Passion(White Collared Part 4)(31)
It had taken her several months of counseling to overcome her anger at Nick and choose forgiveness. Until then she had drifted in a sea of uncertainty as to whether she wanted to practice law at all after graduation. Once she had started to heal, she allowed herself to remember his final request. At first she didn’t understand why he’d risked everything by drawing up the complaint, but slowly she came to realize that unlike Miles Joseph, Nick hadn’t been evil. He’d had a conscience that drove him to make amends for his crimes.
In his eyes, he’d provided Alyssa with mercy when he’d killed her, giving her one last taste of the extreme masochistic pleasure she’d craved. The law didn’t agree and mostly she didn’t either, but there was a slim part of her that sympathized with him. As Alyssa’s Master, he’d believed he was the sole person who could give her what she needed, and in that regard, he’d triumphed where Jaxon had failed.
His greed had been his downfall from the beginning. If he hadn’t sent Stephanie to Joseph in his blackmail scheme and instead earned his spot at Joseph and Long, her death wouldn’t have stained his soul. But he’d built the entire foundation of his career upon shaky dominoes, and when he’d initiated his revenge against Joseph, the first domino toppled, bring the rest down with it. There was no other way for it to end.
Kate wiped the tears from her cheeks and nodded to Lisa to take another question. For the next twenty minutes, she described the harrowing details about the case and its current developments. Whenever a reporter asked something personal about Kate, Lisa interrupted with a firm “next question.”
“Can you tell us about killing your father ten years ago, Katerina Martini?” The reporter stood in the back and threw out the question as casually as all the others.
The rest of the audience stirred with excitement. Lisa moved to the microphone, but Kate held up her hand and silently told her friend she’d answer the question. It had been inevitable that some other reporter would eventually unearth her past, and she’d already told Lisa and Logan about it. Like true friends, they hadn’t blinked other than to console and sympathize with her loss.
Her gaze locked onto Jaxon as she touched her bruised hip to ground herself. “It’s true. Ten years ago, I went hunting with my father and my gun accidentally discharged, killing him. He was my rock and I miss him every day. But I no longer let the incident or the inquiry into it by the police and the media define me. To do so would be a disservice to the man who expected great things from me, and I refuse to disappoint him. I may have changed my name to Kate Martin, but inside, I’ll always be Katerina Martini, and I’m proud of who I’ve become.”
Lisa’s eyes shone as she stepped up to the microphone. “One last question.” She pointed to a woman in the middle near Jaxon.
“Now that you’ve graduated and taken the Michigan Bar, what are your professional plans? Do you intend to stay at Reaver, Markson, and Long?” the reporter asked.
Kate slid a glance over at Logan and smiled. “No. While I’ll always appreciate how much I’ve learned from interning there, I’ve decided to go into private practice with Logan Bradford. We want the freedom to choose our own cases and to offer criminal and civil representation to those who truly need it. We’ll be offering our services on a sliding fee scale and hope that those with an ample bank account will offset any losses we’ll incur. Of course, we have to wait until we’ve been inducted into the Michigan Bar.”
It hadn’t been an easy decision, but when she’d thought about what truly mattered to her, the answer became clear. She wouldn’t follow in Nick’s footsteps. She’d forge her own path. Through her contacts at Benediction, word had already spread that in the fall, Kate and Logan would begin providing legal services to the alternative sexual lifestyle community. She’d heard too many tales about men prosecuted for domestic abuse even though their partner had consented and those who’d lost their jobs when their employer learned of their alternative sexual practices. Until the law changed, someone who understood the dynamics of the lifestyle needed to represent those people. Turned out Anthony Rinaldi’s idea hadn’t been a bad one. She really would be counsel to the kink.
So far Logan had thoroughly enjoyed learning about kink and BDSM through his free membership at Benediction. They just made sure they didn’t go on the same nights.
As Kate moved back from the podium, the same reporter asked a follow-up question. “What will you do until the fall?”
Jaxon’s chair was empty.