The apartment was quiet, it was a huge apartment with multiple rooms yet only one occupant remained.

It was quite literally a mansion, and it showed the kind of wealth that wasn’t gotten through being a righteous person.

This was built off the back of others and they reaped the rewards but it in no way undermined what they sacrificed to reach this level or stage in their life.

Harriet Harlan sat in the armchair by the window, legs folded beneath her, a glass of red wine cradled in both hands. The city below moved at its usual pace — indifferent, continuous — and she watched it without really seeing it. Because her mind was absent, drifting as she tried her best to make sense of things.

She hadn’t gone in today because she didn’t need to, if anything, she could take it easy for as long as she wanted but if she was more present, Liam would never have been fired.

She had sent her assistant a brief message before eight and left it at that. No explanation. Nobody at the firm would ask for one. That was one of the few genuine privileges the title carried.

Her husband’s side of the wardrobe was untouched, his preferred cologne still sitting on the bathroom shelf filling the space with the idea of him rather than the man himself. He was in Dubai. Or Frankfurt. She had the itinerary somewhere. These trips ran together after a while — different cities, same distance. But she didn’t care too much about his absence.

She took a sip of wine.

The robe she wore was deep burgundy, silk, falling just above the knee. It was the kind of thing purchased without occasion in mind — simply because it was beautiful and she had earned the right to own beautiful things. The fabric moved when she did and settled like water when she didn’t. Her hair was down, loose around her shoulders, and her face was clean of everything she usually put between herself and the world.

She looked, in other words, nothing like the woman who had sat across from Liam at The Metropolitan Grill.

She looked better, which was impressive considering her age.

Her phone sat on the armrest beside her. She had sent the counter-offer at just past nine this morning and had been thinking about it with irritating regularity ever since.

"Counter-offer." She almost smiled at herself. She had taken his terms, adjusted the edges by the smallest defensible margin, and presented it as her own position.

Any first-year associate worth their tuition would have seen through it in thirty seconds.

But Liam would understand why she did what she did at the end of the day.

Liam would see through it in less and she wanted him to.

She knew that. She had known it when she typed it but this might be good for her considering it would naturally overlap with whatever he would have going on in the future.

She picked up her tablet from the side table and opened his file. Not the termination paperwork — his actual record. Case history, billing logs, client retention figures going back three years.

The win rate loaded at the top of the page.

Ninety-nine percent, it was staggering.

Harriet stared at it.

She set her wine down, took the tablet in both hands, and read through the case list properly. Not skimming — reading. Landmark commercial disputes. A wrongful acquisition case that three senior partners had called unwinnable. Two arbitration proceedings that had settled so far in the client’s favour that the opposing counsel had reportedly requested a transfer to a different department afterward.

She kissed her teeth in disbelief.

The sound came out before she could stop it — sharp, involuntary, the kind that bypasses composure entirely.

"Arthur, that fool."

She leaned back in the chair and looked at the ceiling.

Arthur Harlan was many things — well-connected, politically sharp, occasionally brilliant in the way that men who had never been told no sometimes were. But this. Terminating their highest-performing associate over a private social media post with a limited audience. A post that, as Liam had correctly identified, didn’t even satisfy the threshold written into his own contract.

It didn’t make sense to her.

Harriet had assumed incompetence at first. Arthur moving fast, not reading carefully, making the call before legal review because he was the kind of man who confused confidence with correctness. But sitting here now, going through three years of case wins and client billings, a different question was forming quietly at the back of her mind.

"Why Liam specifically?" This felt targeted, there was no way it was a coincidence or a mistake.

There were associates at the firm who caused genuine problems. Billing irregularities, client complaints, conduct issues that required actual management. Liam had none of that. His file was immaculate. His clients renewed without prompting. He billed accurately and consistently.

And if he did violate any policy, with his record, any firm would turn a blind eye to it and keep him satisfied.

So why had Arthur moved so fast? And why hadn’t he run it past her first?

She reached for her wine again.

There was something underneath this. She didn’t have it yet but she knew the shape of it.

She had her fingertips on it but wasn’t quite there yet which made her irritated.

She needed to look more carefully.

Harriet uncurled her legs from beneath her and stood, moving to the window with her glass, the silk robe settling around her as she looked out at the city.

Liam had come to that dinner expecting a settlement, a settlement he had earned.

What he didn’t know was that he may have handed her something far more useful than a deal. It might have given her probable cause to not only investigate Arthur but have a reason to terminate his contract.

She knew Arthur was becoming a problem and her husband wouldn’t listen to her until she had concrete proof to show him.