Page 238 of Boardroom Sins

SIX MONTHS LATER

Together with those they carry in their hearts,

Rae Everett

&

Lukas Lazarev

request the pleasure of your company

at the celebration of their marriage.

Friday, the thirty-first of July

Two thousand and twenty-six

at half past four in the afternoon

The woman in the mirror is someone I’m still getting used to.

Not because she’s wearing a white silk gown that cost an arm, a leg, and a kidney—though she is, and it did, and I’m trying very hard not to think about that.

Not because her hair is pinned up in a loose, romantic twist that took Jillian forty-five minutes and nine hundred bobby pins to achieve.

Not even because there are actual diamonds in her ears, a gift from the groom, delivered this morning in a velvet box with a note that read simply,For my forever.

No, the reason I’m still getting used to this woman is that she lookshappy. This kind of happy doesn’t hedge its bets or brace for impact. This kind of happyglows.My nineteen-year-old self, standing in front of a different mirror in a black dress with cemetery dirt still on her shoes, would never have believed this kind of happy was even possible.

“Hold still,” Jillian orders as she jabs another pin into my veil with all the gentleness of someone tenderizing a steak. “If this thing falls off during the ceremony, I will never forgive you.”

“It’s just a veil, Jill. The stakes are low.”

“It’s acathedral-length illusion tulle veil with hand-stitched French lace edging. The stakes have never been higher. So I repeat: Hold. The fuck. Still.”

I bite my lip and do as she orders.

When she’s done, Jillian steps back, surveys her handiwork, and presses her fingers to her mouth. Her eyes are already glistening, which is concerning, given that we haven’t even left the bridal suite yet. She’s wearing a deep green dress that makes her red hair look like it’s on fire. She looks beautiful.

She also looks like she’s about to completely lose it.

“Don’t you dare cry,” I warn her. “If you cry, I’ll cry, and then my mascara will run, and then Lukas will think I’m having second thoughts, and then he’ll probably buy the entire borough of Brooklyn to make me feel better, and I am not ready for that kind of responsibility.”

Jillian snorts. She dabs the corner of her eye with her pinky, careful not to smudge her own makeup. “You’re marrying a Bratva kingpin,” she mutters, adjusting the fall of my veil one final, obsessive time. “I hope you know I’m putting that in my maid of honor speech.”

I laugh. “Formerkingpin. He’s legitimate now.”

“Mhmm.” She meets my eyes in the mirror. “Sure he is.”

“He is!” I insist. “… Mostly.”

Her expression is wry, affectionate, and just the tiniest bit skeptical, which is basically Jillian’s version of wholehearted endorsement. Six months ago, I wasn’t sure we’d ever get back to this—to easy banter and reflexive honesty, to the shorthand of a friendship that’s survived worse things than intrepid journalism and sordid crime world secrets.

But here we are. Stronger at the broken parts, like those Japanese bowls repaired with gold.

Kintsugi. Lukas taught me that word. I like it.

“Perfecto.” Jillian turns me by the shoulders so I’m facing her instead of the mirror. She holds me at arm’s length and looks me over, head to toe. Her lower lip trembles in a very un-Jill-like way before she clamps it between her teeth. “You look like a fucking dream, Rae Everett.”