love is a voice

chapter 3. The Law of Robotics

The Law of Robotics

The gates of the University of Technology felt like the entrance to a different planet, one far less hospitable than the silver-and-marble fortress I called home.

My father had been adamant about my placement here. "A regular university, Elfrida. You will study among the people. It shows strength." What he really meant was that my silence was a PR hurdle to be managed. To him, my inability to speak was a flaw to be hidden behind a display of "normalcy." And so, I was enrolled in the Robotics Engineering department—a world of cold logic and silver circuits. In the lab, the machines didn’t care if I could speak; they only cared if my code was perfect.

I stepped out of the black SUV, feeling the weight of a hundred eyes. I had chosen my outfit with the precision of a surgeon. I was wearing a tailored, blush-pink tweed blazer and matching shorts from a boutique in Milan—a set that had cost more than most students’ annual tuition. My hair, a dark, silken river that reached down to my waist, was styled in a sophisticated half-up look, held in place by a pearl-encrusted clip. I carried my essentials in a miniature quilted Chanel bag that swung gently from my wrist, looking more like a piece of jewelry than a satchel. I looked cute, expensive, and entirely untouchable.

Jeffrey opened my door with a disciplined quickness. He looked like a shadow cast against the bright morning sun, his tall frame drawing immediate whispers.

"I will be here at four o'clock, Elfrida," he said. His voice was deep and steady.

I didn’t acknowledge him. I turned and marched toward the entrance, Sarah following closely behind with her tablet.

My first class was Advanced Kinematics. It was a small, elite cohort—only ten of us in total. The room was arranged in a semi-circle of high-tech workstations, but there was a distinct social geography to the space. At one end of the room, seated at a small side-table near the door, were Sarah and Beatrice.

Beatrice was Alexa’s translator, a stern but efficient woman who mirrored Sarah’s constant readiness. They sat like silent sentinels, their tablets open, their eyes fixed on the professor and us, waiting for the moment they would need to give us a voice.

I sat at my usual workstation, relieved to see Alexa sitting at the bench next to mine. She offered me a warm, knowing smile. Like me, she lived in a world of silence, though her brilliance in neural mapping made her a legend in the faculty. Having her there was the only thing that made the room feel breathable.

But the air soured the moment Leo walked in.

Leo was the son of a high-ranking politician and had the arrogant stride of a man who had never been told "no." Except by me. He had asked me out four times over the last two semesters—each time more elaborate than the last. Each time, I had looked him in the eye and signed a very clear No.He hadn't taken the rejection well; to Leo, my silence wasn't a condition, it was a challenge he had failed to conquer.

Throughout the lecture, I could feel his gaze burning into the side of my head. When the professor finally dismissed us, I packed my things quickly, but Leo was faster. He and two of his friends blocked the row before I could reach the door.

"Hey, Elfrida," Leo smirked, his voice loud enough to draw the attention of the remaining students. "I heard your dad bought you a new toy. A Bugatti? Seems like a bit of a waste for someone who can’t even scream when she goes fast."

His friends laughed—that jagged, ugly sound I had grown to loathe. Leo stepped closer, his eyes dropping to the silver pendant around my neck. He reached out, his fingers darting toward the chain.

"I wonder," he leaned in, his voice dropping to a foul, intimate whisper that made my skin crawl, "if she'll finally make a sound when I ride her real fast in bed."

Before his fingers could graze the metal, a dark shadow eclipsed the light in the doorway.

Jeffrey appeared. He wasn't supposed to be in the building, but there he was, looking like a dark pillar of redirected gravity. He didn’t raise his fists, but the sheer mass of his presence forced Leo to stumble back a step.

"The lady is busy," Jeffrey said. There was a coldness in his tone that made the room go silent.

Leo sneered, trying to save face in front of Alexa and the others. "And who are you? The help? Does Daddy pay you to hold her hand too?"

Jeffrey looked him dead in the eye. "I am the man who is going to ensure you get to your next class without a broken jaw. Move."

The threat was quiet, but it was absolute. Leo’s bravado vanished, replaced by a flicker of genuine fear. He muttered something under his breath and pushed past his friends, scurrying out of the lab.

Jeffrey turned to me. He didn’t wait for Sarah. He looked directly at me, his eyes searching mine. "I'm sorry for the intrusion. I was bringing the documents your father forgot. But I won't stand by while they treat you like that."

He paused, then added in a lower voice, "I am not just a driver, Elfrida. I am studying Law at night through your father’s assistance. It was the only payment I requested for this job. I know what it’s like to be silenced by people who think they are better than you."

My pride flared. I didn’t want his pity, and I hated that he had witnessed my vulnerability. I snapped my hands into motion, my gestures sharp and violent.

“I can speak for myself!”I signed, my fingers trembling. “I don’t need a savior, and I certainly don’t need a lawyer. Go back to the car.”

Sarah rushed up then, breathless. "Elfrida! I'm so sorry, I got caught in the crowd—is everything okay?"

I didn’t answer. I grabbed my Chanel bag, turned my back on both of them, and marched toward the exit. I could feel Jeffrey’s gaze on me, and for the first time, the silence of the faculty felt louder than any insult Leo could have thrown.

The drive home was thick with a silence that had nothing to do with my vocal cords and everything to do with the man behind the wheel.

I sat in the back of the SUV, my pink tweed blazer feeling like a suit of armor that had been dented. Sarah sat beside me, her eyes darting between her tablet and the back of Jeffrey’s head. She knew better than to speak when my jaw was set that tightly.

Jeffrey drove with a maddening, mechanical precision. He didn't check the rearview mirror to look at me; he didn't try to apologize again. He just steered the heavy vehicle through the city traffic as if he hadn't just threatened the son of a powerful politician in a room full of witnesses.

I couldn't stand it. The way he had looked at me—as if he understood my "silence"—was an insult. He thought we were the same because he was a "struggling law student" and I was a "mute girl." He didn't understand that I wasn't silent; I was just unheard.

I snapped my fingers sharply to get Sarah’s attention. My hands moved in a blur of motion.

"Tell him to pull over," I signed.

Sarah blinked. "Elfrida, we're in the middle of the expressway—"

I repeated the sign, sharper this time. “Pull. Over. Now.”

Sarah cleared her throat. "Jeffrey, Elfrida wants you to pull over immediately."

He didn't argue. He signaled, checked his blind spot, and brought the SUV to a controlled stop on the wide shoulder of the road, beneath the shadow of a massive billboard advertising one of my father’s new luxury high-rises.

I didn't wait for him to open my door. I threw it open myself and stepped out into the heat of the afternoon. The wind from the passing cars whipped my long hair across my face. Jeffrey climbed out, standing tall by the driver's side, his expression as unreadable as the stone walls of my estate.

I walked right up to him, stopping only when I was inches from his chest. I had to look up to meet his eyes, but I didn't flinch.

“You think you know me?” I signed, my hands moving so fast Sarah had to scramble to keep up. “You think because you read some law books and drive my car that you can play the hero for the poor, broken billionaire’s daughter?”

Sarah’s voice was shaky as she translated, but she captured the venom in my movements.

Jeffrey didn't back down. He didn't even blink. "I don't think you're broken, Elfrida. I think you're angry. And I think you're so used to people looking at you with pity that you can't recognize when someone is looking at you with respect."

“Respect?”I signed, a bitter smile twisting my lips. “You are the help, Jeffrey. You are here because my father pays your tuition. Don’t ever mistake a paycheck for a connection. You humiliated me today. You made it look like I couldn't handle a boy like Leo on my own.”

"You couldn't," Jeffrey said quietly. "He was going to touch you. I don't care who his father is, and I don't care whose paycheck I'm on. No one touches you like that while I'm breathing."

The conviction in his voice caught me off guard. It wasn't the rehearsed loyalty of a bodyguard or the doting care of a nanny. It was something raw. Something real.

I leaned in closer, my eyes narrowed. “If you ever step foot in my faculty again without my permission, I will have my father find a new driver—and a new law student to sponsor. Do you understand?”

Jeffrey looked at me for a long beat. The wind tossed his hair, but he remained perfectly still. Then, he did something that shocked me. He raised his hands and signed back, his movements slow but perfect.

“I understand, Elfrida. But a cage is still a cage, even if the bars are made of gold and Bugattis.”

He didn't wait for a reply. He turned and got back into the driver’s seat.

I stood on the side of the road, the roar of the traffic filling my ears, my heart hammering against my ribs. He had signed to me. He hadn't used Sarah. He had spoken to *me*, in my language, and he had called my life a cage.

I climbed back into the car, slamming the door. The rest of the ride was spent in a silence that felt like a war zone.

The air inside the SUV was charged, the tension so thick it felt like it had its own heartbeat. I stood on the shoulder of the expressway for a second longer, the wind from a passing semi-truck nearly knocking me off my designer heels.

My chest heaved with a frustration I couldn't vent through a scream. He had dared to sign to me. He had dared to call my world a cage. The worst part wasn't the insult—it was the fact that he hadn't used Sarah as a buffer. He had reached right through the silence and touched the very thing I spent every day trying to hide.

I turned on my heel, my pink tweed shorts catching the light, and climbed back into the plush leather interior of the backseat. I didn't look at Sarah, who was sitting there with her tablet clutched to her chest like a shield.

Jeffrey was already in the driver’s seat. He didn't look back. He didn't check on me. He just sat there, hands at ten and two, waiting. He was waiting for me to give the order. He was reminding me that, for all his talk of "cages," he was still the one behind the wheel and I was still the passenger.

I raised my hand, catching his eyes in the rearview mirror. My movement was singular, sharp, and dismissive.

“DRIVE.” I gestured.

Jeffrey nodded once—a small, disciplined movement of his chin. He checked the mirror, signaled, and merged the heavy SUV back into the flow of traffic with a smoothness that felt like a rebuke.

The rest of the journey was a vacuum. I stared out the window at the city as it blurred past, the shimmering high-rises giving way to the sprawling green of our estate’s perimeter. I gripped my Chanel bag so hard the leather groaned.

He thought he knew me. He thought he could see through the gold and the silver and the Bugatti.

As we pulled through the massive iron gates of the estate, I watched the back of his head. He was just a driver. He was just a law student. And yet, for the first time in fifteen years, I felt like someone had actually heard what I wasn't saying.