It was a small motel in a residential neighborhood near the outskirts of SaBra. A perfect place to lie low for a while. I set the laptop on the table and cautiously peeked out the window. No one in sight - but somewhere in the distance police sirens were wailing. I pulled the dusty blinds down tighter.

  Diana usually managed to find truly safe places. I hope this one is no exception.

  As for how I met her.

  I always say I work alone - preferring freedom of plans and actions to any form of employment, accepting all the risks that come with it. But there was one exception.

  I noticed Diana at a smart devices conference. You know - smart homes, smart gadgets, easy living for people who don’t like dusting. It was one of those celebrations of modern life where top managers show up to entertain themselves while techies and geeks converse in their own language.

  Diana and her team were presenting something related to security. A perfect subject if you want to talk for hours and have everyone nod approvingly.

  Everyone loves security.

  I love the holes in it.

  Diana - a blonde in black - captured every scrap of attention in the room. People gathered around her not just to stare. She genuinely knew her field, and her subordinates flitted about, drawing dazed listeners into webs of contracts.

  Perhaps I exaggerate.

  Perhaps I was one of the dazed.

  I won’t deny it.

  I decided to approach her directly. When the demonstrations ended and the audience dispersed, I stepped right up to her and suggested we grab something to eat and wet our throats - on the grounds that she deserved it after such a brilliant presentation.

  It’s entirely possible I was grinning like an idiot.

  Judging by their expressions, the booth staff were ready to kick me out on the spot.

  Diana gave me an icy look and told me I should go home and take a shower.

  Then she completely ignored me.

  As if that would work.

  The conference dragged on endlessly, and over the following days I pushed my way back to her four more times, trying to start a conversation.

  Unsuccessfully.

  She was as impenetrable as a bank firewall.

  But I’ll say this: despite her aloofness, coldness, and obvious high status, she wasn’t cardboard. There was fire in her. Iron will. Intelligence.

  I had no intention of retreating.

  At the conference I obtained materials about the company whose security solutions she represented.

  Diana Sutton, GlobalSec Interactive. Pleasure to meet you. I’m Archie, and I’m crazy about your eyes and your figure.

  I talk to myself often.

  The customer hotline knew nothing about GlobalSec and couldn’t connect me to Diana.

  Interesting.

  “Bagby, Inc. speaking.”

  That’s when I began to suspect Diana and I were cut from the same cloth. Only her operation was called *milking corporations*.

  Imagine: a corporation needs industrial espionage - or protection from it - or a covert investigation of employees or their families. Something dirty. Something they don’t want to handle themselves or don’t trust their own security department with.

  So they send a representative - who might not even know exactly what they’re arranging - to an event like the one where I first saw Diana.

  Diana, or someone like her, receives a one-time communication channel, a proposal, and a price.

  It’s extremely lucrative business. A single contract could earn her more than I make in a year. Still, I prefer my lifestyle and my methods.

  No surprise the brochures were fake.

  Fine. Let’s try another route.

  Only a couple of times in my life have I wanted to get close to a woman this badly.

  So I dug up the registration data from the conference.

  Nothing.

  Cross-referencing similar events and companies produced almost nothing.

  For weeks I gnawed at myself in frustration until I found another expo.

  By then my hormones had clearly staged a coup in my brain.

  I wrapped up my current affairs and rushed there.

  It was a far more impressive event. A sea of people. Five floors. Cutting-edge tech in every direction.

  This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  But I had my own reason for being there.

  On the second day, to my relief, I found her.

  The blonde with a gaze as efficient as a laser cutter in Antarctica was energetically addressing a cluster of suited listeners.

  Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so overeager. In my defense, while waiting for her presentation to end, I chatted with her staff and obtained contact information for their employer.

  After dismissing potential clients, Diana strode straight toward me.

  I hadn’t felt that giddy and foolish at the sight of an approaching woman since middle school, staring at upperclassmen.

  But she was seething.

  “Are you planning to bother me again?”

  Instead of vanishing, I muttered:

  “Well… I’m flattered you remember me.”

  If I ever write a lecture series titled *How Not to Behave*, this episode will feature prominently.

  Within an hour I was escorted out of the expo, my pass revoked, my face added to a blacklist.

  Total fiasco.

  But I left with what I’d managed to extract from her employees while she was occupied.

  Her company was called Iron Belt. It had a collection of fake addresses and contacts.

  Now I was in my element.

  I’ll skip the searches and surprisingly intricate maneuvers, but a couple of months later I bypassed all their filters, submitted my résumé under a false identity, passed every interview, and received an invitation to their office.

  By then I had nearly regained my composure, but my heart still fluttered.

  When Diana saw me in her office, her expression shifted from stern - to surprise - to outrage - and finally to something like fatigue.

  “It seems you can’t be stopped,” she said, propping her chin on her fist. “What do you want?”

  I told her everything.

  As I poured out my emotions and good intentions, she moved from anger to something like contemplation.

  “I think it’s time for lunch,” she concluded.

  We went to eat.

  Throughout the meal she behaved as though everything inside her were steel. As though nothing could truly touch or amuse her. I felt like I was standing in front of a freight train closing in.

  Strangely, it didn’t frighten me.

  A noise downstairs snapped me out of my memories - raised voices? But it faded, and the past flooded back.

  We began seeing each other more often. I brought her coffee, sweets, flowers, small thoughtful things. At Christmas we went to watch a parade. She grew warmer, more like an ordinary woman. We held hands. Sometimes we laughed softly.

  But we never went further.

  Then came April of the following year.

  During a walk in the park, my heart pounding in my ears, I said we’d known each other long enough - and that I’d like to be closer. Perhaps start with a kiss.

  What happened next, I never expected.

  The smile slid off Diana’s face. She froze, lowering her head so her hair hid her expression. Still gripping my hand, she backed up until her shoulders hit the trunk of a thick linden tree.

  She went pale as paper. Her lips were pressed tight, even tucked between her teeth.

  Then she slowly began shaking her head, with enormous tension. Her whole body trembled violently. Still holding my hand, she slid down the tree.

  Not knowing what else to do - and unwilling to withdraw the hand she so clearly needed - I sat down beside her.

  Her trembling, closer to convulsions, battered against me like waves against rock.

  After a while it subsided into mere shaking.

  We sat under the tree - disturbed, exhausted, soaked in sweat - holding hands.

  Not that day, but later, Diana told me everything.

  And I swear - though my feelings for her were not yet profound, and she had none for me - I never exploited her confession or hurt her because of it.

  She had grown up in a small town in the former Rust Belt.

  After decades of new factories and investment, life had become pleasant again. Of course, everything in that town and surrounding settlements belonged to one fabulously wealthy and relatively young owner.

  Factories. Stores. Roads. Hospitals. Schools.

  Everyone who worked for him - which meant everyone - had houses, cars, mortgages, health insurance. But all of it depended on their employment.

  Promotion meant immediate social advancement. Better housing. Higher income. Sponsored programs for children. Social services for the elderly.

  An idyll.

  Work for the owner your entire life, and your entire life belongs to him - even if you try not to notice.

  In places like that, much is swept under the rug.

  Like the never-publicized “social program” that changed everything.

  Families with daughters aged sixteen to eighteen could expect their girls to be selected.

  Each chosen girl moved for one to three months into what was called a boarding house next to the owner’s country estate.

  Publicly, she was said to be receiving intensive tutoring to guarantee admission to a local college.

  Everyone knew - including the parents and the girls themselves - what it really meant.

  If the “training” went especially well, the family received bonuses, promotions, benefits.

  If anyone protested publicly, the entire family was punished. No promotions. No bonuses. Police fines for minor infractions. In a couple of stubborn cases, documents mysteriously vanished - birth certificates, property deeds - and the families had to leave the state.

  Diana was the eldest of two daughters.

  At sixteen, she was “lucky.”

  Shortly before leaving for the boarding house, she bluntly told her parents what she thought of such a fate, frightening them badly.

  To sink to the social bottom forever - because of a defiant teenager? Terrifying.

  They persuaded her into silence.

  At the boarding house she found herself alone.

  Colonial décor. A large hall with a piano. Dining room. Kitchen. Upstairs, several rooms - one with a large luxurious bed and a floor-to-ceiling window.

  Her anger boiled over.

  She did not consider that intimacy might bring advantage. She had no intention of feigning tenderness or submission.

  By evening the owner arrived.

  To her surprise, he was tall, thin, middle-aged, with graying curls. Quiet.

  The next day they met in the bedroom.

  He began undressing.

  Under silent pressure, Diana removed some clothing - but anger flooded her again.

  She stood in her underwear, face flushed, shouting at the naked man across the bed.

  He listened.

  When she ran out of breath, he said calmly:

  “You’re right. But those who send you here get what they want as well. They could refuse - and I would choose another. They would permanently lose the opportunity, but nothing more would happen. So what do you propose?”

  Perhaps in that moment something inside Diana burned beyond repair.

  Her parents - whom she had seen as victims - had sacrificed her for material gain.

  “I need to think,” she said.

  He nodded.

  After that, she forged her iron will.

  During those three months she did what she had come for - but also insisted on distance education. She aimed for college.

  Afterward her family received their reward. She went home only to collect all her belongings.

  She said nothing to them.

  She returned.

  A minor medical procedure ensured she would not have children - necessary for the second part of her agreement.

  Beyond entertaining him, she studied business and monetary systems under his sparse instruction.

  After six months she moved to another state and enrolled in college.

  She received her compensation - in cash.

  She bought her first apartment.

  Completed her bachelor’s degree in a year.

  At nineteen, she launched her first business: a compact advanced antivirus.

  She never returned to her hometown.

  Not even when her parents died.

  I was moved when she told me.

  But it changed nothing.

  She was comfortable being steel inside and beauty outside.

  We occasionally slept together. Sometimes she behaved like an ordinary person who simply wants her back scratched.

  But what truly bound us were the bold operations we carried out together.

  And now I stood in the motel room, staring at the laptop.

  I hope whatever secret it contains doesn’t kill either of us.

  What was that noise outside again?

  If you enjoy the story, consider following for weekly updates. Likes and comments would be highly appreciated :-)