Davis didn’t leave through the double doors. That door hidden in the corner next to his desk led out of the room? I thought it was a closet!

“Oh, uh…”

I got distracted, watching Shawn mouth not anymore at me, giving him an embarrassed look as I spun. Whatever, with a year and a half of experience at Kageson practically anyone would hire me.

Davis stood there, his gaze very much focused directly on me.

“… To be fair, it isn’t like my job really requires it?” I tried, looking anywhere but the man.

What nice, polished tiles. Such an empty trash can, how amazing. The floors were so tiled, like wow. What tiles. The carpenter did an amazing job in tiling them.

“Even the janitors that work here require college degrees to do so,” Davis commented, his deep stoic tones not at all conciliatory.

“I’ll miss you,” Shawn whispered very, very quietly.

I cleared my throat awkwardly, not really having a response as I glanced to the side at Shawn’s words, looking back in the general direction of Davis. Did janitors really require degrees to work here? Was he lying?

…

Why would he lie?

“I… see…” I managed, feeling just how flushed my face was.

Was I really going to let some rich guy make me feel this way?

I relaxed at the angry, bitter thought, looking up as a boost of confidence I really shouldn’t have felt filled me, his gaze clashing with mine, shoulders relaxing as I stood tall, “So am I fired, then?”

Tension was very, very thick in the room before his office. My shoulders were straight, though, and I was standing tall.

I never did like bowing before authority.

“Is there a reason you shouldn’t be?” Davis returned.

I took a deep breath to prevent what I was first going to say, my mind racing at the opportunity. Spending so long around lawyers didn’t do me any good if I didn’t speak to them, but I’d read his contracts, and I knew what he wanted. He wouldn’t have said that if he was dead set on firing me.

“Yes, there are many,” The confidence in my voice was matched by my gaze directly on his.

I didn’t suggest we take this elsewhere, knowing he would take it the wrong way. Knowing he would think me a coward or trying to buy time, even though my first sentence was to buy more time to think.

In spite of giving myself time to think, no thoughts came, and bullshit that was always ready spewed from my lips smoothly, my confidence growing tenfold now that I was hardcore just flat lying.

“I am a good and hardworking employee, and while I’m not formally educated, I feel like I couldn’t be called uneducated,” I put my hands somewhere they couldn’t gesture around, head tilting as I spoke with as much confidence as I could, keeping my voice quiet, “I’ve attended college before, and while I wouldn’t typically call it attending college, I would say I did an at least adequate job with my grades before I left,” Don’t raise my voice a loud voice doesn’t equal confidence. Get back to a normal level, “You have also grown annoyed if anyone else took my position, I believe this to be because you hold great preference for my organizational skills when it comes to delivering the papers to you. Thus firing me would be more trouble than I think I’m really worth.”

Then I bit my tongue as hard as I could, tasting blood as I kept his gaze, a polite smile plastered to my face. My hands were kept behind my back, hurting as I tangled them together.

Davis observed me a long moment, then looked away, walking to his office, “Correct. You have done an excellent job thus far, aside from the gossip. Get back to work.”

“Of course, sir,” I said, my smile falling as I stared at Shawn, grinning victoriously. As I walked to the elevator, I texted him.

My fingers reached out, and I heard Shawn laugh at my text.

The elevator had metal on the bottom half and white walls on the top. The floor was black, and the ceiling had a square light with cameras in it. All in all, it was a normal elevator, perfect for calming my heart down.

I put a hand firmly against my chest.

This is why I wanted a professional career in crime, I mused. Freerunning, deceit, lockpicking, good aim with a gun, even intense knowledge of the backstreets of New York, I had it all.

All I needed was to find someone who would buy priceless artifacts from me for a price and I’d be golden.

… Well, someone who would buy priceless artifacts and also someone to hack systems and delete camera footage.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

I couldn’t stand coding or hacking for the life of me, no matter how often I tried learning the skill.

The elevator doors opened, and I hesitated at the sight of Scott. He gave me a cursory glance, speaking even as we passed each other.

“Reciting the pledge of allegiance?” He muttered gruffly.

“Have a good one, Scott,” I replied as I walked past, hand dropping.

What an amazing feat.

I was promoted from “In Danger” Intern to “Not In Danger” Intern. How miraculous. How beautiful. Do you see how impressive I am? I’m amazing. I’m great.

I glanced to the side, flinching back at the sight of myself. Oh, gross. Nevermind. He probably only agreed so I would stop looking at him, Jesus Christ. I looked like roadkill right now, my thick curly hair stringy and dark enough to be called black, though it was brown, my eyes the dullest of dark grays, maybe even a shade of arsenic. My skin was an unhealthy shade of pale, and I looked like I could use a shower or five, though I knew I smelled fine.

Nose scrunching, I decided to take better care of myself. If I had the option and liked it, I might as well, right?

It wouldn’t make me feel better, but it’d make me feel less worse. If that made sense.

… Made sense to who? I really had to stop thinking weird shit to myself. I was going to gain a second personality or something.

In spite of my remaining unfired, the CEO continuously called up lawyer after lawyer. I felt like it was a disguised curse, and I found myself called to his office only five minutes before my next alarm went off. Grabbing papers, I walked to the elevator.

I wasn’t going to take the fast route, no way in hell.

My alarm went off and I precariously balanced the papers in my arms to turn it off. People got in, and the elevator stopped at every single floor on the way up, as it usually did. When the elevator doors opened on the last floor, Davis was standing there.

“Oh, um, hi,” I said awkwardly, unable to leave the expanse of the elevator as I stared up at the man blocking the doorway. He was staring at the papers in my hands.

“It typically takes you eight minutes to get here. Is there a reason it took you longer?”

“Uh, well, yeah, I didn’t take the stairs, this time.”

“That should take less time, not more.”

“It stopped on every floor from the 78th to the 91st, some people holding it open for several minutes to allow others on, and it takes thirty seconds to move even after the doors close,” I muttered, giving Davis a mirthful look, “Why do you think I typically take the stairs?”

“I see. Follow me, then,” Davis murmured, turning on his heel. I followed him, looking up at him for a long moment before looking ahead.

He looked as pristine as ever, his face smooth and his eyes sharp behind his glasses. His suit was fitted to his form, his blazer making him cut a sharp figure out of the world, made of a very dark black.

Equally, his button-up was made of a very bright white, so the contrast only added to his looks. His professional air only made him seem all the more sophisticated, and I bet the man didn’t know the meaning of anything less than luxury.

I wondered idly if his cuff links were made of actual silver. They were probably hand-crafted, too, if they were. Was silver even that expensive? Whatever he was wearing certainly looked expensive.

Soon the door came up, and a social issue came up. Who would open the door? My hands were full, but not only was he my boss, and hot as hell, but also rich.

Thankfully Shawn was a savior of all mankind and had been getting a drink from the vending machine, so he opened the door.

“Here you are, sir, girl.”

“Thanks,” I grinned at him for the moment I was behind Davis’ back, ‘I’m really cool.’

Shawn rolled his eyes, ‘You’re probably about to get fired, girl.’

The lip-reading ended as Shawn shoved me forward. I stumbled in, barely keeping my hold on the paperwork as I chased after Davis. I set the paperwork down gently on the corner, as I typically did.

Then paperwork was efficiently slapped onto the desk in my general direction as Davis spoke, “According to the lawyers you work with, you have been very helpful in finding errors and poor phrasing within their work.”

I observed the papers, about to look away only to see the bolded title at the top. Scholarship? My gaze met Davis’, and I felt unsure. What? Was he going to college?

“Something that, when asking the other interns, paid and unpaid, they could not do,” Davis said.

Ohh, right! There was a scholarship fund for interns that had just enough connections to be hired directly after college, wasn’t there? I’d never heard it used, though. Mainly because the old men all had children who didn’t want to be lawyers or legal consultants, and their only friends had similar situations.

“Right,” I agreed hesitantly, not knowing where this was going, “They wouldn’t have had the opportunity to cross-reference the papers like I did.”

“Several have had your job or started off there, and none of them had bothered to do so even when they had the opportunity,” Davis replied, “Regretfully, even the lawyers under my employ seemed lacking when it came to knowing whether I would refuse a paper or not simply by reading through it. I showed them these four contracts.”

I looked through the papers, willing to go along with what he’d been saying. No wonder he didn’t send any back, if he was busy setting this up.

Two of them were put in the “definitely refuse” category, one was in the “might refuse” category, and the last was in the “definitely accept” category.

“Oh, which ones did you accept?”

“Only one.”

“Yeah, this one, right?” I asked, tapping the one I thought, looking at Davis, “The other ones don’t meet your standards.”

“Correct, something that only two of my more experienced lawyers could confidently say about these four proposals. Hence why I have spent the past hour doing the work to get you accepted into law school.”

“Huh?”

Shit, what? I was twenty-five and pretty content not going to college, but I had the feeling this wasn’t a refutable offer if I wanted to keep my job. I forced my expression to be relaxed and blank.

“Yes, starting September 5th you will be a law student studying at Columbia University. As long as you continue working here and maintain a GPA of 3.6 or above you will have a full scholarship,” Davis pushed the papers an extra inch toward me, and I took the hint to grab the papers and read through them as he spoke.

I wasn’t actually reading them, though, eyes glazed over. September 5th was in less than a month. Maybe in less than a week, I’d have to check.

“Of course, in order to attend law school you will first have to gain a bachelor’s. I have already decided the classes you will take for this semester, though you will need to get in contact with the number here,” He gestured, his fingers tapping a number around the midpoint of the page, “In order to fully complete your admission. I would suggest doing that the moment you step out of this room.”

“… Uhhh, okay,” I agreed, “Thanks, I appreciate it.”

What? You have to have a bachelor’s before law school? Jesus, I must have been really lucky when it came to my interview. Second to last year in law school. Had I just said college I bet I wouldn’t have gotten the job. Damn.