Olivia Chase, a successful woman who sold her soul to the Devil in exchange for a baby, is offered a second deal of a lifetime after her daughter dies: she must harvest Lucifer a series of souls he claims belong in Hell in trade for her daughter's m...
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Shawna tried to hide sad eyes behind a dazzling smile. She handed me the open box of General Tso's chicken and a pair of cheap chopsticks. True to her word, she'd brought Chinese for lunch, abandoning an insistence to cook, if you call it that. She could manage two things without the threat of burning the place down: tomato soup and grilled cheese.
She'd even caught the tea kettle on fire once. She tried to make a hot toddy by putting the alcohol and tea bags in it to heat. The fire from the gas stove had ignited a teabag tag, which then ignited the alcohol fumes. Things were just getting out of hand when I saved the day.
"You'll never believe who is dating!" Shawna exclaimed. She'd been chattering on ever since she arrived, happy to see me again.
I didn't care about Shawna's office gossip as much as I once had. Still, I pretended, hoping if I did it long enough, maybe my attitude would change. "Well, I haven't seen you in a month, so I don't have a clue."
"Remember the hot cop who helped Sarah with her flat tire?" Shawna asked, stirring her tofu with a ginger sauce I thought was disgusting. At least she didn't demand we share.
"Oh! They're dating! How nice." I popped a piece of chicken into my mouth and chewed. I had to admit the food was good. I knew, in the back of my mind, it had to be delicious to register through my depression.
"No, silly, he and Peggy are dating. He and Sarah called it quits after a few dates. She said he was a little too weird for her."
"Sounds right up Peggy's alley." I shoveled my mouth full of fried rice.
"Right? I mean, I swear I would not be surprised if Peggy showed up at work one day dressed as a dominatrix."
I couldn't help but giggle. "Maybe she should. Might win you more cases. Frighten the opposing side."
"Oh, please, I win plenty! You know I do."
I nodded in agreement. "Yeah, you do."
Shawna was a criminal defense attorney for a big firm downtown. She had the highest win rate of almost all the lawyers in the firm. Rumor had it she was on the fast track to being asked to be a partner. She impressed me, as she did most people; 'squeaky clean' did not describe most of some of Shawna's clients, yet she won their cases.
To be a successful woman was a feat in the criminal defense world. To be one of color was an entirely different matter. I not only admired my friend's accomplishments but her beauty, too.
Shawna's skin was the hue of midnight velvet and looked as soft. Her hair, cut so short she was practically bald, laid in waves against her head reminiscent of the 1920s. Her coloring set off the bright whiteness of her teeth, and her full lips held color in a way that made me envious.
Adding the fact she was nearly six-foot-tall, Shawna looked like a million-dollar, model-glamorous superhero Amazon. Certainly, with my own brownish skin, chestnut hair, and brown eyes, I was nothing to sneeze at; many often told me I was beautiful. But compared to Shawna? I considered myself very average in looks. But my achievements were as impressive as hers; I owned a gaming company with a few of my childhood friends. My crew and I had started in my basement as teenagers learning to code. We went on to create the company while in college together. We got lucky with two of our games became successful almost overnight, it seemed.
