Chapter 7 Episode 7-2

But I don’t dare ask questions. I just jot down the names, numbers, and locations I catch, and make up the things that I miss. Truthfully, the whole thing is baffling. It doesn’t sound like any board meeting I’ve ever sat in on with Kir. There’s no talk of quarterly earnings or market projections. No PowerPoint slides. No corporate jargon. These men talk about shipments. Routes. Crews. Territories. A whole different kind of game. At one point, someone mentions “the cleanup” and everyone nods knowingly. I look around, but no explanation is forthcoming. As far as I can tell, they’ve all forgotten I exist. The meeting lasts forty-five minutes. When it’s over, the men file out without a word to me. They don’t even glance in my direction. Lukas stays seated. He waits until the door closes, then turns to look at me. I have about a thousand. But I get the feeling that’s not what he wants to hear, so I just say, “No.” I wait until I can’t hear any signs of life in the hallway. Then I rise and make my way back to my desk on shaky legs. The mahogany doors to Lukas’s office are shut. I have no idea if he’s in there or if he left through some other exit I don’t know about, or if he maybe turned into a bat and flew out the window like Dracula. I sit down at my computer. I stare at the screen. What am I supposed to do now? The notebook is still in my hands. When I flip through the pages, my scribbled notes look like the ravings of a lunatic. Half the words are misspelled. Some of them aren’t even words. I decide to type them up. That’s what assistants do, right? Take notes and make them presentable? Sure. I guess. It’s not like I have anything better to occupy my time. It takes me twenty minutes to translate my chicken scratch into something resembling coherent sentences. I format it nicely. Bullet points. Bold headers. I decide Lukas is probably not a fan of emojis, so I leave those out. When I’m done, I hit print. The printer beneath my desk whirs to life. Three pages slide out, warm and crisp. I gather them up and walk to Lukas’s door. I knock, hoping he’s in there. He grunts. I assume that means it’s okay for me to come in, so I push the door open. He’s at his desk, reading something on his laptop. He doesn’t look up. “I typed up my notes from the meeting,” I say. “I thought you might want⁠—” At that, he looks up. And something changes in his face. He’s on his feet before I can finish the sentence. He crosses the room in huge strides. As soon as he’s close enough, he rips the papers from my grip. “What is this?” he snarls. “I— The notes. From the meeting. I typed them up, so⁠—” I watch in horror as he tears the papers in half, then in half again. And again. He keeps tearing until they’re nothing but sad little scraps in his fists. Then he glares at me with murder in his eyes. “Never,” he says, “never print anything. Do you understand me? Never.” I take a step back. My spine hits the doorframe. “I didn’t know⁠—” “Now, you do.” He drops the last of the scraps at his feet. “Pen and paper only. No digital copies. No printouts. Nothing that can be traced or retrieved.” “Okay,” I mumble. My throat is closing up with fear and shame. “I’m sorry. I didn’t⁠—” “Speaking of which.” He turns to face me. “The pen I gave you. Where is it?” I look down at my empty hands. Then I remember: I set it down on the table in the meeting room when I finished writing. I was so flustered, so eager to get out of there, that I forgot to pick it up. “I left it,” I say. “In the meeting room.” “Clean this mess up,” he says, jutting his chin at the paper confetti that’s all that remains of me trying to do a good thing. “Then go get it.” “Do you have something better to be doing with your time, Ms. Everett?” “No, sir. Sorry, sir.” I drop to my knees and start sweeping up everything I can reach. The scraps are everywhere, but that’s not the issue—Lord knows I’ve cleaned up enough messes since my parents died. This is neither the first nor the worst. The issue is that I can feel Mr. Lazarev watching me. He hasn’t moved. He’s just standing there, towering over me, while I crawl around on his office floor picking up tiny pieces of paper. My stupid skirt once again rides up my thighs. I tug it down. It immediately rides right back up. I reach for a scrap near the leg of his desk and my blouse, feeling left out of the “Humiliate Rae” party, gapes open. I clamp my arm against my chest. This is preposterous. I’m on my knees in front of my boss’s father. The position is— God, the position is so⁠— I grab another scrap. My face is burning. He still hasn’t moved. Is he looking at my ass? He’s definitely looking at my ass. Or maybe I’m just being paranoid. Maybe he’s looking at the wall or the window or literally anything else. I don’t turn around to check.