by Lee Winter
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www.ylva-publishing.com
Table of Contents
Other books by Lee Winter
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
About Lee Winter
Other Books from Ylva Publishing
The Red Files
All the Little Moments
Perfect Rhythm
Party Wall
Coming from Ylva Publishing
The Lily and the Crown
Other books by Lee Winter
Shattered
Requiem for Immortals
The Red Files
Dedication
To Charlotte, the most enthusiastic ice queen fan I’ve ever met. Long may our aloof goddesses reign.
Acknowledgements
My book could not sing without my wonderful betas adding their voices to the choir. Thanks to Char, for her all-round ice queen expertise, Anne for lashing my terrible French into submission, and Sam, for raising the bar and always telling me what I needed to hear. At Ylva, I have much gratitude to Sandra for the superb editing and Astrid for her reassuring belief in this book and in me.
CHAPTER 1
The Apocalypse
The apocalypse arrived when Maddie Grey had shampoo in her eyes, was half awake, and attempting to block out the whine of prehistoric plumbing from her ears.
“Mads! It’s the Armageddon!” Her flatmate, Simon Itani, thumped on the bathroom door, scaring the life out of her.
“What the hell?” Maddie shouted back. Her childhood friend had his good points, but he couldn’t exactly be considered trustworthy when it came to reporting end times.
“Your boss is texting you. Looks official. So I’m making the leap.”
Her boss never texted her. Maybe Simon was on to something. Maddie shut off the shower, quickly dried off, and pulled on battered shorts and a T-shirt. As she towel-dried her hair, she stared blearily in the mirror at the rings under her eyes. No sleep again. Not surprising. She was having more nightmares about getting lost and trying to find her way home. Her subconscious wasn’t exactly subtle. It was usually that nightmare or awkward sex dreams about the ex-girlfriend she hadn’t seen in three years. She’d always wake up anxious, aroused, and annoyed. Craving Rachel only because her ex was back home in Sydney was kind of pathetic.
The door thumped again, louder this time. “Are you decent?”
Maddie glanced at herself one last time and pulled a face. “Hard to say.”
The door flung open, resulting in way too much daylight.
Ugh. “You better be on fire.” Maddie glared at Simon. No singed hair.
“Even more exciting.” He ran his fingers through the trimmed two-day growth on his jaw.
“Wait, more exciting than a fire?” She reached for her tracksuit pants, rammed one leg in, and pulled them over her shorts. Sounded like a crisis worthy of properly getting dressed.
“Yep!” Simon tossed Maddie her phone. “It’s big. Which you’d know if you hadn’t slept the morning away. It’s eleven, and it sounds like your boss can’t wait.”
Maddie snatched up her phone. “Give me a break,” she grumbled. “I work night shift. I do need to sleep sometime.” She read the text message, her stomach twisting with anxiety. “They’re calling everyone in for a noon meeting. I guess the rumours were true. That company that bought us out last year? The owner’s finally noticed us and is probably coming in to gut us today.”
Simon nodded, a sage expression on his face.
She narrowed her eyes. “You sneak. You read his message?”
Simon lifted his hands in innocence. “Only cos your boss’s name flashed up. I wanted to see if it was important enough to rouse you from The Showering Dead.” He scratched his slightly rounded stomach. “So, she’s really on her way? The Elena Bartell? She who monsters itty-bitty papers to feed to her empire? And looks shit hot while doing it?”
“Looks like.” Maddie gave the message a final, morose glare. “Trust you to care more about her looks than her tactics.”
“Au contraire, Mads, I can care about both. That woman’s a bloody media genius. They did a case study on her at business school. Let me tell you how she racked up her first hundred mill—”
“Can’t wait for that story. Meanwhile, I’m not sure if I’ll even have a job by tonight. And with you moving back to Sydney soon, this is a total disaster. How am I going to afford rent on this shoe box on my own with no job?”
“Could be worse. You could actually like that shitty job you’re about to lose. I’ve seen you steel yourself to go into work. But now…” He gave her a grin.
Maddie huffed out a breath. “First, you could try to sound sorry for me. Second, I’m not going back to waitressing.”
“Hours would be better. And you might actually talk to people again. That has to be a bonus.”
“Okay, working for Hudson Metro News might not be perfect, but it’s a reporting job—finally. It’s what I’m good at. When I waitress, people get hurt.” Maddie’s mind drifted back to several regrettable incidents. At least the chef’s hair had grown back. Well, except his eyebrows.
“Come on, Mads, didn’t you come to New York to live the dream? Not tolerate the dream?”
A muscle in her jaw twitched. She hated it when people talked about the Dream. New York had never been her dream, although admitting that was social suicide. The truth was that every day she woke with a sinking feeling. The brightness, the buzz, and the constant rush left her feeling like a dead pixel on a Times Square billboard. Her friends back home wanted to live vicariously through her, so what could she say? It’s great. So great. Yeah. Just. Wow. Each day she cringed a little more at not living up to everyone else’s dream. Why didn’t she fit into a city that everyone fit into?
Simon was still talking. “You’ve been stuck doing the crapola shift, spending all your days sleeping and barely seeing the sights. So my point is, hoo-fucking-ray! You’ll be fired from a job you hate. We’ll celebrate tonight with the Fun Factory. Okay?” He paused and raked his gaze over her clothes. “And don’t change a thing. That outfit totally says ‘fire my ass’.”
Maddie glanced down at herself. He had a point. She must be more tired than she thought. That drug bust she’d been working on overnight had taken it out of her. “I’m not even working today.” She yawned. “I don’t have to get glammed up if it’s my day off. It’s the Aussie way.”
“Famous last words. Seriously, you want my advice?”
“Hell no. You can’t dress to save yourself, and my day’s disastrous enough as it is. So rack off and let me get my ass into gear.”
His laughter drifted through the door, as she toed it shut behind him. But Simon
raised a good point: What did one wear to their apocalypse?
* * *
Maddie hauled herself into work with dark glasses affixed to stave off the beginnings of a tiredness headache and an all-black ensemble more befitting a gothic rock group than professional attire.
On the L train commute, she studied the Elena Bartell bio page she’d downloaded before she’d hit the subway. The chief operating officer and publisher for dozens of newspaper and magazine mastheads had sculpted, short, jet-black hair, pale features, and form-fitting designer clothes. There was a sleekness to her, like a lean, sci-fi action hero, and a dangerous look to her cool eyes.
She was listed as forty, although she could pass as years younger. The woman was notoriously media shy—ironic, given her profession and how much the camera loved her. Bartell had risen as a fashion writer on CQ magazine and, at one point, was being tipped as its future editor. Instead, Bartell had disappeared.
A year later, she’d turned up as the new owner of a small group of failing regional papers. Within a year, she’d turned them into profit; within two, she’d made her first million. She’d scored her first $500 million by age thirty-five.
There was only one publication the media mogul had created from nothing herself—Style International, a fashion magazine which had five editions worldwide—Style NY, Sydney, Tokyo, London and Paris. That personal investment told Maddie that fashion mattered to Bartell, and her job at CQ hadn’t just been a stepping stone. She’d been passionate about it—at least at one point.
Maddie looked down and considered her outfit. She winced. Her bold choice born of exhaustion and a faintly rebellious streak was not looking so smart right now.
She scrolled down her phone and found a brief mention of a husband in 1999, a reporter turned author who was gone by 2001. There was a second husband now. Richard Barclay. Lawyer. She glanced at his photo and suppressed a shudder. He might be toothpaste-commercial handsome, but he had a smug-bastard face.
So, two sharks had fallen for their own kind? That figured. From everything she’d read, Bartell seemed to love nothing better than to strip a business to its rafters, if she could squeeze some money out of it. They’d even given her a nickname to go with her corporate cleansing. Tiger Shark. Maddie put away her phone and stared out the window at the underground blackness. Was the Hudson Metro News about to be another victim of the media mogul’s rapier-sharp teeth?
As Union St station neared, she considered the prospect of being fired. Simon was right, although she’d never admit it. Eight months of working there, and she hated her job. Except for one thing—she was finally doing what she had told all her friends and family she would do. Be a reporter in New York.
The train pulled up. Maddie stepped onto the subway platform, nose wrinkling at the familiar stench of urine and rotting garbage. Time to face the apocalypse.
* * *
For a harbinger of doom, Elena Bartell was beautifully turned out in steampunk chic. A wide silver buckle adorned ebony ankle boots, standing out beneath black, tailored pants. They were a dark contrast against her crisp, white linen shirt, set behind a silky, black-and-silver embroidered vest with a fob-watch-style chain running from a button into its pocket. Maddie was transfixed. How unexpected.
Bartell’s compact body radiated power and control and drew every eye to her. Even standing with the paper’s editor, general manager, and news chief, three men who each had six inches on her, she was easily the most authoritative person in the room.
Scanning the gathering, Bartell’s eyes were clear-blue and sharp. She smiled faintly through the introduction droning on in the background.
“…a delight to meet our new owner, Elena Bartell.” Maddie’s editor, a bespectacled, harried-looking man whom she had never had cause to meet—so lowly was her status—stepped back, clapping.
Bartell stood in front of the eighty Hudson Metro News staff members and waited for the polite applause to die. She held the ensuing silence until the only sounds were someone’s phone in the distance and the clatter of a printer spitting out pages nearby. Her voice was measured and pitched low, yet it carried to the back of the room where Maddie stood, half hidden by a pillar.
“I’m sure my reputation precedes me,” Bartell said, voice dry. “I’m sure you’ve been told all sorts of terrible tales about who I am. I know the names I’ve been called, some more creative than others. And I’m sure you’ve been told all sorts of ruthless things about what I’m going to do to your paper.” She stopped and slid her gaze over the room. “And it’s all true.”
A panicked murmur spread through the crowd.
She eyed them coolly. “It’s time Hudson Metro News grew a pair or got out of the game. The facts don’t lie. You’re an underperforming commuter rag with only one news breaker on your entire reporting staff and only one ad rep who meets the sales targets. Your publication’s online presence is a joke. An occasional updated weather report, front pages from two days ago, and only two lines on where to buy advertising. Not to mention, with a balance sheet like yours, you deserve to be scrapped. It would be a mercy killing.”
Maddie winced. Okay, so it wasn’t the world’s greatest paper, but it wasn’t that bad, surely?
“Of course,” Bartell continued, “I could inject capital, grow your online presence with a cutting-edge website, and find you a team of star marketers to boost brand awareness. But this is a saturated market, and you have no point of difference. I’d be just throwing good money after bad.”
Maddie’s heart began racing, and she glanced at the ashen faces around her.
“However,” Bartell said, “funny things happen when backs are to the wall. Occasionally, in their death throes, people have the ability to surprise me. So the bottom line is this—you’re on notice. I’m giving you six weeks to impress me.”
Relieved and shocked gasps filled the room.
The media mogul held up her hand. “I will base myself here for the duration. It will give me an opportunity to assess who has talent, whether you deserve a financial investment, or whether being shut down would be a better option. If you have been holding back, then dazzle me in the coming six weeks. Be warned—my reputation for firing incompetent people on the spot is no lie. So, in six weeks’ time, on March 15, I’ll know whether any of you have what it takes. For your own sakes, do not disappoint me.”
March 15? The Ides of March? Maddie blinked.
Bartell’s gaze roamed, then paused on Maddie, sliding up and down her outfit. A frown creased her brow. “That’s it. We’re done.” She exited the room without another word.
The general manager adjusted his crimson silk tie, mumbled something vague and conciliatory about impressing their new boss, and the meeting broke up.
Maddie stared at Bartell’s departing figure. We’re done? What kind of interpersonal skills were those?
“Holy shit,” Terry, the court reporter beside her, said to no one in particular. “I need to call my wife. That shark’s gonna gut us. I could see it in her beady eyes.” He flicked a glance at Maddie’s outfit. “She sure didn’t like what you’re wearing, huh? Didn’t you get the memo she was coming in?”
“It’s my day off,” Maddie protested. “It’s not like I’m wearing a coat of freshly killed baby seals.”
Terry gave a sour laugh. “She’d probably want one if you did.”
“Yeah.” Maddie sighed. She was going to be out of work within six weeks for sure. One thing she knew about newspapers was that no one ever noticed the person on the graveyard shift. They weren’t seen or heard, and their jobs were never saved. With that depressing thought, she sidestepped the milling groups picking over Bartell’s speech and headed for the elevator. She had a bed to crawl back into.
When she reached the hallway, the elevator doors were closing, so she called out for the shadow she glimpsed inside to hold them. The doors kept closing. Maddie sprinted and threw her arm into the gap. The doors paused, then slowly reopened. She skidded inside, finding herself
face to face with Elena Bartell, who looked irritated at having an interloper. So—travelling with minions was obviously against Bartell’s religion.
Maddie could smell her perfume, a soft, faintly spicy caress that made her want to sway forward for more. She stabbed the already lit up Ground button in annoyance at that random thought and leaned into the side wall as far away from Bartell as she could manage. She swung her gaze upward to the numbers ticking down.
“Bold choice,” Bartell abruptly said, shattering any hopes for escaping this elevator ride unscathed. “Does your garage band have practice now?”
“It’s my day off.” Maddie was startled to have been addressed. “I didn’t expect to be called in for your special Ides of March speech. The day Caesar got knifed? Interesting choice of dates.”
“A millennial who knows history? Well, well.”
Maddie shrugged.
“I suppose stranger things have happened.” Bartell examined Maddie’s clothing as though it offended her on a cellular level. “So you…voluntarily…wear this?”
Maddie frowned at the glint in those cool eyes. “Yeah,” she said in her most neutral tone. “I do. It’s comfy.”
“Even knowing I’d be here today to evaluate you all.”
“Are you planning on firing me based on my outfit?” Maddie asked politely, turning to look at her properly.
“What if I did?” Bartell’s eyes were challenging. “One’s wardrobe choices speak to their professionalism and whether they wish to be taken seriously. As opposed to the appearance of having crawled out of a nightclub at 4:00 a.m. for example.”
“That’s…” Maddie shook her head in disbelief. “So…”
“Go on.” Bartell’s expression dared her.
“If you fire people because of what they wear, you could lose someone brilliant. What if someone had this incredible talent but couldn’t dress to save themselves? How’s that good business?”
Bartell gave her a sharp look. “And is that what you are? An incredible talent? Dressed up in a gothic sack, just waiting for me to bother unravelling?”
Maddie’s mouth fell open. She clanged it firmly shut. “I didn’t say that,” she mumbled.
