<span style="color: #003366">“You look awful happy—”</span><br/><br/><i>Cain.</i>She prefers to be called Cain; that much Maggie had learned from the files she had spent hours researching that night, which, in the end, was actually less than she’d learned from their brief encounter at the bar. Everything else was unimportant, and already forgotten—heists here, slave trade there—the database was full of entries like hers. Cain, even as a daughter of a their so called<i>Al’Hal Eth’</i>, was just another Ethonian thug… yet the sound of her voice so close behind sent shivers up Maggie’s spine. The ambassador froze in place for a couple of seconds longer than would’ve seemed natural, and then turned calmly around to face the taller girl. The wide legs of Maggie’s black suit trousers were briefly caught in the air and that was the closest her apparel would ever get to resemble a dress. The jacket was open and the black top underneath showed far too much cleavage for a business attire.<br/><br/><span style="color: #003366">“What do you pull in for destroying entire pleasure liners? Because it seems like a damn lucrative business.”</span><br/><br/>“Fear, my darling,” Maggie replied still with the same ecstatic smile she’d been carrying since the meeting from earlier, “But I wouldn’t expect you to know what it is,” and then quietly added to her coms, “<i>Stand down.</i>”<br/><br/>There was no mistake that this wasn’t a casual encounter, and the very fact that both of the women decided to act as if it was sent tension out of the charts. Had Maggie called for her guards to arrest the intruder on the spot, it would’ve been normal, expected behavior for someone of her status. Instead, she continued to bring the steady clicking of her heels towards the wide set of front doors and let the girl tag along like some friendly neighbor intending to catch a shared elevator ride.<br/><br/><span style="color: #003366">“So tell me...  Why me? Why the bar? If you wanted to get thrown around a bit before my boys fucked you, you could have asked sweet cheeks.”</span><br/><br/>“Oh, I hope you didn’t think there’s something<i>special</i>about you,” Maggie said and held the glass door open for the girl, “I was bored, and you were there.” Walking through the short lobby towards the elevators, with a light chuckle, she added, “I must admit, you didn’t disappoint.”<br/><br/>The doors slid open with a faint ‘bling’ (some things about elevators never change) and for a moment longer, Maggie continued to stand still and just stared into the empty cabin that on its four walls displayed a distant projection of endless green hills under a blue sky. Did she seriously consider stepping into an elevator with<i>her</i>? Not even the illusion of an open space made the reality any less confined. While Maggie continued to talk, all her focus suddenly on whatever was about to happen next, the words that came out from between her glossed lips were not quite what she intended them to mean.<br/><br/>“This is an elevator,” she said, and then, realizing<i>what</i>she’d said, closed her eyes and fought very hard against the urge to gently place her palm on her own face.<div class="messageTextEndMarker"> </div>