Howl for Justice

A New Ally or a Threat Part 2

I bristle, covering the reaction with a curt shake of my head. “Not at all,” I say, but my voice betrays me with its slight hitch. I feel exposed, like he’s stripped away more than just the formal barriers between new colleagues.

“We’ll see,” Lucas murmurs, and his smile is almost predatory, illuminated strangely by the intermittent light.

I turn my attention back to the files, willing myself to ignore the flutter of uncertainty he’s unleashed. We finish our review, and I keep my focus on the paperwork, the numbers and clauses, the details I usually find comfort in.

“Looks like everything’s in order,” Lucas says as he stands, gathering the documents into a neat pile. He waits, watching, letting the silence spool out until I meet his gaze again. “I appreciate the thorough introduction.”

My throat feels tight, but I nod, forcing a steady breath. “There’s more where that came from.” It’s meant to sound like a warning. It doesn’t.

We leave the conference room together, stepping back into the rhythm of the firm. The noise rushes in to fill the void, yet it’s his presence I remain attuned to, his proximity an inescapable force that both irritates and intrigues.

I let him walk slightly ahead, observing how effortlessly he integrates into the environment, how natural it seems for him to disrupt it.

At the elevator, he gives me a last, measuring look. “Until later, Ms. Wolfe.”

“Later,” I echo, watching him enter the car and disappear behind the sleek doors.

I linger for a moment, catching my breath, collecting my thoughts, wondering why Lucas Knight—a man with so many apparent answers—leaves me with nothing but questions.

We are alone, the last of the day's frenetic energy sealed off as the elevator doors close with a soft whisper. The small space magnifies his presence, his nearness, each second stretching long and thin between us. My pulse thrums in time with the gentle rise and fall of the floors, each passing moment bringing him closer, heightening my instincts, sharpening my awareness. The lights flicker, a heartbeat of darkness, then stop. We stop. The air shifts, and in the semi-darkness, Lucas's gaze finds mine with unsettling precision. My name sounds different, more intimate, more exposed on his tongue. As though he knows. The moment stretches, taut and electric, before the elevator jolts back to life, leaving me breathless with its resuscitation.

We step inside, and the change from the office’s cacophony to this private silence is immediate, disarming. The floor glides upward, smooth and steady, but my thoughts are a scramble, chaotic. Each passing second seems to distort, elongating into something uncontainable.

I am acutely aware of Lucas, more so than I have been all day. His proximity alters the air, making it thick and charged, heavy with something unsaid. I catch a trace of his scent, sharper now—citrus, sandalwood, and that untamed element I can’t quite decipher. It envelops me, igniting the edge of my instincts.

I focus on the floor indicator, the red numbers blinking in a rhythm that matches the tight thrum of my pulse. It should be routine, mundane, but the space feels alive with potential and risk, possibilities suspended in the still air.

Lucas stands just close enough that the heat of his body creates a tangible pressure, a force field that pulls at the edges of my self-control. I pick up the steady, insistent beat of his heart, a sound that should be impossible over the silence, yet rings in my ears like a low, intimate echo.

The elevator halts. Abruptly.

We lurch to a stop, the lights dimming to a ghostly glow. I suck in a breath, a mix of surprise and heightened awareness. The brief flare of panic gives way to something deeper, more dangerous, as Lucas turns toward me.

He doesn’t speak right away. He waits, allowing the moment to stretch and coil, winding tighter and tighter, a spool of tension that feels like it might snap at any second. When he finally does speak, his voice is different, low and intimate, filling the small space with its weight.

“I think we're going to work very well together, Ms. Wolfe.” The way he says it—says my name—sends a shiver through me. It sounds almost like a confession, like a promise. Like he knows far more than I’ve told him.

I search his eyes in the dim light, trying to read the depths of his meaning. I want to look away, to break the gaze, but my body betrays me, remaining motionless, magnetized by the pull of his presence and the unbearable closeness of his words.

“You sound confident,” I manage, though the sentence barely makes it out.

“I am,” Lucas replies, a slight smile playing at the corner of his mouth. The confidence is unshakeable, yet there’s something else there, too—something that cuts past my carefully constructed defenses, a direct line to the part of me that is wild, uncontrolled.

I fight the instinct to back away, to reassert the distance that is so quickly vanishing between us. My resolve wavers, caught between the need to protect my secret and the strange, unfamiliar draw he has on me.

The air is different now, an electric undercurrent that hums between us, filling the space with too many questions and no answers. It presses in, collapsing the usual borders between professional and personal, between them and me.

Then, the elevator jolts to life.

The sudden motion sends a jarring shock through the atmosphere, through me, dispelling the charged stillness with a brutal efficiency. I take a step back, regaining just enough of my composure to seem unaffected.

But I am affected.

The car descends to the lobby, the emergency lights giving way to the familiar glow. The doors slide open with a soft ping, and I am left with the chaos of thoughts he’s set loose, the unsettling realization that Lucas Knight has seen further into me than anyone has for a long, long time.

I hesitate, my feet wanting to follow him even as my mind warns me to hold back.

He pauses, just for a moment, glancing over his shoulder. “Goodnight, Ms. Wolfe,” he says, his tone wrapping around my name like a challenge.

“Goodnight, Lucas.” The response comes automatically, my voice steady but the rest of me anything but.

I watch him disappear into the twilight just beyond the glass doors, his silhouette crisp and assured against the city’s fading glow.

I exhale, a release of breath and tension that leaves me more adrift than anchored. I am filled with uncertainty, and yet somewhere beneath it all, beneath the self-doubt and confusion, there is an undeniable truth that even I can’t fully dismiss. Part of me is drawn to him—despite my better judgment, despite the instinctive warnings that tell me he’s a danger I should avoid.

The ride home is a blur, each block passing in a haze as I replay the last few hours in my mind. By the time I reach the familiar comfort of my front door, I’m no closer to understanding Lucas Knight or the effect he has on me.

I linger on the threshold, aware of the uncharacteristic chaos of my own thoughts, and the new, insistent beat of possibility that has somehow, inexplicably, found its way into my veins.