Chapter 3: Professional Warfare
The conference room was a sarcophagus of cool, filtered air. Serena sat perfectly still, her spine not touching the leather back of her chair, her hands folded on the gleaming tabletop. Across from her, Damon shuffled through a stack of documents, the crisp sound of paper the only noise besides the distant hum of the building’s HVAC.
His split lip was a faint, dark line. It pulled slightly when he spoke. “Mr. Henderson, let’s return to the email chain from April twelfth. You stated earlier you ‘cc’d’ legal on all substantive communications.”
The witness, a nervous man in a too-tight suit, dabbed his forehead. “That was the policy, yes.”
“And yet,” Serena said, her voice a clean, sharp blade slicing through the room, “this production from your server shows seven threads concerning due diligence that were sent only to the financial team. Can you explain the discrepancy?”
She didn’t look at Damon. She hadn’t looked at him directly since he’d walked in forty-five minutes ago, the cut on his mouth an ugly, personal punctuation to his otherwise immaculate appearance. She’d noted it, cataloged it with the same part of her brain that tracked a witness’s fidgeting hands, and then locked the observation away in a steel box labeled “Do Not Open.”
“I… I must have forgotten,” Henderson stammered.
“Forgot the corporate compliance policy on a seventy-million-dollar acquisition?” Serena’s tone was light, almost conversational. Deadly. “Seven times?”
Damon intervened, leaning forward. “Objection. Counsel is badgering.”
“This is a deposition, Mr. Blackwood, not a courtroom,” Serena replied, finally turning her gaze to him. It was like looking at a stranger. A handsome, infuriating stranger with a busted lip. “I’m seeking clarification. Your witness seems unclear on his own procedures.”
Their eyes held for a second too long. In the fluorescent glare, she could see the faint shadows under his, the almost imperceptible tightening of his jaw. Good, she thought. Let him be tired. Let him be anything but the man from the bathroom.
“Let’s move on,” Damon said, his voice cool. He pulled another document. “The third-quarter projections.”
The deposition ground on, a tedious war of attrition. Serena dissected every vague answer, every hedging phrase. She was a surgeon, precise and pitiless. Her mind was a focused laser, burning away the haze of corporate obfuscation. And yet, her body felt strangely detached. The pen in her hand was steady, but her fingers, when she reached for a new exhibit, trembled. Just a faint, maddening tremor. She willed it to stop. It didn’t.
During a break while the court reporter stretched her hands, Damon stood and walked to the sideboard to pour a glass of water. He stood near her end of the table.
“Thirsty?” he asked, not looking at her, holding the pitcher.
“No.”
He poured one for himself. The water splashed into the glass. “Your command of email metadata is impressive. Truly. A little cold, but impressive.”
“It’s my job.”
“Right.” He took a sip, the glass pausing near his damaged lip. “The job. Nothing personal.”
She refused to acknowledge the taunt. She focused on her notes, the neat lines of her handwriting. She could feel the heat of him beside her, a living reminder of a colossal, shameful error. The scent of his soap—something clean and cedar-tinged—clashed violently with the memory of stale beer and damp tile.
The court reporter sat back down. The deposition reconvened.
An hour later, Serena went for the kill. “Mr. Henderson, these omitted emails discuss potential environmental liabilities at the target company’s old warehouse. Liabilities your final report listed as ‘negligible.’ Can you point me to the analysis that supported that conclusion?”
Henderson’s eyes darted to Damon. Damon gave a minute, almost imperceptible shake of his head.
“I… I’d have to check.”
“You’re under oath right now, sir,” Serena said softly. “You are checking. With your memory. Was there an analysis?”
The silence stretched. Henderson deflated, sinking into his chair. “No. There was no follow-up analysis.”
Serena didn’t smile. She simply made a meticulous note on her legal pad. She could feel Damon’s gaze like a physical weight. She had just dismantled a key pillar of his client’s defense. She had won this skirmish, decisively.
When the deposition ended, the parties packed up in stiff, formal silence. Henderson scurried out with his lawyer. The court reporter left.
Suddenly, they were alone. The expansive room felt suffocatingly small.
Serena placed her files into her briefcase with methodical care, each click of the latches sounding like a gunshot in the quiet.
Damon didn’t move from his seat. He watched her. “Well played, Vance.”
“It’s not a game.”
“Isn’t it?” He stood up slowly, collecting his own things. “It has rules. Moves. Winners and losers.” He walked around the table, stopping a few feet from her. “You were brutal in there. Beautiful, but brutal.”
She finally looked at him, her mask of professional indifference firmly in place. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t do that. Don’t talk to me like that.” She slung her bag over her shoulder. “The deposition is over. Our interaction is over.”
She moved to pass him, heading for the door. He shifted, not quite blocking her, but forcing her to pause.
“Your hands were shaking,” he said, his voice low.
Every muscle in her body locked. Ice flooded her veins. “You’re imagining things.”
“I don’t imagine things, Serena. I observe them. It’s also my job.” He took a half-step closer. The cedar and clean linen smell of him was overwhelming. “You can annihilate my witness. You can pretend I’m a ghost. But your body remembers.”
The arrogance of it, the sheer gall, cut through the ice. It ignited a white-hot fury. “My body,” she said, her voice dropping to a venomous whisper, “regrets a moment of profound weakness. It will not be happening again. Now, get out of my way.”
He studied her face, searching for a crack in the veneer. She gave him nothing. After a long moment, he shrugged and stepped aside, a mocking gesture of chivalry.
She walked out, her heels clicking a rapid, steady rhythm down the polished hallway. She didn’t look back. She felt his eyes on her until she turned the corner.
Back in her office, she shut the door and leaned against it, closing her eyes. The adrenaline was leaving her, replaced by a hollow, shaking exhaustion. She saw his face, the knowing look in his eyes. Your body remembers.
A soft knock at the door made her jump. Her assistant, Liam, poked his head in. “Bad time? I’ve got the amended discovery requests from Blackwood’s team.”
Serena pushed off the door, straightening her jacket. “No. Come in.”
Liam placed a thick folder on her desk. “Came by messenger. He’s fast.”
“He’s thorough,” Serena corrected absently, sitting down and opening the folder. Standard stuff, procedural. Then, tucked between two sheets of formal requests, she found it.
A simple, white cocktail napkin, folded in half. The kind from the bar.
Her heart thudded once, hard, against her ribs. She glanced at Liam, who was organizing some files on the side table. She unfolded it.
In Damon’s distinctive, slashing handwriting, it read:
‘Moderately competent’ lawyers don’t win the unwinnable deposition. I owe you a drink. –D.
No date. No place. Just the challenge, thrown down on the absurdly ordinary paper.
She stared at it, the crude texture stark against the formal legal documents. He hadn’t called. He hadn’t emailed. He’d sent a note on a napkin, a deliberate, juvenile, and infuriatingly personal callback. A drink. Not an apology. Not an explanation. A drink.
Liam turned. “Everything okay?”
Serena smoothly slid the napkin under a legal pad. Her face was a calm lake. “Fine. Just the usual games.” She picked up her pen. “Let’s draft our responses. We need to be more thorough.”
As she began dictating, her voice steady and clear, her left hand rested lightly on the legal pad, hiding the napkin beneath. The paper felt charged, like a live wire. She could throw it away. She should throw it away.
She kept dictating, her words precise and sharp, while beneath her palm, the innocent white square seemed to burn with the memory of cheap whiskey and a terrible, exhilarating mistake.