"Are you Louis?" "Yessir. Avery?" "That's me," I said as I climbed into the back seat of the old gold Accord. I closed the door behind me and situated my suitcase on the old stained tan fabric beside me. But he still didn’t go, just holding the steering wheel with his head turned just far enough to see me in his periphery. I said, "Uh... we can go. Just catching a flight." He nodded and affirmed, "Mm hm." But we still didn't move. Louis looked to be a 20-something year old fella with a pale...

"We will crush your name." The scowling woman in a red power suit pointed at his face. "No one with the last name Romano will ever be hired in this city again." Claudio winced at her threats only slightly, and went back to looking mostly unbothered. So she threw at him: "Or in the entire nation!" A middle aged man across the boardroom table picked up where she left off. "Why would any sane lawyer ever tell a client that big that you--" He held up air quotes, "Don't align ethically with them."...

They had been married for 24 years, raised two kids and worked through three dogs, two houses and four careers cummulatively. His fury had been growing to this moment for about 14 of those years. “Do you want to talk about what’s wrong?” Marjorie asked her husband cautiously in the kitchen. He held a half-cracked egg over a pan as he turned to her. In a low, flat tone he said, “I’m just pretty furious.” “Okay,” she said, with a tremor in her voice. “Do you wanna tell me why?” He said flatly,...