𝐍𝐄𝐏𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐇𝐄. || 𝘴𝘶𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘹 𝘰𝘤

𝟏𝟓 ➻ getting even

♛ ┇ ▒ ⋅⋅⋅ WALKER ENT. V. GREENFIELD CORP. ⋅⋅⋅ ▒ ┇♛

𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐘 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 𝐒𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐈𝐒𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄𝐃 about Pearson Hardman was how hectic it was.

She'd expected it, of course, but that didn't mean she had to like it. Every morning, it was like walking straight into a Category Five hurricane where everyone expected you to stand your ground without getting blown back by the wind. And every night, they expected you to flourish in the storm, to weather the rain and come to know the claps of thunder like you knew your own heartbeat.

Harold was afraid of the storm. Quinn expected that. She couldn't judge him for it, but she was certainly getting increasingly more irritated with each passing day that his cubicle remained empty.

Louis was stone-faced when she came to him, asking if she knew where he went. He spitefully treated the situation like it was Quinn's responsibility, and told her that if he didn't show up before settlement negotiations, she'd be drafting the damn things herself. He was far too good at switching sides from approving to irate, and Quinn wondered if Louis was the reason she was facing the hurricane in the first place.

Quinn didn't like bad weather, but she wasn't going to cower from it. Four days after her meeting with Louis in the drug testing room, she'd finished reviewing all the evidence pertaining to the case for the fifteenth time. She'd called several digital forensic experts and asked them to examine the blueprints and email exchanges. She'd devoured the witness profiles on both sides of the case to figure out how to best dissect whoever sat opposite her come deposition day.

She'd even called Maya Johnson – the in-house technical expert at Walker Enterprises – and scheduled a mock deposition for her tomorrow.

It had been an incredibly busy week from start to finish, and Quinn was more than ready to sleep in on Saturday and not arrive two hours early in order to manage her obscene workload. Since she'd taken that deal with Stirling, she'd been absolutely swamped by paperwork. Even though the Mercer case was on her back-burner, it was never quite out of her mind.

She'd given Luderman a call and asked him to look into it, more to reassure herself than anything. She just wanted to be able to offer Lorelei something substantial if she decided to swoop by her desk like a hawk, demanding results.

She would be someone to do that, Quinn surmised.

For now, however, she was all but forgotten. And Quinn hoped she'd get to end her Friday night on a high note, because Mike had called her saying that he wanted to give the briefcase back to Trevor.

Smart as he was, Quinn knew that it wasn't entirely his idea. She was sure Harvey and his grandmother had something to do with it, telling by how Mike asked her to pick him up from her care home. He never asked her to drive him anywhere. Mostly because Quinn was a very shitty driver.

They'd made it to Trevor's apartment in one piece, however. Quinn parked her old Honda Civic in a sliver of space in front of the old brickstone, and Mike got out on the street-side, clutching his briefcase and fixing his tie.

She turned off the car and stepped onto the sidewalk, a cool night breeze instantly meeting her face. She took a moment to relax, before the loud honking of a car snapped her out of it.

"Sounds of the city," she said to herself, before looking over at Mike. "You ready for this, man?"

"I didn't think you needed to ask." Mike ran a hand through his close-cut hair.

"Well, I've been waiting to one-up this guy for eight years," Quinn responded with a crooked grin. Mike rolled his eyes at her. "Come on, Mike. You care about him a lot more than he cares about you."