00:00I sat in the car and looked at this Manhattan jungle, soaked in want, and I lit a cigarette.
00:05Yes, I smoked on that snowed-in morning.
00:07I'd played a girl who'd never even smelled nicotine just to feed Elias' almost pathologically traditional taste in women.
00:13Truthfully, catching Serafina's lips should have been easy for Elias on his own.
00:17He'd agreed to the atonement arrangement because he wanted my filthy hands doing the work his clean ones couldn't be
00:23seen doing.
00:24I drew in smoke and held it.
00:25I had to keep walking this wire as a double agent.
00:28The second I stepped into my tower, flashbulbs hit my face like a hailstorm.
00:32There was a problem with the southern real estate parcel from the Max acquisition.
00:36Something had gone wrong on site and the way it had hit press was set up.
00:40Somebody had been building the gallows behind Elias' pack for weeks.
00:43I pushed through the microphones being shoved at me and held his image steady with the best lines I had.
00:49On this board, Seb or Arthur had already made a move.
00:52His office door was half open.
00:54The quiet inside spread like water.
00:56Elias was leaning on the bar cart, white shirt sleeves rolled up over the cold metal of his watch.
01:01I crossed the room, set my phone, in front of him, Serafina, Arthur, a video and stills undeniable.
01:07I leaned over the desk.
01:09The waistline of my skirt rode up.
01:10Just a little pale skin moved in and out of the office light.
01:14His long fingertips slid across the screen.
01:16He watched Serafina being free with herself, Arthur Man's arms and his face did not move, not a flicker.
01:22That kind of inhuman composure put another chill down my spine he'd seen through this whole show a long time
01:27ago.
01:28I came around behind him and wrapped my arms around his waist, chin on his broad shoulder.
01:33I could feel this apple work under my fingertips, hard sculpted, moving from how much he was holding down.
01:39The cold cedar of him, mixed with the faint scent of my hair, it tangled in that small space between
01:44us.
01:45I told him Julia was forcing me out of New York that now he was the only thing I had
01:49to lean on.
01:50He turned and pinned me hard against the edge of the desk.
01:52The pressure of him over me almost cracked something.
01:55He told me that he never did business that didn't pay.
01:58He wanted me as his sharpest blade to bait the trap, take out the obstacles standing between him and the
02:04cleaner version of his empire.
02:05I took a cigarette and put it between my lips, hooked him with the look decadent at the surface, innocent,
02:10under it.
02:11I felt his stubble drag along the side of my neck and the sting was so sharp it landed like
02:16pleasure.
02:16I asked him, lo, if it came down to using me as the weapon, could that frozen heart of yours
02:21actually stand to lose me?
02:23Elias didn't answer.
02:24He just leaned in and lit my cigarette against my mouth.
02:26In the curl of smoke between us, I saw something catch fire in his eyes, out of control, big enough
02:32to take Manhattan down with it.
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