“Can he blackball you?”
I shook my head and rested my weight into a hand on theisland.“The firm isn’t that big.He doesn’t have that much power.Not evenwithin the firm.The other partners are better liked, well-respected, andthinking on it, more successful attorneys when it comes to winning cases.Though, he thinks he does.Have the power, I mean.”
“Can he act on his own in the position he holds?”
Reflecting on this, I realized I’d panicked too soon.
I worked for attorneys.They knew the law.They also knewwhat could happen if you did whatever you wanted regardless of it.
Even if Jeffrey wanted to be an asshole, the other twopartners would never let him put them in an untenable position.
“I don’t report to him,” I told Darius.“On the cases Iwork, I report to the attorney who’s handling them.But strictly, I reportdirectly to the HR Director.She does my performance evaluations.And shereports to the partners.He might share with her he has an issue with my work,even if he has to make it up, but it would have to be really bad to terminateme immediately, without warnings or official writeups.There’s office politicsand gossip, but it isn’t a toxic environment.They’ve let people go since I’vebeen there, but not without cause.I can’t imagine the other partners wouldallow him to do something maverick, especially in a retaliatory manner when hewas in the midst of hiding assets.That’s fraud.He could be disbarred forthat.Even serve jail time.”
“So you’re good.”
“I think so.”
“Right, then now I wanna know, what’d you think?That I’dkill him?”
What?
“Who?Jeffrey?”
“No, Malia.Michael.”
All the air went out of me in a whoosh.
So it was breathy when I asked, “How did you know?”
The mood in the room, already not great, deteriorated.
“So you were keeping it from me?”
“No.I just…we were busy and…”
“Bullshit.”
“Darius—”
“I’m not that man.Not anymore.”
Not anymore.
“You’ve killed people before?”I whispered.
“You will never know.”Still seated, he leaned toward me,and his tone was awful when he said, “Never.What I will say is that Imade an example of the man who wanted to hurt you, so anyone who might findtheir way to something they thought they could use to fuck with me, theythought twice.That’s all I’ll say.”
Okay.
I was reading this as the fact there was a good possibilitythat he’d killed people.
This was not knowledge I wanted, but it also wasn’tsurprising.He’d been at the top of his game.Shirleen’s husband had beenwhacked years before, he was a kingpin, and they took over his kingdom when hewas gone.
Darius did it to keep earning until he knew the ones heloved would be taken care of even if he was gone.
Shirleen did it because it was all she knew.
You didn’t get to that place in that world without doingwhat had to be done.
