2. ADRIAN
ADRIAN
The air conditioning hums. Other than that, just the expensive silence of a conference room designed to make people feel smaller than the decisions being made inside it.
Paula Cross is still talking.
"She didn't even come to the funeral." Paula leans forward, manicured nails pressing half-moons into the leather portfolio she brought.
Her perfume reaches me again, gardenia layered over something synthetic, sweet enough to coat the back of my throat.
"Her father was buried a week ago and she couldn't be bothered to show up. "
I let the silence hold for a beat longer than necessary.
There's information in how people fill the space you give them.
And Paula fills it exactly the way I expected.
With volume, repetition, and the particular brand of outrage that only surfaces when someone is performing grief rather than experiencing it.
"That's why we're here, Mrs. Cross." I keep my voice level and unhurried. "Conrad didn't leave a will. This meeting is to discuss how the estate might be divided under California intestate succession law."
"Divided." She says the word like I've insulted her. "I was with him for fourteen years. I held his hand in that hospital. I was the one, Adrian. Not her."
I can identify the architecture of a transaction at fifty paces. Paula Cross is a cathedral of it.
I wouldn't normally take this case. Probate disputes are tedious, the legal questions settled before the conversation starts.
But William asked. William wants Cross Manor in Hidden Hills, and whatever angle he's working requires Paula in a favorable negotiating position.
I don't know the full picture. I don't need to.
William's motives are his own, and my job is representation within the boundaries of the law.
"I understand your position," I say. "And I'm here to advocate for your rights, within the legal framework. That's what you're paying me to do."
"What I'm paying you to do is make sure that junkie daughter of his doesn't see a cent.
" Paula straightens in her chair, and the performance sharpens.
"Do you know what she was like? Drugs, parties, disappearing for weeks.
Conrad covered for her, paid for everything.
She's an addict, Adrian. She'll blow through whatever she gets in six months. "
I've heard all this before. Many years ago. But last time I heard the name Sienna Cross, it was because she was sentenced to be committed to a very reputable rehab facility.
I hope she's doing okay. I hope that going to Greenhaven helped her.
Paula is still going. Her voice has found a rhythm, rising and circling, circling and rising, each sentence a variation on the same theme. I deserve this. She doesn't. I was here. She wasn't.
I look at her while she speaks. She's attractive.
Objectively, precisely attractive, maintained with investment and discipline.
Mid-thirties, bone structure that photographs well, the specific tension around her eyes that comes from either Botox or sustained calculation.
Under different circumstances, a different version of me would have filed her as someone worth an evening, once the paperwork cleared. I have a reputation of sorts.
Serial flirter, some call it. Others are less generous with the terms they use.
But lately the appeal has dimmed. Conversations that lead to a single night that lead to a clean exit used to feel like enough. Lately not so much..
Hard and fast. That's how I've been living. Because the alternative requires a kind of time I've stopped assuming I have.
"Mrs. Cross." I wait until she pauses for breath. "I hear your concerns. Let's address them when all parties are present."
The door opens.
The click of the latch is sharper than it should be in a room padded by carpet and money, and then my assistant steps in, angling her body to hold the door open for someone behind her.
And in an instant everything changes.
Like a system that's encountered input it doesn't have a category for and is taking longer than it should to process.
She's small. Five-two, maybe less. Dark navy suit, tailored close but not tight.
Her hair is up, a loose knot at the crown of her head, wisps framing her face, softening the line of her jaw.
Big brown eyes. Long lashes. No jewelry except a thin chain at her collarbone, catching the overhead light in a single bright point.
She stands in the doorway for half a second. Surveys the room.
My body has a mind of his own and I'm on my feet before I've decided to stand.
"Adrian Kade." I extend my hand. "I'm the attorney managing your father's estate proceedings."
She takes it. Firm. She meets my eyes and doesn't fill the silence with pleasantries.
I feel the exact moment she starts to pull back and I haven't let go yet. My thumb still pressed against the ridge of her knuckles, the contact registering somewhere lower than my hand.
She doesn't look at my hand after. Doesn't react. Just waits.
I release. Step back. My voice takes a beat to arrive.
"You know Mrs. Cross." I gesture toward Paula, keeping the introduction brief. Then I indicate the far end of the table, where an associate sits with a laptop and a legal pad. "And my associate, who'll be taking notes for the record."
I pull out the chair across from me. "Please, sit. Can I get you something before we start? Water, coffee?"
"Perhaps a shot of whiskey." Paula's voice cuts across the room, bright and precise as a slap. Her smile is pleasant. And fake.
Color climbs along Sienna's neck, slow, reaching toward her jaw. She doesn't flinch. Doesn't look at Paula. Her shoulders settle a fraction lower, and when she speaks her voice hasn't changed at all.
"I'm fine, thank you."
Something tightens along the back of my neck. I nod to my assistant, who reads my expression correctly and leaves, pulling the door shut behind her.
The click of the latch sounds different this time. Heavier. Sealed.
I sit. Straighten the folder in front of me. Reset.
"Now that everyone's here, let me outline where we stand.
" I open the folder. "Conrad Cross died intestate.
Under California law, that means his estate, including all real estate properties, financial holdings, and personal assets, will be distributed according to statutory guidelines.
The purpose of this meeting is to begin that conversation and, ideally, reach a preliminary understanding of each party's position—"
"You shouldn't get anything." Paula's composure cracks open. She turns on Sienna with the kind of directness that bypasses civility entirely. "You ungrateful bitch. You weren't there. You didn't care. You don't get to walk in here and take what's mine."
I open my mouth to stop her rant, but before I can, Paula carries on.
"You threw him away," Paula continues, volume climbing, body leaning forward, one finger pointed across the table. "You broke his heart. He waited for you. Every holiday, every birthday, he waited, and you couldn't even show up for his funeral."
Sienna doesn't move.
She sits with her hands flat on the table, palms down, shoulders level. Her expression hasn't shifted. She's watching Paula without surprise, without flinching, measuring only the distance.
"Mrs. Cross." My voice, harder now. "I need you to—"
"She's a drug addict!"
My palm hits the table.
The sound cracks through the room and the silence that follows is immediate and complete, and nobody breathes through it.
"Enough."
One word. It lands, and the room obeys.
Paula's mouth is open. Her finger still raised. She stays frozen in the posture of her accusation for three full seconds.
Then Sienna moves.
She turns her head, slow and deliberate, away from Paula and me, toward the end of the table. Toward the associate who has been sitting there, motionless, stylus hovering over her tablet.
Sienna smiles at her. Small and warm, the corners of her eyes softening in a way that doesn’t denounce she is a woman who just sat through that assault without blinking.
"I'm sorry," she says. "I didn't get your name."
That’s because I didn’t say it when I introduced her. I didn't even know it myself.
The associate blinks. Glances at me, then back at Sienna. "Kate."
"Kate." Sienna nods. "Can I ask you for a piece of paper and a pen?"
Kate looks at me again. Then stands, tears a sheet from her legal pad, and walks it down the table with a pen. Sienna takes both. "Thank you."
She writes. Quick, clean strokes, the pen moving without hesitation across the page.
Paula stares. I stare. Kate, still standing beside Sienna's chair, stares.
Sienna signs her name at the bottom, sets the pen down, and slides the page across the table toward me.
I pick it up.
I, Sienna Cross, relinquish all claims to the estate of Conrad Cross, including financial holdings, investments, and personal property.
The sole exception is the residential property located at Hidden Hills, California, designated Cross Manor, which I claim as my legal inheritance.
This document represents my position, signed voluntarily and without coercion.
Her signature beneath it. Dated today.
I read it once. The legal implications arrive before anything else, and they're not small.
I set the paper down. I look up.
She's already watching me. Brown eyes, steady, unreadable. She isn't waiting for my approval.
"You have it all there, in writing and signed." Her voice is calm. Certain. "I don't want a single dime from Conrad Cross. Except the house in Hidden Hills."
She stands and turns toward Kate.
"Thank you, Kate."
Kate nods, mute.
Sienna looks at me. "Mr. Kade. Get in touch when everything is final."
She walks to the door.
Paula starts screaming.
"Absolutely not. Absolutely not! That house is my home. She wants me on the street? That manipulative little— I will not, she cannot, that is my home, Adrian, do you hear me? My home!"
I hear her. I'm holding the paper. I'm looking at the door.
And I’m thinking two things at the same time.
Section One: Sienna wants Cross Manor. William also wants Cross Manor. That's a conflict I cannot navigate from Paula's side because it becomes non-actionable under Section two
Section Two: I want to see Sienna Cross again.
I turn to Paula. She's still going, voice raw, face flushed, the composure she walked in with scattered across the conference table.
I smile. I’m going to enjoy this more than I should.
"I'm sorry to add to your difficulties, Mrs. Cross." I set the paper down. "But I'm afraid you'll need to seek legal representation elsewhere."