How to Slay at Work (How to Slay, #1)

by Sarah Bonner

Well, well, well. So the handsome stranger is an escort.

He never once mentions how much the escort looks like him. Like he hasn’t even noticed the similarity. Or grasped the significance. I don’t point it out to him. Don’t tell him that she’s chosen to play out a fantasy in which her husband, the man she fell in love with, isn’t actually a total dick.

‘I didn’t realise at first. We’ve known each other for a while. But just recently I’ve started to wonder if maybe he’s someone. You know?’ Nope. I have no idea. And no I’m not thinking about Gabriel. The way he smiles, the dimples at the base of his spine. The way he says my name…

‘I think she’s trying to befriend me so I don’t think she’s a serial killer’ normal.

‘There’s something going on. With Freya,’ he whispers. I drop my own voice to match his. ‘I don’t understand. I thought this was about me?’ ‘No, Millie. It’s about her. I’m not making any records of the meeting this morning because it’s not fair on you. There’s something not right about her. Have you noticed anything unusual about her behaviour recently?’

‘She met someone.’ ‘Like a guy?’ He sounds surprised. And a little grossed out.

now I know why cuz its his sister

I get home from work to find Lissa has turned the living room into some kind of serial killer’s lair. ‘What the actual fuck is this?’ I ask motioning towards what I can only describe as a murder wall.

Lmao

‘If we’re right, she’s going to kill Lawrence Delaney.’ She whispers it so quietly no one else around us could possibly hear. ‘Yes,’ I whisper in return. ‘Should we stop her?’ Our eyes lock over our syrup-smeared plates, the unspoken words passing between us.

But it’s so obviously an act. Does she really think I believe this sham?

‘Millie. Freya cannot be with him.’ ‘I watched them go upstairs,’ I tell her. ‘But I could literally book him. For right now. So she can’t possibly be with him any more.’ It’s slowly starting to dawn on me. If she isn’t with this escort then where is she?

It’s so easy to keep working towards a goal without ever taking stock and asking whether it’s still the right thing to pursue.

I know it will be her before she comes into view. But I hadn’t expected the look of absolute ferocity on her face. Or that she’d be holding a hunting rifle. She looks wild. Fierce. Athena incarnate. Freya Ellwood-Winter. She’s here. And there is nothing but murder in her eyes.

I should have run the moment I realised he was dead and I couldn’t save him. ‘Hello, Camille.’ Her voice is level, almost friendly.

‘You’re American?’ She has one of the most RP accents I have ever heard. I always assumed she went to some terribly British boarding school, her parents stiff and formal, her childhood full of rigid rules and stultifying routines. ‘I grew up all over the place. Army brat,’

‘Verity?’ Who the hell is Verity? Freya pauses for a moment. ‘Verity is my sister.

At Camp North Creek there was this group of guys who’d come back for their second year. Eight of them. They thought they ran the place. They lorded it over everyone, but they treated the junior counsellors like we were their slaves.’ ‘1980,’ I whisper under my breath.

So of course I fell madly in love with Gregory Fuller. I thought he was the most perfect boy to ever grace the planet.

‘And did she? Tell them, I mean?’ She raises her eyes to meet mine. Pain is etched so deeply into her soul it takes my breath away. ‘What happened?’ I whisper.

I bet they pulled some drowning prank to scare her and it ended in her loosing function of most of her brain

‘Verity was found on the shore of the lake the next morning. She’d drowned. We thought she was dead.’ Her voice has dropped to a whisper. ‘But she was alive. Just. Hanging on by a thread.’

I knew it!

‘But two years ago something changed.’ ‘She woke up?’ I ask, leaning forward, completely invested in the story. ‘She told me the truth, of what they’d done to her. How they’d taken it in turns to hold her head under, laughing as she struggled, pulling her back up to watch her cough up water. But then Lawrence held her down a little too long. When he let her up she was sick. She told him they would regret what they’d done. That she’d make sure of it.’ A single tear tracks down her face and she wipes it away angrily. ‘So Gregory held her down for even longer.’

She didn’t want to kill them. She had to. For her sister.

She wants my silence. She needs my silence.

I was never a potential victim. She isn’t a murderer. Not really. She’s a vigilante.

‘Why are you so interested in Gregory?’ she asks. I lean back in my seat. ‘Because I’m going to help you kill him.’

Why do I care? What’s in it for me? I suppose you’re asking the same things? We’ll get to that, I promise.

From her previous traumatic flashback, I'm guessing she was victimized by some man too.

‘The Serendipity Chief Executive Officer and Chief Finance Officer?’ I nod. ‘I don’t understand,’ she says. ‘I’m going to help you kill Gregory Fuller. And then you’re going to help me kill Connor and Liam.’

If convicted he would have been sentenced to up to fourteen years in prison. But he didn’t serve any of it.’ She looks at me and I can see a mix of emotions skitter across her face. ‘He was killed in a car accident the day before the case was due in court.’ ‘Karma,’ I say. ‘No,’ she corrects me. ‘Not karma. My father was driving the other car.’

‘He stole your idea,’ I say.

they begged and cajoled a teenage girl into giving them her dead parents’ inheritance.’ ‘You gave them money?’ ‘I gave them everything I had – almost five hundred thousand pounds – in exchange for a fifty percent share of Serendipity. Even the name was my idea.

He dragged me by my hair into the woods that surrounded the house and threw me into the mud. He started kicking and punching, telling me I was a worthless little bitch. Told me that if I said another word he would make sure I didn’t talk again.

he told me that Liam was with Lissa. Making sure she knew to stay silent too.’ ‘Lissa?’ ‘She was my best friend. She still is. More of a sister, I suppose.’ Millie opens her eyes again. ‘I want them to suffer for what they did to me. But I want them to die for what they did to Lissa.’

I don’t name Lucas. Now isn’t the time for her to find out the truth about him.

Is he actually Kiernan

Millie yawns again after she sips her coffee, covering her mouth with her hand. Then she tips her head to one side and looks at me. ‘What?’ I ask. ‘You don’t have a sympathetic yawn response,’ she says. ‘Because I’m a cold and heartless bitch,’

‘There was no casino win,’ I say with clarity. ‘Nope.’ ‘Because the money came from Millie.’

We’re in a mutually assured destruction scenario.’

He smiles that handsome smile that makes all the girls fall for him.

Yup I'm already sold it's HR guy

I think she winked at me as she left the office. As if we were co-conspirators. Partners in crime. I don’t like it.

‘Maybe it’s her lovely new boyfriend?’ He raises an eyebrow as he says it and smiles to himself. ‘I hear he’s a bit of a catch.’ I look witheringly at him. ‘Just be careful. Don’t get too attached to her.’

I nailed it!!

She needs to remember who is the fucking boss here.

You need to remember that once is bad luck, twice might be a coincidence but it could also be considered suspicious as hell.’

‘I didn’t want him dead,’ I hiss at her. ‘I wanted to kill him. He was mine!’

I don’t know exactly what I’m looking for. But I’ll know him when I see him. He’s on his own and looks a little lost. His face breaks into a smile as I approach. Or perhaps smile is generous, more of a sneer. He thinks he’s in control of our tête-à-tête. He thinks he is going to be the one taking advantage of me. He doesn’t realise I’m leading him to an abandoned warehouse. The baseball bat is still resting against the wall.

So now she's killing randoms? Maybe she's losing control of her bloodlust cuz she didn't get to claim her last kill.

‘Oh my god. You like her, don’t you?’ ‘No.’ But he answers far too quickly. Far too emphatically.

haha this is such a school yard convo lol

It’s performative bollocks. All it leads to is claims of women being cherry-picked without paying their dues.

Was literally about to say this

Kieran Lucas?

‘Lucas told me.’ She looks puzzled. ‘Sorry. Kieran told me.’ I’ve called him by his surname for so long I sometimes forget he’s Kieran to everyone else.

At least Liam has no interest in me like that. I did always wonder if that was the other reason he fanned the rumour of our affair. It certainly stopped the speculation about his own preferences, and he remains firmly stuffed in the closet even now.

And poor Millicent Brooks. Caught by a stray bullet. Cut down the night before her life changed into what would have been a fairytale.

Connor’s a vicious bully, but Liam is on another level. He had so much pent up rage, so much anger coursing through him, coiled like a snake about to strike. He lost his mind with Lissa.

I had thought it would be enough: to infiltrate them, become one of them, and then tear it all down from the inside. I revelled in the idea of sabotaging the company and leaving them sitting in the ruins of their empire. In my head the plan took on an almost mythical quality, with Lissa and me standing in judgement over their sins.