Chapter Six – The Things We Hide
1166 Words
They didn’t speak for the rest of the ride.
Draven’s words—“You’re not just a distraction anymore”—sat in the air like smoke that refused to clear. Leila stared out the window, hands clasped tightly in her lap, her mind racing far faster than the car speeding beneath them.
She wanted answers. She wanted to scream. But more than that, she wanted to understand why her name had been recorded like a calculated asset in a war she hadn’t agreed to fight.
When the car pulled up to Wolfe Tech’s downtown satellite office, she slipped out in silence, heels clicking sharply against pavement, her jaw set tight. Inside, the building was all clean glass and efficiency. Employees straightened at the sight of Draven. A few glanced at Leila, confusion flickering in their eyes—unsure of her role, but certain she mattered.
They toured the labs, nodded through briefings, inspected tech prototypes that Draven barely acknowledged. His mind was elsewhere. And so was hers.
But the moment they stepped into the private elevator that led to the rooftop lounge, it was just them again.
No cameras.
No employees.
No script.
And no more restraint.
She turned sharply, forcing the truth out before she could second-guess it.
“You have files on me.”
Draven didn’t deny it.
“Everyone in my circle is vetted.”
“I’m not in your circle. I fetch coffee. I book flights. I forward emails.”
His voice was quiet. “You were never just those things.”
“That’s not good enough.”
His eyes met hers then—gray and dark with something unspoken. “What do you want me to say?”
“I want to know why,” she said, stepping forward, anger and hurt tightening every word. “Why my name was there. Why you tested me. Why you even noticed me that day I spilled coffee on your thousand-dollar shoes.”
Draven’s lips pressed into a thin line. And then, for the first time, he gave her something real.
“I didn’t notice you then,” he said. “I noticed you two weeks earlier. At the lobby. You were fighting with HR over someone else’s pay being cut. It wasn’t your problem. But you didn’t back down. You were loud, you were emotional, and you didn’t care that a camera was watching.”
She blinked.
He continued. “That day, I told security to pull the footage. And I told myself not to care. But then I saw you again—coffee in hand, nervous, late. I saw how everyone ignored you, dismissed you. But you watched everything. You remembered names. You knew who was lying and who was scared.”
He exhaled, stepping closer.
“So I hired you. Not because I needed an assistant. Because I needed a wildcard.”
The air between them snapped taut.
Leila swallowed. “You planned all of this?”
“No. But I prepareed for it.”
She shook her head, stunned. “You didn’t just test me. You studied me.”
“I do that with everyone.”
“And yet you say I’m not just a distraction anymore?”
“You’re not.”
He reached for her wrist—not roughly, not possessively—but with a strange softness she hadn’t expected.
“You’re something I didn’t account for.”
The words landed like thunder.
She didn’t pull away.
But she didn’t melt into him either.
Instead, she whispered, “Then stop treating me like a threat.”
Draven’s gaze flickered.
“I’m not treating you like a threat,” he said. “I’m treating you like the only thing that could undo me.” They didn’t speak of it again.
Not that day. Not the next.
Draven returned to his world of transactions and power. Leila returned to her desk, where emails blinked and the printer jammed and Sheila returned to pretending she didn’t exist.
But something had changed.
The silence between them was no longer empty. It was full of heat. Of possibility. Of warnings.
And then, on a Wednesday afternoon, the storm broke.
Leila was in the breakroom grabbing a tea when the receptionist called her phone in a panic.
“There’s someone in the lobby asking for you.”
She frowned. “Did they give a name?”
A pause. “Yes. He says he’s your father.”
The cup in her hand slipped slightly.
Her father?
She hadn’t heard from him in over two years. Not since the last relapse. Not since the phone call where she told him she couldn’t do it anymore—couldn’t be the one picking up broken pieces while he drowned himself in bottles and apologies.
She rushed to the lobby, her heart a knot of dread.
And there he was.
Slouched on one of the velvet benches, clothes wrinkled, face older than she remembered. His eyes were bloodshot. His hands trembled slightly.
“Leila,” he rasped, standing too quickly.
She froze. “Dad…”
“I need money,” he said too loudly. “Just a little. Just to get on my feet again. I’ve been clean—I swear it. I didn’t know where else to go.”
People were watching now. Employees. Security. Her cheeks flamed.
“Not here,” she whispered harshly. “Please don’t do this here.”
He grabbed her arm—not violently, but desperate.
“I just need a few hundred. You work for him, right?” His voice pitched higher. “The billionaire guy?”
That was when Draven appeared.
Like he’d been summoned by chaos itself.
He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t ask questions.
He simply stepped between them with the calm of a man who didn’t flinch.
Leila’s father blinked. “Who the hell are you?”
“I’m the man you just embarrassed your daughter in front of,” Draven replied coldly. “Leave. Now.”
“Or what?”
Draven’s tone didn’t change. “You know exactly what I’m capable of. You don’t want me to prove it.”
Leila’s father looked from her to Draven—and whatever pride he had left crumbled. He walked out.
And for a long moment, all Leila could do was breathe. Draven didn’t touch her. Didn’t speak.
He just stood beside her until her shaking stopped.
Later, in his office, she sat across from him—silent, raw.
He offered her a drink. She declined.
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” she said quietly.
“I’m not.”
She looked up, startled.
“You needed to see that I don’t just want the version of you that fits into ballrooms and boardrooms,” Draven said. “I want the real one. Even when it’s messy.”
Leila said nothing.
Because if she spoke, she might cry.
And crying in front of Draven Wolfe? That was a line she wasn’t ready to cross.
Not yet.
- Writer
