The Cumerian Unraveling Trilogy (Scars of Ambition, Vendetta Clause, Cycles of Power)

by Jason Letts

  Still, Ralph was full of his usual gusto, and the junior partners knew that mentioning his appearance might lead to severe consequences.

  “To start off, I’ve got some great news for you. One of our senior partners is leaving—of his own will, relax—and the results of this next project will go a long way to helping me decide whom should replace him,” he said.

  Bells went off in Sierra’s head over the announcement, as well as the words her father had said. You have to be ready. From the position of senior partner, making the jump to an executive position at Bracken Energy would be much more justifiable. Of course, one glance told her that all seven of her peers were salivating at the opportunity. Raiden in particular was licking his lips, though it was hard to tell if that was about the promotion.

  “So what’s the project?” Dwyre asked, twiddling the end of his braid between his fingers. Ralph scratched his chest and took a deep breath.

  “This is an important job you’re going to be doing that will have dire consequences for the entire firm. If we don’t get this right, things could go from bad to worse very quickly,” he said, stopping abruptly.

  “What is it?” Aimee asked from the far end of the table.

  “My wife’s got it into her head that I’m having an affair, because she seems to think she saw me exiting the Walkmore Hotel with a ravishing err…‌companion,” he explained.

  “Why would she think that?” Raiden asked.

  “Because I was!” Ralph shouted, making Sierra smirk. She always loved it when Raiden got yelled at for asking stupid questions. He noticed her amusement and shot her a murderous look.

  “And what I need you to do is find a way to convince her I wasn’t,” Ralph continued. “Prepare your proposals and I’ll pick the best one that’ll exonerate me, but if I pick yours and it doesn’t work on her, you’ll be fired and I’ll be stuck fucking your eye sockets! Well…‌when I’m not seeing the blonde.”

  Sierra’s mind raced to find the best way to convince her boss’s wife he wasn’t having an affair even though she’d seen him leaving a hotel with his mistress. Locking away the usual ethical implications of proving a guilty man innocent, Sierra was confident she could beat her peers and get the promotion. She had to for her father’s sake.

  Not a word passed between the eight of them during the elevator ride down to their floor. Even though most of their tasks involved them competing against each other, it had never before stopped them from talking. But now there was a chance to escape the pit they were in, and every one of them had the grim look of a warrior carrying a sword into battle.

  Sierra slid into her chair and immediately started looking for information about Ralph’s wife, Gretchen, that would elucidate what kind of argument she would buy. Glancing around at their corner of the office told her little of what the others were pursuing since most of them had swiveled their desks to hide their work, but Sierra had a few good guesses.

  No doubt someone was searching security cams for pictures of Ralph leaving the hotel, which could then be altered to replace his face with someone else’s. Someone might go so far as to stage a duplicate shot. Another might track down the hotel records and wipe them clean so Ralph could prove he was never there. These were reasonable options that might convince Gretchen she had been wrong about what she had seen, but Sierra needed a better solution with a more certain outcome.

  She got up from her seat to head to a filing cabinet across the office with information about local businesses and found that Raiden was following her. His red hair and silver suit were hard to miss, but what was unmistakable was the snarling revulsion that always seemed to pinch his throat. When Sierra pulled open a drawer and started flipping through the folders, Raiden settled in next to her.

  “That job is mine,” he said through gritted teeth. Sierra remembered when he’d held her against the wall in the copy room, but the visibility of the filing cabinets would prevent him from doing anything like that.

  “Why would you even want it? Ralph would expect you to do actual work, and then you wouldn’t be able to spend all your time being the pathetic asshole we all feel sorry for,” Sierra whispered.

  Raiden opened the drawer in front of him and ran his hand over the folders.

  “The point is that you need to lay off or you’ll be very sorry.” He glowered.

  Sierra removed the folder she was looking for, pushed the drawer closed, and rolled her eyes at him.

  “I get what this is about,” she sighed. “You know I’m going to kick your ass, and you can’t stand it. So the only way you think you can win is to try to pull this intimidation bullshit in the hopes that I’ll give up, but it’s not going to work. The sad thing is that if you put half as much energy into your work as you do into making people hate you, you’d actually stand a better chance.”

  Raiden clenched his fist, but Sierra was already walking away, not caring what kind of garbage he would spew next. The words “you made a big mistake” caught her ear.

  Despite her episode with Raiden, Sierra worked harder than ever on a plan that she thought would work wonders for Ralph. She avoided going places alone, mostly sticking to her desk where the presence of other people would prevent Raiden from confronting her, but every once in a while she noticed him glaring at her and shaking his head.

  Two cycles later, she was hard at work when she noticed some movement out of the corner of her eye. It was West, the mail boy she often gave preposterous dating advice to, with a sheepish grin on his face and a pink card in his hand that he slipped into his pocket. Now wasn’t a good time for him to make a pass at her, but she swiveled in her chair and hoped she could brush him off without attracting everyone’s attention.

  West, who had dark curls and a boyish look, stroked his thin necktie as he bent over in front of her.

  “I’m in,” he said, winking.

  “What?” Sierra asked, but West had turned to stand next to her and put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, loud enough to be heard clear across the office. “You may have noticed the intense sexual chemistry between us. I’m pleased to finally announce that for Sierra and I breakfast will no longer mean sitting alone in a shabby apartment eating corn flakes…”

  “West, what are you doing?” Sierra shouted, grabbing him by the shirt. The laughter started all around her, causing her cheeks to burn with embarrassment. Gossip about people’s personal lives always came up at work, but this was a clear attack on her integrity and professionalism.

  “What? But you—” he muttered.

  “Give me the note,” she demanded, reaching into his pocket to take the pink card when he didn’t move quickly enough. She scanned the flowing cursive writing until her suspicions were confirmed. It began, “If you really want me, prove it by saying it out loud to everyone.” Sierra bit down hard as the rage swelled in her chest.

  “We’re still on, right?” West said, hopeless. He’d never make it out of the mail room with so little brains, but she’d be even worse off if she exploded like Raiden wanted. Reaching back, she flipped her computer’s power switch off.

  “West, you’ve been played for a gullible fool, and your infatuation with me has blinded you to the ridiculousness of this,” she said loudly but steadily, rising from her chair with her bag. Raiden was laughing so hard he had trouble staying in his chair.

  “And your handwriting looks like a woman’s,” Sierra added, pressing the card against Raiden’s face as she passed his desk and headed for the exit. Her work for this cycle was over, and no one would blame her for not sticking around to be the object of snide gossip. There’d be enough of that next cycle.

  She was distraught by the time she got home, and her attempts to hide it must’ve failed, because the sick old woman immediately got off the couch and came over to hug her. That kindness allowed Sierra to let loose the floodgates and begin the process of shaking it off. Of all things, she felt bad about the sympathetic look she got from Nemi, the dragon.<
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  “It’s not even that I’m ashamed of my relationships or try to hide them,” she said to her uncomprehending companion once she’d gotten some tea and settled on the couch. “It’s just the painful feeling of losing control over how I’m defined.”

  Things would have to change for her at Fiori Law after this. She’d have to trade her desk placard for one with her proper name. Flirty, dirty talk in the halls would have to stop. If she had no fun at all, people might eventually forget that this had ever happened.

  But the possibilities for retribution were slim. No rules were broken, and even if she did try to do something similar in return, it might backfire or end up making Raiden look good. The best option was to get the promotion, move to a new floor with a new staff, and prepare her return to the towers for a career leading Bracken Energy.

  “Can we talk about something else?” Sierra asked, and the old woman continued to smile politely. “Where is Nemi from? Where are you from?”

  The woman’s nods wouldn’t do much good, so Sierra got up and went to a closet where she had some maps tucked away among other papers. Laying them out on the table in front of the couch, she hoped the old woman knew enough of the world to sort out where she was from.

  “Right now we’re in Ristle, on the coast of Cumeria in Domorand. That’s all this,” she said, pointing a pen to a city on the map of the eastern hemisphere. “What about him? Is he from down south in Domorand below the Floodlands, up north above Lyria, or from somewhere over here on the western continents of Plagrass and Didjubus?”

  The old woman looked over the maps, spinning them on the table but never really focusing on one particular area. She finally looked at Sierra, who realized she had no idea what she was expected to answer.

  “Nevermind,” Sierra sighed, reaching to pick up the maps. But before she could take the map of the west off of the table, Nemi jumped off of the old woman’s shoulders and fluttered to a spot east of center, in Plagrass. Perking up, Sierra smiled at the thought that Nemi knew his birthplace well enough to point it out on a map.

  “Aren’t you a smart little lizard?” she cooed, lifting him off the map before he could char it. The spot Nemi found seemed to be at the neck of a long canyon, one of many that made up the rough, uneven terrain of central Plagrass. Sierra knew of few expeditions into the continent’s vast inhospitable center, where a colony of dragons could exist for centuries without any human interaction if they didn’t range too far.

  To Sierra’s surprise, the woman took the pen and drew three ovals where Nemi had been.

  “Are these meant to signify eggs, or are you recording where Nemi is from? Have you been there? Is that where you found him? Are you saying there were three dragons with you at one point? Did they all react with metal in the same way?”

  But as usual her stream of questions never met any answers, and it looked like as long as she was stuck in Ristle she’d never know any more about them than she could guess. Nemi again leapt to that same spot on the map, and Sierra grasped the possibility that the dragon wanted to be there, wanted to be home, even.

  Before going to bed, she got another call from her father about the ongoing tortures of his investigation. Sierra had made little progress getting to the root of it, or even securing basic amenities and freedoms for her father. That left it up to Randall to find a way through, making it a long shot at best. Still, her father sounded remarkably upbeat for a man whose entire life was being torn apart.

  “I know you’ve got it in you to get this promotion, Sierra. Ralph won’t let me influence him when it comes to his own staff, but you’re by far the most capable of the bunch. And most of all you always manage to rise above the petty squabbles that hold most people back,” he said, and Sierra wished she could’ve hugged him for it.

  She would find a way to carry on, but she’d find out just how capable she really was soon enough.

  Sierra kept to herself at work the next cycle, ignoring the irritating glances and the whispers in favor of putting the finishing touches on a plan that would make Ralph Fiori a beacon of monogamy. The other junior partners worked unusually hard, as well, so much so that Sierra’s stomach twisted into knots when she wondered if they’d come up with something better than her. Watching one of them move up to a senior partner position would be excruciating.

  Ralph Fiori looked even worse when they met at the kids’ table to make their presentations. Stories had filtered down from the upper levels that he was sleeping in his office and washing in the bathroom sinks.

  “I can’t avoid her any longer,” he said, slumped against a chair. “I need a solution and I need it now. This is getting unbearable!”

  The ensuing silence was enough to allow Sierra to hear her own heartbeat. Going first might be an advantage, but it would be better if she went later and had a chance to point out the flaws in the others’ plans.

  “Somebody talk!” Ralph shouted, gesturing counter-clockwise around the table in a way that would have Sierra go sixth.

  Having no other choice, Eron, the young man with a shaved head and earrings sitting closest to Ralph’s right, cleared his throat and began his presentation.

  “The only way to convince your wife that she didn’t see you is to prove you were somewhere else. I’ve assembled these doctored shots from traffic cams in front of the Walkmore Hotel showing pictures of a man who looks vaguely similar to you, and I’ve got another shot here from one of your security cams showing you passed out at your desk with a bottle of booze at the exact same time,” Eron said.

  “OK.” Ralph nodded. “The pictures look good, and that’s certainly a plausible alibi. What else you got?”

  Sierra smirked. Her fellow partners were becoming predictable. Like Eron and digital photography, each had a skill or two that they would employ every time. All of them, that was, except for Raiden, whose only skill was sucking joy from the world. It was his turn next, and he simply rolled his head in Ralph’s direction while he slouched in his chair.

  “Tell your wife that instead of sleeping with the blonde, you were watching her do some dude. That’s not cheating,” he said, making Ralph chuckle.

  “That’s funny, but I doubt it would get me very far. Next!”

  Maybe they weren’t so predictable. Why would Raiden bother to threaten her and say he wanted the promotion only to completely blow off the assignment? It didn’t make sense, and Sierra stared at him, wondering what was going through his disturbed mind, until he glanced back at her. Shifting her eyes to her notes, she tried to solve the puzzle of why he would bother her if he had so little interest in moving up, but she didn’t have a clue.

  Meanwhile, the others gave their presentations.

  “You hired a body double to be a decoy because of a death threat,” Aimee suggested, producing a forged note from a former client.

  “Your clothes and hairstyle have come into fashion and she mistook you for someone else. I’ve got newspaper articles talking about the trend,” Dwyre said, but Ralph shook his head.

  “The day balding becomes fashionable is the day I can stop paying for sex,” Ralph scoffed.

  “But you’re married!” Dwyre shot back.

  “And I pay for it every day,” Ralph said.

  Sierra could hardly sit still. As each of them went, she became more confident that she had the right solution, would get the promotion, and then be able to help her dad save Bracken Energy. Her turn had come and it was all about to come together.

  “The major flaw in all of these proposals is that at their core they consist of telling your wife that she didn’t see what she saw. The worst thing you can do is flat out tell her she’s wrong, because even if you’re telling the truth, she’ll reject whatever you have to say,” she said.

  “Go on,” Ralph said, skeptical.

  “What you have to do is change the context of the situation. Instead of skulking out of a hotel with your mistress, you were meeting with the executive of a new party planning company to organize a fortieth birt
hday ball for your wife next month. I’ve got all the paperwork for the company’s incorporation, some backdated receipts, an agreement with the hotel, and even a list of her friends, all of whom are waiting for final confirmation on the party. All you have to do is express regret that she happened to spoil the surprise.”

  A big smile lit up Ralph’s face and he clapped his hands together.

  “I think we’ve got it! And that might give me a good excuse to see the blonde a few more times, too. OK, go ahead and get out of here while I think this through,” he said, eliciting a gasp from the guy to Sierra’s right.

  “But I didn’t get to go yet,” he moaned. The papers in his folder were about an inch thick.

  “Tough cookies.”

  As the junior partners got up and prepared to return to their floor, Raiden shot Sierra another murderous look. He ground his teeth and released a stilted sigh, further vexing her. Why would he be angry if all he brought to the table was a lame joke? Nothing made sense, and she dreaded facing more of his abuse on the way down, but Ralph saved her from that.

  “Sierra,” he called as she was about to leave. She waited and the others filed out the door. Raiden lingered for a moment, seeming unsure, but he eventually got in the elevator, too.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “I need this to work,” he said, sounding as vulnerable as she’d ever heard him.

  “I know. I need this promotion,” she admitted, remembering that if her plan failed she might suddenly find herself without any job.

  “I know,” Ralph said. He dragged his hand down his puffy face. “Your father will be OK. It’s been a while since he’s been in a real fight, and he may be rusty, but he’ll find his footing and figure out how to get through this.”

  “I hope so,” Sierra said.

  “I’ll let you know how it goes,” he said, reaching for the folder she left and offering a smile. “Oh, and before you go, let me know if anyone else gives you trouble in the office. I’ll make their heads roll.”