The Scumbag's Guide To Heroism novel Chapter 579

Chapter 579: 579 | You’re Too Smart For Your Own Good

We stood.

The hallway had emptied out. Somewhere down the corridor, Percy was giving his statement to Park in the same steady voice he used for everything, probably with a supporting document. Theo would go next, all uncomplicated warmth and nothing to hide.

Then Camille, who’d walk in and out without giving Park a single thing she didn’t already have. Then Petra, whose family name was now welded to my file in a way that meant she was, functionally, invested in my continued survival.

And then Felicity, whose warm, rapid-fire charm would hit Park like a weather system the Director hadn’t checked the forecast for. She’d walk out of that room leaving Park with the vague sense that Class 1-B was full of genuinely capable students who were also, somehow, personally invested in her having a nice afternoon. It was a gift. Felicity deployed it like breathing.

I had a lot of women in my life who were very good at their jobs. This was both my greatest operational asset and the exact mechanism through which I was going to die. Probably spectacularly. Possibly on camera.

We took the elevator down in silence. Diane’s phone was out before the doors closed, her thumb moving through a backlog of messages she’d ignored for the last ninety minutes. I watched her face shift as the outside world flooded back in. Victor Sterling had done something worth three texts. Margot Lang had called twice more, which meant Petra’s mother was now personally invested in whatever this was.

A client I didn’t recognize needed Diane before end of day, and the request had that specific urgency that meant someone’s approval rating had taken a hit they couldn’t explain yet.

The CEO was coming back online. The woman who’d cried into my shoulder two nights ago while confessing she still called Reina’s voicemail sometimes just to hear her voice was folding herself back into the version of Diane Fitzgerald who ran the highest-grossing hero PR firm in California and made it look easy.

I didn’t say anything about it. Some things you leave alone.

The garage was cold, and Diane’s Range Rover sat where she’d left it, matte grey and immaculate. She unlocked it and paused at the driver’s door.

"Lukas."

"Yeah."

"You handled Park well." She looked at me over the roof of the car, and for a second the CEO gave way to something quieter. "You went off script and I hated it and it worked. You handed her a better problem than the one she came for and you did it without me feeding you a single word."

Her mouth twisted. "Reina used to do that. Rewrite the whole room mid-sentence. Drove Marcus insane."

She’d said Reina’s name three times in two days. In nine years she’d said it maybe a dozen. I filed that somewhere I didn’t have language for yet.

"I had a good teacher," I said.

"So," Sloane said quietly, once we were on the road and Diane had turned on Hero Sports Network at a volume that gave us cover. "Felicity." 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

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