Chapter 18
Dom
Ihad just settled at my desk and was starting up my computer when the shouting began. Working across the hall from Christian was always a treat.
He was a good distraction from Harry, who I’d been mulling over for four days straight.
Christian was generally calm and put together. It was simply that some of his clients—scratch that—most of his clients had a habit of pissing him off.
He'd been a defence lawyer far longer than I had, and we first met when he took me under his wing. Before the change in his employment contract.
Christian was smart enough not to blow up at the older guys, the ones who marked their kills on their arms with tallies. But, from what he’d told me, the younger generation of thugs were dumber than they were deadly.
I had a heavy workload and I was always trying to keep up.
As one of the youngest lawyers working on the tenth floor, I constantly had to keep proving that I was good enough to be there.
On top of all that, my boss, John Harris, had transferred all of Christian’s ‘lower level’ clients to me.
It gave him space to take care of Harris, Walsch his suits didn’t fit like they used to.
But he could still rain down hell when he wanted to.
I gave him a look. It wasn’t that his visits were unusual, it simply varied on how much time he needed to pop off.
He stuck his elbow on the armrest, pressing his hand over his mouth, returning my look with a scowl.
“Just give me a minute,” he chewed out.
I nodded and got back to work. The longer it took Christian to start, the more he was boiling over.
I was five minutes into my report before he snapped.
“For fuck’s sake!” My head shot up at the smack of the leather as Christian slapped his hand down. “These idiots were put on the planet solely to fuck with me.”
“What happened this time?” My mouth curved. I enjoyed watching Christian lose his shit. It made me feel better about my dickhead nature.
“I can’t believe he’s in line to take over the family. He’s so fucking stupid.”
Christian had an ongoing fight with Emeryk Kowalski. He was the oldest son of the head of the mafia family that Christian served. It was a bit insane that we would casually talk about them every day as part of our jobs, but that was how deeply involved he was.
“Once a fucking week he’s in my office, no fucking remorse, barely a single fucking word.
And I know for a fact that little shit is going straight back out there to commit some other dumbass crime his father is going to pay me to cover up.
” Christian slowly shook his head, jaw hard.
“The fucking audacity of them, I swear to God. These morons really think I’m just going to bend over and let them fuck me around every time they’re bored. ”
He used to keep this kind of thing boxed up, client confidentiality and all, but he needed someone to vent to. He was close to bursting the first time he spilled the worst secrets he knew.
I just had to let him get it out of his system. One of the things that solidified our friendship was how we worked together. The second was how much we loved screwing with people.
Christian shot me another glare before he took a deep breath. He usually reserved half an hour after seeing any of the Kowalskis just to give himself space to calm down.
“Ugh,” he growled as he arched his back, sitting upright before meeting me head-on. “I don’t know why I even bother. They do more bad than good, anyway.”
There was a pause as I looked up from my screen. “Lumiere?” I asked.
He sighed, shaking his head. “Lumi-fucking-ere.”
Lumiere was our code word for ‘Let’s do some damage.’
It started on our first case together, with Lumiere Inc.
, who we were representing in a case that was very clearly a simple matter of ‘we have more money than you, so back the fuck off’ vs the people.
With that attitude in mind, Christian and I found ways to lose vital evidence, uncover witnesses that had been paid a hefty sum to not come forward and testify, as well as a good old dose of harassment in the form of various fun presents such as decapitated dolls and signs written in blood left outside their offices to top the whole thing off.
And it was a fucking thrill ride.
We had to pick and choose our cases, not make it too obvious by losing every one we were handed, but we did it enough that we made a difference to people’s lives, and we got to hear new reports of multi-millionaires watching their businesses crumble all because of us.
After years of perfecting this certain brand of law, we had a solid system in place.
It made up for all the lives I had ruined when I was younger. I mean, yeah, it wasn’t exactly my fault Sally coerced me into scamming people when I was a kid, but I still took the blame in the end.
“What did you find?” I asked.
“Two of their guys were killed. Straight-up executions. Just left them both in an alley, no effort to hide them.”
My fingers stilled on the keys as I stared at him, blinking slowly as he continued.
“And they are causing a fuss again?” Most of Christian’s work consisted of dealing with his clients' messes.
“‘Fuss’ is putting it fucking mildly. Emeryk thought the best solution was to open fire in a parking garage with a billion fucking cameras.” He groaned, rubbing his forehead before peeking at me through his fingers.
“But… you know…” His scowl morphed into a small grin.
It was the kind of shit we liked, the stuff with an edge, where we didn’t know how things would go.
“I think we need your guy on it. To find out what the fuck is going on with them before they drag me any further into it.”
I’d never told him that ‘my guy’ was actually Grace Fischer. No one else knew but her and me.
She’d been tracking one of The Foundation donors’ cases a few years ago when she picked up unusual activity, which led her directly to me.
I should have been more careful, but she was also incredible at what she did.
I was glad she was the one who found me, and not someone else more prone to blackmail.
I tried to convince her to stay out of it, but, like the rest of her family, she was a stubborn bugger. She gave me a choice: she either worked with us, or she’d fuck up every one of our cases from there on out.
You had to appreciate her work ethic.
“Or we could just go,” he said. “I mean, they’ve already made hints about whisking me away. And I know for sure they don’t mean a cosy fucking holiday in Cornwall. Why don't we take it into our own hands? I don’t want to be around their bullshit any longer, and you’ve got all that wedding crap.”
There was a chance I may have ended up ranting to Christian about the situation with Harry, and maybe I said something about getting away for the wedding. I wanted to make sure I was as far away as possible from every single wedding-related event that would start when Molly came back.
“What? Run away together?” I clutched a hand to my chest in mock horror. “Whatever would they think?” I bit my lip before grinning at him, and he laughed.
“Yeah, honestly, it’ll be great.” He chuckled. “We can go somewhere totally out of the way, just grab a flight to anywhere and go sightseeing or whatever it is normal people do to enjoy themselves - and I won’t have to deal with these fuckers anymore.”
“Christian, darling, you know I love you, but there is no chance I’m leaving when things are just getting interesting.” And, by interesting, I meant I was contemplating pole vaulting over a line I had kept solidly in place because Harry was my friend before anything else.
“Oh yeah? You sure?” Christian raised his eyebrows, a smirk tracing his lips.
The idea of having to go to Harry’s wedding after everything that had happened the other night was just wrong. Standing beside him as his best man when I knew how far he’d gone for me, how he came when I told him not to, imagining him melting under me as I took him? It would be hell.
“I’ll think about it.” I shrugged, dropping the act. Maybe Christian's offer really was an option, though I meant what I said about going with him. I wasn’t risking my own life just because I wanted to get away for a while.
“Yeah, you fucking will.” Christian pushed himself to the edge of the chair and hit me with a serious look. “Right.” He stretched his arms forwards, palms towards me, cracking his knuckles. “Get me that information. And don’t make it obvious.”
“‘My guy’ would kick off if he heard you say that. He’s a professional.”
“Good, then maybe you’ll let me meet him one day and I can say thanks for all the awesome shit he’s pulled over the years.”
“I’ll be sure to mention it.” Though there was no way Grace would ever meet a stranger, especially a man.
And she was very particular about when I called her, so I’d have to wait until later tonight.
“Sure,” Christian said. “Okay, if that’s everything… I’m meeting with the next one of these idiots in half an hour, so I gotta prepare. I swear to God they are all the same. All guns and no brains.”
I was tempted to ask Christian if there was anything I could do about Sally’s blackmailing, but I knew if I took legal action my sisters might be left alone with Terry, and that was an even worse option.
“Have fun,” I said, swinging back to my screen.
“Oh, you fucking know I will.” He gave one last glare before he turned on one foot, and headed straight for the door.