Chapter Text
Clarke Griffin doesn’t have the most honourable job ever. In fact, she has what is possibly the least honourable job ever. What started as helping out a friend has since grown into— hell. Into something Clarke herself cannot even begin to describe.
It all began in college when Raven, one of her closest friends, started dating Finn Collins. He was, by all accounts, the perfect boyfriend: luscious hair, million-dollar smile, smouldering dark eyes, and seemingly undying dedication to his girlfriend. ‘Seemingly’ being the keyword, Clarke and her friends thought at the time. They had always been put off by his exceedingly gentle demeanour towards Clarke herself, so they concocted a rather ingenious plan designed to expose his wretched ways. Clarke would try and seduce Finn and, if successful, present the evidence to Raven. If unsuccessful — well, to be honest, they hadn’t really thought about that. Lucky for them, they did not need to: Finn took the bait after meagre teasing and soon he was all over Clarke like a pup in rut.
At first, Raven’s reaction surprised her friends: she turned against Clarke, denial clouding her judgement. Eventually though, she came around and finally saw who really was at fault there — her cheating boyfriend, with whom she broke up immediately after.
Other cases came up and soon Clarke was exposing dishonest boyfriends and girlfriends to their disheartened other halves all over campus. Once she exposed a guy who was taking advantage of a girl, using her as his ‘beard’. Then she started being asked to uncover secrets for other people.
Everything changed when one day Octavia, Bellamy’s sister and one of Clarke’s closest friends, suggested they make it a business. Everyone rejected the idea at first but when a client came waving with a dozen thousand dollar notes — none of them was able to say no to an extremely appealing deal. It was an easy job, too: seducing a rich prick to prove that he was a cheater so his wife could get the better end of the divorce settlement.
Clarke succeeded and rejoiced, then some thousand bucks richer and with a clear conscience, knowing she had exposed an asshole.
The business grew and the reasons for breaking couples up or discovering secrets got shadier — but by the they were all detached and filling their pockets. What was a broke couple when you could make some thousands? Besides, their ‘victims’ were always filthy rich — they could buy themselves a new boyfriend or girlfriend any day, anyway. At least that is what they kept telling themselves, perhaps in the hopes of being able to sleep at night after a particularly uncomfortable job.
Nowadays, Clarke does not need to tell herself that; she does not need to tell herself anything. It is a job. There are goals and honoraria and targets. There are no longer people; there are simply assets and variables and opportunities. Clarke has grown to love what she does — she is great at it. Whether she has to seduce or get secrets out of someone, Clarke is the best.
With secrets it is easy to explain. Clarke is naturally relatable and likeable. People see her and seem to trust her immediately; she has ‘one of those faces’. Helps that her ability for manipulation is virtually unmatched.
As for seduction, she has her assets. The eyes, the body, the personality, the sense of humour, the easy-going disposition, the hair — the voice. Oh the voice. People seem to go crazy for Clarke’s husky, sultry voice.
Clarke steals every scene. People seem to hang on to her every word and find comfort when she listens. She does not know why — she just know it happens every time.
This time was no different. It was easy to get close to Osias, the Nomads’ star quarterback, and earn his friendship. It was much more difficult to get him to bed; he was faithful to his wife Sienne until almost the very end. Still he strayed. Clarke recorded the audio; his moans for ‘Irina’ are quite the piece of evidence. Then a couple paparazzi pictures in a park bench, one while holding hands and another sharing a kiss, and they have enough material to create a social media scandal. Luckily for the NFL MVP, they are only going to show all this to his wife. Okay, so maybe he is not that lucky. But it could be worse
Clarke knows what happens next. Breakup, divorce request, then a string of bad performances till the end of the season. The Nomads lose the play-off, nor even reaching their minimum season goal of getting to the Super Bowl, all blame gets pinned on Osias, the cheating husband and slumping player. Clarke shrugs. He did cheat. He will get over it. By now she has developed immunity to sympathy or remorse. All her targets are filthy rich and living the life; if they really loved their wives and husbands and boyfriends and girlfriends, they would not cheat. There is no room for pity in this line of business. Clarke has only one rule: don’t fall in love with the job.
After saying her goodbyes to Osias, Clarke arrives at Arkadia Café, the front for their unique business. According to the IRS, their café is at least one of the most popular in town. In reality, it is almost always empty — save for when the health inspectors drop by. Lincoln makes damn good croissants though.
Clarke greets the young baker and walks past the doors to the back, where the rest of the team awaits her with victorious smiles. Behind her shenanigans there is a group of people making things happen, which Clarke is eternally grateful for.
“Hell yeah Griffin!” Raven cheers, walking up to her and slinging an arm over her shoulders. “Great job, almost as good as if I’d done it myself.”
“You don’t ever do the job, Raven,” Clarke smiles back.
“That’s only because I’m in a stale relationship. With my own job,” the brunette adds with a laugh. “Some of us have actual jobs that don’t earn them enough to buy expensive cars and apartments in the heart of Manhattan.”
“You’re describing yourself,” Octavia chimes in with a quirked eyebrow.
Raven feigns a thoughtful expression, and then shrugs with a smug smile. “Yes. Yes I am.”
The other two roll their eyes. “You seem to forget that I’m technically a doctor,” Clarke argues. “And you’re lucky we keep you around.”
“Yeah I forgot you have a doctor’s degree and somehow find this more fun.”
“It’s certainly more pleasurable,” the blonde tackles with a wink.
“Okay, wives,” Octavia intervenes again. “Enough with that. Clarke, how did it go?”
Just like that, everyone is all business again. Clarke hands the shorter brunette her phone. “You tell me. ’Irina’ sounds great in bed.”
Octavia rolls her eyes and heads to the computer, plugging the phone into it. Jasper steps forward then, showing Clarke his camera and the paparazzi pictures he took just a while ago. The blonde inspects them carefully and can’t help a frown at the end.
“You were careless, Jasper,” she scolds. “My face is almost visible.”
“Almost,” he emphasises. “But not quite. Don’t worry, Clarkey, you’re safe with me. My skills are unmatched.”
Clarke rests a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “And that’s why you’re with us. Keep up the great work, Jas.”
He smiles back and leaves, probably to beg Lincoln for some croissants. Bellamy comes up to Clarke then, his signature smirk drawing a smile from her as well.
“Well done, Princess. I heard you banged his brains out.”
She gives him a light, half amused half annoyed, shove. “Shut up Bellamy.”
“You should do that to me one day.”
Clarke rolls her eyes and shakes her head, but smiles nonetheless. “Don’t be gross. Besides, we both know I’m not who you’re after,” she adds and is all too pleased when he grumbles unintelligibly, suddenly in a bad mood.
“We got you a new job,” he says, now rather brusquely, wanting to put an end to his own embarrassment. “Details on your desk, meeting here tomorrow at 3pm.”
Clarke frowns at the last bit of information. “Only the most secretive clients meet here.”
“Then you know how secretive they are,” Bellamy nods seriously. “They’ve got secrets spilling out their ass.” He gives her a light pat on the back and starts walking away towards his office. “Good job on the quarterback. My back account thanks you for the extra five grand.”
Clarke grins. It feels good to finish a job successfully. “Twenty five for me!” she shouts at Bellamy just as he’s opening the door to his office.
The only response he gives her is a middle finger over the shoulder.
Clarke skims over the details Bellamy left on her desk. It is not much: their new client is Azgeda Inc, a popular medium-high class clothing brand Clarke knows well. She personally prefers wearing Polis, it’s lighter, classier, and much more comfortable (prettier too), but she can see the appeal of the ‘icy and aggressive haute couture’ style. The representative that will work with them tomorrow is Echo White, a high rank within the company.
Instead of doing her own research, Clarke decides she’ll leave that to someone who can dig up much more, much faster. So she leaves her office and heads over to the tech room. Even before entering, she can hear the childish laughter coming from inside the room. Clarke sighs and rolls her eyes, only then opening the door.
As expected, Monty is in the tech room, surrounded by all the technology he and Raven created, and Jasper. The two best friends are laughing their heads off over something probably not even funny, Monty in his chair and Jasper sitting on the desk. Clarke crosses her arms, having to wait almost a minute for the two potheads to notice her. When they finally do, laughter dies down immediately.
“You two better not be stoned,” she warns.
“Not this time,” Jasper replies with a cheeky smile. When Clarke’s expression remains as serious as ever, with only an eyebrow rising to accentuate her lack of amusement, Jasper realises he’d better make himself scarce. “I’ll just— I’ll just go. Do my job,” he stutters, tripping over his own feet as he walks past her and leaves the room.
“How do you manage to remain so serious?” Monty asks once the door is closed behind Clarke.
She shrugs. “I don’t know, but I think it comes with practice,” she says with a shake of head and a smile. “You should tell him I don’t bite though.”
“And miss the chance to see him pee his pants like that every time you come in here?” Monty grins. “No way.”
Clarke chuckles and hands him the file on Azgeda Inc. “The lecture also goes to you. But I’ll let you get away with it this time.”
Monty takes the file and reads through it quickly. “If I dig up everything I can on Azgeda Inc, am I correct?”
“You know me so well. There’s not much on there.”
“More like nothing at all.” He puts down the file and turns to his computer, firing through the keyboard and a dozen windows already. “Don’t worry Clarke,” he assures as he types. “When I’m done looking them up, we’ll know more about Azgeda than Azgeda themselves.”
Clarke cannot argue with that, and gladly. She has seen the results of Monty’s magic many times before.
Sure enough, a few hours later, Clarke is heading back home with a huge file on Agzeda Inc sitting on her passenger seat. It is her date for tonight.
Clarke sighs to herself. As much as she loves her job — because yes, it is unusual, and some may find it ‘slutty’ but she likes it, she’s unmasking cheating bastards and handing them on a silver platter to people who can punish them for that — it has its downsides. The biggest of them being that if she is spending time in other people’s beds, she cannot really date anyone.
So Clarke is alone. She does not mind it all that much, but it sometimes leaves a nagging feeling of solitude. A ‘what if’.
Clarke finally gets home, taking the file upstairs. She lives in a rather large apartment in Manhattan, nothing stupidly big, but still quite luxurious. Clarke reckons that if she earns enough to buy herself something nice, then why not.
She places the files on the island counter in the middle of the kitchen and sits down on one of the stools, ready to go through what Monty has dig up.
Azgeda is part of a group of companies, Command, which owns others like Polis, Floudon, Blue Cliff, etc. The CEO of Polis, some Alexandria Woods woman, is the leader of the Command group. The CEO of Azgeda is a 50-year old woman called Virginia Queen, though everyone apparently calls her Nia. Her son, Roan, is the vice-president and her right-hand man, and expected heir to the metaphorical company throne. Echo White is third in the chain of command and a close friend of both Nia and Roan’s. Family business, Clarke observes.
Recently Azgeda stocks have experienced a historic peak with the release of their new line of winter coats and the announcement of the engagement between Roan and Ontari, a woman with a high position at none other than Polis. Things have been going great for Azgeda, so Clarke doesn’t imagine what they might want to ask of her.
Just as she’s starting to read what Monty dug up on the Command group and Polis, Clarke’s phone rings in her purse. She pulls it out, taking the call as soon as she sees who it is from.
“Hey mom.”
“Clarke, I’d like you to bring a pie for dinner today.” Clarke’s eyes widen impossibly. Shit. Dinner at her mom’s. She forgot. “You didn’t forget, didn’t you, honey?”
“What? No! No, of course not, mom. I’m just uh—“ she checks the time on her watch, 6:30 pm. “I’m just a little late.”
“You can buy the pie if you want, sweetheart.”
“No, no worries, I’ll make it. Can’t promise it’ll be great, but I’ll make it.”
There’s an indecisive pause on the other side of the line. “Okay. Just try to be here at 8:30 the latest.”
“Sure thing, mom.”
“Alright Clarke. I love you, see you later.”
“Love you too, mom. See ya.”
After hanging up, Clarke looks at the files on the counter and sighs. She will have to read the rest tomorrow.
Clarke gets to the café just before 2:30. She didn’t have time to read about Command and Polis, but her friends will surely have her covered. Anyway, the most important parts — Azgeda — are all well studied.
At three pm sharp, young woman with light hair and icy brown glare enters the café, welcomed by Clarke, Bellamy, Octavia, and Raven. All formalities are over with pretty shortly and they can finally talk business, which the woman does without losing time.
“My name is Echo White and I’m the representative of Azgeda,” she says as she sits at one table, bringing her briefcase up to rest on her knees. She pulls something out of it, a small file, and lays it on the table. “You will have a budget of five million dollars for the job. It will be available for you on a bank account that you will be able to access freely once you sign these papers, with a card that will arrive shortly after the paperwork has been submitted to the bank. This budget is for everything that has to do with the job, from eating and travelling to accommodation or technology, even a flat tire. You can buy a damn yacht if you think it helps you. So as you can see, money is not an issue. Your colleague Mr Blake told me you were six total, so each of you will be given an advance payment of 25 thousand dollars — except Miss Griffin, who will be given 50 thousand. Take it as an incentive. If you complete the job, each of you will receive 75 thousand, while Miss Griffin will get 150. Does this seem fair to you?”
Clarke opens her mouth to demand equal payment for her and her friends, but Bellamy is faster, “Yes, ma’am.”
Echo nods solemnly. “Good. On to the specifics of the case, then.” She pulls out three photographs from her suitcase and lays them on the table before the group of four, facing them. “These are Alexandria Woods and Nathan Miller, CEO’s of Polis and Skysafe Inc, respectively. They have just announced their engagement and both companies’ stocks have gone sky-high.”
“You’re members of Command group, which is let by Alexandria herself,” Raven recalls. “Wouldn’t the current situation be in your best interest?”
Echo smiles cynically. “To put it simply: we want the top spot. We have an inside woman at Command and if we discredit Polis, the group will be ours. Miss Woods wants Skysafe to join the group, that’s the last thing we want. Breaking this couple up would lower their stock value. Marriage is a partnership and a constitution. If you can’t hold something so personal together, your partners won’t trust you to hold your own company together as well. Divorces and separations are discrediting to any businessperson. Besides, the end of the engagement would also mean the end of all relations between Polis and Skysafe. There is much to profit for Azgeda from this engagement going awry, especially — and that is where you go in — if it goes down in… spectacular fashion,” she concludes with a wry smirk.
Octavia hums in agreement. “I see. So we break them up in rather scandalous way.”
“Yes,” Echo nods. “Submit everything to us in the end and we will decide what to do with it. The moment we have the material, the job is over. We will analyse everything and give you the money then.”
“Do we have a deadline?” Clarke asks.
“The marriage will be in four months. I want the information up until two weeks prior.”
“Alright.” Clarke takes the file with the bank documents and starts signing wherever it is needed. Once she is finished, she hands the papers back to Echo. “Consider it done.”
Monty is holding a little remote in his hand, standing in front of a projector and looking at his small audience. “Our targets: Alexandria Woods and Nathan Miller.” He steps aside and lets the image plaster itself on the white wall, presenting two figures.
One is an extremely good-looking man, with dark skin, a beautiful smile and probably the best beard in the whole state of New York. The second is most certainly the most gorgeous woman Clarke has ever seen. Piercing green eyes, brown curly hair braided behind her head, regal nose, full lips, killer jawline, high cheekbones, and long lean legs that seem to go on for miles. “Nathan and Alexandria dated for six months before announcing their engagement, just two months ago,” Monty starts.
“All very mathematical,” Raven notes. “Six months to get engaged, six months to get married… Six months to get divorced?”
Jasper laughs at her joke and the two high five, causing Clarke to roll her eyes. “Raven, Jasper,” she warns. Both her friends shut up right away.
Monty clears his throat. “They are media sweethearts, the press loves this couple. Unsurprisingly so: young, in power, good looking, and in love. They are very kind with each other,” images of the couple talking to each other with small smiles and holding arms follow. “But actual PDA is non existent. Not a kiss, no handholding. Best we got is a hug.”
“Have they ever been questioned about that?” Octavia speaks up.
“Yes. Nathan said that Alexandria is a very private person and prefers to save her affection for when they’re alone.”
An inappropriate whistle sounds to Clarke’s right and she doesn’t need to look to know it was Jasper, so she smacks the back of his head. He whines but doesn’t dare complain.
“So we go for the guy,” Octavia concludes easily. “They’re both straight and obviously very close. This Alexandria chick does seem very private so I think what Nathan said wasn’t just an excuse. PDA means nothing when analysing a couple like them.”
“I say we go for Alexandria.” Every head turns to Clarke with raised eyebrows. She shrugs. “What? She’s obviously gay.”
“Yeah and I’m obviously Pocahontas,” Octavia sasses back.
“I’m just saying. My gaydar is beeping like crazy.”
Raven smirks. “I think that’s your thirst.”
That earns her an eye roll. “Look, I’m telling you, we should go for her,” Clarke insists. “My gaydar is flawless.”
“She’s engaged to a dude, Clarke! Last time we believed you when you said a woman was gay,” Octavia argues, “Amanda Plummer slapped you in the face and walked out the door and we lost a job.”
“That was one time!”
“It was also the one time we decided to follow your ‘flawless gaydar’. And the one time we failed.”
Clarke crosses her arms and pouted. “Fine.”
Raven pats her leg in consolation. “I know she’s hot Griffin, but you can’t force her to be gay just ‘cause you wanna eat her out.”
“Whatever,” the blonde grumbles.
Bellamy stands up, obviously choosing to ignore the three women, and goes to stand beside Monty. He clears his throat. “It’s decided then. We go after Nathan Miller, and this time we don’t stop at little evidence. We have to pull as much as we can, the most obvious the better. This guy has to go down.”
“Well Clarke will go down on him for sure,” Jasper jokes, earning a glare from the blonde.
She looks at the screen, taking in the two people that compose the couple. Just talking to Echo gave her chills. Looking at those two makes her smile. They seem like good people. They do not seem like the cheating type.
“We’ll see,” she whispers to herself, a smile drawing in her lips as though she just accepted a challenge. Which she has.