Page 20 of Ivory Ashes

There’s an unnatural hush in the hallways.

No footsteps clicking across the tile floors. No catching up on last night’s shows while people wait for the machine to spew out their single cup of burnt instant coffee.

I’m too deep in my own head to think about where everyone else is. I’m too busy wondering if I’m going to turn the corner and find my desk packed into a box with my name scribbled on the side. I’ve never been fired before, but I’ve seen it in movies. That’s how it usually goes.

I’m so worried about what’s ahead of me that, for the first time in years, I’m not thinking about what’s behind me.

Until a voice I’ll never forget calls down the hall.

“Finally. I’ve been waiting for you.”

No.

This is a nightmare. A waking nightmare. I’m hallucinating under the stress. That’s the only explanation why he would be here.

“You’re the P.A., aren’t you? You’re late.”

I don’t move. The wall of windows in front of me looks tempting. I’ll throw myself out of them.

Dante.

Oh, shit. Dante.

I can’t jump. I can’t run. There’s no way out. No escape. I don’t have a choice.

Slowly, I turn around. I already know who I’m going to see, but the sight of him still knocks me back.

His name rushes out of me in a single breath. “Mikhail.”

7

MIKHAIL

“Finally,” I say down the long hallway. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

This entire fucking building is full of people who don’t know a damn thing. Every employee I’ve spoken to all morning has pointed a trembling finger in the direction of the empty desk outside my new office.

“Margaret will be able to help when she gets here,” they said before fleeing into nearby offices and locking the doors behind them.

As if I couldn’t get in by myself if I wanted to. I own them all now. Cerberus Industries. This building. All of it.

The problem is, this Margaret, who is apparently the only useful person in this entire company, is also the only person in the office who hadn’t shown her face yet.

Until now.

If her coworkers are to be believed, Margaret runs this place. Margaret knows where the keys to the conference room are; Margaret is the holder of the passwords and the keeper of the schedule. By the looks of it, there isn’t a single thing that takes place under this roof that doesn’t go through Margaret.

Maybe that’s why Margaret, my new personal assistant, feels fine rolling into work twenty-five minutes late.

Her heels click down the hallway in front of me, a pair of high-waisted trousers hugging the generous swell of her ass. It crosses my mind that Margaret might get away with showing up late because she looks so fucking good doing it.

“You’re the P.A., aren’t you?” I call.

She stops dead in the center of the hallway. Her hips go still, but her wavy, honey blonde hair swishes back and forth across her stiffened spine.

I can’t stop myself from tracing the curve of her hips. From noting the cinch of her waist.

I catalog her the way I cataloged the rest of Cerberus Industries assets. I may only be taking over the business as a way to launder money from my much more profitable gunrunning ventures, but that doesn’t mean I won’t trim the fat around here.

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