Chapter 15 she warned, wrenching the wheel, the car leaping forward with GPS precision. Javier’s gaze slid away, but her beaming smile lingered in his mind, etching itself deep. A faint smile tugged at his own lips, unbidden.
This woman was truly fascinating.
Valeria guided the white race car through the city’s fringes, the Five-Star Building looming thirty to forty kilometers from the racetrack. The urban hum faded into a serene hush, the road threading through a vast forest until the military base emerged—a fortress veiled by towering trees. Pierith, the nation’s capital, cradled this stronghold, its outer edges bristling with vigilant soldiers.
She eased off the gas, peering through the windshield at the complex’s shadowed might. A patrol squad spotted her, weapons snapping up as they advanced, hands raised to halt her. Valeria braked, the car stilling as they encircled it, a ring of steel. The leader stepped forward, mouth opening—then froze as the window rolled down, revealing Javier’s stern visage.
“Commissioner Barnett?” Recognition jolted them back, salutes flashing crisp and swift.
“Proceed,” Javier said, a nod nudging Valeria onward.
The soldiers blinked, registering her—a striking stranger at the wheel. As the car pulled away, their eyes traded silent questions. The Commissioner, aloof to bonds, beside a woman? Gossip beckoned, yet discipline clamped their tongues, leaving only knowing glances as they resumed patrol.
With the window down, Javier’s presence smoothed their path to the inner sanctum. Valeria’s gaze roamed, curiosity alight—this was uncharted terrain. Closer in, security tightened like a noose: twin turrets flanked iron gates, their hulking forms radiating menace, a shiver tracing her spine. Sentinels stood every sixty feet, rifles tall as half a man, their stares unyielding. Patrol squads marched in sync, boots a metronome of order, the air thick with oppressive weight.
She’d braced for scrutiny—searches, registrations—but Javier’s face parted the gates like a key, salutes snapping as they rolled through unchecked. His title’s clout she’d known, but this seamless sway struck deeper, a visceral lesson in power.
“Commissioner Barnett,” two lieutenants greeted as the car slowed, their insignias glinting, salutes sharp. They’d waited, poised.
“Drop me here—thank you,” Javier said, unbuckling, poised to exit.
“Wait,” Valeria called, voice steady yet edged.
He paused, half-turned, face a cipher. The lieutenants swapped baffled looks—? Valeria’s brow arched, her tone cutting, curious. “Did you drag me here to flex, scare me off hiring some fraud who’d botch your patient?”
Javier’s dark eyes flickered, a rare glint breaking his calm. “If you deliver, all this—” he gestured to the base—“is yours to command. No one will bar your path, wherever it leads.” His words, sparse, carried a double blade: aid if true, ruin if false, his silence a looming threat—no refuge would shield her from his reach.
She tilted her chin, meeting his gaze like a blade to the abyss. Silence stretched, a duel of wills under the base’s suffocating pall—his aura a force to shatter steel, yet her poise held, uncracked. “Ready everything for this weekend,” she said, certainty ringing. “Egret will be there.”
Without awaiting reply, she turned the car, deliberate and unhurried, tires humming as she drove off, leaving Javier and his men in her dust.
