wall. “I’ll see if the detective is in.”
He is. The cop, a burly, balding man, shows up three minutes later. “This is quite the coincidence,” he says, leading us to a small conference room at the corner of the building. “I was going to trek into the city sometime this week to talk to the two of you.”
“Why?” Oliver sits down, his elbows on the table, and leans forward. “Are we under suspicion?”
He doesn’t answer the question directly. “There’s no reason for anyone to want Alessandra Mirova dead. I’ve asked around, the Mirovs are clean. She works with you. Yuri works at the hospital. Everyone in their building likes them.”
“Okay.” If the detective has a point, he certainly doesn’t believe in getting straight to it.
“But then I did some digging around. Your company is going public. So I was going to ask you. If Alessandra Mirova gets hurt, will that affect you in any way?”
Oliver frowns. “It shouldn’t.” He glances at me. “Should it? Sachin’s project is on track again.”
“Because we hired a replacement,” I say slowly. I’m on the verge of figuring this out. “Miki worked on Kent’s stuff, and she spent a week helping the Shield team. If we hadn’t hired her—”
It hits both of us at the same time. “We lifted the hiring freeze because of Alessandra’s accident.”
Awareness dawns in Oliver’s eyes. “Kent told Miki he could get her in. How would he have known? Unless—” His voice trails off.
“Who’s Kent?” the detective asks sharply.
“Lawrence Kent,” I reply, my voice clipped. “Imperium’s CFO. He hired a hacker to access some of our files.”
“It might not be Lawrence,” Oliver says. “It could be Fitzgerald.” He looks at the detective. “Sebastian Fitzgerald. He’s the CEO of Kliedara, Imperium’s biggest competitor. He’d love for our IPO to fall through.”
The detective takes down our information and promises to investigate. I barely listen.
This isn’t about hacking and industrial espionage anymore. Fitzgerald or Kent—I don’t know which man yet—hired someone to ensure Alessandra was hurt badly enough that she couldn’t come back to work.
They’re willing to resort to violence.
Oliver told Gabby we’d leave Miki alone. I’d agreed with him, but everything’s changed now. Miki knows User0989 is Kent. If Lawrence gets a whiff that she knows his real identity, she could be in danger.
We have to warn her. Before it’s too late.
26
No man can reveal to you nothing but that which already lies half-asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.
Khalil Gibran
Miki:
My phone rings Monday evening. I brace myself to tell my girlfriends that I’m not planning on joining them for drinks, but it’s neither Wendy nor Gabby. It’s my sister Leah.
“Are you busy?” she asks. “I want to talk to you.”
I’m watching the Day of the Doctor for the fifteenth time. “Not really,” I reply. “What’s up?”
“Not on the phone,” she says. “I’m in your neighborhood. I’ll be at your place in ten minutes. And Miki, please change out of your Hello Kitty PJs.”
“Not going to happen, Leah.” I grin despite myself. “Me and my pajamas are a package deal.”
Her voice is wry. “I was afraid of that.”
“You look dreadful.” Leah surveys me with a frown on her face. “You didn’t show up for high tea yesterday. What’s going on?”
“Did you come here to nag, or did you come here to talk to me?”
“The latter,” she admits. “You have any wine?”
“There’s an open bottle on the counter,” I reply. “It’s not fancy enough for you though.”
“It’ll do.” She goes into the kitchen and comes back with the bottle and two glasses in her hands. Pouring the wine, she gives it a suspicious sniff before shrugging. “Ah well, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
She takes a sip. I wait in silence, wondering what my sister’s doing here. “The last time you talked to me, you told me to see a counselor. Remember?”
“Did you?”
She nods. “Ben and I went twice last week.”
“And?”
She exhales. “The good news is, he’s not cheating on me.”
I sip my two-buck-chuck. “You don’t look happy, so I’m assuming there’s more?”
“He admitted he hid money from me,” she says, her voice small. “He said he had to otherwise I’d spend it all.” She fills her glass to the brim again and takes a long gulp from it. “He said he’s been unhappy with his job for a really long time, and the only reason he’s kept working there is that he thinks I care about the Upper East Side apartment, the fancy vacations, all that crap.”
“Can you blame him?” I ask her, my voice gentle. “You had orchids flown in from Ecuador for a dinner party.”
She frowns. “He hid money from me. You think that’s a healthy way to deal with our problems? Marriage is a partnership, Miki. I feel betrayed.”
I can’t argue with that. “I can understand,” I say quietly.
There’s a perceptive look on her face. “Because of Aaron, or because of someone else?”
“Someone else.” It’s been a week exactly since I found out that Oliver and Finn were really Lancelot and Merlin. I think I’m ready to talk about it. “Do you want to hear the story? It might shock you.”
“Do it. I have an almost-full glass of wine. I’m prepared for anything.”
Messing with Miki (A MFM Ménage Romance) (Playing For Love Book 5) Page 17