Liam
The parking garage is dark and cold and smells like oil and concrete, and I sit in the back of a blackcar with the windows tinted so dark I can barely see the outline of the building across the street. But I see her, I always see her, Zoe walking through the entrance with her shoulders straight and her head up and the folder clutched against her chest like a shield she does not know how to put down. She is wearing the navy blue dress again, the one she wore the first day, and I watch her move through the shadows and I feel my hands clench at my sides and I tell myself that this is necessary, that this is part of the plan, that I cannot go to her, cannot protect her, cannot do anything except sit here and wait and hope that she is as strong as I think she is.
She disappears into the building and I lean forward in my seat and I press my hand against the window and I do not breathe, do not move, do not allow myself to do anything that might betray the fact that my heart is pounding and my chest is tight and I would trade everything I have to be the one walking into that building with her. My driver, a man named Marcus who has been with me since my father died, glances at me in the rearview mirror and says, "She will be fine. She is smarter than she looks."
I want to tell him that she is smarter than any of us, that she sees things the rest of us miss, that she walked into my office with a fake name and a lie on her tongue and looked at me like she was the one holding all the cards. But I do not, because I do not talk about her, I do not let anyone see what she is doing to me, I do not admit that I have been sitting in this car for an hour watching a door I cannot walk through because the woman on the other side is the only thing that has made me feel alive in two years.
The door opens and she steps out, and I see her face in the dim light, pale and still and beautiful, and I let out a breath I did not know I was holding. I lean back in my seat and I close my eyes and I let the relief wash over me, and I do not let myself think about what it means that her safety is the only thing that matters, that her face is the only thing I see when I close my eyes. She walks toward the car and Marcus opens the door and she slides in beside me, and the space between us is too small and too large and I can smell her, something clean and soft, something that makes my chest tight and my hands unsteady.
"It went well," she says, and her voice is steady, the steel back in place, and I look at her and I see the folder in her hands, empty now, the lies delivered, the test passed. I want to ask her what Evelyn said, what she saw, what she felt when she sat across from the woman who tried to make her a weapon, but I do not, because I do not want to hear her voice crack, do not want to see her hands shake, do not want to know that she was afraid because if she was afraid I will have to admit that I was afraid too.
"Tell me," I say, and my voice is rougher than I intended.
She tells me about the meeting, about Evelyn's questions, about the file she gave her, about the way Evelyn smiled when she looked at the papers, cold and satisfied. I watch her face as she speaks and I see the cracks in her armor, the places where the mask slips, the woman underneath who is tired and scared and carrying a weight she should never have had to carry. I want to tell her that she does not have to do this, that I can find another way, but I know it is a lie, I know that she is the only way in, and I hate myself for it.
"She wants more," Zoe says, and her voice is quieter now, and I see her hands tighten on the folder, her knuckles white, her fingers trembling.
"She always wants more," I say, and my voice is cold, colder than I meant it to be, and I see her flinch, just slightly, and I hate myself for it.
We drive in silence through the city, and I watch the lights flicker past, the buildings rising and falling, the streets emptying as the night grows older. I do not look at her because if I look at her I will see the woman who is breaking under the weight of the lies I have asked her to carry, and I will want to save her, and I do not know how to save anyone.
The car stops outside her building, a narrow brick thing with a broken door and a flickering light, and I look at it and I think about her sitting in that small apartment with the thin walls and the neighbors arguing and the radiator clanking. She opens the door and she steps out into the night, and I watch her stand there for a moment, her face turned toward the sky, her arms wrapped around herself against the cold.
"Zoe," I say, and the word comes out before I can stop it. She turns and looks at me, her eyes grey and wide and waiting, and I do not know what I want to say, do not know what words will bridge the distance between us. She waits, and I say nothing, and after a moment she nods, just once, and she turns and walks into her building and the door closes behind her and I am alone again.
The next morning I am in my office before the sun rises, before the city wakes, before I have to face her again and pretend that I am still the man I was before she walked into my life. I sit at my desk and I look at the photograph of my father, the one I have not been able to look at for months, and I try to remember what it felt like to be the man he raised, the man who believed in justice, who believed that the world could be made right if you were willing to fight for it. I do not remember.
The door opens and she walks in, and the light from the window catches her hair, her face, her hands, and I feel something crack in my chest. I look at her and I know that I am lost, that I have been lost since the moment I saw her photograph, since the moment I knew she was coming.
"You are early," I say, and my voice is the same as always, cold and controlled.
"I wanted to see my mother before work," she says, and she walks to her desk and sits down and opens the folder and becomes the woman I hired, the assistant, the liar, the weapon I am trying not to want.
My phone buzzes on the desk, and I look at the screen and see a message from my security team, and the words make my blood run cold. Evelyn Cole is moving faster than expected. She has asked for a meeting with Zoe tonight. She wants the second file. And she wants something else. A photograph. Proof that Zoe is close to you. Proof that the seduction is working.
I look up, and Zoe is watching me, her face pale, her hands steady, and I know that she sees the change in my expression.
"What is it?" she asks, and her voice is calm, the steel back in place.
I stand up and walk toward her, and I do not stop until I am standing in front of her, close enough to touch, close enough to see the fear in her eyes. "Evelyn wants proof," I say, and my voice is rough. "She wants to see us together. She wants to believe that you are doing what she hired you to do."
She looks up at me, and I see the question in her eyes, the fear, the hope, the thing we have both been pretending is not there. "And what are you going to give her?" she asks.
I reach out and I touch her face, my fingers brushing her cheek, her skin soft and warm and alive, and I feel something break inside me. I lean down and I press my lips to hers and I kiss her, and the world falls away, and there is nothing but her mouth, her hands, her breath, and the sound of my own heart beating in my chest like a drum, like a warning, like the beginning of something I cannot stop.