第3章

Preston stood in the doorway, his face a thundercloud.

His eyes flickered between me, Chloe, and the shattered photo on the floor.

“Getting physical in the office? Victoria, have you lost all sense of decency?”

Chloe seized the moment, clutching her reddening cheek, her voice thick with tears.

“Preston, I… I was just trying to apologize to Victoria, to offer to share the bonus… but she…”

“Share the bonus?” Preston frowned. “You don’t owe her anything.”

“I know, but I felt it wasn’t fair…” Chloe put on her best victim face. “But then she just… hit me…”

“Enough!” Preston glared at me. “Victoria, I am so disappointed in you.”

I pointed at the shattered glass on the floor. “She deliberately knocked over the photo of my father and stepped on it!”

Preston glanced down, then dismissed it with a wave.

“It’s a damn picture frame, Victoria. You assaulted a colleague over a picture frame?”

“A picture frame?” My voice trembled. “That was the only photo I have of my father!”

“Victoria, I can understand being emotional about the bonus. But attacking a colleague is unacceptable.”

Preston walked over to Chloe, his voice full of concern. “Do you need to see a doctor?”

“No, no,” Chloe said, waving him off, playing the part of the bigger person. “I’m sure Victoria was just overwhelmed.”

I watched the performance, feeling sick to my stomach.

“Preston, you really believe her?”

“I believe what I saw,” Preston replied coldly. “You hit her. That’s a fact.”

“And did you see what she did to my father’s photo?”

“I told you, it’s just a frame!” Preston’s voice rose. “You’re bitter and you can’t stand to see someone else succeed!”

I took a deep breath, fighting for control.

“Fine. Then tell me, what success of Chloe’s is worth two million dollars?”

“Her client management skills, her teamwork—”

“Teamwork?” I laughed, a dead, empty sound. “Go on, Preston. Ask her. Ask your star player who wrote the core legal argument for the Titan Project.”

Chloe’s mouth opened, then closed.

“Who found the key precedent? Who developed the communication strategy with the client’s tech experts?”

“Victoria, that’s enough!” Preston snapped. “None of that matters. What matters is the result, and your attitude!”

I laughed, a cold, empty sound.

“My attitude? Preston, you’re a real hypocrite.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“When Chloe was stealing credit right under my nose, where was your lecture about attitude? When she plagiarized my work, what did you have to say about attitude then?”

“You’re talking nonsense—”

“Am I?” I walked to my desk and picked up the folder. “Should I pull up the email records right now? Let’s see who’s talking nonsense.”

Preston’s face tightened.

Just then, two security guards appeared in the doorway.

“Pack your shit and get out,” Preston snarled, gesturing to the guards. “Now.”

I knelt and picked up the trampled photo, carefully brushing away the glass dust. I placed it in my bag along with the last of my personal belongings.

My silence seemed to unnerve them more than any screaming match could.

They probably expected me to scream, to argue, to make a scene.

I didn’t.

I zipped my bag and walked toward the door.

As I passed Preston, I paused.

The cloying mix of his expensive cologne and cigar smoke made me nauseous.

I met his gaze, my own voice steady and cold.

“You’ll regret this, Preston.”

“And I hope Chloe’s ‘defense’… is as ‘reliable’ as she seems.”

Preston’s brow furrowed, a flicker of annoyance on his handsome face. He looked like he wanted to say something.

But I didn’t give him the chance. I walked out and didn’t look back.

When I got home, my mother, recovering from her surgery, was resting on a lounge chair on the patio of our Napa Valley house.

Seeing me home so early, and the look on my face, she asked what was wrong.

I told her everything—the resignation, the stolen bonus.

She didn’t blame me for a second. She just took my hand and patted it gently. “Good riddance to them. A place like that doesn’t deserve my daughter’s hard work.”

“Your health is what matters. And your peace of mind is even more important.”

“I still have that trust fund, you know. Don’t rush to find a new job. Just rest for a while.”

Her words were a warm current, soothing my bruised heart.

The next few days felt like they were in slow motion.

In the mornings, I’d go with Mom to the farmers’ market, listening to her expertly discuss different vintages of Cabernet with the growers while we picked out fresh organic vegetables.

Later, we’d walk through the vineyards, and I’d awkwardly learn about wine tasting from her retired neighbors.

Afternoons were for the sun-drenched porch. For Earl Grey tea and the distant mountains. Quiet. Peaceful. The calm before the storm.

This long-lost feeling of being grounded began to revive my heart, which had grown numb from the constant battles of the courtroom and the office.

And in that quiet, the last few years came back to me, page by page, like faded court records becoming sharp and clear.

I remembered the beginning. The hunger. Our first big class-action suit. We were a handful of nobodies against a giant. We lived out of that tiny office for three months, sleeping on couches and fueled by caffeine and sheer will.

In the end, we didn’t just win the case; we secured a settlement that put the firm on the map and established our reputation in litigation.

I remembered the time a rival firm maliciously poached our key witness, causing our case to nearly implode in a major hearing. The client was furious.

I worked for forty-eight hours straight, leading my team through tens of thousands of pages of documents until we found a procedural error on their part. We not only got the judge to declare a recess but also forced the other side to settle, saving the firm from a massive potential loss and landing a brutal counter-punch on our rival.

That battle made our firm famous in San Francisco.

And I’d never forget the Titan Project, the case that won the firm its billion-dollar payday.

The core legal theory was born from one of my father’s old rulings.

I built the case from the ground up in my own study, spending countless nights diagramming evidence chains on my walls, running simulations, and refining every detail.

That first, game-changing motion was written at my desk at home.

You could say the heart and soul of that case had my name carved into it from the very beginning.

It was through these brutal fights that the firm grew from a dozen people in a cramped Financial District office into a legal powerhouse.

That one case sent our business into the stratosphere and made us a top-tier San Francisco firm.

I also remembered Preston's father, Floyd, the founder of the firm. He thought the world of me.

He gave me absolute trust and support at work. In private, he’d often clap me on the shoulder and say to others, half-joking, half-serious, “If only Preston had half of Victoria’s legal genius. Too bad the kid’s a spoiled brat who couldn’t care less about the law. I swear, the only way I’ll rest easy is if I leave him and the firm in her hands.”