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1
FUMI
In one chilling instant, the room plunges into darkness.
“Goddammit,” Cassidy swears from somewhere to my left.
I squeeze my eyelids shut, blinded by the overhead lights flickering back on, trying to calm my racing heart. With a groan, I slowly open my eyes again, refocusing on the mountains of legal files strewn over the table in front of me.
“Okay, seriously, fuck this,” Cassidy mutters. She stops waving her hands frantically to turn the sensor-activated lights back on. With a scowl, she slams the file in front of her shut. “That’s a sign. We’ve officially been down here way too long.”
The break in concentration from the automatic lights turnings off is like shattering an evil spell. I groan, rolling my shoulders as I realize how sore I am from sitting hunched over for God knows how many hours. My eyes burn from scouring deposition transcripts, and I make a face as I drop my pen and crack the knuckles in my cramped-up hand.
Cassidy is right: if the motion sensor lights down here in the overflow file storage room in the sub-basement turn off while you’re down here, it means you’re been in one statue-like position for way too long.
Across the ancient conference table from me, Felix shoves his hands up his face and through his sandy brown, slightly tousled hair. He glances at his watch and groans. “Fucking hell. It’s eight.”
“I say we call it,” Cassidy sighs.
“Agreed,” Felix nods. He lifts his brows toward me with a grin. “What do you think, Fumi?”
I wrinkle my nose. “I think we haven’t found what we were supposed to find yet.”
I know, captain buzzkill. Instantly, both of my coworkers’ faces fall. Cassidy groans as she flops the legal file back open in front of her. “And that, class, is how you make equity partner,” she mutters, glaring down at the papers.
Felix makes a face, rubbing his jaw as he sinks back in his chair and eyes me. “That’s a point. It’s shitty enough that Cass and I pulled a bullshit job like records deep-diving, but that’s literally why paralegals exist. Who the hell did you piss off to be saddled with this?”
I roll my eyes. “It’s part of the job, Felix. The partners want everything airtight for the Marshall case. Which means crossing every T, dotting every I?—”
“And cross-referencing all twenty-one hours of deposition transcripts to make sure our pathological liar of a client actually told the truth for once in her life,” Cassidy mutters, glaring at the pages in front of her. “Seriously, Felix is right. How did you wind up down here in the trenches?”
“Because my last name isn’t Crown or Black?”
My friend grins. “Fair.”
On one hand, yes: it is kind of bullshit that I’m pulling late night cram sessions again like I’m some junior partner fresh out of law school. But that’s just how it goes sometimes. Even at a terrific firm like Crown and Black. Even when you’ve recently made equity partner in that firm.
Unless your name is on the building, you do what you have to do.
Sure, on the surface, it sounds—and looks—amazing to be named an equity partner at one of if not the most prestigious law firms in New York at twenty-seven years old. But, unfortunately, my recent promotion has only made me even more stressed.
It’s more work. It’s more attention on me from the name partners. It’s more chances to screw up. Also, being an equity partner means you share equity in the firm itself—as in, when the firm makes money, you do too. But it’s not an ATM.
For one, I don’t even start seeing any of this “equity” until the next freaking fiscal year. But for two—this is the big one—becoming an equity partner means buying in to the firm, like a co-op.
You want to talk stress? I make pretty great money at Crown and Black. But two months ago, I cut the biggest check of my life, by far, to my employer. It was roughly for every single cent I had saved.
No pressure.
So yes, when the powers that be say “hey, we want you to do dumb grunt work poring over old depositions looking for instances when our client perjured herself”, you don’t ask questions, and you certainly don’t complain.
“Still, I though you and Taylor were tight.”
Cassidy means Taylor Crown, aka the Crown in Crown and Black. And sure, Taylor and I are friends. But she’s still my boss.
“She’s not the one who exiled us down here,” Felix mutters darkly.
I make a face. No, it’s not Taylor who sent us down here to the salt mines to slave away all night at a job usually dumped on interns. Boss or not, if this was her decision, I would have definitely called in some friend favors to get out of it.
