Page 13 of Forbidden Boss

“Apparently, there’s an FBI agent sniffing around one of my employees,” I tell him, ice in my voice. “He showed up at herapartment and told her all about our organization. She knows everything, Yuri.”

Yuri goes still for a moment, already in damage-control mode. He’s calculating a thousand and one ways out of this situation, and I know at least one of them doesn’t end well for Mari. Which is, simply put, not an option for me.

“And what did she say to this agent?” he asks.

“She told him she knows nothing,” I tell him.

He appraises me, mild surprise flickering and then hiding behind a blank expression. He hears what I’m not saying. Eliminating her is not an option.

It would be the easiest solution, though. She knows too much, and she’s got her hands all over the Levcon books. There’s nothing to stop her from taking everything she knows and giving it to Agent Cole. That makes her a risk that neither of us can afford to take.

“What do you want to do?” he asks warily.

“We have to keep a very close eye on her to make sure she doesn’t suddenly decide to play ball with them.”

He nods slowly, not offering any insight, but I can read his mind. Why would I go to the trouble of monitoring her if I could just take her out? It’s what I would do to anyone else. If some sniveling Harvard grad douchebag came in here acting the way she just did, he would be dead before he had the chance to leave the building. Yuri and I both know that.

She’s a weakness I can’t afford. I don’t do weaknesses. I never have, and it’s what’s kept me sharp all this time.

But I can’t just eliminate her. I’ll probably live to regret it, but I won’t kill her just to keep my secret safe.

7

MARI

It’s Friday afternoon, and I’m untangling a complicated reconciliation when my phone buzzes with a text:

We need to talk.

I don’t have the number saved, but I know it’s Lev.

Fine,I text back.

I’ll send a car,he replies.

My anger flares under my skin, masking the fear that’s been eating at me since I confronted him in his office. I close the Excel file and pack up my things. He’s not a man who likes to be kept waiting. As much as I’d like to be the kind of woman who ignores a summons, this feels too dangerous to worry about what it says about my feminism.

Outside the building, a black SUV idles at the curb with the rear door open. The driver calls my name in a steady voice. I swallow hard and get in.

In the back of my mind, I hear the advice about never letting an attacker take you to a second location. Does that still apply whenyour boss also happens to be a Bratvapakhan?Does it apply if I’mwillinglyputting myself in danger? The answer to both questions is probably no.

We cut west and slide up Tenth Avenue, then the driver merges onto the West Side Highway. The Hudson opens on my left, gray and wide. I wait for the turn onto Seventy-Second, the familiar swing toward his Upper West Side penthouse. But we don’t exit. We keep going north.

The skyline thins as we pass the Intrepid and the parkway opens, clean and fast. The Cloisters lift out of the trees. The Henry Hudson Bridge rises ahead like a steel rib. We cross into the Bronx, and the city shifts under the tires. He stays on the Saw Mill. Trees crowd the median. Stone cuts the hills in sharp lines.

Neighborhoods fall away. Green replaces brick. The road narrows and smooths. When we exit, the lanes become a quiet two-lane road shaded by old oaks. Stone pillars rise out of clipped lawn. A small guardhouse sits beyond them with glass that doesn’t glare. The first gate slides open without a sound. Twenty yards later, we encounter a second gate and wait to be buzzed in.

The mansion comes into view in pieces. The roof rises above the trees, and I’m sure I see snipers on top. The brick façade starts to reveal itself, and it’s so much bigger than I could have imagined. It isn’t a mansion so much as a fortress.

The SUV stops under a porte cochère. The driver opens my door without looking at me. I step down and smooth my jacket to give my hands something to do.

Then the front door opens and a man I’ve seen once before but can’t place steps out to collect me.

“Ms.Gonzales,” he greets me without smiling.

He leads me inside the grand entryway, and the place looks more like a museum than a home. It’s sterile, spotless, and reveals nothing about the man who owns it. I have the distinct feeling I’m being watched and wonder if there are hidden cameras somewhere.

“Is this Mr.Borikov’s home?” I ask, feeling the need to fill the silence. “I thought he lived on the Upper West Side.”