I tilt my head. “You’ve been practicing law in this country for how long?”
He doesn’t answer.
“News cycles are short,” I go on. “Outrage burns hot and fast. If he’s good enough, if he’s honest enough, he might survive it.”
“And if he isn’t?”
“Then he deserves to fall.”
Grant studies me for a long moment.
“My involvement with this man ends after this.” I push the folder toward him. “You want my help? This is my way. One foot out of line, one lie, one attempt to spin this as anything other than what it is, and I’m gone. Publicly.”
He swallows. “You don’t pull punches.”
“No,” I agree. “I pull people out of burning buildings. Sometimes they don’t like how I do it.”
He leans back, defeated. “Christ. His wife.”
“And his kids,” I add quietly. “That’s who my heart breaks for. Not him.”
Grant nods, slower now. “Okay, we’ll do it your way.”
“Good.”
“God, Madi, how do you always find this shit?”
Because I look for it relentlessly. Because if I’m going to stand beside someone and clean up their mess, I want to know exactly what kind of mess I’m dealing with.
But I don’t say that. I just grab my bag. “I’ll draft a preliminary strategy. You get him to stop lying as of yesterday.”
Grant watches me head for the door. “Lunch sometime?”
I pause, hand on the handle. “We’ve been over this, Grant.”
He manages a tired smile.
I step into the hall, adrenaline still buzzing under my skin.
That’s when my nose tickles.
“Oh no.”
The sneeze hits hard. I don’t have time to brace for it before my body jerks forward, and my back locks.
Familiar pain shoots through me.
“God fucking dammit,” I gasp, grabbing the wall.
I breathe through it and let the wave pass.
But the wave doesn’t pass fully and pain erupts.
Kicking off my heels, I slip my feet into the flat shoes I keep in my bag.
I refuse to crawl out of another building.
Twenty-Two
