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They both reached for their phones.
“Oh, they’re not going to work. We made sure of that. I guess a toast is in order though, to me securing financial backing for Patterson Law for decades to come.”
“That’s impossible,” Trevor finally spoke up.
“It would have been impossible if I didn’t have someone who is smarter than you in business and put all the money, plus some, back. I have to hand it to you, Bell, you had all of us going for a moment. There really was no way for me to recover from losing those clients that your firm poached and the money that went with them. The accountant that you bribed to change my financials was really good, but under pressure, he cracked, literally.”
“Literally,” Countee confirmed.
“Then I started thinking about you Caroline. I thought, what would cause such a good friend of mine to turn on me like this? Why would she try to undermine me at every turn? Then I found out who your father was and I understood it all.”
“This has nothing to do with my father,” Caroline finally said.
“Oh no, not Jerry the man who is married to Lucy, your mom. I’m talking about your real daddy. You know the one that doesn’t want to have anything to do with you.”
“Fuck you, Averie,” Caroline spat.
“Such vulgar words from such a sweet and polished woman. I would say fuck you, Caroline but I already had your daddy. He was probably face deep in my pussy while you were on stage receiving some award and craning your neck trying to find him in the audience.”
Caroline jumped up from her chair like she was going to come across the table. Laila caught her and threw her back into her seat before she could do anything. I didn’t flinch. I wanted a reason to punch her in her face. She had been the sole reason for most of the drama and stress that I’d experienced in my life recently. I wanted to see her bleed.
“Next time she jumps up, let her come on over. Don’t stop her,” I said while looking at Caroline,“You come across this table again, and I am going to give you all the attention that Cleophus never gave you.”
“He would have given me attention if it weren’t for you! You did things to intentionally pull him away from me. Everything I did you just had to do it better. He was at your graduation. He was there to celebrate when you got awarded the clerkships. He gave you flowers after your first interview with a major firm. What did he give me, nothing! I fought my whole life just for an acknowledgment from him and got nothing! So yeah, I became your friend so that I could learn what it was about you that made him want you. I needed to get close to my competition so that I could study you, then take everything from me like you took everything from me. You knew that I wanted that clerkship. You’d already had one, but you applied again and took it from me. It was mine! I worked my ass off at Steinman and Gould, but they all loved you! They never saw me. When you said you were starting your own firm, I decided why not? Then you treated me like dirt!”
“Cleophus never mentioned having an outside daughter, Caroline so I didn’t take anything from you. You never had him in the first place. Your mother should have made him acknowledge you instead of hiding you in the shadows like the bastard that you are. His other kids don’t even know you exist. You had an issue with the wrong person. Besides, Cleo and I have been over and done with for years. I never wanted anything long term with him!”
“That’s what you do to people. You use them up and then discard them!”
“You stupid, uninformed, head in the clouds, hate in your heart ass, bitch. I had every intention of making you name partner! Your name was going to go on the wall right next to mine! I’d already written up the plan and was in the beginning stages of executing it when you decided to do all this dumb shit! Now your stupid ass is going to jail!”
“I didn’t know any of these details,” Trevor started.
“Save that crap,” Samuel said. “You knew that you were being a snake and unethical in your acquisition of her firm. You thought she was a little black girl all out here on her own with no help. She fooled you, though, didn’t she? The board is going to have a lot to consider at your disbarment hearing.”
“Come on Valentine. We don’t have to go that route. I’m sure we can come to some sort of agreement.”
“I don’t make deals with thieves and liars. I would never associate my name with yours or your firms. I’m sure your partners are going to be very upset with the negative press that your firm is about to receive.”
“I’m not worried about it. You can’t prove that I had any knowledge of any of this,” Trevor smugly said.
“Well,” Countee spoke up. “Actually, we can. We have emails, text messages from that burner phone that you that thought was untraceable. Let me give you some advice, never connect a burner phone to the wi-fi in your home, car or business. That’s makes it like any other phone. We also have pictures of the two of you with the accountant. And, just so happens that the accountant took meticulous notes and recorded conversations. Like we told you before, he broke.”
“Not to mention the photos we have of you two on your secret rendezvous in hotels around town and on that trip, you took together recently. I’m sure your wife will enjoy that photo album,” Laila said.
“You did know that you were sharing her, right?” Samuel added.
Trevor scrunched his eyebrows together.
“Yeah, she was also letting Barry Leathen hit it. We found that out once we acquired his cellphone. That’s why he went crazy on Averie. Caroline was feeding him misleading information. She sent him anonymous text messages telling him that Averie was going to get him disbarred and that she frequently mentioned him around the office. Someone slipped something into Leathen’s drink at the bar. Then Caroline feed him some more bull that enraged him and sent him in search of Averie. We saw it clearly on surveillance footage from the bar he was at before he attacked Averie,” Samuel explained.
“You conniving bitch!” Trevor spat. “You said we would run the firm together, but you were sleeping with Leathen behind my back!”
“You are married! You weren’t going to leave her for me, and you know that! I was just taking care of myself!” Caroline returned.
“You are lucky we are not malicious people because we could have sent those photos to your wife already.”
“Wait,” Laila said. “I didn’t get the memo about not sending the pictures to the wife.”
