27. He said, “It’s always the quiet ones.”
27
He said, “It’s always the quiet ones.”
Zach
“Chris is on the bloody warpath,” Sue said, her short legs struggling to totter behind me as I charged past reception and down the corridor to my office.
“Is he,” I said.
“You—Jesus, boss, will you slow down? You missed the mediation for the boundary dispute.”
“Did I.”
“Michaela went instead,” she reassured me. “Chris got pulled out of the partners’ meeting to sort it out. He wasn’t happy.”
“Heaven forbid.”
I kicked the chair out from under my desk and sat down. Sue’s cautious steps stopped at the door, her hands squeezing an old tissue as her gaze skittered around the office, unable to find a safe place to pause. She was anxious. Was I scaring her?
“Boss, i-is everything…okay?”
Guess so.
“Everything’s great.” I forced my lips to twist into a smile.
Sue reared back, her eyes wide.
Just like two years ago.
My smile hadn’t help. Sue’s brows stayed pinched tight, but it was all I could offer when a silent rage twitched through every nerve, my self-control stretched into a thin line, the ends already unravelling, ready to snap.
Chris touched Eden. He hurt her. It’s his turn to suffer.
Another smile crept on my face.
“Zach…hon—”
“Give me a minute, okay, Sue?”
“Y-Yeah.” She inched backwards. “O-Okay.” The glass door snicked shut behind her.
My gaze drifted around my office. My reward. I scoffed a hollow laugh. A white-walled prison with a harbour view. Once upon a time, that had meant something. The claps, the green eyes, and forced smiles when I’d moved into the office next to Chris’s had been a prize. Achieving partnership was supposed to be my happily ever after. The moment I’d worked for my entire career. The time I’d finally risen from the ashes of poverty to become a success instead of the skinny loser with the beat-up Corolla.
I glanced at the photo of Eden on my desk and touched my fingertips to my lips before pressing them to the glass. My beautiful girl. She was my real happily ever after.
Tension short-circuiting my stiff fingers, I focused on the computer and clicked open a new email. The cursor blinked in the white box. How should I word the message to implode my career? If I’d planned better, I would’ve forwarded a photo of the card Eden had sent me all those months ago—the one with the cat that said, “Giving zero fucks.” The final middle finger.
I started typing.
I can no longer work for this firm. It has been my pleasure to work with some of you, but continuing to turn a blind eye to the toxic practices of a partnership who prioritise money and ego over its people only lowers me to the bottom of the barrel with them. We all deserve better than to work for a man like Chris Stone. I’m sorry.
I clicked send.
Twelve years of my life ended with a few sentences, but I’d promised Eden action, not only words.
I slipped off my glasses, arranged them neatly beside the laptop, and rose on steady feet. I shrugged off my suit jacket and tossed it on the desk. Diamond cufflinks dropped on the wool. Off went the carefully knotted tie. Finally, I folded my shirt sleeves to my elbows.
Action, not only words.
How long would it take someone to call the cops? Would I be arrested? I’d never been arrested before. I’d barely been in a fight. Dad had taught me it was better to walk away. I’d been a good kid and kept my fists to myself even when the other boys had teased me and knocked me down just because I’d worn glasses and preferred reading to sport. I was tired of being knocked down. The bullies didn’t always have to win.
The door to my office burst open. Michaela stumbled inside, her chest heaving, cheeks red.
“Zach, your email—” She gulped in a breath.
I headed for the door, but she smacked it shut and barricaded the handle and every possible escape route with a windmill of arms. It would’ve been laughable if there was a drop of emotion left inside me.
“Move,” I said.
“Think about what you’re doing!” The words scratched out of her in a desperate shriek. “Sit down at your desk and retract that fucking email! Zach, I know you—”
“You know nothing about me.”
“I know you’ve worked your arse off for twelve years. You’re the best lawyer in this firm. That woman you’re with is poison, Zach. If she told you to quit—God—whatever lies she’s told you—”
“Bruises don’t lie.”
“Bruises?”
“Chris.”
Michaela’s face turned white, but somehow, she didn’t look shocked.
“Move.”
“Okay.” She nodded. “I’m moving.” Her hand shook when she pulled down the door handle.
I shouldered past her without another word.
People stared at me, and heads popped out of offices as I charged down the corridor. Two colleagues tried to stop me. So many questions.
What happened? Where are you going? Are you okay?
What would everyone say when this was all over? Would it be like when the news anchors interviewed people in the neighbourhood after someone snapped?
It’s always the quiet ones.
The glass-panelled walls morphed into rich, dark wood on the other side of the floor. Those walls hid the partners, but I knew they were in there, crowded around the boardroom table, planning everyone’s future— mine —with the devil himself sitting at the head.
I’d faced those same eight people two years ago. Chris had stood over me, spitting hatred into me like bullets for letting down the firm, and no one had said a word. Billings too low. Mistakes being made. Couldn’t have a weak link leading a team. Not his fucking problem my mother had cancer. Those partners had twitched uncomfortably in their seats, but every last one of them had kept their heads down.
No one had even asked about Mum.
No one had said a word to me until two days later. The woman from Human Resources had waltzed into the hospital in her burgundy suit and parked her arse next to my bed, even though Dad had demanded for her—and everyone else—to fuck off and leave me alone.
She’d asked a lot of questions, too.
Did you really mean to walk in front of that car? Are you sure you weren’t just tired? Maybe you should talk to someone?
That night had been the second time I’d seen my father cry. He’d folded over on the plastic chair in the emergency room and tried to hide the tears behind his hands, and I’d never felt so damn low.
But this wasn’t like two years ago.
I yanked open the boardroom door. Ignored the shocked faces. My eyes zeroed in on Chris. His chair flew back, and he scurried backwards like the coward he was.
“Zach, you need to calm down.”
“I’m calm.” So calm.
He tried to dive past me, but he was too slow. My hand snatched the collar of his overpriced shirt, dragging him back. A panicked shout yelped from someone behind me. Chairs crashed and toppled around the room, and a stampede hurtled at me, but they were stuck in quicksand compared to the speed of my anger.
Chris wrestled an arm free to shield his face, but my fist connected with his cheek, pain searing up my arm, and the sickening crack of bone-on-bone scorching a wave of vomit up my throat that I forced back down.
“I warned you.” I ploughed my palm into his chest to force him against the wall. “Hurt Eden, and I’ll hurt you.”
Air whooshed out of Chris in a strangled grunt when my other fist slammed into his stomach. He bent over, gasping for breath, until he turned to me, his lips curled in a taunting sneer. I lunged for him, but a mix of hands gripped my shoulders, my arms, my side—too many people to fight off. They hauled me back.
“All this over some hairdressing slut?” Chris laughed. “You’re really going to throw away your career over her?”
“Why not? Didn’t you?” I spat back. “I saw the bruises on Eden’s arm. I know what you did. The same abuse you inflict on your fiancée, you evil piece of shit!”
The hands clutched around my shoulders disappeared as one of the partners stepped back…as if they were shocked by what I’d said…as if we hadn’t all been pretending not to see exactly who Chris was for years.
Smirking, Chris touched a hand to his cheek. He squared his shoulders. He wasn’t fazed. He loved this. “I hope joining the queue to fuck that whore was worth it.”
The boardroom turned scarlet.
My fist smashed into Chris’s jaw so hard he reeled backwards, crashing past a chair that rolled away under his grip. He hit the floor with a thud.
“You’d be nothing if it wasn’t for me.” His voice was a broken wheeze as he struggled to stand. “How many times have you failed everyone in this room?”
“I never failed you.”
“You walked in front of a fucking car!”
“Because you failed me!”
His laugh was manic. “You’re soft. A fucking loser from the gutter. Take your pathetic pound of flesh, Zach. This changes nothing about where you came from or the fact that I’m sending your sorry arse back there.”
The insults shouldn’t have meant anything. He’d said them all before. But hatred and disgust fuelled a rage inside me I didn’t understand. I launched for him.
Eden. My parents. Even Andie. My people.
Every punch I landed on Chris was for them. Blood soaked my hand, and thick red smears whipped and splattered over Chris’s face and crisp white shirt. Swollen patches of his skin were already purple.
What…am I…doing?
Strength dissolved from my legs, and without the rage to keep me upright, I crumpled to my knees. My fists were cut and broken, and every muscle ached. I couldn’t move. I watched with a horrified fascination as the man I’d once admired crawled like a shattered crab across the boardroom floor, his breath shallow rasps, the movie star smile missing under the blood and swelling my fists had put there instead.
In the end, I’d been no better than Chris.
What did that make me?
What?
A monster.
“You’re”—Chris gasped a breath—“finished.”
There was nothing left inside me to care.