The office seemed actually friendly in the daylight. Maybe because it was quite crowded and everybody was chatting lively. It was an open space, with four large desks placed in a row, each desk shared by two teammates, as it was split by a low paravane.
Kara’s colleague, Marta, a very classy middle-aged lady, was working really hard on a report - the tapping sounds of her acrylic nails, tenaciously striking the keys, were proof of that. Every now and then though, she would take a break to pull up her oversized glasses, to cover up a quick glance at Dante, who was busy signing, like a thousand declarations that Kara kept throwing under his nose.
“Hey, Marta, wanna come grab lunch with us?” asked the colleague from the next desk.
“Oh, wish I could, but I have a deadline today on the Cojones case.”
“The what?”
“Remember the Cojones case, from February, the guy with the balls crushed...”
“You mean that guy who got his ass handed by a chick?” jumped in John the Snitch. (‘Cause, like in every hierarchic system, promotions were based mostly on snitching skills, and his ambitions were no secret to anybody).
“Exactly!”
All of a sudden, the whole team was gathered around their desk.
“He said he had no idea where she came from. He was just leaving the club, you know Monster Club, and out of nowhere, this mysterious woman, dressed up in black, attacked him and kidnapped him.”
A round of laughter echoed in the room.
“Then she dragged him to the abandoned stadium and kicked his ass.” And, quickly added with a Monica, from Friends, emphasis “And nuts!”
Another wave of laughter had Kara rolling up her eyes. Meanwhile, Dante was no longer paying attention to his signing and was following the story, gawping.
“Maybe an ex-girlfriend he cheated on,” suggested Luke, John’s partner, “and she took revenge!”
“Yeah, but to leave him eunuch...The doctors said there was nothing they could do.”
“It must have been some girl to take down a man that tall.”
“There are a lot of girls nowadays, who take martial arts classes. Believe me, I’ve seen some that can take out anyone with a single kick,” added Luke admiratively.
“Yeah, we know, we have a specimen right here! Isn’t that so, Kira?” barged John the Snitch, pointing towards Kara. Of course, he would be the one to know, since he almost got himself a sprained shoulder from her one time, when he was being an asshole.
“Kira?!” exclaimed Dante with bulky eyes and arched eyebrows.
“You know... from the Japanese Anime - Death Note? It comes from killer,” he added, whispering suspiciously.
“What! Why would you say that?!” jumped Dante, startled and offended, at the same time.
“Because she doesn’t hesitate to shoot defenseless people.”
“You’re taking things out of context, John! That was self-defense,” came through the confident voice of the Captain, Daniel.
“Was it? The man was unarmed!”
“You don’t know what happened. You weren’t there!” interfered Marta, enunciating the last words.
“Wait, what? What are you guys talking about?” begged for explanations a confused and anxious Dante.
“Two months ago, we were chasing this serial rapist who used social media to lure his victims,” began explaining John the Snitch, excited. “It was a special case, a collaboration with ‘Justitiarul de Berceni’, you know, the famous Youtuber. Anyway, she was selected to go undercover as bait, since she was the only one who could pass as a teenager. During the operation, things went south for a while, and we lost track of them for about an hour. When we finally found them, he was lying on the floor, shot straight to the chest. But the thing is, he was barehanded. And she just shot him, in cold blood. Man, you should’ve seen the expression on her face. It was scary...”
“Stop dramatizing, John,” interfered Marta.
“It was self-defense! He was trying to rape her! It was dark and she thought he had a weapon,” cut in again Daniel’s bass voice.
“Oh please! With her combat skills, she could’ve taken him out easily. She trained in Special Ops, didn’t you know?” he whispered with his eyes flickering, to catch the team members’ expressions at the insight intel.
“I had cramps that day,” decided to, finally, kickback Kara, in the most casual tone, raising her head from her very important papers. “See, what you forget Sherlock, is that, as good as my fighting skills might be, I’m still a woman! So, from the start, I’m physically at disadvantage when fighting with a man, not to mention a psychopath.”
She turned back at her papers, and added with a low reflective voice:
“Besides, you can’t possibly imagine what a woman feels like in that kind of situation…” She remained lost in another dimension for a second, but snapped out of it quickly, raising towards him a threatening gaze:
” Now, get your ass off my desk, before I snap and shoot again!”
“Fine! Have it your way. Obviously, I’m not the only one having doubts about it, since they suspended your firearm. You’re lucky he survived…” he added, taking a theatrical leave.
“It wasn’t luck,” she mumbled.
The others turned back to their places one by one, with mixed feelings.
“That would be all!” she addressed Dante, using her formal tone, to camouflage that inner trembling in the back of her mind. It was the way he was looking at her after he heard that story. That pity mixed with guilt, in his husky puppy eyes was driving her mad...
“We’ll keep you informed about the progress of the investigation.”
“Ok,” he said, simply. I’ll see myself out, then.”
End of Scene
Author’s Thank You Note
If you enjoy the story, you can find the complete version on Amazon as e-book and paperback at https://amzn.to/3YHk507 .
I will continue to publish here the teasers for the remaining chapters.
Thank you so much for your support!
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