Page 144 of 10 Days to Ruin

Feliks plops the donuts onto Lora’s desk. “Compliments of the management.” His grin widens when Gina snags a cruller. “Careful, there. Those’ll go straight to your hips.”

Gina takes a massive, aggressive bite. “Good,” she spits, crumbs flying from her mouth. “More of me to hate.”

Sasha circles the room, inspecting my haphazard renovations. “You kept the bloodstain.” He nods to a dark splotch near the supply closet.

“Charming, right?” I answer with a meek smile. “Gives the place… ambiance.”

Lora edges away from the stain. “Whose blood do we think that is?”

“Former gossip columnist,” Feliks says cheerfully. “Turns out writing about celebrity nip-slips doesn’t prepare you for?—”

“Feliks,” Sasha warns.

“—stress-induced paper cuts! Very tragic. But I’m sure he made a full recovery.”

Gina snorts into her coffee. I catch the way Feliks’s eyes linger on her laugh lines.

Sasha stops beside me, voice dropping. “You good,ptichka?”

His thumb brushes the printer grease on my jaw. I ignore the spark it sends down my spine and turn to pat the geriatric printer at my side. “Peachy. Just teaching this Nineties relic to respect its new queen.”

“For its sake, I hope it learns quickly.” The corner of his mouth twitches. “Do you need anything?”

“A time machine. And maybe a flamethrower.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” He leans down to press a kiss to the top of my head. “Don’t forget—dinner with your father tonight.”

My gut clenches. Right. Can’t wait to bread with the devil himself. In theory, it’s date #9, and given how good things are between Sasha and me, it should be cause for celebration.

But that’s exactly why I don’t want to go: because thingsaregoing so well. Why ruin it with Leander, who’s never seen a good thing he didn’t want to ruin?

“I know,” I tell Sasha, double-clutching his hand for moral support. “But we’ve still got an hour or so of daylight left. I’m gonna squeeze these worker bees for every ounce of effort I can get.”

Sasha chuckles and cups my cheek. “I’ve taught you well. I brought more muscle for you to torture and they all know to do anything you ask. So have at ‘em.I’ll be back to check on you later.”

I step up on a desk to speak over the assembled masses. I whistle with two fingers in my mouth to draw their attention, which works on Lora and all of the Bratva soldiers that Sasha brought to do my bidding.

Gina and Feliks, however, don’t notice. They’re deep in the midst of locking horns over what sounds like perhaps the most inane bullshit ever used as argument fodder.

“… Listen here, you Russian Ken doll,” she snaps, “I told you that if you touch my Post-Its, I will end you.”

“Big threats from a little woman,” replies Feliks.

Gina whirls on him, her box braids swinging. “Keep laughing, Frosted Tips. I know twelve ways to kill a man with a ballpoint pen.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time.” Feliks’s grin only stretches as he pushes off the wall.

I rub my temples and wonder idly if there might be a bottle of Xanax stashed in the supply closet somewhere. I’m less than one day into my new role as media mogul and I’m already daydreaming about setting the sprinkler system off. “Everyone shut up and gather ‘round. Now. Especially you two dummies.”

To my surprise, they all obey. Even the two hulking Bratva IT guys Sasha gifted me—Stefan and Pavel, who look like they bench-press SUVs between coding sessions—shuffle over from where they’d started picking apart the server room.

I clear my throat, suddenly nervous as thirty pairs of eyes settle on me. “Okay. Ground rules. One: This isn’t a mafia front. We’re a legitimate paper, which means no laundering money through classifieds. Two: If you’re carrying a gun, I don’t want to see it. Ever. Three: Lora’s in charge of layout. Question her choices, and you answer to me.”

Stefan raises a meaty hand. “What if enemy comes to shoot us? Do we still not show gun?”

“If someone storms in here shooting,” Feliks drawls before I can answer, “you have my permission to turn them into a colander. Happy, chief?”

Gina fake-coughs into her fist. “Kiss-ass.”

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