LIPSTICKS & CIGARETTES

It was raining heavily when the café lights dimmed. 7:00 pm- they were about to close because of the weather but noticed a table still had a customer.

Valentine Graves, she was a regular. The waitress asked her if she was busy in her work as they planned on closing early, but she was too focused on the article she held.

" The only freedom worth having is the kind you surrender willingly. ” --by L.D.

"Pathetic" she whimpered. “how are girls so crazy over him?? over a man with such thoughts.”

“Ma’am??” she was cut off by the waitress.

Valentine blinked, as if waking from a dream, and looked up.

Empty tables. Chairs stacked. Jazz fading.

“Right,” she murmured, packing up her things. “Sorry. Guess I overstayed my welcome.”

She pulled on her trench coat, grabbed her files, and stepped into the night.

The rain hadn’t stopped. The city lights hit the wet pavement.

She stretched open her umbrella and whispered to no one, “Deadlines never close, anyway.”

---

Valentine Graves is an Investigative Journalist who grew up in an orphanage and had a rough childhood. Still she stood strong hiding the soft side in her from everyone else. She was passionate for her work, knew tactics and truth at the same time.

As she entered her apartment, kept aside her umbrella for it to dry.. she let out a deep sigh and whispered to herself- “GET TO WORK -VAL, OTHERWISE YOUR JERK BOSS IS GONNA FIRE YOU”...she paused, “fire my ass! I will set his house on fire if he questioned my potential once again”

Only if her financial condition was better, then she would think about a startup but here she is, working under some shitty jerks.

She made herself a cup of coffee, actually a jar of coffee to stay up the fucking second night she was sleep deprived of.

She , her coffee , her laptop and her recent obsession over L.D. - THE CEO OF DRAVEN MEDIA CORP.’s underworld connections... all were set on her table and she got on her work.

---

Next morning, the dew and mist over her moneyplant in her balcony sparkled. Valentine’s eyes flapped open on her alarm. She woke up panicked thinking she slept midway her work but as she got in her senses she realised she slept after completing the article she was writing. So she took a deep breath and went for a shower.

As she looked at her naked body in the washroom mirror, her face got pale.. she traced her hands on the stretch marks, the freckles , the wounds and bruises who left with a mark , the huge cut scar by her spine that healed but memories didn’t.

Valentine was 6 when she and her parents got in a car accident. She survived but they didn’t. That is when she got the scar on her spine area with the window’s broken glass in the accident.

She was later bullied in the orphanage. Yeah she didn’t inherit anything from her parents as they were run-aways and had a miserable time managing to raise her , how could they have had lands or house or savings. That is why, She had no belief in love, she felt love only got pain and vain in life as she saw her parents suffer in life.

She has a faint memory of her childhood, but clear enough to hit her sharp. Her father was a driver under a ruthless man.. that day he was on his way back from the car washing centre as he was bringing the car for the owner , when he spotted Valentine and her mother seeking for lift to go back home from the market. He got them in the car to drop them in the way but that is when Valentine lost her only 2 well-wishers.

---

Valentine grabbed her files and purse and headed straight to the office rushing with a bread in her hand and another in her mouth...Yeah, she eventually got late in her thoughts. But she was a lady of class...how could she forget her lipstick??? her favourite cherry red one. As she enters the check-in area, she fixed her hair and applied her lipstick using the reflecting glass panel of the ID-checking area as her mirror.

She clicked the cap shut. Lipstick perfect. Mask on.

“Val..hurry up, I won’t wait all day for your ID card just for the sake of your lipstick” said the security counter guy annoyingly.

“Valentine...its Valentine Graves- not Val, and my lipstick is worth more than your time that you spend checking on IDs of everyone who fucking work here everyday. Jerk. ” she said, giving him a death stare.

Her heels clicked against the floor as she walked past him without another glance. Every step carried that same rhythm.

She had a bad temper, she had reasons to.

Later, she submitted her work to her boss and got on with work and for the love of god! finally, her article was selected for the publication. Good for the boss.. otherwise who knows she would have made his house into ashes.

She had a peaceful sleep that night as it was the end of the month and her salary arrived too...and also.. she didn’t got fired, which she wasn’t gonna.. still she didn’t trusted anyone...not even her own fate.

---

Next morning when she arrived at her table in the office, the one at the corner...She saw the magazine article kept there for her, obviously the one from her company.

A headline pulsed across it in clean serif font:

“DRAVEN MEDIA CORPORATION UNDER FIRE FOR SILENCING INDEPENDENT MEDIA.”

She took a sip of her coffee and gulped softly, just enough to betray the adrenaline she’d been pretending not to feel. Her own name was buried three paragraphs down - “an anonymous columnist under the alias V.G.”

Her lips curved.

“Classic.”

She opened her laptop just to see hundreds of mails and DMs, and as she was the first one who reached the courage to write a word against him and his company. Men feared his power and control over the industry and women...they adored him and his mysterious personality...not all but at least the ones in the publishing sector.

And then, smiles to herself - the kind of smile that says I know I shouldn’t have done that… but I did anyway.

---

Across the city, high above the glittering skyline, Luka Draven stands at a floor-to-ceiling window, holding a lit cigarette between his fingers as he exhales out the smoke calmly. From the top floor of Draven Tower, the city looked smaller than it should - a toy city, pulsing under the power of one man’s thumb.

The article is open on his tablet, her name glowing on the screen: Valentine Graves.

He reads the paragraph again, jaw tightening at the accuracy.

She wasn’t guessing. She knew.

He presses his thumb against her author bio , as if he could erase her that easily.

“So you’re the one...little bird,” he murmured, low - not anger yet, just fascination with teeth.

"She put me in ink. Brave… or stupid. I’ll find out soon enough." he thought to himself.

Behind him, his assistant’s voice cuts through the quiet:

“Sir, she’s trending. Do you want a statement drafted?”

“No.” He smashes his cigarette in the ashtray. “I want a meeting.”

The assistant hesitated - “You mean an interview?”

Luka’s gaze flicked up, unreadable.

“No,” he said again, softer. “A meeting.”

---

Evening sunset creeps across Valentine’s cluttered desk. Her inbox is full of congratulatory messages and hate mail - both sound the same when you’ve hit a nerve.

Her laptop glowed faint blue against the chaos - the article still open, her words headlining a dozen news aggregates.

Comments flooded in faster than she could delete them.

-Brilliant exposé.

-Fake journalism at its worst.

-Whoever wrote this just ended her career.

She scrolled through the mix of admiration and death threats like someone reading a horoscope - detached, almost curious.

She’s about to close her laptop when the security guy slides an envelope at her desk.

“Seems important-” he said.

“You go, I’ll see” She side eyed him.

Black paper. Silver handwriting. Premium brand- stamped. No return address.

She opens it.

One card. Bold letters.

You’ve got something of mine. Let’s talk. -- L.D.

The Monarch Hotel, 9 p.m.

Her gaze lingered on those initials, tracing the way they curved like a dare. She could almost hear him saying it.

You’ve got something of mine.

Arrogant. Confident. Dangerous.

She stares at it for a long moment, tapping her pen on the table. Then she finally stopped and her lips parted as she murmured to no one in particular:

“Guess the devil read the news.”

And somewhere across the city, the man in the black suit would’ve smiled without needing to hear it.