Chapter 4 — I Dont Save People, I Manage Damage #2
“But it's going to cost you,” I whispered. “Every second of your time, every ounce of your energy, every thought in your head. Do you understand now? You're not here just to translate. You're here to pay off his blood debt.”
Elena held my gaze. There was terror there, yes. But something more. A spark of recognition. She knew, in that moment, that we were caught in the same trap. I needed her to translate and keep the secret. She needed me to rewrite reality.
“I understand,” she said, her voice steady despite her trembling body. “I'll do the work. But don't expect gratitude.”
I smiled. A cold smile, joyless.
“I don't want your gratitude, Elena. I want your competence. And your obedience.”
I stepped back, breaking the electric tension that threatened to scorch the air between us.
“Get back to the table. We have a lot to do before dinner.”
The hours that followed were a marathon of bureaucratic horror.
We worked in silence, only the sound of keyboards and turning pages filling the room. Daylight died outside, replaced by the absolute darkness of the forest. I switched on the dim office lights, creating an amber bubble of concentration.
Elena was a machine. She translated with speed and precision that bordered on supernatural. She found connections I'd missed. Names that appeared in footnotes of Serbian documents and resurfaced in Swiss invoices.
At nine, she stopped. She rubbed her eyes with the backs of her hands and let out a long sigh.
“I'm hungry,” she said bluntly.
I glanced at the clock. Nine fifteen. I'd forgotten to eat. Forgotten about the world outside those papers.
“The kitchen is stocked,” I said, not looking up from the spreadsheet I was analyzing. “Make something for us.”
Her silence made me look up.
Elena was staring at me, incredulous.
“I'm not your maid, Gabriel. The contract says translation and administrative assistance. It doesn't say personal chef.”
I pressed the tip of the pen, feeling the metal bite into my skin. I was tired, irritated, my head swimming with federal crimes. The last thing I needed was domestic insubordination.
“Would you prefer I order a pizza?” I asked, my voice dripping sarcasm. “The delivery guy should take about forty-five minutes to drive up the mountain, pass through three security gates, and sign an NDA before delivering the pepperoni.”
She crossed her arms.
“I'd prefer you act like a human being who also needs to eat, not like some feudal lord.”
I snapped the laptop shut.
“Fine. Get up.”
We went to the kitchen. It was an industrial space, all stainless steel and black marble. Cold. Functional. Like everything in my life.
I opened the refrigerator. Fresh ingredients my housekeeper had left before being dismissed for the weekend. Wagyu steaks, organic vegetables, free-range eggs.
I took out the meat and vegetables.
“Cut the peppers,” I ordered, tossing her a chef's knife and a cutting board.
Elena caught the knife deftly.
“I thought you didn't trust me with sharp objects,” she murmured, slicing the vegetables with a rhythmic violence that suggested she was imagining the pepper was my neck.
“I trust your self-preservation. If you stab me, who's going to save Thomas from lethal injection?”
She froze, knife in mid-air. The silence returned, but now it was different. Less hostile, more... intimate. We were cooking. Together. A forced domesticity, grotesque given the circumstances, but undeniable.
I started searing the meat in the cast iron skillet. The sizzle of fat and the smell of rosemary and garlic filled the air, chasing away some of the house's sterility.
“Why do you do this?” I asked, my back to her, turning the meat.
“Do what? Cut vegetables?”
“Sacrifice yourself for him. For Thomas.” I turned to face her.
She was leaning against the counter, the knife loose in her hand, her tired face lit by the hood light.
“He's a parasite, Elena. You know that. He drains your account, your energy, your life. And you keep throwing yourself in front of bullets for him. Why?”
She lowered her eyes to the cutting board.
“Because he's the only thing I have left,” she said, her voice low. “Our parents died when I was twenty and he was sixteen. I promised... I promised I'd take care of him.”
“Promises made to corpses have no legal value.”
“To you, maybe. To me, it's the only thing that defines me. If I'm not the sister who takes care of him... who am I? Just a translator alone in a damp apartment?”
There was a brutal honesty in her words that hit me square in the chest. She defined her worth by her usefulness to others. By how much she could endure.
I knew that feeling. I knew it intimately.
“I don’t save people because I’m good,” I said, turning back to the stove, lowering the heat. “My father was a corrupt judge. He took bribes to let rapists and thieves walk free. I grew up watching him sell justice for gold watches and Caribbean vacations.”
I felt her gaze on my back. Heavy. Curious.
“When he died,” I continued, “I decided I wouldn’t be like him. I wouldn’t sell justice. I would use the law. I would learn the rules so well I could bend them without breaking them. I became a lawyer not to help the innocent, but to control the guilty. To keep the chaos contained.”
I plated the food and set it on the island. We didn’t sit at the dining table. We ate right there, standing, side by side, separated by a foot of cold marble.
“You think you’re controlling the chaos,” Elena said after swallowing a bite of meat. “But the chaos is winning, Gabriel. This Vanguard case... it’s too big. You can’t ‘manage’ arms trafficking.”
“I can,” I replied, taking a sip of red wine. “As long as I have the right information. As long as I have you.”
She stopped eating. Turned her face toward me.
There was a tiny spot of sauce at the corner of her lower lip.
The world stopped.
All the logic, all the control, all the talk about damage and risk management evaporated. All that existed was that small imperfection on her mouth.
Without thinking, I reached out.
Elena froze. Her eyes widened, fixed on mine.
I ran my thumb across the corner of her mouth, wiping away the spot. Her lips were warm, soft, shocking. My fingers lingered there, grazing the sensitive flesh.
She parted her lips slightly. A trapped breath.
I could feel her breath on my finger. Could feel the tension radiating from her body like heat from a furnace.
“Gabriel...” she whispered. It wasn’t a protest. It was a warning. Or an invitation.
I should pull away. I should step back and remember that she was an employee, a witness, a piece on the board.
But I couldn’t.
My hand slid from her lip to her cheek, cupping her face. I looked at the black turtleneck covering her neck.
“I hate this outfit,” I murmured, the confession escaping like a dirty secret. “I hate that you hide from me.”
“I’m not hiding,” she said, her voice trembling. “I’m protecting myself.”
“From what?”
“From you. From what you do to me.”
“What do I do to you, Elena?”
She swallowed hard, her throat moving beneath the black fabric.
“You make me forget that I should hate you.”
That broke something inside me. The last barrier of resistance.
I moved closer, pressing her against the cold edge of the marble counter. My free hand went to her waist, gripping the fabric of her clothes, feeling the real curve of her body beneath.
“Maybe you should,” I whispered, tilting my head until our noses touched. “Maybe hate is the only safe thing right now.”
But she didn’t pull away. She tilted her head back, exposing her covered throat, offering herself.
The ring of the kitchen landline cut through the air like an air raid siren.
We both jumped, pulling apart as if we’d been electrocuted.
The phone rang again. Shrill. Insistent.
No one had this number. Only the firm’s security. And Richard.
I walked to the wall-mounted phone, my hands shaking with frustration and adrenaline. I answered.
“Moretti.”
“Gabriel,” Richard Hale’s voice was smooth, unctuous, and loaded with venom. “Sorry to interrupt your... bucolic weekend. But we have a problem.”
“What problem?”
“The prosecution just issued a subpoena. They don’t want Thomas, Gabriel. They want the translation records. They know there were meetings with the Swiss. And they want to know who was in the room translating.”
I felt the blood freeze in my veins. I looked at Elena. She was standing by the counter, hugging herself, her lips red and swollen where I’d touched her.
“They don’t have names,” I said flatly.
“Not yet,” Richard agreed. “But they have a description. ‘Female, twenties, brunette.’ Someone in the building talked.”
I hung up without saying goodbye.
The desire I'd felt seconds ago was replaced by cold, deadly clarity. Protection was no longer the priority. Now it was about survival.
I turned to Elena.
“Dinner’s over,” I said, my voice hard, unrecognizable. “Get back to the office.”
“What happened?” she asked, sensing the sudden change in the air.
“What happened is the world out there just caught up with us.” I walked toward her, stopping one step away, resisting the urge to touch her again. “And from now on, Elena, you don’t leave this house—not even to breathe fresh air. You just became Ashford’s most wanted piece of evidence.”
She paled but nodded.
I watched her leave the kitchen, her rigid posture back in place.
I’d told her I did damage control.
But as I stared at the empty doorway, I realized I’d been lying to myself. I wasn’t managing anything anymore. I was just delaying the inevitable. And when it hit, I’d have to choose between saving my firm or saving the woman who’d stood in my kitchen telling me truths I didn’t want to hear.
And the fact that I didn’t know what my choice would be terrified me more than any federal subpoena.