“For Sylvie?”
He winces. Orange flags wave in my head, sensing an issue. “More like for Celeste. It’s complicated, but eventually I’ll pass this role on. Hopefully, as soon as I take down Franz.”
“Aiden said Franz is part of a much bigger operation. There are bigger men than him?”
“There are, but that’s Aiden’s hunt.”
“Yours is Franz?”
Dax nods. “I have personal reasons to take down that fucker. UACT is a part of that for me, but it is a slow process.”
“Why?”
“Because we have to do it legitimately. There’s no point tearing him down if you’re not going to establish a better option in his place. It just leaves a power vacuum for some other asshole to step into.”
“Makes sense,” I agree. “So, the Trevainne executives are a permanent feature?”
“Their focus is on maintaining Trevainne and overseeing its mission and long-term goals. They have the power to veto my decisions, but only if they can prove it will damage Trevainne’s ethos, mission, or reputation.”
We climb to the second floor, passing the offices and departments he has already listed. I pay a little extra attention to the Law department and the three clerks sitting out front around a large rectangular work desk. There are books and files piled neatly in the centre, the men and women moving around each other as they work and discuss whatever case they’re working on. Two glass-framed offices line the back wall, one with its blinds drawn low for privacy, the other with its door flung wide, while the lawyer talks onthe phone as he taps his pen against the hardwood desk.
It is a surreal moment of voyeurism. A glimpse of the life I’ve hoped for.
Dax catches me staring and frowns. “Everything okay?”
“I’m having a ‘One Day’moment.”
“Sooner than you think, if you get through the modules for HU, which is why we are here.” Dax nods his head to the next door along the corridor, lowering his hand to the handle and waiting. I catch him, noting that it’s the last room before a wide set of wood-panelled double doors. If I have my orientation correct, that room links this wing with the main body of the manor, which also means it’s Dax’s office, but that’s not where he’s taking me.
“And here is?”
“Our reference room. It’s small and dark, and not much of a space for an office but it puts you right between me and the law department so you have people you can go to for questions or uh whatever you need,” Dax rambles as he swings open the door.
I can’t help but laugh. The fifteen-foot-high walls are lined with shelves that stretch from the floor to the decorative architrave. Each shelf is packed from edge to edge with books. “It’s a library!”
“A small one. A room really…”
“It’s bigger than Eric’s apartment. Or your office, for that matter…”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” he mumbles.
I drift into the room and run my eyes along the spines, my fingers following obediently as I read some titles aloud. “Formation and Variation of Contracts, About Law, Landmarks in the Law, Learning the Law, Law’s Empire, The Power of Legal Project Management: A Practical Handbook.”
“If there’s a book missing that you need, let the clerks know and they will order it in. Or, chances are, it might be on their work desk. They’re in and out of here all the time…another reason this might not be the best place to set you up…”
“Set me up?” I take a moment from browsing the stacks to look at Dax, only now noticing that he’s standing at a desk. A small, one-person desk with a lamp and a pile of boxes.
“I figured you could study here. Or at least you might have a place to study while you were hunting out books. The apartment is fine if you’d rather stay there, or there’s my office, the boardroom behind it too…though I’d be moving you in and out depending on my meetings which would be a huge problem for your concentration, I’d think.”
“Dax. You set this up for me?”
“Yeah.” He breathes a sigh of relief at my interruption. “Come here. Tell me what I’ve missed.”
On the desk are leather-bound notebooks, a diary, a pencil case with packs of pens, pencils, erasers, highlighters, book tabs, clear sticky notes, a satchel with a logo I hope I don’t recognise, and the unmistakable white box of a brand-new laptop.
“This is too much. I could have borrowed an old one,” I mumble.
“I want you to have a fresh start. New college, new modules, new equipment.” He picks up the diary and thumbs through it distractedly. “I know it’s old-school, but I remember you had a diary in your backpack that first day, one that looked almost finished,” he hedges. He’s right too. I’ve no more than eight usable pages left in the old thing. “I just thought I’d give you the choice. Your phone or laptop has the apps you need for schedules and calendars too if you want to go the digital route now that you have your own devices.”
