This Lawless Love [wlw]

Chapter Sixteen: Checkmate

Claudia pretends not to notice Antonio's burning glare on her as she observes a blue cocktail dress she hasn't worn in years but decides to hang it in the closet anyways.

She does the same for the next 3 dresses before she throws a hanger carelessly to the side and brushes past, unbothered by the man.

He had a lot to say, she knows it, but he knows that no matter the objections he voiced, she would not even begin to consider despite how right he was.

"Moving is always such a pain." She huffed when she re-enters the room, kicking a box with her feet. Placing her hand on her hips, she looked around at the mess of clothes strewn across every surface of the room and the shoes that haphazardly littered the floor, waiting to be placed.

"Or is it that I have too many things? I could have gone without the Chanel suits..."

"You do have a nasty habit of attaching yourself to things you don't need." Antonio retorts in an attempted casual manner but Claudia doesn't miss the underlying meaning.

"Well, it's for me to decide how long I'll keep them around." Claudia swings her head around, aiming narrowed eyes at him.

"Well, sometimes you don't see how much something is weighing you down until you let go of it."

"Well, sometimes the things that hide in the background become useful later on."

"That is exactly what hoarders say. Then they're fucked over by their own mess."

Claudia gives a saccharine smile, "Be a sugah and go pack out my pots." Her voice is thick with a southern belle accent that sounds sweet enough but to Antonio, it is a threat.

Her smile falls to an aloof expression before he is even out the door and she watches him go with a hard stare.

Alone with herself and her abundance of clothes, Claudia sits down at her vanity. It was vintage, faded and pink with gold accents around the mirror. As outdated as it was, she had always admired it as a child when she would crowd around it as she watched her mother do her makeup for 'dates'.

She didn't do her makeup though, she leaned onto the surface and rested her forehead against the heel of her palm.

She had a plan.

Antonio was right, of course, and she knew that.

It was an optimistic, reckless, jeopardizing plan but at least she had an idea of how things should go for now if only to keep the other shoe from dropping.

As far as anyone in Melhearst was concerned, Claudia was no one but a pillar of the community and there was no evidence that she was anything else.

No permissible evidence.

So if her enemies wanted to throw stones, she would demolish their entire foundation before they had the chance to pick up another.

"You couldn't have possibly stacked my shit neatly." She says evenly without opening her eyes at the presence she felt enter the room.

"No I don't think he is,"

At the voice, Claudia's eyes flew open and she picked her head up to take in the speaker.

Almenira's beams at her brightly and smiling so wide Claudia admires her defined cheekbones but also wonders if they hurt.

"Of course he isn't. Can't trust a man to do anything right." She grins in return.

"Oh, Claudia!"  And Almenira can't restrain herself any longer and takes large strides to close the distance between them. Claudia stands to receive her joyfully and encloses the girl in a tight hug. Almenira nearly squeezes the life out of her but Claudia finds fondness and a strange comfort in the way she restricts her carotid artery.