“I like to be yours, and do what you say for what we have,” I answered. “But forcing me into something, I just—my body and brain won’t let me. So, while I’ll happily take your hand against my skin, in however it pleases you, I’m not going to letthisstrip away at any personality I have.”
Donovan finally smiled at me. “Good. I don’t want it to take your personality away. But you’ve got to be on the ball. Jobs like these are demanding. You’ve got to protect the asset, the asset’s assets, you know, the information, and then, if theydecide to leave to do something, we’ve got to be focused and in it.”
“I am in it,” I told him. “I’m focused. I just think, she’s doing the work, and maybe I could help her with my stuff.”
“Another little secret,” he said, shuffling closer. “Mercy’s client list is filled with billionaires, if she’s letting us protect Maya, that means an even more wealthier person is protecting her. We’re doing the dirty work. It wouldn’t surprise me if herbenefactorwas just taking the Ashford family off the playing board so they could make a move.”
I gulped hard as the hairs on my neck stood. This felt like the type of shit the rich kids pulled at Whitespire, but on a much larger scale. “I’m new to all of this,” I whispered back to him. “If you want me to trust your orders completely, you’ve got to trust me, and give me all the information. I can handle it.” The words were choked in my throat. I’d already proven to the world that I could handle whatever was put in front of me, there was absolutely no doubt about it—and I think the people who doubted me were the ones currently in the ground. I regressed around Donovan when he let his guard down, almost like he regressed to a more primitive state—when we were just a Daddy and his brat.
“Well, I’m new to it as well,” he grumbled. “I’m new toyou, being new, and I’m new to having to train someone, and I’m new at having to decide and control whether or not I want to strangle you or—” His grip on my thigh once again intensifying. I needed him to finish his sentence desperately. I waited for a moment, but I couldn’t wait longer.
“Fuck me,” I choked out. “Is that what you were going to say?”
He smirked. “Something like that.”
Stomping sounded followed by a new version of Maya, jumping down the hallway back towards us. She was dressed inbaggy sweats and a hoodie, looking like she was about to star in one of those 90s hip-hop music videos. Her skater sneakers, too big, almost like they were clown shoes on her feet—but she rocked them pretty well. “Oh my god, I’m so much more comfier now,” she said.
Donovan removed his hand immediately, and put his comms piece back inside his ear. I followed suit to hearing Jinksy singing Sara Bareilles’sLove Song. It was quite the rendition, and a total surprise to hear putting the device back in my ear.
“Are you two ok?” Maya asked, giggling. “I hope I wasn’t interrupting anything.” She winked right at me. I knew I was quite gay, but I didn’t get that vibe from Donovan—unless I was actually rubbing off on him—goddamn, I wished I was rubbing something on him.
“We’re fine,” Donovan said. “So, is this something people would recognize you in?”
“No, I don’t think people would recognize me anyway,” she said. “Firstly, because a lot of people see a Chinese woman and they usually can’t pick us apart. I’m sorry if you can, but it’s a huge benefit to me. I get to be anonymous.”
“Not quite so anonymous,” Donovan said.
“But in this,” she said, giving us a twirl before dumping her body down on the sofa. It was like she’d been snatched by someone else and replaced with someone who would throw herself around without care. “Want to hear some more stories?” she asked. “Well, captive audience kinda, so I suppose you do.”
“What about?” I asked. “How did you uncover their trafficking? And what do you think will happen?”
“Whoa, Art,” Donovan said.
Maya just laughed, then sat upright gave us both one of those condolence smiles—the doctor’s smile when they break bad news. “I know I touched on it earlier, but well, I have alot of family in China and friends in South East Asia. One of them actually fell into the trap of the ad on social media. It wasn’t branded as working for Ashford Energy. It was work for a company who were looking for translators. They didn’t need you to show them any documents to say you could—red flag.So, they took on a lot of people. My friend—Linh Nguyen, who I found—she was inside this—” she welled up. “It was a pit. She was dead. She’d come over here. Her life stripped away. Her passport held. The only way out for her was—death.”
“Fuck,” I mustered, my heart swelling as I rested a hand on my chest to feel the palpitations. “I was almost trafficked. It was because I knew too much, or they thought I knew too much. And—” I glanced at Donovan.
“I saved him,” he said. “I wasn’t alone, but I probably did most of the grunt work.” He laughed a little.
“Aw, it’s nice to see you guys relax,” she said. “The last time I had security detail, they were like those guys with the big hats in London. You know, they stand outside the palace. Shit, their name. The Royal Guards. The ones on horses.” She shuddered. “I’m not a fan of horses. Which was a pain to fake because the Ashford’s have land in Wyoming with a ranch—and it was—near there, where I found Linh. It was completely covered up, no press, Julian had tried telling meillegalscome over all the time, their family are so good to them.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “I have it recorded. All of it. The conversation we had, him basically admitting to it. He fucking proposed to me, not then, but on that fucking ranch. Right where I knew her body was.”
“You—you must’ve been through so much,” I said. There was nothing really that I could say. “So, the timeline is, you were investigating the fracking, found out they were also trafficking, and one of your friends was trapped in it.”
She waved a hand. “Ok, so the actual timeline, I dated Julian when we were at college together, some elitist school in Vermont.”
Fuck. She went to Whitespire. “Oh,” I let out. Donovan glared at me, maybe coming to the same conclusion.
Maya continued. “I was a scholarship kid—my family had money, right. But I got in on merit because I was sixteen when I got an article published in the New York Times. It was an expose piece titledPoisoned Wells, talking about my early years in Guangdong. We were in a rural area, my grandparents became sick, they died, then my parents became ill, which led me to uncover the well which was poisoning the town we lived in. Nobody, to the day claims to know how our water was poisoned, but something tells me now, it’s connected to the Ashford’s fracking enterprise. I think they admitted me to the school to silence me. And I think that’s why Julian proposed when he did.”
“I’m surprised they didn’t get you to sign an NDA,” I said.
She laughed. “An NDA in this case, they have, I’m not allowed to talk about anything I heard or saw while with the family,” she said. “But NDAs are breakable under the factor of witnessing illegal activities, or knowing of them.”
I leaned forward in my seat. I was intrigued by her. To know she’d gone through similar situations, especially with Whitespire, I was almost looking at a path my life could’ve taken—except I don’t think I would’ve had the patience or nerve to last as long as her without speaking.
“I’ve been collecting information for six years,” she said. “I’ve been in hiding for three years. I say hiding, but I mean, I’m only out in public when it suits me, getting the Ashford family’s attention. Like today, I dressed up nice for them, let whoever they have spying on me to snap a picture, hoping they got my red bottoms in the pic.” She nodded to her Louboutin’s on the floor.
“Ok, so that answers the question about us being here,” Donovan said with a smile. “Are you baiting them out to come find you?”
