Chapter 6: The Bitch Lawyer's Gambit
The keycard, a sliver of black plastic she’d lifted from Jeannie’s clutch, “just in case,” slid through the reader with a soft, green blink. The heavy door to Max Glover’s penthouse sighed open. Dee stepped into the conditioned chill, the city’s skyline a dazzling, silent diorama beyond walls of glass.
The air smelled of lemongrass cleaner, top-shelf bourbon, and sex. Old sex.
Max was sprawled on a vast charcoal sectional, a silk robe hanging open to reveal his sculpted torso, a tumbler of amber liquid in his hand. The giant television was muted, showing sports highlights. He didn’t look up. “Jeannie, baby, change of heart? Knew you couldn’t stay away from a real—”
He finally glanced over. The smug charm on his face froze, then cracked into confusion, then a slow-dawning, irritated recognition. “The lawyer friend. Dee.” He took a slow sip. “This is a private residence. You’re trespassing.”
Dee smirked, "Law is my tool, not my leash, asshole." She let her purse, a heavy leather satchel, slide off her shoulder and thump onto a low glass table. She didn’t remove her coat. “We need to talk about your future.”
He snorted, gesturing with his glass at the panoramic view. “Looks pretty good from here.”
“It’s about to change.” She walked closer, her heels silent on the thick rug. “My brother-in-law’s podcast. The videos from Nirvana. That’s just the opening salvo.”
Max set his glass down with a sharp clack. “You think I’m scared of some gossip blogger? My lawyers are already on it. Defamation. Invasion of privacy.”
“Your lawyers,” Dee said, stopping just in front of him, “are about to be very busy defending you against a civil suit from my client, Jeannie Nelson, for sexual coercion and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The discovery process will be fascinating. We’ll subpoena your phones, your financials, your gate logs, every escort service you’ve ever used. We’ll find the others. The married realtor from Phoenix. The dentist’s wife from Seattle. We already have their names, Max. They’re just waiting to see which way the wind blows.”
His eyes narrowed. A muscle ticked in his jaw. “She came on to me. She was fucking eager.”
“She was my client’s wife, and you were a conquest. That’s irrelevant now.” Dee’s voice was a clinical scalpel. “Here are your options. Option one: you vanish from Jeannie’s life. You block her number. If she reaches out, you ignore it. You publicly state the videos are a deepfake smear campaign by a rival, you express sympathy for the ‘misled’ individuals involved, and you take a vague, temporary leave of absence from the team to ‘focus on your mental health.’ You fade away quietly. Your endorsements take a hit but survive. You play again, maybe for another team, in a year.”
Max stood up, his height and athletic bulk suddenly dominating the space. He loomed over her. “And option two?”
“Option two,” Dee said, not retreating an inch, “is I destroy you. I release the unedited footage, which includes you slapping Jeannie’s ass so hard it left a mark and telling her to ‘beg for your famous cock.’ I forward the dossier Judge Parker’s people compiled on your wingmen’s habits—the cocaine, the GHB—to the NFL security office. I make sure every charity board you sit on gets a detailed package. You become untouchable. A social disease. You’ll be lucky to get a jersey in Canada.”
His hand shot out, clamping around her wrist. His grip was powerful, meant to intimidate, to hurt. “You vicious bitch. You think you can walk in here and threaten me?”
Dee didn’t struggle. She looked down at his hand, then back up at his face, a smile playing on her lips. “I didn’t walk in here just to threaten you.”
Her free hand moved, not to push him away, but down, between her own body and his. It wasn’t a fist. It was a sharp, upward jerk of her knee, driven with pinpoint accuracy into his groin.
All the air left Max’s lungs in a pained, high-pitched wheeze. His grip loosened. His face went pale green. As he folded forward, Dee yanked her wrist free, reached into her open purse, and pulled out a sleek, black Taser. She didn’t press it to his side or his leg. She jammed the twin probes directly against the center of his chest, right over the silk of his robe, and pulled the trigger.
The crackle was deafening in the quiet room. Max’s body went rigid, a marionette with its strings yanked taut. A guttural sound was torn from his throat. He collapsed onto the rug, twitching, muscles seizing, drool leaking from the corner of his mouth.
Dee stood over him, watching dispassionately until the five-second cycle ended. He lay gasping, tears of pain and shock in his eyes, utterly helpless.
She knelt beside him, the Taser still in her hand. She leaned close, her voice a honeyed whisper near his ear. “That was for laying a hand on me. Think what I’ll do if you contact Jeannie again. Or if you ever, ever think about going near Tony or his children. I am not a husband you can intimidate. I am the consequences you never saw coming.”
She stood, smoothing her coat. She walked to the door, picked up her purse. She paused, looking back at him, a broken hero writhing on his expensive floor. “Take option one, Max. It’s the only gift you’re getting from me.”
She left, the door clicking shut behind her with finality.
An hour later, Max had dragged himself to his wet bar and downed three fingers of whiskey straight, the liquor doing little to burn away the humiliation or the deep, throbbing ache in his groin and chest. The fear was ice in his veins. She knew about Phoenix. She knew about Seattle. How?
The intercom buzzed. He flinched. It buzzed again, insistently. He stumbled over, thumbed the button. “What?”
The doorman’s voice, hesitant. “Mr. Glover, sir, there’s a… a delivery for you. A young lady. She says it’s urgent personal business.”
A new wave of panic crested. Was it the lawyer again? Had she sent someone? But no, she’d made her point. He was broken, and she knew it. This was something else. Maybe a reprieve. Maybe a fan who’d slipped the doorman a hundred to get upstairs. A distraction. He needed to feel power again, any kind of power. “Send her up,” he growled.
She was blonde, maybe twenty-two, wearing a tight dress and a dazzled, nervous smile. A real estate intern he’d met at a club last week, given his private number to. “Max? Oh my God, I know it’s late, I just… I saw the news and I wanted to make sure you were okay.” Her eyes were wide, full of misplaced concern and star-fucking ambition.
He didn’t speak. He grabbed her wrist, much harder than he’d grabbed Dee’s, and pulled her inside. He kicked the door shut, pushed her back against the cold glass of the window overlooking the city. Her gasp was part surprise, part thrill.
“You wanna make sure I’m okay?” he muttered, his voice still ragged. The humiliation from Dee needed an outlet. This girl, this eager, disposable toy, was it. He kissed her, his mouth hard and demanding, almost biting her lip. His hands groped her breasts roughly through the thin fabric of her dress.
“Max…” she whimpered, but it wasn’t a no. It was an invitation into his darkness, which she mistook for passion.
He spun her around, facing her toward the glittering skyline. He yanked the hem of her dress up around her waist, revealing a lace thong. He didn’t bother removing it. He just hooked a finger in the side and ripped it, the fragile lace snapping without protest. She cried out, a sharp sound he ignored.
He fumbled with his robe’s belt, freeing his cock. He was half-hard, fueled by anger and a desperate need to dominate. He spat into his palm, wet himself roughly, and pressed the head against her. She was tight, unready. He drove forward anyway, sheathing himself in one brutal, deep thrust.
“Oh! God!” she screamed, her hands slapping against the cold window.
“Yeah, God,” he grunted, beginning to piston into her with a punishing, rhythmic force. This was nothing like the seductive games he played with bored wives. This was raw reclamation. Each slam of his hips was a rebuttal to Dee, to Tony, to the world that was crumbling outside. The window shuddered in its frame.
He gripped her hips, his fingers digging into her flesh hard enough to leave bruises. He fucked her with a grinding, selfish intensity, using her body as a poultice for his wounded ego. The sounds were obscene: the wet slap of flesh, his ragged breaths, her small, overwhelmed cries that turned into moans as her body betrayed her and began to respond.
“You like that?” he hissed, pulling her hair to arch her back. “You like getting fucked by a star?”
“Yes!” she sobbed, her orgasm building unexpectedly, coiling tight from the sheer, degrading force of it.
“Then come on it,” he commanded, pounding into her, chasing his own release. “Come on my fucking cock, you little groupie slut.”
Her body clenched around him, a series of frantic, fluttering spasms. The feel of it, the total physical submission, pushed him over the edge. With a final, deep roar, he came inside her, pumping his frustration and his fear into her in hot, pulsing jets. He held himself there, buried to the hilt, until he was spent.
He pulled out abruptly. She sagged against the window, breath fogging the glass. He tied his robe, not looking at her. “There’s a bathroom down the hall,” he said, his voice empty now. The cold reality was seeping back in. The confrontation with Dee. The looming ruin.
The girl, messy and used, stumbled in the direction he’d pointed. Max walked to the bar, poured another drink. His phone lit up on the counter. A notification from his agent: Call me ASAP. Sponsors are dropping. We need a statement.
He looked at the keycard still on the entry table. Dee’s message was clear. She had access. She had everything. The blonde emerged from the hallway, her dress straightened, her face pale. She looked at him, hoping for something—a word, a touch, a promise. He just stared through her.
“The doorman will get you a cab,” he said, and turned his back to her, staring out at the city he no longer felt he owned.
He picked up his phone. He pulled up Jeannie’s contact. His thumb hovered over the block button. He thought of Dee’s whisper, the searing pain of the Taser, the utter certainty in her eyes. He blocked the number. Then he opened his social media accounts, and began to draft the first careful, lawyer-vetted words of his retreat.
Then he opened his social media accounts, and began to draft the first careful, lawyer-vetted words of his retreat. The glass of whiskey beside his laptop trembled, just slightly, with the residual tremor in his hands.
Back at Tony’s house, the new deadbolts thudded into place with satisfying finality. The locksmith packed his tools, leaving behind three silver keys on the kitchen island. Tony picked one up, the metal cool and sharp-edged. It felt like an artifact from a new life.
He was scrubbing the sandwich plate from lunch when headlights swept across the kitchen wall, too fast, bleaching the room in a harsh, fleeting glare. Tires crunched violently on the gravel driveway, followed by the shuddering slam of a car door. Tony went still, the water running hot over his hands.
The pounding on the front door was a furious, familiar rhythm. Not the theatrical fury of Max Glover, but the entitled, sputtering rage of a man who believed he’d been robbed. “Tony! Open the goddamn door! I know you’re in there! We need to talk!” Dale’s voice, slurred with drink or fury or both, was muffled by the thick wood.
Tony turned off the water. He dried his hands slowly on the towel, methodical. The calm that had settled after the morning’s violence was still there, but it had changed, hardened into something focused and patient. He walked to the door but didn’t open it. “Go home, Dale.”
“Go home? You stole my wife, you sanctimonious fuck! You think you can just take her?” The doorknob rattled violently. “She’s mine! We had an understanding!”
A cold smile touched Tony’s lips. An understanding. He flipped the latch and opened the door.
Dale almost fell inside. He smelled of gin and sour sweat. His face was puffy, his eyes bloodshot. The affable, back-slapping buddy was gone, stripped away to reveal a petty, grasping core. “Where is she? Where’s Dee?”
“She’s not your wife right now,” Tony said, his voice low and even. “She’s my lawyer. And she’s not here.”
“Bullshit!” Dale spat, trying to shoulder past him. Tony didn’t move, a solid wall in the doorway. Dale shoved a finger in his face. “This is all your fault! You and your perfect little marriage. Jeannie wanted to play, she wanted more, and you were too much of a tight-ass to give it to her. We offered you a paradise, and you shit all over it!”
“You offered me a trap,” Tony corrected, his gaze flat. “You preyed on my wife. You used my friend.” He glanced past Dale at the empty driveway. “You come here alone? No wingmen this time?”
“I don’t need wingmen to deal with you,” Dale sneered, but a flicker of uncertainty crossed his face. He’d seen the videos from the porch circulating online. “This is between us. Men. You took what’s mine.”
Tony finally stepped back, opening the space. “Come in then. Let’s talk between men.”
Dale stormed into the living room, his eyes darting around as if expecting Dee to leap from the shadows. He turned, chest puffed. “You think you’ve won? You have no idea what you’ve stepped in. Elysium Fields is older and more connected than you can imagine. We have judges. Cops. They’ll bury you. That custody suit? You’ll never see your kids again. We’ll paint you as abusive, unhinged. A violent bastard who beats up star athletes on his lawn.”
Tony listened, saying nothing. He watched the vein throb in Dale’s temple.
“You give Dee back, you get Jeannie back, and we all find a way to make this work. That’s the only way out.” Dale’s tone turned wheedling, a grotesque parody of reason. “We can still be brothers. We can share. It’s better this way. Jeannie’s happier. Dee… Dee just needs to remember her commitments.”
“Her commitment to you?” Tony asked, his head tilting. “Or her commitment to recruiting for your cult?”
“It’s not a cult!” Dale screamed, spittle flying. “It’s freedom! And you’re too small, too scared to see it!” His control shattered. He lunged, not with a fighter’s grace, but with the clumsy rage of a spoiled child.
Tony sidestepped the charge easily. He caught Dale’s extended arm, bent it back at a sharp, punishing angle, and drove him face-first into the stone fireplace mantel. The impact was a sickening crunch of cartilage. Dale howled, stumbling back, blood streaming from his ruined nose.
“You broke my nose!” he wailed, hands cupping his face.
“You broke my life,” Tony said, his voice still quiet. “Get up.”
Dale, sobbing now, charged again. Tony met him with a short, brutal jab to the solar plexus. All the air left Dale in a whoosh. He folded, knees hitting the hardwood. Tony gripped a handful of his hair, forcing his head up. “Look at me.” Dale’s eyes, wide with pain and terror, met his. “You will sign the dissolution papers Dee sends you. You will not contest anything. You will never speak to my children. You will never speak my wife’s name again. If you see me on the street, you cross to the other side.”
“Or what?” Dale gurgled through the blood.
Tony leaned close, his whisper cold and precise. “Or I will visit you. Not in anger. Not in a fight. I will come to you like a tradesman fixing a problem. And I will dismantle you, Dale. Joint by joint. Until there is nothing left for your ‘Fields’ to salvage. Do you understand the difference between a brawl and a dissection?”
Dale, in that moment, understood completely. He nodded, a frantic jerking motion.
The front door opened. Dee stepped in, heels clicking. She took in the scene: Dale kneeling in a pool of his own blood, Tony standing over him, perfectly calm. She dropped her purse on the entry table. “I see you’ve started the guest entertainment without me.”
“He was just leaving,” Tony said, releasing Dale’s hair.
Dee walked over, her gaze analytical. She pulled a phone from her pocket and took several photos of Dale’s bloody, terrified face. “For the file. Proof you were here, attempting to intimidate my client in his home. Adds context to any claims you might try to make about your… accident.” She nudged his shoulder with the toe of her shoe. “Get up. Your car is blocking the driveway.”
Dale scrambled to his feet, whimpering, and shuffled out the door without a backward glance. The night swallowed him. Dee closed the door, locked it, and engaged the new chain. The quiet of the house returned, deeper now.
She turned to Tony. Her eyes scanned him, checking for injury, finding none. The clinical mask she’d worn since morning finally slipped. Something raw and hungry flickered in its place. Without a word, she crossed the space between them, grabbed the front of his shirt, and crushed her mouth to his.
This kiss was a conflagration. It was all the day’s scheming, all the violence, all the unspoken terror transmuted into a single, desperate demand. Her tongue plunged into his mouth, claiming him. He responded in kind, his hands tangling in her hair, pulling her body flush against his. They stumbled backward, a frantic, connected mess of limbs, until his back hit the wall.
She broke the kiss, her breath coming in ragged gasps. “I saw him. On the floor. Pathetic.” She yanked his shirt open, buttons pinging onto the floor. Her mouth was on his neck, his collarbone, biting, sucking. “You did that. For us.”
Her hands went to his belt, unbuckling it with frantic efficiency. He peeled her blouse off, the silk tearing at the seam. She didn’t care. She shoved his pants and boxers down his hips, his cock springing free, already thick and hard. He spun her around, pushing her against the same wall. He kissed the nape of her neck, one hand sliding over her stomach and into her trousers, finding her soaked through.
“Fuck me,” she demanded, her voice a guttural rasp. “Right here. Fuck me like you mean to break me.”
He tore her trousers and underwear down in one rough pull. He spat into his palm, slicked himself, and drove into her from behind without another second’s pause. The entry was a blunt, breathtaking invasion. She cried out, a sharp sound of pure satisfaction, her palms slapping flat against the wall.
He set a punishing, immediate pace. No warm-up, no tenderness. This was a physical argument, a raw reaffirmation of power and possession. Each thrust hammered her into the drywall, a dull, rhythmic thud underpinning the wet, filthy sound of their joining. He gripped her hip with one hand, the other tangling in her hair again, pulling her head back to expose her throat.
“This what you wanted?” he growled into her ear, his hips pistoning. “This chaos?”
“Yes!” she screamed, pushing back against him, taking him deeper. “It’s real! It’s all real! You’re real!” Her words fractured into moans. Her inner muscles clamped around him in fierce, rhythmic spasms. “Oh god, Tony, don’t stop, I’m coming, I’m coming all over your fucking cock!”
Her orgism triggered his own. With a final, deep snarl, he buried himself to the hilt and let go. His release was a hot, flooding rush that seemed to pulled from the very core of his being. He held there, pulsing inside her, as the last of the day’s fury drained away.
They slumped against the wall, spent, still joined. Their breathing was the only sound in the house. Slowly, he softened and slipped out of her. She turned in his arms, her face slick with sweat, her makeup smeared. She looked wrecked and triumphant.
She traced the line of his jaw. “Judge Parker called. The tribunal voted. Dale, Larry, Jeannie… excommunicated. Assets seized, records flagged. The New Guard is in full panic. They’re purging themselves.”
Tony absorbed this. The vast, hidden machine was turning, grinding its own components to dust. “And us?”
“We’re witnesses. We’re protected.” She kissed him, soft now. “For now.”
He carried her to the couch, collapsing with her into the soft cushions. They lay tangled in the dark, the only light from the digital clock on the stove. The house, with its new locks and its old ghosts, was silent around them.
Outside, a car engine turned over quietly down the street and drove away.