LOVE IN CONTRACT

Maya's POV:

"Please, leave me alone. I don't know what you're talking about."

My voice came out quieter than I wanted, but I didn't look away.

My fingers were clenched so tight around my phone that my knuckles hurt. 

The streetlight flickered above us, throwing uneven shadows across the road. My street was usually calm at this hour with families locked indoors, the occasional car passing and the sound of television bleeding through open window. 

Victor Benson stood a few steps away from me, hands in pockets, dressed to well for a random street confrontation.  His shoes were spotless. His expression relaxed m, almost bored, like this was an inconvenience rather than something deliberate. 

He was tall and broad, his dark eyes looked sharp, almost like they were measuring everything around him. His face was handsome enough to pass for an actor, there was something tense in his expression.

Beside him was his sister.

She carried an energy that was impossible to miss. Her mid- length dark hair framed a face that was as sharp, and her green eyes held a calculating glare. Her pointed shoes sounded like a warning, like the world must follow her lead.

Victor laughed.

It wasn't a loud laugh. Just a short, amused sound, like he already knew how the conversation would end.

I looked from him to the woman standing beside him. Helena didn't laugh.

She stood perfectly still, arms folded, her sharp eyes fixed on me like she was studying something she'd already decided she didn't like. Her black dress looked expensive, the kind that didn't need effort to intimidate.

"You're overreacting," Victor said lightly. No one is attacking you."

I tightened my grip around the strap of my bag.

"Then why are you here?" I asked. "On my steet." 

Helena's eyes narrowed just slightly.

"You shouldn't be asking questions like that," she said. Her voice was calm, almost polite. "You should be listening."

I swallowed.

"I don't know what you think I did," i said, choosing each word carefully, "but you're mistaken"

Victor chuckled under his breath. "You journalists love saying that."

"I'm not doing anything wrong," my heart was beating fast now, but I forced myself to stay still. "If this is about work, you should speak to my editor." 

Helena stepped closer.

Not touching me. Just close enough that I could smell her perfume.

"You take pictures," she said quietly. "You observe. You record things that don't belong to you."

"I do my job," I said. "That's all."

Victor tilted his head, studying me like I was mildly interesting. " Funny thing about jobs," he said. "They come with limits. Lines you don't cross and since you've started it, you can as well, finish it."

"I haven't crossed anything." I said.

Helena smiled then.

It wasn't warm.

"You don't get to decide that," she said.

A car drove past slowly, headlights sweeping over us for a brief second. I felt exposed, suddenly aware of how alone i was standing alone