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Chapter 1
THELMA
Kill me now. Sighing, I pour the last of the bottle of expensive Chablis into my largest wine glass. Padding out of my kitchen, my bare feet slide over the hardwood floors as I make my way to my main living area. Sinking into the L-shaped camel couch, I draw my knees to my chest, tucking my feet under a throw blanket, and stare out over the blue water of Elliott Bay.
Mom and Dad were horrified when I bought this condo in downtown Seattle. They thought I should have bought a house in the Queen Anne neighborhood – like Artie and Holly – or a condo in Belltown like Pete and the twins. I like living downtown, so I went ahead and bought it anyway.
They were even more horrified when I collected my Harvard law degree and came back to Seattle – not to join the prestigious family sports law firm of Rampwood & Stein, LLP, like Artie and my cousins did – but to join the Public Defender’s Office.
Oh my god. You would not believe the tantrums two grown-ass people could throw. There was wailing.Wailing. They went through all the stages of grief, but mygod, it felt like acceptance took a damn long time to come. Bargaining was a fun stage. Mom tried to convince me to join the family firm by telling me about Artie’s salary and bonus package. I snort into my wine.
Like that would entice me. I bought this condo out of my trust fund, and enough is remaining that I can buy nice things off the fund’s annual earnings whenever I want.
If I were worried about money, I wouldn’t have joined the Public Defender’s Office in the first place. God, Mom can be so clueless sometimes.
I love where I work. I love the people I work with. I even like some of my clients. Sometimes they aren’t the nicest people, but a lot of the time, they just need to catch a break – like all the ones caught by me, being born into one of Seattle’s premier families – and their lives would be so different. My time is well spent if I can help them catch even half a break.
Of course, this is America. The system isn’t designed to cut breaks unless you’re born with them. This is why I’m clutching a wine glass that holds half a bottle, staring unseeing at a gorgeous view.
Leticia Jackson didn’t deserve to lose today. She won’t deserve the sentence that will inevitably be handed down. I know I can’t win them all, but sometimes – like today – it feels like the whole system is a giant boot trying to crush the souls of the people I represent, and my five-foot-six frame isn’t enough to hold it off their necks.
Wrinkling my nose, I snatch up my phone, opening an email to Betty Gifford, the CEO of the Rampwood Family Foundation. I send her Leticia Jackson’s information. There’s not much the Foundation can do for Leticia. Not where she’s going. But they can make sure her kids are looked after.
No one in the family knows that Betty and I are helping the families of my lost cases. No one but my sister-in-law, Holly. It was Holly’s idea during a wine-fueled cry session after I lost a bad case. A really bad case.
Selma Kepler had been badly abused by her father since she was a little girl. At seventeen, she had enough. She took a kitchen knife and killed him as he slept, passed out in her bed after raping her.
I convinced the judge that twenty years in prison – rather than life – was appropriate. Selma’s twin sister Grace was the first person Betty and I helped. The Foundation gave her a fully paid college scholarship to NYU.
My email sent, I drop my phone, turning my eyes back to Elliott Bay as I stare unseeing at the water, sipping at my wine.
JIMMY
“Let’s go, ladies! And up! And down! And up! And down! And sprint!”
Casey’s enthusiastic voice booms over the sound system. The DJ spins a track as the class pants and cycles, the psychedelic lights swirling around the space, mixing with the incense in the air. It’s sensory overload.
My head starts to throb with the pulsing music, the sickly-sweet scent of the incense, and the flashing lights. I’m out. Casting one last glance at the class, I ignore the eye-fucking one of the botoxed-to-the-eyeballs housewives is attempting to give me and slip out of the room.
It’s quieter once I’m out of the Spincycle class. Casey is doing well. Her enthusiasm is exactly what the class requires, and it’s one of our highest earners. We now have three Spincycle instructors, Casey having started almost a month ago. Her probation is up next week, but I'm really happy with her work and how she fits with the culture here.
Making my way past the individual workout classrooms, I hit the elevator bank, swiping my card to access the staff-only upper floor. The elevators are piping out hip-hop today, so Felix must have control of the playlist. Nodding to the familiar song, I step out of the elevator car and stride along the hallway to my office.
Clean lines dominate the space on this floor. Clean lines dominate the whole gym. I gutted the building when I bought it and remade it in line with my vision.
Everyone laughed when I graduated from UCLA and said I was returning home to Seattle to create a fitness empire. They’re not laughing now. No, now they all want memberships and mates rates. I guess the dumb jock did make it all on his own.
It was hard. I spent my twenties up to my eyeballs in debt, grinding every second. But now…. Now I’m standing on top of my empire and the fucking world. And I’m only thirty-one.
Striding into my large office, the Dynamo Fitness logo emblazed on the wall across from my desk catches my eye. It never fails to cause a surge of pride to run through me. I was a good-for-nothing dumb jock. Now I’m the CEO of a multi-million dollar fitness empire.
The moment I knew I made it had nothing to do with zeros on a balance sheet or the condo I could afford to buy in Pioneer Square. No. The moment I knew I had made it was two names on Dynamo’s membership list. Arthur Rampwood and Beaumont Anders Westerhaven.
Artie Rampwood is one of the famous Seattle Rampwoods. They may have started with sports law, but they’re Seattle royalty now. That’s how I knew I’d made it in this city.
Beau Westerhaven is one of the five nephews of the elusive Chicago billionaire Bill Westerhaven. Beau runs Haven Publishing, the international publishing house right here in Seattle. That’s how I knew I’d made it in this country.
There are other names. Famous singers and actors. Sports stars. Those kinds of names. But Beau and Artie are the two members that mean the most to me. For what they represent.
