This Lawless Love [wlw]

Chapter Twelve: White Hot

Claudia was pissed.

She's been so since the day she left Melhearst and each day since then had only made her pissier.

But it wasn't the fact she had to suddenly abandon the life she's crafted for herself in the last five years that made her the most murderous.

It was the fact she had looked into that sweet girl's face and lied.

Normally, she had no problem lying. She was actually a natural at it. Any lie becomes truth the second it passes her lips. Lying, after all, is what has kept her a free woman all these years.

But lying like that to Almenira made her most angry with herself. It was a lie that no doubt gave her false hope and it almost makes her sick to think about how betrayed the girl is feeling now.

Actually, a lot of things related to Almenira made her feel sick with herself. The girl herself could do no wrong, that sweet thing. She saw how she took care of her garden for weeks in her absence.

But Claudia gave the girl drugs, for God's sake. A drug that could have sent her into cardiac arrest if Claudia didn't know what she was doing.

Nevermind the fact that Almenira brought it upon herself for being so nosy but what did Claudia expect? The charade couldn't have gone on forever, no matter how much she would have liked to play pretend.

And the poor girl was only nineteen. She would be twenty in a few months but she was and has been nineteen. She reminded herself of this fact every time the girl looked at her with puppy dog eyes and gave her honeyed smiles.

Almenira's crush was obvious but Almenira was allowed to crush on her. It was puppy love. But she on the other hand had no excuse to look at the girl the way she did her.

Nineteen.

If her no doubt upsetting Almenira wasn't the icing on the cake, It was the ever present, torturous fact that Almenira not seeing her, meant she would not see Almenira.

Claudia was pissed.

"Permission to speak, ma'am?"

Claudia almost laughed. Almenira would have
said something sly and sarcastic like that but it wasn't her that had so she threw a deadly glare at the speaker.

Antonio was currently on the list of people she wishes she could empty a clip in and he knew it. The man, however, found that to be amusing.

"What?" She barked. Her words were menacing. They tend to be nowadays. They cut sharply through the air and left a nasty mark on whoever was unfortunate enough to speak to her while she was in her mood.

"Have you stopped doing your yoga? I think one of the men you yelled at earlier contemplated suicide." Antonio entered further into the office. Claudia was evidently stressed.

She slumped over her desk and held her face in between her thumb and fingers. Hearing his heavy footsteps come closer, she righted herself and met his eyes with a tired gaze.

"Find the point, Antonio." She said wearily.

"That girl-"

"I said I'm no longer discussing her," the ice was back in her voice and her eyes narrowed in annoyance.

"This isn't me telling you to forget about her. You obviously won't. I mean to say that girl may have gotten herself into another situation. Bad one."

At this, the woman immediately became alert much to Antonio's annoyance. All it took was one vague mention of the girl needing her to swoop in and save the day and Claudia had snapped back into character. Something Antonio had been trying to get her to do himself for days.