He seemed surprised when I punched him in the face. My knuckled cracked against his teeth and sent him sprawling. The big woman screamed, and someone else shouted, and people scrambled to get out of the way. Mirko stared at me from the ground, leaning up on one elbow, his other hand dabbing at his lips, and coming up red. The music continued to pulse and thump, and Millie put her hands to her lips, mimicking Mirko’s gesture out of surprise and shock.
I grabbed her arm and pulled her away. I led her along, shoving through the crowd, and nobody stopped me.
Outside, the night seemed dead silent, and my ears rang from the music. I kept going, not caring which direction. I wanted to put distant between myself and what just happened, even though I knew it’d haunt me for a long, long time. Mirko might’ve been a sleazy bastard, but he was a well known sleazy bastard, with a big bank account and a long memory.
I wouldn’t live that down anytime soon.
“Rees,” Millie said after a block, the first word we’d spoken. I turned to face her and grabbed her shoulders, looking into her eyes.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She nodded slowly. “You punched him.”
“He grabbed your ass.” I clenched my jaw, reliving the moment again, the way her face looked when he touched her, and the way his face looked from the floor.
“He told me that if I slept with him tonight, he’d write you a check for fifty million dollars.”
I tightened my grip on her arms then released her and turned away before she saw just how pissed I was. Not angry with Mirko, although that too—but mostly angry with myself. I knew this would happen, and I let it anyway.
“I’m glad I hit him then,” I said.
“He’s not going to invest now.”
I looked back at her and she tilted her head, staring at me, and something broke. I laughed, unable to help myself, a stupid, giddy laughter from my chest. Mirko was a piece of shit and deserved to get hit, and I didn’t want his money, not tainted by his stink. I could do better, and I would.
“No, he’s really not,” I said, grinning.
She didn’t seem to think it was funny, though. “What are we going to do?”
“I’ll figure it out.” I leaned my head back, craning my neck to look up at the buildings around us. “There’s more money somewhere.”
“Is that going to have repercussions?” she asked, and I knew what her tone meant. She was a clever girl, way too smart to be in this with me.
God damn, she must’ve really wanted to avoid taking the bar.
“It might,” I said, then shook my head and started walking again. “Come on, let’s go back to the room and get some sleep. We have a lot of work to do tomorrow.”
She said nothing as we began to walk again. This whole trip was a disaster and might set me back professionally for years—but as I rubbed my knuckles, and felt the indent his teeth left in my skin, I had to admit that it might all be worth it, just to have the memory of Mirko’s shocked and hurt face in my head for the rest of my life.
5
Millie
We barely spoke in the morning. Rees collected our bags and brought them down to the lobby as he checked out. I lingered in a chair drinking coffee by the front desk, watching people come and go, wondering if any of them were at the club last night, and heard a rumor about Mirko getting punched in the face.
I kept coming back to that moment, again and again. Mirko’s hand on my ass, and my body refusing to move, terror keeping me pinned to the spot. I’d heard of the fight or flight or freeze response before, but I didn’t realize I’d turn into a shocked deer, unable to run away from danger.
Sometimes I thought of myself as a fighter. I’d overcome a lot in my life: grandmom raising me poor, putting myself through school, then again through law school, dealing with bullying when I was younger, and feeling like an imposter as I got older. I never fit in, especially not at UPenn, and maybe that was why I couldn’t seem to take the bar exam. I was stuck, and terrified I didn’t deserve anything.
Maybe my whole life was one big freeze.
I turned my head from where Rees stood nearby calling a car and saw a man step in through the doors. It took me a second, but I realized I recognized him. Slicked-back black hair, cheap suit, big gut: he’d been talking to Mirko at the club. I felt a sudden wave of discomfort and nausea come over me, and all I wanted to do was get out of there, but then the man’s gaze spotted me, and his face lit up with a smile.