CHAPTER 2 – THE WARRIOR

"Fate whispers

to the warrior:

'You cannot withstand the storm.'

And the warrior

whispers back:

'I Am The Storm'."

- By Unknown

"Sometimes it's not what you say. Valkyrie, it's just the fact that you're saying it."

― Derek Landy

"That which is striking and beautiful is not always good, but that which is good is always beautiful."

― Ninon de L'Enclos

I should have known after all the events of today that this week was going to be a weird one. And I wasn't wrong.

Thankfully, everything worked out fine in the end. The Strip Club had cameras inside which showed the police exactly what I had told them. Tyson Sr. had tried to strangle me and I had defended myself. I was further helped by the fact that my finger had never been on the trigger of my gun. That's one of the rules of dealing with guns: don't put your finger on the trigger unless you're willing to shoot. I wasn't, so that was a great point in my favor. I also had witnesses, who had been quite vocal in my defense. The fact that Tyson Sr. had a history of violence, a criminal record and was a 6 feet 3 man and I was an upstanding member of the community and a 5 feet 6 tall woman didn't hurt. But, my ace in the hole was Missandei. She was a force of nature and an extremely good lawyer. She dealt with the police and gave them copies of our files about the abuse of his son. So, although I had to spend a couple of hours there while we all gave our statements and contact information, which I made sure Missandei and I stayed until all the strippers had been interviewed, and Tyson Sr. had been carted off to jail, in the end I was sent home without even a stern talking too. Not by the police anyway. Missandei was a different story.

By the time we got out of there it was mid-afternoon and Missandei dragged me to a late lunch. She was worried about me, which was an old argument. But, I still appreciated that she cared about me. She was my best friend. Our main issue was that she, like most other people I knew, couldn't understand why I had left a promising career as a lawyer to become a private investigator. I had opened up my own shop a few years back. It was small and I dealt mostly with insurance fraud and cheating spouses. It paid the bills, I enjoyed it, but it wasn't exactly my dream yet. I wanted it to grow. I wanted to work hard cases, more important cases. I wanted to help people. My friends tried to be understanding, but all my girlfriends had been married for years now and had at least two kids each. They all had conventional careers. They had trouble comprehending the fact that I wasn't interested in marriage in the least and that I didn't want to have kids. Besides being a personal choice, it irked me that still in this day and age your value as a woman was measured by your ability to catch a man and to pop some kids out. I think being a mother is the hardest job in the world and I had nothing but respect for the women who make the choice to have kids, they're braver than me.

I think one of the most important things in life is to be self-aware. I knew I wasn't a conventional type of girl. I would never be satisfied by a conventional job and family. So, why let society pressure me into an unhappy life when I was more than capable of choosing my own path. I had had this conversation hundreds of times with Missandei, but today she decided on a different approach. Instead of the whole spiel about how I should settle down with a nice guy, have kids and go work as a lawyer at her firm, she seized upon the danger I had put myself in at the Strip Club. I tried to remind her that Tyson Sr. had gotten his ass kicked by me and I hadn't even broken a nail. She waved me off. She was worried about the fact that I should have had back up. That I shouldn't always work alone. That I should have a partner or at least get another assistant.

She brought up good points. Not so much about my safety, that I wasn't worried about. I worked hard enough at the shooting range and at the dojo to feel secure, but I was in need of yet another assistant. My vision for my business always included me hiring a young woman out of school as an assistant and training her for a few years to became a full-fledged private investigator and eventually a partner in the business, or at least an associate. The problem was that they never lasted. None of them had shown a real interest in becoming a PI and even worse, when a more glamorous assisting job appeared they handed in their notices and went on to bigger and better things. I had been working solo as a PI and as my own secretary/assistant for the last four months. I could have gotten a new temporary girl, but I was getting sick of the revolving door. I wanted someone to stay. Someone who would enjoy the work. Someone who would consider an investment in a career and not just a way to make a buck until something better came along.

Missandei and I talked about that and then she surprised me.

"That's what I'm talking about, Daenerys. If this is what you want to do with your life, you need some help. I'd feel much better if you hired someone. That way, at least you'd have a person who'd always know where you were and I think training them to help you grow the business it's a great idea. You remember Sansa, right?"

That gave me pause. I had never actually met Sansa Stark, but she was Missandei's interior decorator. She was apparently fabulous and the best in her business. What did Sansa have to do with what we were talking about?

"Sure, the infamous Sansa Stark. Don't tell me, she decided to quit being an interior decorator and it's dying to get into the PI business?"

"You know, I appreciate your sarcasm a lot more when it's not directed at me. You're such a smart ass. No, Sansa loves what she does, but we were talking earlier today, before your drama, and she mentioned that her cousin who also grew up here but has spent the last decade abroad is back in town and is very interested in becoming a PI. She asked me to talk to you about it. She knows you're my best friend and a PI. So, what do you think?"

Well, that was a pleasant surprise. I needed more information about this girl and if she was cousins with Sansa, it might not work. Sansa was a notorious socialite and I couldn't picture a socialite wanting to be a PI, especially if she had to start from the bottom up. Assistant work isn't glamorous. It's basically being a secretary, who I sometimes used to help me with some cases.

"I think I need more information. It sounds great and exactly like what I've been wanting. However, why would Sansa's friend want to be a PI? Is she as fabulous as you say Sansa is? And since Sansa is older than us, why would a near forty year old want to be my assistant? Does she have any experience here or abroad as a PI?"

"I haven't met him, Daenerys. So, I can't answer your questions. That's something you'll need to ask him if you agree to meet him. You can interview him properly or just meet him at your office and get some first impressions. If you don't like him, no harm, no foul."

"HIM? It's a guy? Oh, come on! Missandei, are you high? Do you really think a guy will want to be my assistant, which basically means my secretary? Especially a guy who's older than me? Because men usually do so well taking orders from younger and more powerful women than them. I do not have the time or inclination to allow power struggles at the office."

"I see your point, Daenerys. But, what do you have to lose by meeting him? He might surprise you. Not every man is that misogynistic."

"Not the millennials, but guys of our generation and older generally are."

"I don't know his age. Sansa's 38 years old. He might be younger than her; he might even be a millennial."

"God forbid!" I said mostly joking and crossed myself. Missandei laughed at my antics

"So, what do I tell Sansa?"

"Give her my contact information. Tell her to pass it along to him, that way he can call me and schedule a time to come to the office so we can meet and talk. I'm not promising anything, but I'll meet him."

"Ok. Let me just text her right now, so I don't forget. Your adventure today put me behind schedule. I still need to go by the DA's Office to hand the file over on Tyson Sr. and I have to get back to my office too before going home."

"I'm sorry to have disrupted your day, sweetie. But, it was for a good cause."

"You don't have anything to be sorry for and indeed it was, I was glad to help."

Missandei focused on her phone and was typing away. I was guessing she was talking to Sansa. I sipped my wine and waited, I knew Missandei would be fast about it. I was right.

"Daenerys, are you free tomorrow at ten am?"

"Yeah. I mean I don't have any clients on the books until Friday and the last active case was Ebony's, which is now in your capable hands."

"Sansa says he'll meet you at your office tomorrow at ten."

Funny how Sansa was so invested in him getting this job and weird how she was the one who organized the meeting. I didn't think I liked what it said about him that he couldn't even call me directly. Maybe I was overthinking it and Sansa was just a very overzealous relation. But, maybe not.

"Fine. What's his name?"

"Jon. Jon Snow."

Well, Mr. Snow better watch out for me. I couldn't say I was completely comfortable with what I just agreed to do, but as Missandei had said, I just had to meet him and if I didn't like him that would be it. Seemed simple enough, though of course things never are.

Tuesday Morning:

I had woken today with a very weird feeling. It wasn't exactly foreboding, but it wasn't warm and fuzzy either. It was kind of electric. It told me something of note would happen today. If it was going to be good or bad, I had no idea. But, it left me a little bit on edge.

I couldn't afford to be off my game. I was going to meet Mr. Jon Snow in about 15 minutes. The mysterious guy who was interested in becoming a PI and for some reason wanted to meet and maybe work for me. If what Sansa said was actually true then I had no reason to doubt it.

It was going to be tricky being the one in a position of power over him. In my experience, men didn't deal well with women as their bosses. Especially if said woman was younger than them, more experienced in the area and pretty. I was all three. Unless, he had more experience than I was led to believe. If so, that would be even more difficult. I wasn't a very patient woman, so if he annoyed me I'd get rid of him faster than you could say good riddance.

I had dressed in my best black power suit, a crispy white shirt, high heels and I put my hair into its usual braids. I applied my usual make-up, not much, but just enough. I looked professional. I thought I looked like a CIA Agent, if you ignored the braids, but it cracked me up nonetheless. But, image is a type of power and I was willing to use every tool at my disposal.

I was sitting at my desk, typing some notes about yesterday into Ebony's file when I heard a knock on the outer door. I had left the door to my office opened. Since I didn't have an assistant to sit at the front desk, I needed to answer my own door and for that it was necessary to hear when people knocked. I really required an assistant.

So, I saved the file, closed the laptop, got up and smoothed my clothes to remove any wrinkles. I stopped by the door to my inner bathroom and checked my reflection in the mirror. My hair and make-up looked fine, so I was as ready as I was going to be. Or so I thought, until I opened the door.

There stood the most beautiful man I had ever seen. He was drop dead gorgeous. 6 feet tall, with long brown hair, half tied in a bun behind his head, grey-eyes, with a short dark beard, incredibly fit, corded with lean muscle and just plain striking and pretty in a very fierce way. I froze with my hand on the knob and the door half-opened. It wasn't just his good looks that stopped me in my tracks, it was his eyes. He had incredible eyes, deep grey and intense. His eyes looked haunted and years older than him. They were also weary, shadowed. Dark things lurked in their depths. He had seen much horror, that was clear. It was the eyes of someone who had gone through a great storm and came out at the other side changed and not quite whole, but not broken. It was the way he carried himself. He stood with his hands behind his back, relaxed but at attention at the same time and staring at me unflinchingly. He had wolfish eyes, dangerous and a bit feral. The eyes of a loner. I knew instantly that he could be extremely dangerous if provoked, that he was troubled and trying his hardest to hide it. He looked like a cross between a chivalrous musketeer and harsh medieval warrior. It was a strange and very compelling combination. All he was missing was some armour and a big long sword strapped to his side.

What saved me some embarrassment while I spent a couple of minutes making my assessment of his amazing hotness and complex eyes was the fact that he seemed to be transfixed with me as much as I was with him. I needed to move, say something, and do something. But, I was enthralled by his looks. The best I could describe was that he looked like The Medieval Warrior of Myth. And so, I couldn't resist. I opened the door fully with a flourish and said:

"Are you lost on your way to a battle, Warrior? A siege, perhaps?

I smirked.

His eyes widened in surprised and he gave a booming laugh that seemed to caress me. Wow.

"Since I'm not lost and I'm at your castle, wouldn't that make you my Queen?"

He had me there. And I really appreciated his sense of humor.

"Touché. Please, come in, Mr. Snow."

"Thank you, Ms. Targaryen."

A/N: So, how did you like their first meeting? You like my Jon so far? The rest of their meeting will continue in the next chapter. Please, please, leave some feedback. Thanks!