As the sun sets in the distance, I wrap my arm around my wife’s waist. We’re standing against the railing of the Brooklyn Bridge—smiling because I just added another high profile client to my firm.

“You think one day the papers will actually tell the truth about your first case?” She looked up at me with her light green eyes. “Or do you think they’ll keep brushing it under the rug?”

“Brushing it under the rug.” I sigh. “I highly doubt the government wants people knowing that a kid straight out of law school uncovered a conspiracy. It’s an insult to their organization.”

“So, you’re fine being reduced to a random Jeopardy question that’ll happen ten years from now? ‘I’ll take lawyers who never got credit for two hundred, Alex.’ You’re fine with that?”

“Why shouldn’t I be?” I kiss her forehead. “I didn’t need the papers to print my name to get clients. People knew, that’s how they found me.”

“You should be so much bigger than what you are...” She shakes her head, whispering, “Your name should be plastered across every billboard in the city. Fucking assholes...”

Smiling, I tighten my grip around her waist and start the walk back to our car. Out of all the people that have come in and out of my life, Ava Sanchez has been the one constant.

She’s the only woman I’ve ever loved, and ever since the day I made her mine at our wedding three years ago, I swore that would never change.

“I was also thinking,” she says as she slips into the passenger seat, “that maybe me, you, and your partner Kevin could go out to a singles’ mixer next weekend.”

“Why would we go to a singles mixer?”

“It’s more so for Kevin...He needs to get his own life. I’m tired of him hanging around us all the time. It’s bad enough that we all work at your firm together, but do we have to spend our every waking moment together, too?”

Laughing, I drive down the city streets and home to the colossal brownstone we share. (It was the first purchase I’d made after winning the “case that never was,” and Ava had insisted that I buy the most expensive one.)

“Because you fucking deserve it,” she’d said. “And you never treat yourself to anything nice...That’s what I don’t understand about you, Liam. You’re such a nice guy to everyone but yourself...”

I park our car in front of our home and immediately step out to open her door. As usual, Ava whispers, “I bet she’ll scream for you first,” as I walk her up the steps.

The second we walk inside, that familiar sweet voice rings out across the room.

“Daddyyyyy!”

I let go of Ava’s hand and stoop low so my daughter—Emma Henderson, can run into my arms. She’s the best part of my day, the best part of my life, and seeing her always brings an unbreakable smile to my face.

I kiss her forehead as she incoherently babbles about her day with the babysitter, and I smile as her blue eyes stare into mine.

I'm unaware of it now—I’m too blind and happy to see it, but in the months to come, my life will unravel so rapidly and unexpectedly that I'll wish I never existed. The lies that come to the light will be so devastating and crushing that my entire life will crumble around me. But the worst part, the part that will break me, is not knowing that this present moment with my ‘daughter’ will be the last good memory of New York I'll ever have...

REASONABLE DOUBT

(VOLUME THREE)

Prologue

Several months ago...

Andrew

It was all there in black and white, front and center, no filler.

Although the facts were skewed and The New York Times had once again neglected to post my photo, the damage to my firm—Henderson & Hart, was now done. And I knew exactly what was about to occur, step by step.

I’d seen it happen in this city too many times before.

First, the top clients who’d sworn to always stay by my side would call and say that they “suddenly” found new representation. Then the employees would file letters of resignation—knowing that having a tainted firm on their resumes would hinder their careers. Next, the investors would call—pretending to sympathize as they publicly denounced me in the media and promptly pulled all funding.

Last, and most unfortunately, I was sure to become another hotshot lawyer who ruined his career before it could even begin.

“How much longer do you think you’ll be able to get away with stalking Emma?” The private investigator I hired stepped beside me.

“She’s my fucking daughter. I’m not stalking her.”

“Five hundred feet.” He lit a cigarette. “That’s how far you’re supposed to be.”

“Are they treating her right during the week?”

He sighed and handed me a stack of photos. “Private preschool, early tap-dance lessons, and weekends at the park as you can clearly see. She’s fine.”

“Does she still cry at night?”

“Sometimes.”

“Does she still beg to see me? Does she—”

I stopped talking once Emma’s blue eyes met mine from the swings. Squealing, she jumped off her seat and ran towards me.

“Daddyyyy! Dadddyyy!” She shouted, but she was picked up before she made it any closer. She was taken away and put inside a car just as she started to cry.

Fuck...

I immediately sat up in bed, realizing that I wasn’t in New York City’s Central Park. I was in Durham, North Carolina, and I was having another nightmare.

Glancing at the clock on my wall, I saw that it was just past one o’clock. The calendar hanging directly above it only confirmed that I’d been living here for far too long.

All the research I’d done six years ago—weighing the pros and cons, checking the records of all the top firms, and scouring the make-up of women on Date-Match, was now seemingly invalid: The condo I purchased was a mere remnant of what had been advertised, there was only one firm worthy of my time, and the pool of fuck-worthy women was dwindling by the day.

Just hours ago, I’d gone on a date with a woman who told me she was a kindergarten teacher with a penchant for the color red and history books. In reality, she was twice my age, color blind, and she just wanted to “remember what some good cock felt like.”

Frustrated, I slipped out of bed and walked down the hallway—straightening the “E” and “H” frames that hung on the wall while trying not to look too hard.

I was going to need more than my usual few shots to get through tonight, and I was starting to become extremely annoyed that I hadn’t fucked someone in what felt like forever.

I poured two shots of bourbon and tossed them down back to back. Before I could pour another, my phone vibrated. An email.

Alyssa.

Subject: Performance Quality.

Dear Thoreau,

I’m sure that right now you’re in the middle of fucking yet another conquest, and are seconds away from giving her your infamous “One dinner. One night. No repeats.” line, but I was just thinking about something and HAD to email you...

If you enjoy sex as much as you claim you do, why do you only insist on one night? Why not a strictly friends with benefits relationship so you won’t have so many dry spells? (I mean, this is day thirty of “Operation: Still No Pussy” for you, correct?)