“Why would he hurt one of us? We’re his attorneys. Jesus Cassie, you’ll be lucky if he doesn’t sue you now, or the goddamn motorcycle criminals you work for.” He sneers at me.
He’s asking to be punched too.
“It won’t happen again, Harry.” Cassie glares at me.
“No, it won’t. You broke the terms of the agreement. Not only him being here, the assault of a client. One of most respected clients, who is related to a partner here. No, Cassie. This is over.”
“What do you mean?” Her spine straightens.
“It’s means you’re fired.”
Shit.
“You can’t fire her.” He doesn’t need to be a prick about this, it was all my fault.
“I can, and I am. This went too far.”
“We can talk about this, give me a chance to explain,” Cassie says.
“You can’t explain away what I witnessed with my own two eyes. Having you on Vance’s case hasn’t helped in any way. We’re bordering on losing because you haven’t worked fast enough to get the suit dropped. Kroeger has filed motion after motion, she’s been to see the judge and where were you? I haven’t been able to get hold of you. You have been rude to our client, you walked out on him during a meeting.”
“What meeting are you talking about?”
“At the restaurant.”
“You mean the night when-”
Cassie turns on me and cuts me off with a look. She wants me to go, but how can I leave her like this?
“You left him to meet with thatclub,” he spits out. “When you’re supposed to be working day and night on this case. And now this. No, there is no coming back from this. I’ll be speaking to the partners, and they will confirm the decision. Get your things and leave.”
There is a very slight tremor in Cassie’s hands, but she doesn’t argue. She doesn’t say anything, to him or me, just turns and walks out of theroom. Everyone is staring at her as she makes her way past them. I turn to the sniveling little shit.
“You didn’t need to do that.”
“I want you out of here before I call security. You’re lucky I know exactly who you are and what you do and that is the only reason why I won’t be calling the police right now. Get off our property and stay away.”
I could put the scrawny little shit on his ass and force him to take back the firing, but that isn’t going to help. Too many people are watching, and they continue as I head back to Cassie’s office.
Her assistant is there asking what the hell happened as Cassie gathers up her coat and purse. She asks her to bag up her personal items and says she will call her later. The assistant isn’t looking at me the same way she did before, her face is full of contempt.
Cassie walks past me, her head held high as she gets to the elevator.
Okay, I fucked up.
“It’s not like I seriously hurt him,” I tell her when the elevator door closes.
“Shut up.”
“Cassie-”
“I said shut up. Don’t talk to me right now. I’m so mad I could fucking breakyournose.”
That would never happen, but I keep my mouth shut. I’m sure she can talk her way back into her job. Tensions were high, people were scared because I acted like a fucking lunatic running in there throwing Vance into the glass wall.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” She snaps after we’ve driven in silence for ten minutes.
“That he was going to hurt you.”
