Page 30 of Boardroom Sins

“You’re funny,” he says, like he’s surprised by that fun little discovery.

“I’m really not,” I assure him. “It’s sleep deprivation talking. In reality, I’m extremely boring.”

“I doubt that.” He shifts lanes smoothly, one hand draped over the steering wheel with ease. “It will get easier, you know. The work. The understanding of it.”

“Will it? Because right now, I feel like I’m assembling IKEA furniture without the instructions. In the dark. While someone yells at me. In Swedish.”

“No one is yelling at you.”

“Yet,” I counter. “No one is yelling at meyet.”

I rub at my tired eyes. This whole ride feels strange and surreal. If I think too hard about it, I think I might have a mental breakdown, so I focus on fidgeting with that loose thread on my cuff again and looking out the window periodically.

“Can I ask a question?” I venture, emboldened by the tiny crack in his glacier exterior.

He nods. “Fire away.”

“What were all those files for? The ones I was summarizing before I, um…” I gesture vaguely. “Before I became one with my desk.”

Lukas rubs at his beard with one silver-ringed hand. “Background.”

“On what?”

His weathered face cracks into a quarter-smile. “As I said, you’ll understand in time.”

“Will I?”

“Yes. If you stay.”

IfI stay. Like it’s an open question, a TBD. Like there’s a chance I won’t get that chance.

I peer out the window. We’re crossing the bridge into Brooklyn now. Lights ripple on the water below. Normally, I can’t get enough of this view. It’s the one thing about this city I’ve never become jaded about. Snow is a dirty, pain-in-the-ass sludge, the subway is a petri dish on wheels, and Broadway is an overhyped ripoff—but this view? Thisneverdisappoints.

“Can I ask another question?”

Lukas nods again, same as before. “If you’d like.”

“The meeting yesterday,” I say. “All those men.”

“What about it?”

“Who were they?”

“Associates.”

I want to scream. This is the least illuminating conversation of my life.

But there’s one more question I can’t stop thinking about. The scarred man’s voice seeping out in that dark hallway.Just like the last one.

“Final question.” I take a breath. “What happened to your previous assistant?”

He frowns. “What are you talking about? I haven’t had an assistant in nearly two decades.”

I frown right back. “But the men in that meeting,” I protest, “your ‘associates,’ they were talking about me after you left. I heard them.”

He glances at me, just for a second. Then back to the road. “And?”

“They said I wouldn’t last. They said I was just like the last one, that she didn’t last, either.”