4: Beatrice

My hands were shaking as I held my cell phone in front of me, moving the device closer to my eyes to better see the screen. I must need glasses. There was no way this was the correct account. I was staring at the balance of my firm's reserve account for the Trivisonnos and there were more zeros than I had ever seen before in my life. There were more zeros than I had told them to deposit. 

There were just too many zeros. 

At first, I thought it was a mistake, but then I remembered who I was dealing with.

That's when I knew how seriously deep in shit I really was. No one deposited over a million dollars in their lawyer’s retainer account unless they were expecting a long, dirty relationship with lots of illegal and probably painful tasks.

I mean, I knew before that this was not my ideal client, but now it was like reality had dropped an anvil on my head and I was shaking my head in confusion as I tried to finish running the damn race. I had been the gazelle and now I was the fucking coyote.

I had come to work that morning oblivious to the turmoil that waited for me. I powered up my machine just to find an email from a certain Alessandro Trivisonno with an attached contract indicating my hourly rate, which was double what I had thrown out at the meeting last week, outlining my responsibilities as legal counsel for the Trivisonno family and their business interests, and executing the agreement effective as of last week. The agreement would go into perpetuity until such a time as either party agreed to terminate the contract.

We all knew what that meant.

The most surprising part of the contract was that it was signed, witnessed, and duly executed.

By me.

How they had gotten a copy of my signature and forged it so realistically, I will never know, but that gave me a clear insight into the kind of clients I was now dealing with. I mean, I knew before this, but seeing the proof in black and white was just the kick to the nuts I needed to make this all real, and final.

I had just walked into my own personal hell. Like Molly before me, I was descending the same path Dante had taken two thousand years ago.

At least it paid well.

I sat at my desk, staring at my screen, wiling away good, billable minutes as I considered my next course of action. I supposed if they could forge my signature, I could bill them for the minutes I sat in shock pondering the lengths they would go to secure my compliance. That they had forged my signature was both impressive and terrifying.

We'll call those twenty minutes, research, and bill them back.

I may as well test the waters early. If they're going to off me now, at least I'll give them a reason to get pissed off.

It didn't register at first, but I realized with a sinking feeling after reviewing the number of zeros in the deposit once more, that they wouldn't be phased by a bill for a few dozen minutes of "research". They would hardly even blink if they even looked at the bill.

It was time to call David. I was in deep shit, and I needed a way out. Or, at the very least, a way through.

I picked my phone up off my desk and held it gingerly in my hands, still hesitant to send the fateful text. I could rack my brain for a millennium and I would never come up with a solution to my dilemma. At least not one that didn't involve David.

I couldn't think of anything helpful. It was as if my brain had shut off, refusing to consider an alternative. My two-hundred-thousand-dollar educated mind failed me at the worst possible moment. I should stop paying my student loans back for all the good that education did me. I scowled at my phone.

I was still glaring at my phone five minutes later, unwilling to take that last step until the very last minute. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the managing partner of our firm walking down the hall toward me. He was glaring right at me. My paralegal glanced nervously between him and me, hesitantly reaching for the phone on her desk to call me before I shook my head at her.

I knew he was coming to talk to me. I had been on the receiving end of that brooding gaze more than once, but typically we were naked and there wasn't an audience. Typically.

So I scrolled through my messages, clicked 'New Message', and sent a text as fast as my fingers could fly over the letters. I still knew the number by heart. I could type it without looking. 

I hesitated to hit send, staring at the last message I had received from him, the message that had nearly broken me. It still took my breath away. I didn't have time to let my emotions process that text once again so I ignored it, checked my message for typos, and with a steely resolve, hit send.

There. That was done.

It wasn't a moment too soon either as Mark Brichart stormed through the doors of my office and sat with a thud in the chair in front of my desk, glaring at me. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. I could almost see the smoke coming out of his nostrils. It was faint but there was still time for the fireworks to explode.

"Mark."

I greeted him as stoically as I could though my stomach was twisting in knots. I was fighting fires on every front and it was wearing me thin. Was no one on my side anymore? I glared back at Mark. Best to fight fire with fire in a law office.

"Beatrice."

"Oh, we're back to Beatrice, are we? I wasn't sure since just last night you were screaming my-"

Mark cut me off before I could finish my tirade.

"Beatrice, stop. Why would you sign such a ridiculous contract? You know we don't take on clients like the Trivisonnos."

"Would you like to be the one to tell them no?"

I secretly hoped he said yes. He could take the burden from me and try to get rid of my newest clients without my interference. 

For all the years I had screamed my independence to the world, I just as desperately wanted to pawn this task onto someone else. Independence was overrated.

Mark looked uncomfortable for a moment before his face reddened in rage. He knew what I was trying to do. We all did. We were lawyers, we played mind games to win and I was one of the best. It's why I was fucking the managing partner after all. He didn't fuck just any lowly junior partner in the firm.

"Get rid of them or we will get rid of you."

"You can't get rid of me. Didn't you see the contract?" I paused for dramatic effect. He looked up at me and I dropped the final bomb. "You signed it, too."

That made him pause. He obviously hadn't looked through the full document. I hadn't either, truth be told, but I had seen enough of it. The witness names stood out, bold and clear. Mark Brichart, signed in dark black ink, the kind that flowed easily over the paper. If I was to make a wager, I would even guess they used the exact same pen and ink that Mark always used. 

He had a special pen made, after all. He couldn't just grab a Bic like the rest of us. He paid more than an hour of billables for the stick sitting on the inside of his jacket pocket, all so his ink ran smoothly over the paper.

His eyes darkened as he realized the full import of the statement. His voice was low and slow as he ground out the warning.

"Don't fuck this up, Bea."

"Oh, it's Bea now, is it?" I stood up and walked slowly around my desk toward him. "Remembering the feel of my wet pussy as it clenched around your throbbing cock right before you-"

"That's enough." His voice rang through my office as his face flushed red at the memories of last night. There were plenty of things about Mark Brichart that I now knew, thanks to my proclivities toward the more adventurous side of sex. 

I wouldn't call myself crazy, by any means, but I would try just about anything once. As Mark knew well. His taste was decidedly more bottom than top, and I knew just how far Mark liked to take it.

"There was a ten million dollar deposit in their reserve account. What in God's name did they ask you to do?" Mark's voice was accusing. He knew I had no way out and he wanted to know how deep in shit the firm was by proximity.

"They've asked me to tamper with evidence."

I let out the sigh I had been holding in. It felt good to share the burden.

"You know what happens to people that don't obey orders from Alessandro Trivisonno?" He sounded angry as he lectured me.

"Of course, I know!"

My voice was angry and I snapped at him. I could still recall the news article about the young, beautiful lawyer who was pulled out of the lake in western New York. 

"I won't let you ruin my firm, Beatrice. Get rid of this client or I will get rid of you. Do you know how damaging this will be when it gets out?"

"I will probably lose all of my clients," I said with a sigh, realizing it was true. The other thing that I realized is that I would be overwhelmed with so much work keeping the mobsters out of jail that it wouldn't matter that I lost all of my clients. At least I could still pay my bills. Call me a fucking optimist for remembering that little gem.

I wouldn't be able to look at myself in the mirror every morning, but that was par for the course in my profession. It was bound to happen eventually. Particularly since I wasn't a defender of the weak, a keeper of the peace, a champion of the downtrodden, or whatever other title I had given myself when I first decided to become a lawyer. That dream died with my first student loan payment and the offer I accepted to chase corporate law. 

Reality sucks the dreams right out of you.

I felt my phone vibrate on my desk but I didn't dare look. Not yet. I needed a few more minutes of ignorance before I looked at what was sure to be a text from David. I couldn't handle it yet.

I don't know if I'd ever be able to handle it, truth be told.

"You will lose your clients and the firm will lose all of our clients, it will be a disaster. Get rid of Alessandro Trivisonno. That's not a request."

I watched him rise from his chair in front of my desk and turn to leave the office.

"You do realize what will happen if I try to tell them no, don't you?"

My eyes widened slightly as I took in Mark's indifference. He didn't care what happened to me. He wouldn't care if my body were the next thing to be drug out of the Potomac.

"They'll kill me. No, not just kill; they will torture, and murder me. They'll probably rape me first for good measure." My voice was heated as the words poured out, laced with anger and bitterness. I let myself feel the frustration of my situation and I let myself spew that venom at Mark.

Shouting was something we were familiar with in our office. It was usually the other party or our clients but there was a time for everything.

"At least you'll enjoy the first part," Mark's voice was dark as it sounded through the room. My face heated with anger as I instinctively lifted my stapler from the desk and hurled it toward Mark's head.

He ducked just in time for the stapler to crash into the glass door behind him. The door stood firmly, unharmed as the stapler bounced off the glass and onto the floor. Mark ducked out of the door and I followed, yelling obscenities as I went.

"You fucking bastard, who are you going to fuck next?" I flung the door wide open and stormed into the hall, yelling as I went. "That little brunette tart on the 32nd floor with the giant mouth? It's probably great for blowjobs. Maybe I should give her the peg so you don't have to beg Sebastian!" 

I ended my tirade as Mark disappeared down the hall and around the corner. I turned slowly to look at my paralegal. She was staring at me with wide eyes. She quickly rose from her desk and pushed me into my office with both hands on my back.

"Ok, first of all, what the fuck?" Her voice was just above a whisper and her face incredulous. She continued in a hush, glancing behind her at the people walking by with curious expressions.

"And, second of all, what the fuck?"

"Which part?" My voice sounded tired as I considered what she was asking me. There were too many details to get into and my entire weekend had been a huge 'what the fuck' waiting to be answered.

"You're fucking Mark?"

"Of course, I'm fucking Mark, I thought that was common knowledge."

"I did not know that." Her voice was so prim that I burst out into laughter at her disapproving look.

"Come on, Callie, even the IT department knew we were fucking. Probably because we screwed on the servers a few weeks ago, but whatever," my voice faded away as I stopped the thought before it overtook me.

"So, you're probably not screwing him now, though, right?"

I let out a huff of laughter. "No, probably not."

"It doesn't sound like it's much of a loss, to be honest," her voice was soft as her eyes trailed down the hall in the direction Mark had taken. 

"No, it wasn't. I mean, it was wild, but it wasn't my kind of wild."

"What's your kind of wild?" Her voice was interested and she was watching me with a curious expression, one brow raised in expectation. I didn't want to get into it just then so I shook my head. Truth be told, I didn't know what my kind of wild was, but it wasn't what I had done with Mark.

"Listen, my former sex life with the managing partner is the least of our worries. I just received a signed contract between me and Mr. Alessandro Trivisonno."

Callie's eyes went wide, even wider than before if that was possible. Her eyes were practically bugging out of her skull and she had big eyes. She looked like a sad puppy.

"The firm let you take on the Trivisonnos?"

"No."

"You openly defied the firm?"

"No."

I sighed in exasperation as her face reflected her confusion and a healthy dose of fear. She spoke slowly, her eyes darting between both of mine.

"Ok, so I'll repeat. What the fuck?" Her voice rang through my office and I hushed her lightly, not wanting to draw more attention to the fact I was screwed no matter which way you looked at the situation. It wasn't the good kind of screwed either. I would take that kind of screwed any day over what was going to happen to me with the Trivisonnos.

"I received a signed contract in my email. I signed it and Mark signed it as well as the Trivisonnos."

"But you didn't sign it?" 

"You're catching on," my voice was sarcastic as I gave Callie a slow clap.

"Fuck you, bitch. I'm not the one screwed right now, be nice if you want my help." Her words were harsh but her face was amused. We had an odd business relationship, but it worked for us.

"I don't know if I do want your help. You can't get caught up in this." My voice turned serious. The Trivisonnos were not the kind of family you played around with. Getting involved with them was a risk I would have to take now that I was on their radar. Callie was still unknown to them and I intended to keep it that way.

"You can't mean to take them on all by yourself?" Callie's voice was disbelieving, she shook her head, intending to say something more when my phone buzzed on my desk. 

I looked at it with distaste before I picked it up gingerly, unlocking the screen to see what new horror waited for me in my messages.

There were two text messages staring at me from the screen.

David: il piccolo villaggio, 9 pm

David: Wear something slutty

I let out the breath I was holding. He was going to see me. That was the first win of the day. I scowled at the second message. If he thought I was going to listen to his orders any longer, he had another thing coming. 

It was a short-lived win as Callie's breath caught in her throat when she saw who I was texting. I had hoped to hide this from her. She didn't need to know I had contacted David again.

"You're texting David? You can't get caught up with him again!" Her voice was frantic as she grabbed my arm, trying to grasp my phone.

"Stop it, hooker, I have to!" I yelled the words louder than I intended and several people passing my office turned to look in at Callie and me wrestling for the phone between us.

"You. Can't. See. Him. Again." Callie's words came out in a huff, word by word as single syllables while she tried to pry my fingers away.

"It's too late! I have to use him or I'll be at the bottom of the river next. Don't you fucking understand?"

I let my frustration overflow as I screamed at Callie.

She looked at me with horror before she finally realized it was true. The Trivisonnos would kill me if I didn't do what they wanted. It was a matter of time, really, before they killed me for something else but at least I could destroy a few pieces of evidence and buy some time before it came to that.

Callie stepped back and ran her hands through her hair before she looked up at me and nodded.

"Alright."

She nodded decisively once more as she turned to walk out the door. She paused as she reached the door to my office and turned to look back at me, her eyes burning with resolve. 

"But I'm going with you."