Chapter 5

Elena

Monday morning at the firm was chaos.

From the moment I set foot in the office, my name echoed from every direction without pause.

"Elena, there's a meeting in the conference room at ten-thirty. Get everything set up beforehand."

"Elena, where's my coffee? I need extra ice today—I need something to wake me up."

"Elena, that Miss Megan case from last week—print me ten copies of the file."

On and on it went...

Only once the meeting got underway inside the conference room did I finally get a moment's peace.

Emma sidled up to me and murmured, "Care to guess which case they're hashing out today?"

I rolled my stiff neck from side to side and gave a nod. "I heard it's Miss Megan's workplace harassment suit. What's so special about that? The firm takes on more cases like it than anyone can count in a year."

Emma leaned in another step, feigning an air of mystery. "But do you know who Miss Megan's suing?"

I frowned. I had no idea.

Miss Megan had come to the firm twice last week, and each time she left, the pain on her face was impossible to hide.

By all rights, a harassment case like this should be small potatoes for the firm. Yet my supervisor, Lila, had turned her away twice in a row—and stayed tight-lipped about the whole matter.

As far as I knew, Big Low never refused a client lightly. Not unless the case was extraordinarily difficult, or the odds of winning were next to nothing.

Just then, even Noah—usually the stiff, buttoned-up intern—joined our little huddle. For interns living on the fringes of the firm, gossip about these cases was the only way to pad out our meager experience.

Noah lowered his voice, putting on a knowing gravity. "I know something. Lila and Jack were arguing about it for ages yesterday."

That instantly piqued our curiosity.

Noah had it a bit better than Emma and me. He was handsome, with the wide-eyed look of a fresh college graduate—though there was always a sly glint in his eyes. He had a gift for people, forever chumming it up with the licensed attorneys, which was why he always knew more gossip than the rest of us.

"The man she wants to sue is Mr. Beekett—the current president of one of America's famous old-money families."

At those words, my heart clenched, and Beekett's greasy face surfaced in my mind at once. A wave of nausea rose in my throat, and I hastily gulped down two mouthfuls of coffee to force back the physical revulsion.

Him?

Even if Charlotte insisted he was the man every girl in America chased after, that couldn't mask the arrogance and depravity buried in his bones. Given everything he'd done to me that night, even without knowing Miss Megan, the scales in my heart tipped firmly toward her—toward her as the victim.

Noah went on. "According to Miss Megan, Beekett never once stopped abusing her over the past eight years. It even left her with serious psychological problems. Last year he fired her without a cent of compensation, and that's when she decided to sue him for everything he'd done to her all those years."

Emma added, "This past year she's sued Beekett plenty of times, but the court's ruled him innocent every time. He even countersued her for malicious defamation, and she was slapped with a massive fine. She came to the firm last week wanting to keep going after him—but it looks like Lila doesn't want to take her case."

"Word on the street is that Miss Megan is just bitter about being dumped by Beekett, so she's framing him, hoping to squeeze a fat settlement out of him."

They kept debating on and on over which of the two was the liar.

But I had already reached my verdict long ago. Beekett had raped me, and even though he'd come back the next day, there was no evidence to be found that could pin anything on him directly. Looking back now, Beekett had clearly been a repeat offender all along, scrubbing away any trace of his crimes. In the end, the victim was the one left to swallow the injustice in silence.

Still, a man like Beekett couldn't be allowed to walk free. He had to be made to pay. As for how, exactly—I hadn't the faintest idea.

Just then, the conference room door opened.

Lila stepped out and swept her gaze around the room until it landed on the three of us. Emma and Noah stiffened, then sprang apart and busied themselves in a show of industriousness.

But Lila wasn't concerned with our slacking. She only frowned and said, "You three. Inside."

The three of us exchanged glances. We had no idea what was coming, but we didn't dare drag our feet either, so we grabbed our notebooks and followed her in.

The moment we stepped through the door, a room full of higher-ups turned to eye the three of us, brows furrowed—like a pack of hungry wolves sizing up rabbits they were about to tear apart.

Lila cast us a frowning glance, her tone laced with unmistakable contempt. "Elias, they're just interns. Their sole contribution to this firm is fetching coffee. If you're bringing them onto Miss Megan's case, then I'd sooner drop her as a client altogether. Otherwise it'll ruin the firm's reputation."

Lila was a notorious hardliner in the industry, holding herself and her subordinates to standards far beyond what most people could bear. Every lawyer under her was exceptional, so naturally she looked down on interns like us, who didn't have a shred of real-world experience.

The moment she finished, the other attorneys nodded along in agreement.

Elias didn't join the chorus. Behind his gold-rimmed glasses, his eyes held both impatience and restraint.

"As everyone knows, no lawyer skips over the intern stage. Before any of us became a real attorney, we all went through the same coffee runs and grunt work."

"I'd wager you all grumbled back then—My God, they've got a top law-school graduate like me fetching coffee, of all the mind-numbing chores. What shortsighted fools!"

He deliberately mimicked a tone of dejection, drawing smiles all around. Soon everyone was trading stories of their own internship days.

"I once shined my boss's shoes, and he just scowled and told me to buff them shinier."

"I put in a full three years as an intern before I ever got the chance at my license. No one knows how miserable I was back then."

And on it went...

Elias seemed pleased with the mood. He rose confidently to his feet and spoke with candor. "It's precisely because we've all been through internships like these that we owe these interns a chance now."

"And let's be honest—their credentials may be no worse than ours. Isn't that right?"

At that, the conference room fell silent again. The attorneys traded glances and said nothing.

Elias wasn't only fighting for my rights—he'd deliberately swept the other interns in alongside me. Perhaps I could guess at the care behind it: if he'd carved out a special privilege for me alone, I might have faced whispers and criticism at the firm down the road.

At that thought, I looked at Elias with gratitude. This was my one chance to seize—the only way I'd ever become a real lawyer. Beside me, Emma and Noah felt exactly as I did, their fervent eyes brimming with the thanks in their hearts.

In the end, it was Jack who broke the deadlock. He stood with a smile and clapped his hands. "All right. In that case, I'd like to hear what the interns think about Miss Megan's case."

"Let's continue!"