⇚ 20 ⇛

❚ ❙ The Client With No Name ❙ ❚

Victor refused to cancel court.

Which proved intelligence and wisdom were very different things.

"You have a violent French syndicate targeting your building," I said, following him through his office while he adjusted his tie. "This is not the morning to argue about someone's parking fine."

"It's not a parking fine."

"I don't care if it's treason."

"It's an asylum appeal."

That stopped me.

Victor looked over his shoulder.

The annoyance drained from my face.

"What?"

His expression softened slightly.

"Client from Albania. Trafficking survivor. If she loses today, she may be deported."

Oh.

Damn him.

Damn him and his inconveniently noble cases.

I crossed my arms.

"Fine. We go."

"We?"

"You think I'm letting you walk into court alone while Jean-Claude's men are in London?"

"I think I don't have much choice."

"Correct."

Victor's mouth twitched despite the exhaustion carved beneath his eyes.

"You're very bossy."

"I'm alive."

"Fair."

He reached for his coat, then paused when I stepped closer and adjusted his tie properly.

The movement was automatic.

Too intimate.

Too domestic.

I realized too late.

Victor went still.

His eyes lowered briefly toward my hands at his collar.

Neither of us spoke.

The office seemed to hold its breath around us.

I finished the knot and stepped back sharply.

"It was crooked," I muttered.

"Of course."

His voice was too soft.

Dangerous man.

I grabbed my coat before he could look at me like that any longer.

"Court. Now."

•••••

The tribunal waiting area smelled like damp wool, coffee, disinfectant, and quiet panic.

It was not like criminal courts.

No shouting.
No dramatic barristers.
No polished cruelty.

This place was worse.

Too many people sat hunched over paperwork, clutching plastic folders like prayers. A child translated something for his mother near the vending machine. An elderly man stared blankly at a wall while a solicitor spoke gently beside him. A young woman kept rubbing her thumb over her wrist until the skin turned red.

Fear was everywhere.

Old fear.
Bureaucratic fear.
The kind that came printed in black ink and stamped with official letterheads.

Victor moved through it calmly.

Not casually.

Calmly.

There was a difference.

People nodded to him. Charity workers greeted him by name. One tired interpreter touched his arm and murmured thanks for something I did not hear.

He belonged here too.

That unsettled me.

Victor Hart belonged in warm pubs and messy offices and courtrooms full of people nobody else wanted to fight for.

What a ridiculous man.

The client waited beside a charity worker near the far corner.

She was young.

Too young.

Maybe nineteen.

Dark hair tied too tightly at the nape of her neck.
Cheap coat buttoned to her throat.
Hands folded in her lap hard enough that her knuckles had gone pale.

Victor slowed before approaching.

Good.

Fast movements frightened people who had spent too long surviving men.

"Lira," he said gently. "This is Camille."

My real name.

The charity worker looked up briefly, but Lira barely reacted.

Her gaze moved over me.

Tattoos.
Rings.
Black coat.
Face too still.

Then she looked away.

Her hands trembled constantly.

I recognized that kind of fear.

Not immediate panic.

Older fear.

Fear that had settled into bone and learned to live there.

Victor crouched slightly to meet her eyes.

"You're safe here."

Lira nodded.

She did not believe him.

I did not blame her.

Safe was a word people used when danger was merely out of sight.

Victor began speaking softly with the charity worker while I sat beside Lira.

She kept glancing toward the exits.

Left corridor.
Main doors.
Security desk.
Fire exit.

Over and over.

"You're looking for him," I said quietly.

She stiffened.

I kept my voice low.

"The man who hurt you."

Her eyes snapped toward mine.

I did not soften my expression.

Softness sometimes felt like pity.

And survivors hated pity.

"He isn't here," I said.

"You don't know that."

"No," I admitted. "But if he comes, I'll see him before he sees you."

She stared at me for a long moment.

Then whispered, "You are police?"

I nearly laughed.

"No."

"Lawyer?"

"Absolutely not."

"What are you?"

Dangerous question.

I looked toward Victor.

He was speaking with the charity worker, one hand pressed over a file, tired but focused. Not washed-up. Not broken.

Brilliant.

"A problem," I said finally. "For men who hurt women."

Lira's trembling slowed slightly.

Good.

A man in a dark jacket walked past us slowly.

Too slowly.

Lira flinched.

My gaze lifted.

The man looked away quickly.

Not one of Jean-Claude's.

Not Mercier.

But there was something familiar in the movement.

Something rehearsed.

I stood.

Victor noticed immediately from across the room.

His expression changed.

I followed the man with my eyes until he disappeared behind the lifts.

On his wrist, just beneath his sleeve, I had seen a tattoo.

Not the serpent.

A ship wheel.

Old dock symbol.

I had seen something similar in Adriana's photographs.

Interesting.

Horrifying.

Victor came to my side.

"What?"

"Maybe nothing."

"You hate that phrase."

"Yes."

His eyes sharpened.

"What did you see?"

"A man who didn't look lost enough to be here."

Victor absorbed that.

Then nodded once.

No questions.

No disbelief.

Progress.

•••••

The hearing was awful.

Not loud.

Not cruel in the dramatic sense.

Worse.

Cold.

The room had pale walls, stiff chairs, a judge with tired eyes, and a government representative whose voice remained politely empty while asking questions that should have drawn blood.

Dates.
Locations.
Proof.
Inconsistencies.
Why didn't you report sooner?
Why did you return to the house?
Why didn't you tell police everything at once?
Why can't you remember the exact day?

As though trauma became more believable when arranged neatly in numbered paragraphs.

Lira sat very still.

Too still.

I knew that stillness.

It was the body leaving quietly while the mouth remained behind to answer questions.

My fingers curled around the edge of the chair.

Victor noticed without looking at me.

He placed one hand flat on the table.

A tiny signal.

Stay.

Infuriating man.

The government representative asked another question about Lira's route into the UK.

Too pointed.
Too clinical.

My temper cooled into something sharp.

Victor rose.

"With respect, this line of questioning ignores both the medical report and the trafficking assessment already accepted into evidence." His voice was calm. Precise. "My client is not on trial for failing to narrate her trauma in a manner convenient to the Home Office."

The room shifted.

Even the judge looked up properly.

There he was.

No awkward pub warmth.
No gentle teasing.

Victor Hart in court was something else entirely.

Sharper.
Quieter.
Dangerous without ever raising his voice.

He dismantled the representative's argument piece by piece.

Medical evidence.
Timeline gaps explained by trauma.
Police notes.
Country reports.
Charity testimony.
Expert assessment.

He made three government officials look like badly prepared schoolchildren.

It was deeply attractive.

Annoyingly so.

When Lira began crying during questioning, Victor did not rush toward her.

He did not make a performance of compassion.

He simply stood.

"My client needs a pause," he said.

Not asked.

Said.

The judge granted it.

Outside the room, Lira folded over herself on a plastic chair, shaking badly.

The charity worker knelt beside her, murmuring softly.

Victor crouched too, but left space.

Always space.

I stood nearby scanning the corridor.

The man with the ship-wheel tattoo was gone.

Not comforting.

Lira suddenly gripped my sleeve.

"I said too much."

"No," I told her. "You survived too much."

Her face crumpled.

This time when she cried, it sounded less like fear and more like release.

Victor looked up at me from beside her.

Something passed through his expression.

Not surprise.

Understanding.

He was beginning to see what I did not say about myself.

That I knew how to stand beside broken people because something in me recognized the architecture.

I looked away first.

Coward.

•••••

Victor won the appeal.

Of course he did.

The decision came late afternoon after hours of waiting, stale coffee, and institutional lighting designed by someone who hated joy.

Lira received the news in silence first.

Then her hands covered her mouth.

Then she sobbed.

The charity worker cried too.

Victor's shoulders dropped with relief so intense he briefly looked like someone had cut strings holding him upright.

He turned away slightly.

Too late.

I saw his hand shaking.

Not from fear.

From caring too much.

That was Victor's flaw.

He absorbed suffering like it was legal evidence.

I moved beside him quietly.

"You won."

His laugh came out uneven.

"She won."

Same thing.

Different worldview.

Lira hugged him first.

Victor held her gently for one second, then stepped back before it became too much.

Then she turned to me.

Oh no.

Before I could escape, Lira wrapped both arms around me.

I froze completely.

Victor smiled over her shoulder.

I mouthed, Help.

He mouthed back, Hug her.

Useless man.

I awkwardly patted Lira's back like she was a small explosive device.

She laughed through tears.

The sound surprised me.

"Thank you," she whispered.

I said nothing.

Because my throat had closed.

Because there was something devastating about helping someone escape a cage when you still were not sure you had escaped yours.

Eventually, Lira stepped back.

Her eyes were red, but different now.

Not healed.

No one healed in one day.

But less alone.

That mattered.

Maybe.

•••••

Outside the tribunal, London had turned grey-blue with evening rain.

Victor loosened his tie and exhaled deeply.

For a moment, we stood beneath the awning without speaking.

Traffic moved past.
People hurried by under umbrellas.
Somewhere nearby, sirens wailed faintly and disappeared.

"That was good," I said.

Victor looked surprised.

"Was that a compliment?"

"Don't ruin it."

He smiled.

Small.
Tired.
Beautiful in a way that irritated me deeply.

"You were good with her," he said.

"I was honest."

"That's why."

I looked away.

The quiet stretched.

Too soft.

Too close.

Then Victor reached out carefully and brushed a drop of rain from my cheek with his thumb.

Barely.

A tiny touch.

Gentle enough to be a question.

I should have moved away.

I didn't.

His hand dropped after a second, but the warmth remained.

Dangerous.

Then his phone buzzed.

The smile vanished before he even looked properly.

His face drained.

"What?" I asked.

He turned the screen toward me.

A photograph had been sent from an unknown number.

The Noodle Barn.

Taken from across the street.

Then another image arrived.

Demi standing outside Allison's school.

Allison beside her in a yellow raincoat, holding her mother's hand.

My blood turned to ice.

Victor went white.

A message followed.

PRETTY LITTLE FAMILY.

For one second, the entire world narrowed.

No sound.
No breath.
No mercy.

The warmth inside me disappeared so quickly it felt like a light going out.

Victor grabbed my arm before I could move.

"Camille."

"I'm going to kill them."

His grip tightened.

"Not here."

That was not a no.

Interesting.

Victor Hart was learning.

But I barely heard him.

Because something colder had stepped forward inside me.

The woman Lira had thanked was gone.

The almost-soft thing Victor had touched beneath the rain was gone.

All that remained was the girl André raised for a world where men thought children made useful targets.

Victor saw the change.

I knew he did.

His expression shifted, not into fear.

Into grief.

Like he understood that every threat pulled me further away from the person I had almost become.

I looked at the photo of Allison.

Small.
Bright.
Unaware.

Then I looked toward the street.

"Take me to her school."

Victor released my arm slowly.

Not because he agreed with what I wanted.

Because he understood there was no version of me that would stay away.

He nodded once.

Then said quietly:

"Both ways, remember?"

I looked at him.

Legal and illegal.
Mercy and violence.
His world and mine.

Both.

My jaw tightened.

"Both," I agreed.

Then we ran into the rain.