THE DEVIL'S ASSISTANT

Cracks in the Armor

Damien:

I didn't do flowers.

I had never in my thirty two years on this earth purchased flowers for a woman. It was a pointless gesture — temporary, predictable, forgotten within a week. I dealt in permanence. In things that lasted.

So I had absolutely no explanation for why there was a single white orchid sitting on Selena's desk when she arrived on Friday morning.

No card. No name.

She stopped when she saw it. Stood very still for a moment then looked around the empty office slowly. Her eyes landed on my closed door for exactly three seconds before she sat down and got to work.

She didn't mention it.

Neither did I.

But I watched her touch the petals once — just once — when she thought nobody was looking.

Something shifted in my chest that I didn't have a name for yet.

Selena

The orchid was from him.

I knew it immediately. I don't know how — there was no proof, no note, nothing. But something about the way the morning felt different when I walked in. Something about the silence on the other side of his door.

I didn't say anything because I didn't know what to say.

And because saying something would make it real.

By Friday afternoon I had almost convinced myself I'd imagined the whole thing — the orchid, the pen moment, the way he said my name like it meant something.

Then he called me into his office at 5PM and everything I'd almost convinced myself of collapsed completely.

He was standing at the window when I walked in. Jacket off. Sleeves rolled to his forearms. The city burning gold behind him in the late afternoon light.

He looked unbearably good and I hated him for it.

"Close the door." he said without turning around.

I closed it.

"I have a function tomorrow night." He turned slowly. "A charity gala. I need someone there."

"I can contact your usual —"

"I want you there." His eyes held mine. Steady and unblinking.

The room felt smaller suddenly.

"That's not part of my job description." I said carefully.

"I'm adding it."

"You can't just keep adding things —"

"Selena." Just my name. Nothing else. But the way he said it moved through the room like a current.

I crossed my arms. "Why me?"

He was quiet for a moment. Like he was deciding how much truth to give me.

"Because I want you there." Simple. Direct. No performance behind it.

My heart did something inconvenient and complicated.

"As your assistant." I said. Making sure.

Something moved behind his eyes. "If that's what you need it to be."

I looked at him for a long moment. This man who never asked for anything — who took and commanded and expected the world to rearrange itself around him — was standing across from me with something almost careful in his expression.

It terrified me.

"I'll think about it." I said.

Damien

She said she'd think about it.

In thirty two years nobody had ever told me they'd think about it.

I stood at the window after she left and turned that sentence over in my mind like something I couldn't quite understand.

I'll think about it.

Marcus — my head of security and the only person alive I trusted — found me still standing there twenty minutes later.

"You look terrible." he said helpfully.

"Get out."

He sat down instead. Marcus had been with me for eight years. He had earned the right to be annoying.

"The new assistant." he said. Not a question.

I said nothing.

"She's different." he continued. "I've seen twelve assistants walk through that door. None of them lasted more than two weeks. None of them ever made you —" he paused, studying me with that irritating perception of his "— quiet."

"I'm always quiet."

"Not like this." He leaned forward. "This is the quiet of a man who is thinking about someone he shouldn't be thinking about."

I turned from the window. "Careful Marcus."

He held up his hands. "I'm just saying. Whatever this is —" he gestured vaguely at all of me "— it looks good on you. Terrifying but good."

He left before I could respond.

I turned back to the window.

The city stretched endlessly below — a thousand lights, a thousand lives, a million things I controlled or could control.

And one woman on the 50th floor who had told me she'd think about it.

For the first time in my life I understood what it felt like to wait for something.

I didn't like it.

I also couldn't stop.

Selena

He texted at 9PM.

A single message from a number I didn't have saved yet somehow knew immediately.

Have you thought about it.

Not a question. Never a question with him. Always a statement. Always that quiet certainty that the world would bend his way.

I stared at the message for a long time.

My apartment felt very small suddenly. The rattling pipes and the peeling paint and the stack of medical bills on the counter that never got smaller no matter how hard I worked.

I thought about the orchid. The pen. The way he said my name.

I thought about all the ways this could go wrong.

Then I typed back.

It's still just work.