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It seemed like a short time ago that he and his crew were running errands for the local crime bosses. It had been a matter of survival, but he had always felt that it wasn’t a part of who he was meant to be. After that fateful night, he knew he had to get out, and that was just what he’d done.
    He’d fought the odds to get to college, and finished in four years, despite working two jobs at the same time. That was followed by law school in Suffolk University’s night program, and then a twenty-thousand-dollar-a-year job as a public defender. He’d probably be there still if he hadn’t been noticed by a well-connected prosecutor who told his friend Preston Holland, the managing partner at Howery, Black, that he’d recently come up against one of the finest young courtroom lawyers he’d seen in years. With that recommendation, Finn was able to get a job at the white-shoe law firm, where his salary had immediately increased to one hundred and thirty thousand dollars a year.
    Now, six years later, he was only one year away from making partner if everything went according to plan. And while there were certainly no guarantees, he knew he was catching the attention of some of the more influential senior partners, and had even become a protégé of Preston Holland himself, which gave him an advantage over most of the other associates. In a law firm where roughly one out of thirty starting associates managed to make partner, he felt like his chances were better than fifty-fifty, and he was going to do everything he could to increase those odds. He could already taste victory.
    Maybe then he could relax a little. Maybe then the hole he’d felt throughout his life would fill in, and he could put his past behind him.
    But first he had to shave.
    He also had to apologize to Natalie. He’d acted like a jackass toward her on Friday night, and he needed to make sure he hadn’t caused any permanent damage to their friendship. Natalie Caldwell was his closest ally at the firm, and he relied on her to get through the hard times. She was a couple of years behind him, but she had been at the Justice Department for two years before coming to Howery, and she was regarded as a star in her own right. He’d been drawn to her from the moment she joined the firm, and she to him, though less compulsively. For a brief period, just after she joined the firm, they’d been more than friends. It had hurt when she ended it, and they hadn’t been as close since, but she was still a better friend to him than anyone else.
    Their drinks date on Friday had been a disaster. They’d started out well enough; they got a table at the International and ordered margaritas. They hadn’t spent much time alone together since she’d ended their tryst, and he quickly realized how much he’d missed her company. She was funny and open, playfully licking salt from the rim of her glass and laughing seductively. “I’ve missed this,” she said, echoing Finn’s thoughts.
    “Missed what?” Finn asked, hesitant.
    “This,” Natalie said. “You and me alone, talking to each other. When was the last time you and I really let our hair down together?”
    “I don’t know,” Finn answered, but it was a lie. He remembered exactly, and it had been a very long time.
    “Well, I’m glad we’re doing it again.” Natalie raised her glass in a toast, and Finn could feel the eyes of every man in the bar following her every move, wondering who she was, and how they might be lucky enough to be with someone like her.
    By the third drink, Finn was feeling a little light-headed, and it seemed as if he’d been transported back in time to when he and Natalie had been intimate. He felt sure she was feeling the same way. She seemed comfortable, and yet she kept casting sideways glances at him, her smile suggesting a hidden agenda. In his state, Finn easily convinced himself that her agenda was reconciliation.
    By the time he started on his fourth margarita, he’d decided to