Bodies

vingt-sept.

Valerie and Milan loaded up Milan's freshly purchased wardrobe into the waiting car. The chauffeur doing his very best to arrange the stacked bags into some functional form in the back of the car.

When they'd gotten everything stuffed away as tidily as they could, everyone got back in the car.

Valerie had the audacity to throw her head back against her seat and sigh like she'd just tended to a garden in the scorching sun. Milan looked at her with ill concealed amusement. 

"You tired, boss?" She jokingly asked the woman who in return opened one of her eyes and smiled. Sitting up and patting Milan's thigh quickly. "Hell yes, but you look amazing. So, it's all in a good day's work! Please take us to Nicoletta's now, love. Thank you for the pitstop." Valerie changed gears mid sentence and spoke to the driver.

He gave her a nod and began to pull off from the street curb in seconds.

Milan watched out of the car's window like this was the first time she'd been downtown before. 

It felt different.

She was wearing an outfit that felt like something a rich mogul would wear. In car she knew cost more than a hefty life insurance policy.

Valerie's words stuck with her. There was more to life than what Milan was experiencing right now. Her life was more before Ramses, and it shouldn't have slowed so severely because she'd gotten wrapped up in him.

She didn't know how deep she'd gotten. 

Once I help him, I'm gone for sure.

Milan told herself. She appreciated Valerie's I Have A Dream speech for sure, but she would always feel she owed Ramses's a solid. Especially after finding out he killed Chrisanto because he threatened her life. 

She always kept owing this man.

One more solid. She swore she wouldn't be around for him to save nothing else for her.

"Nicki's coming up!"

Valerie sing-songed from beside her. The excited sentence snapped Milan out from the gloom and doom cloud she'd let find itself over her head. Righting herself in the seat of the car, Milan couldn't help but wring her hands together in her lap. She was nervous as fuck. 

The car turned into a parking lot of a huge sky scraping building. The shadow of the place darkening the inside of the car as they found a space to park. When they did, she heard Valerie sigh again, she grabbed Milan's hands and smiled at her warmly. 

"You have nothing to worry about, babe. You're not the one on trial. Remember?" She asked Milan rhetorically, before patting her hands again. The chauffeur opening her door allowing the woman to slip out perfectly. 

Milan nodded at Valerie's words. 

She was right. She wasn't the one trial.

But why the fuck do I feel like it?

Milan wracked her brain as she too slipped out of the car and onto the ground. She looked at her appearance and thanked God once again for a brown complexion that didn't pale even when she felt she was about to throw up.

Valerie lightly ghosted her hand over Milan's forearm, guiding her softly towards the receptionist in the middle of the lobby. The lobby was a boring gray scene. It almost didn't differ much from the parking garage they'd just left.

The receptionist was a olive-toned blond guy. He looked up and saw the women waiting. He completely ignored their smiles at first, looking at his computer screen like he looked through them rather than at them. Not fixing his lips to even greet them.