Chapter 21
CHAPTER 22: The First Knock
The first client did not wear a suit.
He wore a faded denim jacket, his hands rough and stained with grease that no amount of soap could wash away. He stood in the doorway of the office, shifting his weight nervously from foot to foot, holding a manila folder as if it were a shield.
His name was Marcus. He worked at a chemical processing plant on the edge of the city.
"They told me you were the one who took down Vance," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "They told me you don't back down."
Sarah gestured to the chair across from her desk. "Sit down, Marcus. Tell me what happened."
He talked for an hour. He spoke of ignored safety protocols, of chemical burns, of a corporate HR department that had threatened to deport his coworkers if they spoke up. It was a smaller scale than Vance’s operation, but the melody was exactly the same.
Greed. Silence. Suffering.
As he spoke, Marcus kept glancing nervously at the piece of sheared metal on Sarah’s desk, and then down at the floor, uncomfortable.
Sarah noticed.
Without breaking eye contact with him, she shifted her posture. She deliberately crossed her right leg over her left. The fabric of her trousers rode up, exposing the sleek black carbon fiber of her prosthetic.
Marcus stopped mid-sentence. His eyes darted to the mechanical limb.
"They took something from you, too," Sarah said quietly. It wasn't a question.
Marcus swallowed hard. He rolled up the left sleeve of his denim jacket, revealing a thick, angry web of chemical burns scarring his forearm.
"They said it was my fault," he whispered. "They said I was careless."
"They always say that," Sarah replied, her voice hardening into steel.
She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the desk, the fire returning to her eyes—the same fire that had burned Vance to the ground.
"Leave the folder, Marcus. Go home to your family."
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"You'll take the case?"
"I'll take the case," Sarah said. "And I promise you, by the time we are done, they will know exactly whose fault it is."
