Ruthless Rival (Cruel Castaways #1)(4)

“Cutthroat to the bone.” He tried to look unaffected, but his brow became clammy. “How do you sleep at night?”

I swirled the wine in my glass the way an award-winning sommelier had taught me a decade earlier. I also golfed, used the firm’s time-share in Miami, and suffered through talking politics in gentlemen’s clubs.

“Usually with a leggy blonde by my side.” False, but I knew a pig like him would appreciate it.

He chuckled, the predictable simpleton that he was. “Wiseass. You’re too ambitious for your own good.”

Cromwell’s view of ambition varied, depending on the person who possessed it. On junior associates who clocked sixty billable hours a week, it was terrific. On me, it was a nuisance.

“No such thing, sir. Now I’d like an answer.”

“Christian.” Traurig shot me a smile that begged me to shut up. “Give us five minutes. I’ll meet you outside.”

I didn’t like being tossed to the street while they discussed me. Deep down, I was still Nicky from Hunts Point. But that boy had to be curbed in polite society. Gently bred men didn’t shout and flip tables. I had to speak their language. Soft words, sharp knives.

After pushing my chair back, I slipped into my Givenchy coat. “Fine. It’ll give me time to try out that new Davidoff cigar.”

Traurig’s eyes lit up. “Winston Churchill?”

“Limited edition.” I winked. Bastard rode my ass for everything cigar and liquor related like he didn’t earn six times my wage.

“My, my. Got a spare?”

“You know it.”

“See you in a few.”

“Not if I see you first.”

On the curb, I puffed on my cigar and watched yellow traffic lights turning red and green vainly, as jaywalkers glided in thick streams, like schools of fish. The trees on the street were naked, save for the pale string lights that had yet to be stripped after Christmas.

My phone pinged in my pocket. I pulled it out.

Arsène: You coming? Riggs is leaving tomorrow morning and he is getting grabby with someone who needs her diaper changed.

That could mean either she was too young or she had ass implants. Most likely, it meant both. I tucked the cigar into the corner of my mouth, my fingers floating over the touch screen.

Me: Tell him to keep it in his pants. I’m on my way.

Arsène: Being jerked around by Daddy and Daddy?

Me: Not all of us were born with a two hundred mil trust fund, baby.

I slipped my phone back into my pocket.

A friendly pat landed on my shoulder. When I turned around, Traurig and Cromwell were there. Cromwell looked like he was the not-so-proud owner of every hemorrhoid in New York City, clutching his walking cane with a pained expression. Traurig’s thin, cunning sneer revealed little.

“Sheila’s been nagging me about getting more exercise. I think I’ll walk my way home. Gentlemen.” Cromwell nodded curtly. “Christian, congratulations on bringing Emerson. I will see you at our weekly meeting next Friday.” And then he was off, disappearing in the throng of bundled-up people and white steam curling from manholes.

I passed Traurig a cigar. He gave it a few puffs, patting his pockets, like he was looking for something. Maybe his long-lost dignity.

“Deacon thinks you’re not ready yet.”

“That’s bull crap.” My teeth pressed into my cigar. “My track record is impeccable. I work eighty-hour weeks. I oversee every big case in litigation, even though it is technically your job, and I’m teamed with a junior associate for all my cases, just like a partner. If I walk away right now, I am taking with me a portfolio you cannot afford to lose, and we both know that.”

Becoming name partner and having my name on the front door would be the pinnacle of my existence. I knew it was a large leap, but I’d earned it. Deserved it. Other associates didn’t clock in the same hours, bring in the same clientele, or deliver the same results. Plus, as a newly minted millionaire, I was chasing my next thrill. There was something terribly numbing about seeing the hefty paycheck rolling in each month and knowing that anything I wanted was within reach. Partnership wasn’t only a challenge; it was a middle finger to the city that had purged itself of me when I was fourteen.

“Now, now, no need to get lippy.” Traurig chuckled. “Look, kiddo, Cromwell is open to the idea.”

Kiddo. Traurig liked to pretend I was still on the cusp of adolescence, waiting for my balls to drop.

“Open?” I said, snorting. “He should be begging me to stay and offering me half his kingdom.”

“And here’s the crux of it.” Traurig gestured with his hand, making a show like I was an exhibit he was referring to. “Cromwell thinks you’ve gotten too comfortable, too quickly. You’re only thirty-two, Christian, and you haven’t seen the inside of a courtroom in a couple years now. You serve your clients well, your name precedes you, but you don’t sweat it anymore. Ninety-six percent of your cases settle out of court because no one wants to face you. Cromwell wants to see you hungry. He wants to see your fight. He misses that same fire in your eyes that made him pluck you from the DA’s when you got in hot water with the governor.”

My second year at the DA’s office, a huge case had landed on my desk. It was the same year Theodore Montgomery, the then Manhattan district attorney, got slammed for letting the statute of limitations run out on a few cases due to overwhelming workload. Montgomery tossed the case on my desk and told me to give it my best shot. He didn’t want another outrage on his hands but also didn’t have any staff to work on it.