Chapter 373

The last stint for the morning saw Garrison wrapping up his case. This was a little more interesting because it featured the memo that you and the girls had found during your week of sorting documents in the conference room. You had to stifle your smile and chuckle a little as you remembered just what the three of you had been doing a half hour before you found it.

That seemed to be the only highlight though, and even that Garrison somehow managed to introduce into evidence without any fanfare or big shocks from the lawyers for the defence. Some of the time you wondered if the judge was even awake.

Garrison wrapped up his case around 12:30, and the Judge was awake enough to call an hour and a half lunch. When you all came back, it would be the defence’s turn to start their rebuttal.

The four of you interns were gathered up with Garrison and the associates outside in the hall. “Let’s meet downstairs in about ten minutes,” he said. “I’ll call in a reservation for us all. Lunch will be on the firm today and we’ll go over the case with you four.”

The associates didn’t seem particularly happy to be sharing lunch with you lowly interns but didn’t seem particularly put out by it either. You all broke up to go to the washrooms before meeting downstairs. After hitting the head and washing up, you headed down the corridor towards the main atrium area and started down the ramp. Looking out over the main floor at the big mosaic pattern in the circular, brightly lit area you spotted Eric already waiting, doing something on his phone as he stood alone.

Then you saw trouble like a stormcloud rolling in.

You wanted to call out to Eric, give him some sort of warning, but that would just draw attention. Quickly pulling out your phone, you called him. You watched Eric react as his phone started buzzing in his hand, then frown as he saw it was you calling him. He answered the phone. “John?”

“Eric, turn left. Do not look right,” you said.

“What?” he said loudly and looked right.

You could tell the moment they made eye contact. Eric locked gazes with DeezChains about fifteen paces away from each other.

“Fuck,” you said.

“Fuck,” Eric replied through the phone.

“Fucker!” DeezChains said loudly, almost in a surprised shout. Then he pointed right at Eric and broke away from the small group of people he was with. One of them was the smarmy friend you remembered sitting with him at the club, and another one looked a hell of a lot like a bouncer or bodyguard. The last one, suited up, was probably his agent or lawyer. All three of them were confused for a moment as their man stormed off seemingly at random.

“Eric I’m coming, just don’t engage,” you said and hung up.

You didn’t exactly sprint, but you walked really, really quickly down the ramp from the second floor, circling around the whole atrium to try and get there. You quickly called Gemma, who was higher on the speed dial simply due to alphabetical listing. She didn’t pick up, so you called Sabrina.

“Hey, what’s-”

“Stay up there,” you said quickly. “The DeezChains guy is here and confronting Eric. Don’t let Gemma come down here.” You hung up without waiting for an answer as you hit the bottom of the ramp and rushed through the busy area towards the sound of loud voices.

“I’ll fucking sue you into the ground right here, you little prick,” DeezChains was growling loudly. “You fuckin’ wanna be. You’ve got nothing, you are nothing. Just some hatchet job waiting to fuckin’ happen.” He was acting about as gangsta as you expected, his friend and his bodyguard ‘holding him back’ from Eric. The lawyer had gotten between them.