Chapter 32 #2
Finally, I looked at Joseph, holding his gaze, hoping he would trust me.
“Her or no one.”
“Oh, this is getting interesting,” Troy laughed and clapped his hands together. “Joseph versus Davian.” He clicked his tongue three times as he shook his head. “And I thought you were a dream team.”
“We are a team!” Joseph growled at him. A vein stood out on his forehead.
Something inside me relaxed. At least my mentor hadn’t forgotten that I was fighting this battle for him.
“Troy,” Tony remarked as Thadd?us refilled his whiskey glass. “I think it’s better if you leave now.”
“Of course.” Troy glanced between us with mischief and raised both hands. “The esteemed Richter gentlemen.” His gaze lingered on me and he bowed slightly. “Rydell.”
When had I last given him a proper face-polishing? Sixteen years ago?
With a dirty grin, Troy also left, and I looked promptingly at Thadd?us, who immediately understood and reached for his briefcase.
“I have to go too.”
He nodded to all of us and disappeared as well.
I didn't wait a second longer and turned to my mentor and my friend.
Secrets and Lies
Atli ?rvarsson
“You two...” I looked back and forth between them. “...are acting strangely.” Nervousness crept into Tony’s face, while Joseph just stared at me. “And I’d like to know what it is, because there’s something in the air that makes it increasingly difficult to communicate properly.”
Joseph reached for his glass and something inside me tensed.
That hadn't been my intention.
Anthony looked at me imploringly. And then I realized that it must have something to do with the child running around in Joseph's house.
Joseph had never let his personal problems interfere with his work. Why was he doing it now? And why wasn't he finally opening up to me if it was weighing so heavily on him?
“Nothing is in the air,” he snorted and took a sip that confirmed his lie. “We just should have communicated better.”
My chest rose and fell heavily, and Tony looked at me apologetically.
What exactly gave him the right to turn against me? If he had chosen Quill as his candidate, no one would have had a problem with it. And anyway...
My gaze wandered back to Joseph.
“What exactly bothers you about Miss Veritas?” Joseph didn't look at me, staring out the window and still holding the whiskey glass as if it were his last resort. “Did she do something in your lecture that I should know about?”
She could be provocative. And God, how I enjoyed that side of her.
I bit my tongue.
All weekend, I had racked my brains over what it would mean to train Quill as my student.
I had gone through all the rational reasons for doing it: that it would help her and Monica; that she was a candidate I wanted to see win, to convince her that she could do this if she wanted it enough, that she could achieve anything if it was important to her.
But the dominance of the treacherous thoughts was impossible to ignore.
More time with her. Her closeness. Her words. More opportunities to get close to her. And that, damn it, was not my plan.
Why was I so weak? I hadn't even been able to hesitate when she had asked me, because all that had gone through my mind the moment she had tried to justify herself had been: Quill stays in Maplecrest.
And once again, I had been given a burst of hope – another load of ink that I didn't know how long I could keep my battery running on.
“She's unpredictable.” I stared at my mentor. “How are we supposed to win with someone who doesn't fit in here and whose next move we don't know?”
He seemed tense.
Was he even here with his thoughts?
“Where you see danger, I see an advantage. It could give her an edge in the debates.”
Looking at Tony wasn’t getting me anywhere. He seemed increasingly desperate, which could only mean one thing: Joseph had enough other problems to deal with, and arguing with him further wouldn’t be fruitful.
“You should trust me,” I finally said as calmly as possible, even though Joseph continued to stare out into the park.
“You know that I make all my decisions with your future position as director of the law school in mind. Troy doesn’t stand a chance against me.
He didn’t back then, either. That’s why you chose me, and that’s why I’m going to win. ”
The conversation wasn't over yet, but I was confident that after dinner tonight, he would invite me into his study and talk with me late into the night about the good old days. That he would relax and open up. That I would finally be able to get through to him and help him with all his problems.
“I have another meeting. But I'll see you tonight...”
I nodded to Tony, who was frozen like a pillar of salt, just like his father, and as I left the office, I knew that tonight I would not only have a meaningful conversation with my mentor, but also comb through the Richter estate until I found the child Joseph was hiding from the world.
They called her a rebel.
Mistook her criticism for insolence,
her courage for recklessness,
and her persistence for defiance.
They saw a child where there stood someone
who wanted to forget what it felt like
to be a child in this world.
– Blue