Chapter 1 - Jagger Bolton

Jagger POV

Entering the elevator I press my key card to the reader and the doors close immediately. I hate sharing the elevator with people so I like to come early, before everyone is supposed to start. Today is a bad day for me. It’s been ten years today since my life changed and made me the man I am today.

The elevator doors open and Janet looks at me with a wide smile. I look at her shaking my head slightly as I walk to her desk and she offers me a cup of black coffee. “Good morning boss,” she says and I raise an eyebrow looking at her and her shoulders slump as she looks at me.

“What? Can’t I try to make your day a little better? Today is your dark day after all,” she says and I nod slightly offering her a small smile. I don’t smile a lot lately, I don’t have a lot of reasons to smile anyway.

“Every day is a dark day,” I correct Janet and she crosses her arms in front of her chest giving me her sassy attitude I nod “Thank you for the coffee,” I tell her and her entire body relaxes before she grabs her things and follows me into my office.

“You have Judge Rat’s meeting today,” Janet says and when I look at her over the lenses of my glasses she takes a deep breath correcting herself “Judge Rover.” Janet rolls her eyes in disgust and I can see why. The guy is a weasel. He is on our payroll and Wyatt uses him quite often to get away with our shit and because of that I have to be his lawyer.

After going through my day with Janet she leaves me alone and I take a deep breath sitting back on my chair before I remove my jacket and fold my sleeves up. I am the best criminal lawyer in New York, and because of that I am always in court or trying to clean up messes my clients do. It's a good thing I have the interns to do the boring part of the job for me.

Taking my glasses off I throw them in frustration. This is a fucked up case and I know I can win, but I also know the guy killed his wife and his son. I didn’t want to represent him but Wyatt asked me as a personal favour. I would love to know what the fuck this guy has on him.

A knock on the door brings me back to the room and I take a deep breath sitting up straight on my chair. “Come in,” I say and the door opens. Janet strides into my office followed by Julio Rover. “Julio,” I say greeting him as I stand up offering him my hand. His eyes don’t move from Janet even when I am talking to him. Bastard. I hate guys that look at women like they are objects. Like they are made to satisfy them.

I might not be the best guy in the world, but I don’t sleep around with random women. I prefer to pay for the company. Not that I need to pay women to have sex with me, trust me. Women throw themselves at me but I don’t have time for their chit-chat and their need for attention. Paying for sex is easier. They can’t create expectations because they know I am paying to use their bodies and that is it.

“Can you get one of the interns to bring us some coffee?” I ask Janet and her eyes meet mine thanking me silently as she nods. “Make sure it’s a male intern,” I add before she leaves the room and she nods before she closes the door.

“I don’t know how you can keep your eyes on your work. If I had a secretary like that I wouldn’t be able to work,” Rover says and I offer him a smile pretending I know what he means.

“Janet is a good friend and her husband is a dear friend of mine as well, so I guess I don’t see her like that. I see her more like a sister,” I lie and Rover scrunches his nose but nods.

“So, what can I do for you?” I ask as I point at the chair behind my desk and Rover sits. His eyes land on me as he takes a deep breath.

“I am being accused of sexual misconduct by one of my students,” he says rolling his eyes dismissively. I swear this is the type of guy I kill for fun, men that think they are better than everyone else and think they can get away with anything.

“What are they accusing you of?” I ask and he shakes his head trying to play it down, I know exactly what they are accusing him of because I know who is the lawyer on the other side representing the girl.  This is not the first time he is accused of sexual misconduct by a student, but he always gets away with it, being a judge in New York City makes him powerful and he uses all the power he has to his advantage.

“It’s all nonsense, I barely touched her and he is not even that pretty, it was all an accident,” Rover says and I nod my head sitting back on my chair after writing his words on a paper and crossing my legs as I tap the pen on my desk.

“I see,” I say. I don’t see shit, accident or not he is a prick and I wish I could end his miserable life, but we need him to do some of our dirty work when it comes to getting away with shit. I can’t involve my name with the criminal side of our lives or my career will end and I will lose my license.

“I am waiting for all the paperwork to get to me, I will read everything and then I will start working on your defense,” I say and Rover smiles nodding. He is so narcissistic that he is not even realising this is going to be bad. “I know I don’t need to tell you this, but as your lawyer I will,” I add. Rover nods his head before he stands up.

“Stay away from the students, hell, stay away from any woman that is not blood-related to you, we will need to get the PR team involved to try and minimize the damage to your image. I will have my private detective investigate the girl,” I add. “I bet we can find something that will break her credibility.” I let out.

“I will do whatever you say,” he tells me. I know the fucker is lying and I know I am going to regret taking his case but I shake his head before he leaves my office. Opening my emails I send to print the folder with his case and everything I have on him and the girl.

As I stand by the printer waiting for the last few pages to come out Janet storms into my office with anger plastered all over her face. “I hate that guy, he is disgusting, do you need to have your meetings here?” She asks me and I raise an eyebrow.

“He just spent the last ten minutes trying to convince me to go out with him, I had to threaten him so he would leave,” Janet tells me and I close my hands into fists.

“Fuck, I told him to stay away from any woman, I promise I won’t bring him here again, I will have the meetings in the conference room so you don’t have to see him,” I tell Janet and she crosses her arms in front of her chest as she looks at me in disbelief.

“And you think I will allow you to put my interns through that hell? Nope, I am not having it Jagger, the guy is a pig, I don’t even know how you accepted to represent him,” Janet tells me and now is my turn to get angry.

“I saw it on F******k okay? It’s all over social media, the girl is not afraid to talk, and she is talking a lot,” Janet tells me and I curse under my breath as I sit behind my desk opening my social media and searching for Rover’s name and there it is.

“People are not afraid to speak up anymore, and social media is making it easier for people to do so, she is creating a big thing around it, speaking up about abuse of power, how professors hold the grades over the female student’s heads to get what they want from them,” Janet says and I feel like punching something.

If there’s something I will never tolerate is men abusing their power over women, thinking they are better than them, if it wasn’t for women we wouldn’t be alive. Just because I choose to live without one doesn’t mean I don’t respect them.

“Judge Julio Rover is in the center of another sexual scandal when law student Calliope Flores press sexual misconduct charges against her professor.” I click on the link and the first thing I see is the girl. Her brown eyes stared back at me as if they were looking into my soul. Her long brown hair pulled up into a ponytail and her smile… Fuck her smile would make any man melt at her feet.

“See?” I hear Janet say and I quickly scroll down to read the article but I can’t focus as all I can think about are those brown eyes.