30
Owen
Lia: how are you feeling?
Owen: Very ready
Owen: How are you feeling?
Lia: anything else i can do?
Owen: Lia you’ve done everything so far
Owen: Now it’s my turn
Owen: Ok?
Lia: ok
Owen: Your plan is perfect
Owen: It’s going to work
Owen: Thank you for including me in it
Lia: i love you
Owen: I love you too gorgeous
"Connor, please come in.”
I hold open the door to my new office, taking measured breaths as the person I hate most on this Earth walks past. Weeks of planning and research, Lia’s hard work complemented by my legal background, all coming down to this.
“Did you see we switched to the shitty brand of creamer in the break room?” he asks, taking the seat facing my desk. “This place is really going to hell.”
He seems to think we’re friends. Or at least friendly. Good. Let him be shocked by how untrue that is.
“You prefer mergers over litigation, right?” I ask, skipping the pleasantries.
“Yeah, obviously. I’ve only taken on one litigation matter and it was the InstaLooks one that was a total shit show.” He’s draped across the chair in casual disrespect, leaning back, cocked sideways, elbow pressing into the armrest.
I say, “Couldn’t agree more.”
“Huh?”
“Have you considered transferring down to the Atlanta office?” I ask, feigning indifference. “Dave says they almost exclusively handle mergers down there. I think they have maybe one court appearance a year.”
“I don’t know.” His hand reaches up to pat his gelled red hair into place—so worried about appearances that he doesn’t hear the threat behind my question.
“I mean, I came to Boston for the accelerated partner track and that obviously didn’t work out.
” There’s a bitter whine he can’t keep out of the words. “So I guess my next step’s still TBD.”
“Actually, it’s not. The senior partners made some decisions about your future with the firm, but I thought it would be best coming from me. They know how close we got when competing for the partner position.”
His body visibly tenses, posture shifting to lean forward with a show of aggression. “Look, if you called me in here to rub it in my face, I’m gonna leave.”
“Exactly right. You are gonna leave.”
“What?” he snaps.
I tisk. “Please watch your tone in my office.”
The office he thinks should’ve belonged to him—a soft spot to press on.
“My tone? You’re the one on some weird power trip. Will you just tell me whatever this is about so I can go?”
“It’s about your performance on the InstaLooks case, actually. Your mistakes were egregious.”
“Mistakes? What mistakes? I crushed that case. It’s not my fault the judge was a bitch.”
“Woah, woah, woah.” I make a show of flinching back, but it’s all controlled. This is exactly what I expected from him, after all. “Language, colleague. I wouldn’t want anyone in this office to think you disrespect intelligent women when they disagree with you.”
“You’re kidding, right?” He’s standing now, a gelled lock of red hair falling across his forehead, slicing through the professional facade. “That case was perfect. Everything was by the book. I even checked my research with AI.”
I can’t help it. I burst out laughing. “That explains so much.”
“Excuse me?”
I stand to mirror him, still quelling my laughter as I thump a huge binder of paperwork across the mahogany of my desk. “Okay. Where shall we start?”
Then I lay it all out, backed by evidence in black and white.
The plaintiff witnesses he chose not to depose, leading to surprise after surprise in trial.
The witnesses who were deposed and had countless inconsistencies between their testimony, all of which Connor either didn’t notice or chose not to pursue.
Most damning of all, the case law precedent he seemed completely unaware of until opposing counsel raised it.
It’s so bad that if I didn’t know he was a lazy, incompetent fuck, I would assume he didn’t want to win the case.
Still he insists, “Owen, come on. Anyone stuck with this case would’ve done the same thing. The precedent was shit and the plaintiffs were sneaky assholes. Nobody could’ve seen that stuff coming.”
“I adamantly disagree,” I say, closing the file. “And moreover, it wasn’t even a lawyer who first discovered these issues. It was my girlfriend.”
“Your girlfriend was looking through confidential legal files? That’s a fireable offen—”
“Oh no, everything Amelia looked through was public record after the case was decided. Even without legal training, someone as smart as her could tell you’d screwed up. Severely.”
“Why…? What…? Your girlfriend was looking through my case files? Did you tell her to do that?”
“Oh no, I could never tell Amelia to do anything she didn’t want to do. She’s very independent. Hard-working. Not afraid to get her hands dirty and make sure things are done right. Believe me, if you met her, you’d understand. Oh wait, I’m sorry, I think you have met her.”
“I have?”
“Though you might know her as Lia.” I pause for effect, then say, “Lia Mercado.”
Connor’s face blanches.
“That’s right,” I say, leaning across the desk, coming nose-to-nose with him as a bit of rage bubbles to the surface.
“And you’re the spineless fuck who threatened her and choked her, never got over her, and came crawling back eight years later only to stalk and harass a woman who was way out of your league to begin with. Isn’t that right?”
“She said I’m stalking her? Are you serious? She gave me her address.” He’s leaning away—defensive, pathetic.
“Yeah, I don’t think she did. And you know who else won’t think she did? The judge who’s gonna review her restraining order case.”
“This is bullshit,” he says but there’s no bravado in it. He’s a shivering husk, a coward through and through.
“Is it? Would you like to try to prove it’s bullshit in the public eye?
Or…” I reach lazily into a drawer, making him wait for it.
“Would you rather sign this consent agreement to the restraining order and have it all go away?” I pull out the pre-written document, placing it with threatening slowness atop the desk.
“I’m not signing anything. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
And that makes me genuinely laugh. Because I may personally hate the guy, but he’s also objectively a bad lawyer.
“It’s a consent agreement without a finding, Connor. You should know you can agree to the terms of the restraining order without admitting fault. I mean, according to you, she’s crazy, right? And you don’t want to go near her again, right? So why wouldn’t you sign it?”
I lean farther forward with each question, daring him to contradict himself.
“But don’t worry. Even if you don’t sign it…
” I take out a second binder, this one as thick as the last. “I’ve got everything I need.
I mentioned Amelia is assiduous, right? Very detail-oriented, organized, stubborn to a fault.
” A malicious grin creeps across my face.
“And she’s kept everything. Every text you’ve ever sent, every email, every social media comment from a burner account.
The handwritten letter you left at her door, which—funny enough—happens to look a lot like the handwriting on your recent case files. ”
I hold up two letters in counterpoint and his face turns red. An animal in a trap, sweating and feral.
I’ve got him now, so I drive the nail home.
“Strange, that the handwriting would match so perfectly. Don’t you think a judge will find that strange, Connor? Don’t you think the firm will find that strange? Probably won’t help your chances of making partner in the future.”
“Fuck you.” It’s a pitiful, bloodless reply.
“You can choose to leave now without signing but, as I think you know, I’m a better lawyer than you. And if we take this to court, I’ll have the backing of the firm where I’m a partner and you’re not.”
Of course, the firm doesn’t know about the letter saved on my personal computer yet, the one resigning from this position more quickly than I got it.
I slide the consent agreement across the table.
“Make it go away, Connor. Fresh start in Atlanta. Seems like a pretty good option to me. A lot better than you deserve.”
He’s frozen in place, processing. His pupils dart left, right, searching for an escape, finding none. A bead of sweat falls thickly down his temple before his hand darts out to grab the pen, scraping his name in blue ink across the bottom of the agreement.
The pen slaps against the wooden desk as he stands with a final, “Fuck you. And fuck that dumb slut too.”
And that does it. In an instant I’m around the desk, fists in his lapels, shoving him against the wall.
He’s immediately limp with fear, all bark no bite, squirming under my grasp and I could kill him now. I could choke him, like what he did to her. It would be so easy—so fucking satisfying. Violence against women is abhorrent, but violence against this guy? Practically a civil good.
Yet somehow, I resist.
Instead, I lean forward, pressing him harder into the wall, breath scraping across his face as I say, “I want to make you a promise, Connor. One last thing before you leave town.”
My voice is a growl, animalistic. He responds like prey, sweat pooling, body starting to tremble.
“If you ever speak to her again,” I say, inches from his face, “if you ever even think about her, I will fucking kill you. I will buy a gun, and I will come to your house, and I will shoot you in the fucking head. And if I go to jail, it’ll be worth it.
Because you’ll be dead and Lia will be safe.
She matters more to me than anything, okay?
More than my own life, and certainly more than yours.
So please, test me. Try it. I would love the opportunity to show you how serious I am. ”
He squirms under my hold, whimpering as I shove him against the wall again. His head knocks into the plaster with a dull thud.
“Say it,” I push. “Say you’ll never go near her again.”
Whatever he sees in my eyes has him frozen like the coward he is. “I—I won’t. I swear.”