3. Ronan
RONAN
There's a certain kind of man I can spot the second he walks into my office.
Todd Bradshaw is one of them.
It's my name embossed on the skyscraper—THE AKOV FIRM in gilded, eight-foot-tall sans serif—and yet he saunters in like he owns the place.
Big shoulders, big handshake, big watch.
The watch is the tell. It's the kind of thing a guy buys when he wants you to know he's done well for himself, but he doesn't actually know enough about watches to buy the right one.
He just walked into a store and pointed at the most expensive thing in the case.
"Mr. Akov," he says. "Thanks for seeing me on short notice."
I never take meetings like this. My time is far too valuable to be spent dealing with the petty squabbles of arrogant strangers.
But apparently, one of the other firm partners has done some consulting work for Todd's investment bank, so Todd called in a favor and weaseled his way onto my appointment books.
I make a mental note to send that partner on a business development trip to Siberia in the near future as punishment for his sins.
But as it stands now, I'm stuck dealing with this bullshit.
Under other circumstances, I would've told my secretary to politely escort Mr. Bradshaw to the door.
But it turns out that Todd here is as lucky as he is irritating, because I have a few minutes to kill.
I've got a call coming in this morning at ten on the dot.
Not on my office phone and not on my personal phone, but on a third device, one that few people have the number to and even fewer have the balls to dial.
It's a call that could change fucking everything.
Therefore, I've made sure my morning remained clear. And as a result, I've got time to kill. Todd Bradshaw walked in at the right moment, looking like a man who's about to entertain me until I decide I've had enough of playing with my food and I send him screaming for the hills.
"Take a seat," I say, gesturing toward one of the two hyper-modern chairs in front of my desk.
They look great, but they're intentionally torture devices for the human spine.
I prefer any and all visitors to my office spend their time in discomfort, so they leave as soon as possible. "What can I do for you, Mr. Bradshaw?"
"Todd's fine." He settles down and crosses one ankle over the opposite knee, twiddling his thumbs, looking far too at ease for my liking.
"Very well then. What can I do for you, Todd?"
He glances around. "Nice place you got here. Swanky as fuck."
I cast an eye around the room. Objectively speaking, he isn't wrong. It's a nice office. Thick, leather-bound legal tomes on the hand-carved bookshelves, a wall of windows behind me looking out over the whole city, the glass so clean you'd think there was nothing there at all.
The desk I sit behind is a single slab of black walnut, big enough to lay a man flat on and carve his heart out of his chest without spilling a drop of blood on the white carpet below.
The only art in the place is a single oil painting done by a man who never painted again after I took this from him.
It's a hunting scene, rendered in harsh, angular shapes and violently dark tints.
Dogs, faceless men with guns, a stag run down to its last breath.
I like that one.
"I'm glad you like it," I drawl.
Truthfully, I don't give a fuck what Todd here thinks of my office.
I've already seen everything I need to see in order to determine that his opinion is worth nothing to me.
The soft, pink hands and chubby wrists of a man who never lifts a finger for himself anymore…
The Hermès tie, sloppily knotted… The vacant, unbothered smile of a former frat boy…
I know what Todd Bradshaw is.
What I don't yet know is why he came crawling to me.
To that end, I arch an eyebrow. "So, Todd…?"
He looks back at me and grins. "I want a divorce," he declares.
Oh, Jesus. Siberia might be too cozy for the partner who allowed Todd Bradshaw here to slime his way into my awareness. I might have to send him to the dark side of the moon instead.
Divorce? I don't do divorce. I barely practice law at all anymore, to be honest. This entire firm is merely a front to the true business that takes place in the shadows, long after the 9-5 crowd has boarded their subways back across the river to New Jersey.
But divorce? Definitely fucking not.
"I think you might've been misinformed," I say icily. "That is not my area of expertise."
He waves a hand like he's batting away a fly, or my words, or both. Somehow, my dislike for the man finds a way to grow another notch. "Ah, I know lawyers. Your kind will do anything if the price is right."
I wouldn't be the man I am if I let rage dictate my actions. So even though I'm insulted enough to peel Todd's smarmy face off his underlying skull right now, I decide to let him live a bit longer.
Why not? I have time to kill, after all.
And walking dead men are nothing if not amusing.
So I smile like I'm laughing right along with him. "Guilty as charged," I say. "Or rather, guilty as alleged."
He chuckles and points a finger gun at me. "Knew it, you wily bastard. Anyway, I need out of this damn marriage. Ten years handcuffed to this shit is… I mean, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about."
I don't, as a matter of fact. A wife wouldn't last long tethered to a man like me before she ended up like Todd here, begging for a way out.
That is, if she was lucky. If she was unlucky, she'd be in a body bag long before she had the chance to scream for help.
All I say to Todd is, "Marriage is difficult. I've steered clear."
"Well, you're smarter than me, then." He pulls out a monogrammed handkerchief and wipes his face. "I want this shit over with, and fast."
I lean back in my chair to mirror his posture and fold my hands in my lap. "There are a million lawyers in this city who could do that for you. Yet you called in a very delicate favor to come see me instead. Why?"
That perks him right up. He thinks he's back in the game.
"Okay," he begins. "Here's the thing. I don't want a normal divorce. I want—" He pauses, looking for the right word. "I want a clean break. A real clean one."
"Define 'clean.'"
He reaches into his jacket.
I tense, just a little. It's a habit. In my line of work, men reaching into jackets is not always a good thing. But what comes out isn't a gun or a phone or a folder.
It's cash.
A thick stack of it, banded, fresh hundreds. He tosses it onto my desk with a flashy flick of his fingers. "That's a retainer," he says. "Plus a little extra. To show I'm serious."
I look at the money.
Then I look at him.
I have seen a lot of money in my life. I've moved sums that would make this stack look like fucking pocket lint.
But it's always been handled with more discretion than this.
His disregard for the proper way to do things is pissing me off.
This shit says, I'm sloppy and careless.
This stack of bills is the move of a man who watched a mafia television show once and can't wait to go tell all his friends about how he dropped it on my desk just like in the movies.
I don't touch it.
"You should put that away," I advise him.
"It's real."
"I'm sure it is. Put it away anyway."
He hesitates, then leaves it sitting there. A little stubborn thing, like a spoiled brat who won't pick up his toys. "I brought that so you know that I'm not asking for the usual shit," he explains.
He pauses again, like the next thing he's going to say is too distasteful even by his low, low standards. His tongue flickers out like a snake's to wet his chapped lips.
We're getting to the part he actually came here for. Every tell is blaring. His whole face changes. He's been waiting for fuck knows how to say this out loud to somebody.
Then he clears his throat and declares, "I want her to get nothing."
I stay silent. It's the best move, more often than not. Fools blabber and incriminate themselves. Wise men keep their mouths shut and let them do it.
"Nothing," he blathers on. "Not the house. Not the cars. Not the joint accounts. I want it. I want her out and I want her gone with what she came in with—which was basically nothing, by the way. I made all of it. That's my money."
That's my money.
I've heard that before.
Mine. All of it. You came in with nothing.
That's a man bellowing in my memory, screaming until his face went red and his knuckles went white and spit flecked his lips from the effort of his shouting.
The woman he was screaming at didn't answer. Not even when he threw a glass and it shattered on the wall just inches shy of where she cowered.
"With regard to marital property in this state, the source of the income isn't a means of contesting ownership during a separation of assets."
He waves that off. "That's what you're for. To make it not matter."
I pick up the ebony fountain pen off my desk and twirl it through my fingers. It's better than wrapping those fingers around his throat, but only because it's not quite as messy. "Do you have children, Todd?"
He blinks like he'd forgotten all about them.
"Two," he grunts.
"Have you given any thought to your desired custody arrangement?"
"Yeah, actually, I have." He leans in again.
Close enough that I can see the burst blood vessels in his nose from too many old fashioneds at Torrisi after work.
"I want them, too." He straightens up and smiles viciously.
"I don't want shared, or every other weekend, or holidays, none of that bullshit. I. Want. Everything."
I've done a lot of bad things. I'm not a man who has any business judging anybody. My hands are not clean, not by a long shot. They never will be.
But there are still things that turn my stomach.
This is one of them.
"You want to blindside your wife by divorcing her, taking everything she owns, and denying her access to her kids," I state coldly.
"What?"
He smiles. He thinks I've finally understood him. He thinks I'm on his side.
"Exactly," he crows. "Hit her before she knows what's happening. By the time she lawyers up, it's already done. She's got no money for a good lawyer anyway, not once I freeze everything. She'll be stuck with whatever ambulance chaser she can find."
There aren't enough words in English or Russian or any of the other languages I speak to convey my disgust for this man.
How does someone become this… this… this pig?
This woman gave you children. She gave you her devotion and trust. I cannot imagine once loving someone enough to marry them…
and then hating them enough to rip her beating heart out of her chest.
A man needs a code. Lines he will not cross.
I have those lines, even if Todd Bradshaw doesn't. And if there's no one else to do it but me, I'll wrap those lines around his fucking throat and strangle him with them.
"May I ask you something?" I say. "Why this? Why not? People fall out of love, but this is more than that."
He shrugs. Nonchalant and careless.
"She let herself go," he says simply. "I'm moving on."
I wait for the rest. But there isn't any. That's it.
She let herself go.
I'm moving on.
"She let herself go," I repeat, in awe that anyone could be so simple-minded and vicious.
"Big time." He spreads his hands like it's obvious.
"Look, you marry a woman, you've got expectations, right?
She was a knockout when we met. Tiny little thing.
And then, you know. Two kids. She stopped trying, stopped caring about herself.
That just won't work, you know? I'm out there with clients, and I've got to bring a wife who looks like…
" He stops. "It's not fair to me. I held up my end. "
"And her end was being thin?"
He laughs, uncomfortable now, because something in my voice has changed and even a man as dense as Todd Bradshaw can feel it.
"You're making it sound bad," he accuses.
"I'm just repeating what you told me."
"Look, it's more than that. We grew apart.
There's stuff. There's always stuff. But yeah.
At the end of the day. She let herself go, and I'm not gonna spend the rest of my life with somebody I'm not attracted to.
That's just being honest. Most guys won't say it out loud, but they're all thinking it. "
"And the kids," I say. "What did they do wrong?"
He wrinkles his nose. "Huh?"
"You want to take your children from their mother. The woman who carried them, birthed them, and presumably, raised them, while you were out there 'holding up your end.'" I spin the pen again between my fingers. "What did they do to deserve that?"
He squirms in the torture chair, uncomfortable.
He's getting frustrated now. He came in here for a victory lap with a presumed fellow brother-in-disgrace, but he's not getting one.
"Look, are you gonna help me or not? Because if you're gonna sit here and lecture me, I can take my business somewhere else.
There's a hundred lawyers in this city."
He's right about that. There are. I just told him as much myself.
Without a doubt, one of them will take his money and do exactly what he's asking.
Some slick associate downtown is going to take this exact stack of cash, or one just like it, and they're going to freeze the accounts and lock up the house and serve a woman with papers she never saw coming.
This isn't my fight. It's got fuck-all to do with me. And yet…
"Alright," I say suddenly.
Todd blinks, confused by my whiplash turnaround.
"Alright?" he repeats.
"Alright, I'll take your case." I take the cash off his desk and stick it in my drawer. I have good plans for what to do with it.
When he realizes what I'm saying, that sleazy smile oozes back across Todd's face. "That's what I'm talkin' about, my man. Now, we're in business!"
He leaps out of the chair and reaches out to shake my hand. I do it even though I'd rather break his hand than shake it, but for the time being, I intend to keep up appearances.
"Yes, we are," I tell him. "Let's give this wife of yours everything she deserves."
He says a few more things I don't hear, but as he leaves my office and the door swings closed behind him, I finish the thought in my head.
Everything she deserves…
… including a better man than you.