Chapter 31

"First, I don't want to talk about any shit right now and second, do not mention him again in my presence again" she warned and rose from the bed, clutching her aching head as she swayed unsteadily to the bathroom door.
"Hey, need help?" Nick offered as he rose already and went to support her weight.
"I'm fine" she snapped and shrugged him off, steadying herself by holding onto the door frame and exhaling.
"We are a team Vee, that means we stick together no matter what, we ride together and fucking die together" he said.
"He dies alone, he fucking rots in hell alone for that shit he just did, no one's going down with him and if you are then be sure then I sure as hell I'm not going to" she snapped angrily.
"You can't really blame him you know, we had to do something"
"Really? That's all you can say? We had to do something? He is just a child Nick, have you looked at him? He's what? A year old? A year and a half?"
"It had to be done, something had to be done Valeria, don't act like you out know this. " Nick said.
"That's enough" she snapped
" It's better we get on with the mission than sit around and cry over what we can not control, I know it isn't the best we should have done but it's done and there is nothing we can do to____"
"I said enough! Leave, now!"
"Calm down, none of us signed up for this" he insisted.
"Did he put you up to this? Is this him trying to assuage his very dark and guilty conscience? Huh?" She retorted and turned to him, tears flowing from her eyes without care.
"Pete didn't put me up to anything. I'm only saying the truth" Nick replied.
"What truth? That you hurt an innocent child?" She asked, sneering.
"That we had my choice, we had to do what we had to do. That wasn't the plan from the start and you know it. If there was any other way we would have alternated, it was our only shot, not ideal and particularly like what I would like to do but all we could do"
Valeria snickered at his reply, shook her head and gave a bitter chuckle.
"You disgust me! Both of you" she stated and turned to the bathroom.
"We didn't have a choice, Valeria"
"You always have a choice.
A man, a human, every man no matter how hard the choices might be, always, I repeat, always has a choice, but I guess the other choice just wasn't the profitable choice now was it?" She asked and with that slammed the door right in his face.
"We had to do it Valeria and I need you to understand that it wasn't your fault, actually it is nobody's fault, no one wanted it to turn out that way, trust me, not even Pete" he said through the door.
Valeria silently disrobed and moved under the spray of the cold water, letting it wash away her tears and hopefully her guilt and darkness too. She couldn't bring herself to stop the flow of tears no matter how hard she tried. She cried for the pain that the little boy was no doubt going through, the agony or probably death right now, cried for the child she had lost many years ago, cried for her past, how much hurt she had faced during the year, the deaths and tears and sweat she'd seen all her existence and how crassly unfair life had been to her.
Like life itself had judged her and then deemed her unworthy go be happy, deciding to sentence her to a life long stay of misery and loneliness and guilt and pain and hurt that sometimes made her heart constrict and wish it could simply stop beating altogether, like maybe in death she could have some calm and peace and happiness for once, but then, she was sure it could somehow find a way to make her very unhappy even in the grave. She was sure her soul would just be as sorrowful and as lonely and as dejected as it was even in life, it was ironical that she had a serious problem with both life and death and that was perhaps the reason death had abandoned her to life's cruel fate and judgement.
A judge, a very cruel judge life was. As she shampooed her hair, shee could very well remember her younger years, about a decade or so when she had first started to practice law. A firm she had gotten hired in to with a fake CV and fake credentials. Her ID had been that of a late lawyer in Russia and with just the right online alterations and disguise she become a forty-year-old Russian lawyer with an impeccable degree and an history of winning cases. Well, her employer had been the owner of a rather bankrupt law firm that had very low patronage over the years. As much as she would love to brag about her disguise skills, she had the admit that the man had made absolutely no efforts to do a background check on her before hiring her.
Two months after being hired and paid a very meager salary, her employer who's name she couldn't quite remember seeing as she always addressed him as 'Sir' as he had ordered, she slept with him in his office one night and from that night, the work relationship between them turned very sour.
Firstly, because he had no doubt expected an office affair but Valeria turned him down at the next attempt and made it clear it was a one time thing and would never be repeated. While, the man didn't take it too kindly and so became a little stiff with her. To Valeria, that was fine, as long as he kept paying her.
Some weeks after the unfortunate incident, they had a client. It was an assault case between a domestic staff and her boss. The victim, a middle aged woman stated that her employer who was equally a middle aged woman had been abusing her sexually and threatening her to silence with taking away her employment and making sure no one ever hired her again in the city. While, Valeria had taken up the case despite her own employer's order not to. She had won and damages had been paid in a huge sum.
Two more weeks later, Valeria sued her own boss and won the case against him, he was sentenced to 5 years in prison without parole. That was how Valeria had become known in the profession. Still under her disguise and alias, she took a few more cases and won or lost at random, mostly won seeing as how she always tweaked the evidence to favour her and could literally do anything asides murder to win her case.
She could quite fondly remember once when she had a tough case with a French lawyer who had insulted her in court. The week of the adjournment, Valeria had made sure the lawyer went on a 'vacation' and wasn't available up until the day of the final hearing. On the day of the final hearing, Valeria had appeared in court disguised as the French Lawyer himself whilst she paid a law student just enough money to pose as her in court.
It was high risk but 'she' had won the case and her client, who was a murderer was free. The case was one that left judges chewing on their pens all through without knowing what to say. Her client had confided in her that he did kill the man but it was out of self defense. Valeria didn't trust her own client to tell the truth but neither did she trust the French lawyer either. As it turned out, it was her wounded pride that had fueled her need to win the case and it had little or nothing to do with who was innocent and who was guilty, the French man simply was too boastful of his skills and Valeria wasn't okay with men who boasted.
She had simply tossed a coin and decided she was going to help her client win the case be him innocent or not. The urge to win had only gotten stronger when the opposing lawyer insulted her in court. She no longer cared what was right, wrong or moral, she simply wanted to secure that victory and prove the bigots jury wrong.
Shortly after that case, she made other huge amounts of money on other cases for many questionable character before the high demand for her became too much and as she had learnt many years ago, attention was bad for disguise and so she had quit the law profession, packed and disappeared just as she had arrived the city. Did she miss the black and white and the men and fine dressed women at the office? Yes she did but she but she knew nothing killed a con artist as quickly as attention did. The less people that saw you, the better and the less people that saw you and then forgot about you, the best. It was one task to be a bright yellow flag to get something done but it was an entirely different case when you remained a bright yellow flag in a very blue environment, people began to get close and closeness usually meant questions and questions led to being exposed. The day she'd left the city, she had eaten the best sushi of her whole life and had parted after a heated night with a certain Nigerian man that was twice the usual girth and length she was used to and a little too romantic for her comfort. It was a passionate night and she had left with a very satisfied smile and a very sore body.
Valeria was still reminiscing and washing the suds off her body when she heard the door bang for the umpteenth time.
"Are you alright in there?" It was Nick's voice and he sounded genuinely concerned.
"Get lost Nick" she replied as she shut off the shower and wrapped a towel around herself.
"Listen, I know you don't want to see me right now but I'm worried about you and I don't want you to hurt yourself"
"Ha, I almost believed you, so I'm now a child that can't bath without supervision? Afraid I'll drown myself in a bathtub? " she retorted
"Open the door Valeria, you've been in there for too long" he said and tapped on it again.
Valeria sighed and creaked the bathroom door open, water dripping from her wet hair to the floor.
"Happy?" She asked and moved past him.
"Quite" he replied and went to sit on the bed again.
"How is he?" She asked reluctantly, fearing to hear the worse.
Nick simply shrugged.
"He's dead" she said, more a statement than a question.
"Fuck no! What do you take us for? Murderers?" He asked incredulously.
"What's the difference? Two body's dropped Nick, yes, we're murderers now so better add it to the resume" She said and shrugged, moving to the wardrobe get into fresh clothes.
"He's been bandaged up, Pete got some supplies for the burns and some drugs for his fever too, he says they'll heal up nicely" Nick replied.
Valeria simply nodded wordlessly and pulled on her tank top and Jean shorts, not bothering to ask him to turn away for privacy.
"He'll be fine, he's sleeping now" he added, hoping that cheers up her somber mood.
"I hear you" she replied and turned to face him, her low cut tank top showing much more than she intended.
Nick swallowed, his mouth literally watering and his nether regions getting excited despite himself. His eyes roamed her body passionately and he had to force his gaze away.
"I know that look" she stated.
"Sorry, I know this is not the right time for anything like this...you know what? Just come down for dinner, you've not had anything since morning" he stuttered and then rose from the bed.
"I thought you came to check up on me? See how I was doing?" She asked.
Nick nodded and scratched his head. "Yes, that's it, you're fine so... I'll just head out__"
"What if I said I wanted something, would you do it for me?" She asked.
"Sure, should I bring the food up? Get you some tea?" he replied without a second thought, thinking she would ask for her meal to he brought there or maybe a smoke or bottle of whiskey.
"Can we fuck?" She asked.
Nick blinked and looked at her like she had just lost her head or was growing a pair of horns from the top corners.
"What?" He asked
"I know you heard me"
"I did, listen, I know you had rough day and all but I can't take adva__"
"Just shut up Nick, are you doing it or not?" She asked, taking off her tank top and letting her still very firm breasts jiggle.