Chapter Twelve
Gabriel
Rules, boundaries, schedules, discipline: I craved them, even when I hated them.
First thing in the morning, the apartment was always too cold, the city always too loud, my inbox always already full.
I scanned the day’s logistics on a triple-locked spreadsheet and told myself the problem was overload.
Not distraction. Not the way Eliza’s silence, her absence, had wired itself directly into the back of my skull.
Not the way I could remember every last syllable of our last conversation, and every micro expression on her face. And the feeling of her lips on mine.
It was a processing issue, that was all. Glitch in the system. One more thing to fix.
Today, I dressed with extra care, though I always did.
Cufflinks, tailored shirt, tie with a half-Windsor so precise you could measure it in millimeters.
I checked the window for the car, even though it was always on time.
My morning routine was a sequence of deliberate motions engineered to fend off chaos. But the chaos got smarter.
Eliza wasn’t in early. That made sense; she’d been off since the kiss, and her face since had seemed locked somewhere between “fuck you” and “I dare you.” I should have felt relief. Instead, every tick of her absence registered as an error in the system: missing variable, pending calculation.
The first time I saw Calvin, it was accidental.
But not, really. He made a show of bumping into me at the espresso machine like he had yesterday, holding his phone like a nervous tic.
He was in the off-brand version of a startup uniform: jeans, an unpressed shirt, jacket that might have cost more than my first car.
The kind of look that said, “I don’t care about impressions,” but only if you ignored the fact that it was all meticulously planned.
“Valor,” he said, with a tight, too-bright smile. “You look like you haven’t slept.”
“Efficiency,” I said. “Sleep reduces the need for caffeine.”
He loaded a cup into the machine. “You know, you’re allowed to delegate, man. Even the robot overlords have maintenance windows.”
I didn’t bother with banter. “We need to talk about the team structure.”
His eyes narrowed, instantly suspicious. “This isn’t about me coming in at nine, is it? Because I could come in at six, but I’d just do it from bed.”
“It’s not about you. It’s about Eliza.” Even saying her name cost something. “She’s more than capable of handling the client side alone. In fact, I think my presence is only complicating things. It’s creating unnecessary overlap.”
His face went blank. That was never a good sign.
I pressed on. “We need clean boundaries. You want speed? Let her work without me on her heels. She’ll move faster.”
He sipped his coffee, then made a face like I’d handed him a hand grenade with the pin already out. “Wow. Okay. Didn’t expect you to fold this soon.”
“This isn’t folding. It’s efficiency. You want results? Let’s cut redundancy.”
A moment. “You ever consider you’re not actually redundant?” Calvin’s voice lost the usual lightness. “Valor, they’re only backing this deal because you’re involved. Because you’re a known quantity. You step out, and the whole thing gets sketchy, fast.”
“It’s not necessary. Eliza’s-”
He cut me off. “Don’t. Don’t say she’s fine on her own. We both know that. But it’s not about her. It’s about everyone watching. If you step back, they’ll think she’s impossible to work with. They’ll drop us.”
He set his coffee down, looked at me like he was waiting for me to blink. “If she blows this, it’s her ass. If you blow it, it’s mine. You think I want to bet on anyone else?”
That one stung, but I knew he was right. The optics were important, too.
Fuck.
On the surface, the workday was normal. Crisis, decision, optimize, repeat. But every window of downtime, every thread of inattention, ran straight back to the same closed circuit: Eliza.
The system “glitch” that crashed her proposal that day wasn’t random. I’d traced the logs, found the anomaly. A permissions override, midnight timestamp, someone inside the firewall. It was surgical. Meant to humiliate, but more than that, meant to raise questions about her competence.
Eliza was never careless. She lived on perfectionism the way some people lived on nicotine and rage. Whoever wanted to break her, they’d done their homework.
I checked the logs again, obsessive. I ran the names. I ran the security stack until the IT department pinged me and asked if I was getting paranoid. I answered honestly: “Yes.”
I timed lunch so I’d catch Calvin alone. He’d just closed a call, voice still echoing with the tail end of a pitch. “You’re stalking me,” he said.
“You said I’m the target. Explain.”
He didn’t look up. “You want me to say it? Fine. The board’s betting on your restraint. They don’t believe you can keep your shit together with Eliza around. They want to see you under fire. You pull out now, it looks bad. For everyone.”
He paused. “And someone’s testing her, too. Maybe the same someone. Maybe not.”
I ran my hand over my jaw, a small gesture, but enough to break the surface tension. “Who benefits if she fails?”
Calvin shrugged. “Not me. Not you. But there’s plenty who think she’s in over her head. Maybe some old-guard who wanted the slot for themselves. Maybe someone she beat for the job.”
I considered the list. There were names. Always names. Always motives.
So I texted Eliza: Call me if you want a shield.
No response. Not for an hour, not for the rest of the day.
I worked late. I told myself it was because I needed to get ahead of the next move, the next glitch, the next goddamn landmine.
I didn’t admit, even to myself, that I was waiting for her to walk in and throw something, words, files, a sharp heel, at my head. But the door stayed closed.
The office cleared out around five. And when night fell, I was the only one left in the office besides the cleaning crew.
I heard them in the distance. I spun in my chair, watched the city lights blur through the glass.
I pulled up her file. Looked at her projects, her timelines, her digital footprint.
It wasn’t stalking, not really. It was reconnaissance.
I was trying to find the threat before it found her.
But I knew, already, I knew, she wouldn’t want my protection. She’d hate me for it. She’d see it as an insult. But what if I was wrong? What if this time, she actually needed it?
That thought was the one that stuck. That, and the memory of her voice when she said my name last, acid-edged and perfect.
“Gabriel.”
It echoed in my mind.
I closed my laptop. Stared at the screen, waiting for something to change, as if willpower alone could do the trick. But nothing did. Not for the rest of the night.
*
We shared the conference table the next morning, both of us pretending to focus on the swirl of graphs and slides, the glow of blue light on glass.
She looked like she hadn’t slept either, but the effect was different on her.
If anything, it sharpened her: the lines of her jaw, the way her eyes tracked every movement in the room.
Her hair was down today, and that detail, so minor, nearly split my concentration.
I watched her work, hands steady on the trackpad, every line of her body announcing she was over it.
Over me. Or so it looked to anyone who didn’t know what to look for.
I’d memorized her tells. The controlled breath before she replied to a stupid question.
The tic of her heel, barely grazing the floor.
The way she chewed her lip when she wanted to say something cruel but didn’t.
She didn’t look at me. Not once.
On the screen, her model was immaculate.
Every projection nailed, every outlier accounted for.
There was no trace of the “glitch” that had almost wrecked her last deliverable.
But if you looked closer, you could see it: a shadow of extra caution in every word, every bullet point.
She was protecting herself, fortifying every angle so nothing could be twisted against her.
I understood it now. The silence wasn’t anger. It was strategy. A shield.
The meeting adjourned. Everyone filed out, some glancing back at her with a blend of awe and low-key resentment. I stayed seated, waited until the room emptied.
“You crushed it,” I said.
She didn’t flinch, didn’t give me even that.
“Next time someone tries to kneecap you,” I added, “maybe let me know before you torch your own code.”
This got a response: a small, sharp laugh, equal parts surprise and disgust. “What are you, my babysitter now?”
“Apparently.”
Her eyes finally met mine. No heat, just analysis. “You’re wasting your time. I’m not the one who needs saving.”
I wanted to say, Maybe I am, but even I wasn’t that self-pitying.
Instead: “If you think you’re not on someone’s radar, you’re wrong.”
Her mouth did that thing, the barest curve. “Welcome to the real world, Valor.”
I could have left it there. Should have. But I knew I wouldn’t.
“Just-” I started, then stopped. I didn’t know what to offer her. I wasn’t sure I had anything she’d take.
She stood. Collected her things. “Don’t worry. If I go down, I won’t take you with me.”
She left. The door swung shut, slower than I expected.
Almost for a minute, I didn’t move. I replayed her voice, her eyes, every microsecond of the exchange. I saw her, on the other side of the glass, walking away like she owned the floor. Even now, even after everything, she did.
She’d built walls so high that only someone who really wanted in could scale them. But every wall had a weakness. And now, for the first time, I was sure of mine: her.
I understood her withdrawal now. It wasn’t rejection. It was the only defense she had left.
Someone wanted her to fail. I didn’t know who, or how deep it went. But I knew this: if they wanted to break her, they’d have to go through me.
And I’d have fun breaking them.