Chapter Text
Chapter 17
Maya’s words hung in the frigid air of the alley, a confession so raw and unexpected it seemed to suck all the sound from the world. “Leaving you alone is the one thing I can’t do.” It was a crack in the granite, a glimpse of the molten core beneath the ice, and it left Claudine utterly, speechlessly adrift. Her rage, her fear, her carefully constructed defiance it all shattered against the undeniable sincerity of that ragged whisper.
The moment was broken by a pained groan from the man with the broken wrist. The sound was a harsh reentry into reality. Instantly, the flicker of vulnerability in Maya’s eyes vanished, extinguished as if it had never been there. The weary, frustrated woman was gone, replaced once more by the Laurent heir. She released Claudine’s wrists, her touch ghosting away, leaving Claudine’s skin feeling both cold and burned.
Without another glance at her, Maya pulled a sleek, black phone from an inner pocket of her dark jacket. Her thumb moved across the screen with swift efficiency. She put the phone to her ear, turning her back on Claudine, a deliberate act of dismissal that both stung and, strangely, felt like a shield.
"C'est moi," Maya said, her voice low and devoid of all emotion. [It's me.] The shift to French was jarring, another layer of separation. "J'ai un colis pour l'enlèvement. Ruelle est, derrière l'Elysian. Deux unités, conscientes mais neutralisées. Pas de témoins." [I have a package for pickup. East alley, behind Elysian. Two units, conscious but neutralized. No witnesses.]
Claudine watched, frozen against the brick wall, as Maya listened to the response. The casual, clinical language she used package for pickup, units, neutralized sent a fresh wave of ice through Claudine’s veins. She was talking about human beings as if they were inconvenient cargo to be disposed of. This was the world she had warned her about, a world of cold logistics and brutal consequences.
"Faites vite," Maya finished, before ending the call and sliding the phone away. [Make it quick.]
She finally turned back to Claudine. The fury was gone, replaced by a heavy, unreadable calm. Her eyes, however, were still dark with the ghosts of violence. She scanned Claudine from head to toe, her gaze analytical, searching for injuries. The intensity of the look made Claudine feel stripped bare, her flimsy anger and her beautiful, useless dress offering no protection.
"Are you hurt?" Maya’s voice was flat, a simple inquiry.
Claudine shook her head, unable to find her voice. Her whole body was trembling, a delayed reaction to the terror and the adrenaline. Her crimson dress felt garish and absurd in the grim reality of the alley.
"Good," Maya stated. "Our ride is two blocks away. We’re leaving. Now."
She didn't offer a hand. She simply started walking towards the mouth of the alley, her stride confident and purposeful, expecting Claudine to follow. For a moment, Claudine’s pride flared. She hated being ordered around, hated the assumption that she would just fall in line. But then she looked at the two men groaning on the ground, at the glint of the fallen knife, and the pride shriveled. She pushed herself off the wall, her stiletto heels unsteady on the broken pavement, and hurried to catch up.
The two block walk was a surreal nightmare. Maya walked slightly ahead of her, a silent, dark vanguard, her head constantly scanning their surroundings. She navigated the late night streets of the city with the predatory awareness of a creature in its natural habitat, while Claudine, for the first time in her life, felt like prey. She was acutely aware of every person they passed, of the sound of her own ridiculous heels clicking on the sidewalk. She pulled her arms around herself, trying to ward off a chill that had nothing to do with the night air.
A black town car, identical to the one she'd seen Maya with at the abandoned gym, was waiting at the corner, its engine idling silently. The driver’s side window was down, revealing the same weathered, watchful man. He gave a curt nod as Maya approached.
"Tout est réglé?" he asked. [Is everything handled?]
"Presque," Maya replied. "Attends l'équipe de nettoyage avant de bouger." [Almost. Wait for the cleanup crew before you move.]
The man nodded again. Maya opened the back door and held it, her eyes fixed on Claudine. It was the first gesture of consideration she’d shown since the fight, and it felt strangely monumental. Claudine slid into the cool leather interior without a word. Maya followed, and the door closed with a heavy, final sounding thud, sealing them inside the silent, tinted bubble of the car.
As the car pulled smoothly into traffic, the silence between them was a living thing. It was thick with everything that had been said and everything that hadn't. Claudine stared out the window at the blurred city lights, her own reflection a pale, terrified ghost against the glass. She could feel Maya’s presence beside her, a contained, humming stillness that was somehow more intimidating than her rage.
She risked a glance at her. Maya was leaning her head back against the headrest, her eyes closed. The thin, angry scratch on her cheek stood out in sharp relief against her pale skin. It was a mark of violence, a mark she had earned protecting Claudine. The sight of it sent a complex, painful pang through Claudine’s chest. It was a mixture of guilt, fear, and a terrifying, unfamiliar flicker of gratitude.
Her throat was dry. "Your face," she whispered, the words barely audible.
Maya’s eyes opened, but she didn’t turn her head. "It will heal."
"Did he… with the knife?"
"It doesn't matter."
"It does!" Claudine insisted, her voice rising with a frustration she couldn’t contain. "You were hurt because of me! Because I was stupid and reckless and "
"Yes," Maya cut her off, finally turning to look at her. Her eyes were dark and unreadable in the dim light of the car. "You were. But that changes nothing."
The cold finality of the statement shut Claudine down. She lapsed back into silence, her mind racing. The penthouse, once a symbol of their forced, infuriating proximity, now loomed in her mind as the only safe place on earth.
When they finally arrived and stepped into the sterile, marble and glass elegance of the apartment, the tension that had been simmering between them finally reached its boiling point. Claudine kicked off her heels the moment the door was closed, the sound echoing in the cavernous space.
"So that's it?" she demanded, whirling to face Maya. "You just drop a bomb like that 'My enemies are your enemies' and then you expect me to just lock myself in this tower and wait for you to issue orders on little slips of paper?"
Maya was shrugging off her jacket, her movements measured and calm. "It would be the logical course of action, yes."
"Logical?" Claudine’s laugh was sharp and brittle. "There is nothing logical about this! You follow me, you fight my battles, you say things things like you did in the alley and you expect me to just accept it? I saw you back there, Maya. You weren't a student. You were… something else. And you were terrifying. And you think I’m just going to hand over my life to you?"
"Your life was handed to me the moment my father agreed to this arrangement," Maya stated, her voice dangerously quiet. She placed her jacket on the back of a chair. "The events of the past week have simply made the terms of that arrangement clear."
"The terms?" Claudine advanced on her, her fear completely eclipsed by her rage. "Which terms are those? The one where you track my every move? Don't deny it. That note wasn't a lucky guess. You knew I was going out. You put a tracker on me, didn't you? On my phone? In my purse? Did you bug the whole apartment while you were at it?"
She was expecting a denial, a cold, logical explanation that would make her feel foolish. She was expecting a fight. What she wasn't expecting was for Maya to simply meet her furious gaze without a flicker of remorse.
"Yes," Maya said.
The single word was a bucket of ice water. Claudine stopped dead in her tracks, speechless.
"I put a tracker in the lining of the wallet I gave you," Maya continued, her voice a calm, even confession. "There are discreet pressure sensors on all the exits that alert my phone when they are opened after certain hours. Your driver is one of my father’s most trusted men. I always know where you are, Claudine. Always."
The confession was so blatant, so unapologetic, it was breathtaking. All the air left Claudine’s lungs.
"You… you controlling, arrogant "
"Do you think this is about control?" Maya interrupted, taking a step towards her, her calm finally starting to crack. "Do you think this is a game? Do you think I enjoy rearranging my entire operational schedule to pull your reckless self out of a fire you started?"
She took another step, closing the distance between them. The air was thick with her scent rain, steel, and a faint, metallic tang of adrenaline.
"I saw the men at the club tonight an hour before you did," Maya’s voice was a low, intense growl. "I was a minute away from extracting you quietly when you decided to take a 'shortcut' down a dark alley. Do you have any idea what they would have done to you? What kind of message they were trying to send through you?"
"That's not the point!" Claudine shot back, refusing to back down. "The point is you have no right!"
"No right?" Maya was standing directly in front of her now, her presence overwhelming. The fury was back in her eyes, but this time it was different. It was raw, personal, and fiercely protective. "You are walking through a warzone, Claudine, and you are dressed for a garden party. My 'right' comes from the fact that I am the only one standing between you and a bullet!"
"That's not it!" Claudine insisted, though her voice wavered. "You’re doing this because I’m a woman, you think I’m weak, that I can't "
"Don't be an idiot," Maya snapped, her voice cutting through Claudine’s tirade like a whip. "I have never, not for one second, thought you were weak. I have seen you dismantle opponents in a debate with words sharp enough to draw blood. I have watched you command a room with nothing more than a smile. Your gender is irrelevant to me."
She leaned in, her voice dropping to a low, possessive whisper that vibrated through Claudine’s very bones.
"I wasn't worried about you tonight because you are a woman. I was worried about you because you are my woman. You are my responsibility. My… complication. And you were walking right into a nest of my enemies."
Claudine’s breath hitched. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a wild, frantic bird. My woman. The words were a brand, searing themselves into her mind.
"So what if I keep tracks on you?" Maya continued, her gaze burning with an intensity that pinned Claudine in place. "So what if I follow you? When your life is on the line, your privacy is a luxury neither of us can afford. Your freedom ends where my enemies begin. And tonight, you saw exactly where that line is. So you can yell, and you can scream, and you can call me every name you can think of. But I will not apologize for keeping you alive."
She held Claudine’s gaze for a long, silent moment, the possessive claim hanging in the air between them, irrefutable and terrifying and thrilling. The fight went out of Claudine, replaced by a dizzying, chaotic storm of emotion. It was the most arrogant, infuriating, and undeniably romantic thing anyone had ever said to her.
Finally, Maya stepped back, the intensity receding, leaving a tense, humming quiet in its wake. She turned and walked toward the small medical kit she kept in the kitchen, her movements stiff. Claudine stood rooted to the spot, watching as Maya pulled out an antiseptic wipe and began to clean the scratch on her cheek, her hand steady, her expression once again a carefully constructed mask.
But it was too late. The mask had slipped. Claudine had seen the truth behind it. And that truth had just laid a claim on her that she knew, with a terrifying, heart stopping certainty, she would never be able to escape.