Chapter Two
658 Words
I left the same night.
Tasha drove. No goodbyes or suitcase. I was left with just the ugly blue dress soaked in rain and the taste of blood in my mouth from biting my tongue too hard.
She took me four hours away to her cousin’s flat in the city. Handed me the key and five thousand dollars cash she had saved for her own escape.
“Take it. Pay me back when you’re rich and they’re crying.”
First month I didn’t sleep. I cleaned offices at night and studied online in the day. Every time I closed my eyes I saw Lucy’s smile or felt Aaron inside me. So I stopped closing my eyes.
I cut my hair short and dyed it black. Threw every photo of them in the trash.
I paid Tasha’s cousin two hundred a month to sleep on her living-room floor. At 5 a.m. I cleaned office buildings downtown. At 9 a.m. I was in the public library with second-hand law books. At night I waited tables in a sports bar where men grabbed my ass for extra tips. I smiled, took the money, and kept moving.
Year two I passed the law school entrance exam with the highest score in the state. I still kept the bar job because books and rent don’t pay themselves.
Year three I lived on campus. With no friends. My life was centered round the library, gym, and class. My body and mind got hard, my grades got perfect, while my heart stayed empty.
Year four I graduated top of my class. Five big firms offered me jobs the same week. I picked the one that handled the ugliest corporate fights. I wanted to learn how rich men bleed.
Year five I won my first seven-figure case. The senior partners started sending me into court alone. I never lost. My bank account finally had commas.
Year six I walked out and started Voss Legal. Having a room to start with and one secretary, my main goal was to take the cases nobody else would touch.
Year seven the headlines called me the Ice Queen of corporate law. CEOs begged for my number. I charged triple and still turned most of them down.
Year eight I bought the entire top floor of the Sky Tower. Black marble desk, floor-to-ceiling windows. I made sure from my chair I could see the Empire Holdings sign glowing across the city every night. I drank my coffee and stared at it like it owed me money.
That morning my secretary, Maya, knocked once and came in.
She dropped a thick red folder in front of me.
“Empire Holdings,” she said. “They’re drowning. Four point eight billion dollar lawsuit. Every major firm has refused them. Board is panicking. Bankruptcy filing in less than hundred days unless someone stops it.”
I opened the folder.
Aaron’s signature was on the last page. Same sharp handwriting I used to trace with my finger while he slept.
Under “Requested Counsel” someone had written in black ink:
Khai Voss only. No substitutes.
I stared at those two words for a long time.
Tasha was sprawled on the leather couch eating spicy noodles straight from the pot, shoes on the armrest.
“You gonna make him beg?” she asked without looking up.
I closed the folder.
“Tell them yes,” I said. “Tomorrow. Ten o’clock. My office. He must come alone.”
Maya nodded and left.
Tasha finally looked at me, chilli oil on her lip, grinning.
“Eight years in the making,” she said. “You ready to watch that man fall on his knees?”
I walked to the window and looked across at his tower.
“I was born ready.”
Tomorrow Aaron walks into my kingdom thinking he’s hiring a lawyer.
He’s really walking into his graveyard.
And I’m the one holding the shovel.
- Writer
