How to steal a lawyer

A few weeks earlier.

In a struggling law firm somewhere in London.

Behind a desk that was positioned so that it doubled as a reception desk, a young woman with shoulder-length black hair fixed into a ponytail was working on a stack of papers that was almost as thick as it was wide. The papers were bound into bundles of various thickness with paper clips and she was working through the stack, taking notes, and sorting files into different piles.

Once again, she questioned herself if she should've taken the job from the first ad she saw in the paper. Once again, she glanced at the clock on the wall. There was an hour left of the workday. It wasn't nearly enough to finish going through all those files. Sure, she only had to look up a few names and find out which cases they were related to, but all that took time.

Suddenly, a man that had the figure of a woman pregnant with octuplets and a greasy face stopped before her desk. He slammed twice as much of the papers on top of the stack. ��I need you to finish those by the end of the day. Do keep in mind that you're here on probation, so I want to see some diligence."

She sighed deeply and waited for him to leave, then muttered under her breath "In a few years I'll take your place, then we'll see who needs to show some diligence you lazy bastard."

Suddenly, a stern looking slender man with a height of about 1.82 walked to her desk. Nearly all of his hair had turned silver, with a few specks of black here and there. His face was stern, and his steel gray eyes were slightly squinted as if he was suspicious of something. He wore a perfectly tailored business suit that looked like it would cost her half a year's salary.

That was all Emilia could see, as the lights in the room seemed much dimmer than usual, but she simply figured that it was due to her eyes being tired from battling that immortal pile of papers for a whole day already.

He cleared his throat a few times before she noticed and raised her head. He smiled ever so slightly and spoke in a deep and smooth baritone: "Hello. I am Charles Vywin. It is my understanding that you have recently graduated from Oxford Law, miss…?"

She was visibly taken aback, whether it was by the sound of his voice or his straightforward attitude. After a few moments, she replied: "Burke, Emilia Burke, Sir." His smile deepened into a pleasant one as he asked "Miss Burke, how would you like to earn some extra doing something that is closer to what you studied for a change?"

Her eyes that looked dead tired just a moment ago regained their life as she asked: "What and when do you want me to do?"

"Nothing much at first. I simply need someone to set up a few companies for me. I'm much too busy to go through all the paperwork in the Companies House. Forgive my intrusion, but I took a moment to observe you and I discovered you to be diligent and ambitious. Impress me and I will hire you permanently."

The offer sounded much too good to be true to Emilia. She suspected that there might be something shady going on with that man, or the businesses he wanted to set up. There was also the fact that he knew about her, where she went to college and when she graduated. She took a glance outside and noticed a policeman on patrol walking past. That gave her enough confidence to continue the conversation instead of yelling out for help.

"Why would you hire someone without experience instead of a seasoned solicitor? There would be a lot of better options in other companies." The man in front of her desk shifted his weight from one leg to the other and replied "It is simple. The best solicitors are on their last legs while I need someone that has the necessary experience by the time my grandson is old enough to take over. You seem like a good seed with enough ambition."

Emilia thought back to her mother that was struggling with heart disease and decided to at least give it a shot. In the worst case, she could stop working for Mr. Vywin and continue in this company.

She asked, "How much will you pay me?"

"I'll give you five hundred upfront to cover all the fees. You'll get the rest once you're done. I expect the process to be completed within the next 6 weeks at the latest.

All the companies should be set up as private limited. To start off, I want you to set up four companies: Vywin Constructions, Vywin Mountain works, Vywin Logistics and Squeaky Clean. The first will be a construction company, specializing in high-end low-rise buildings. The second will be a mining company specializing in quarrying stone and mineral mining. The third will be a logistics company encompassing land, air and maritime transport. The fourth company will be a cleaning company."

"I understand. Please give me a moment to consider." Emilia continued to go through the papers on autopilot while deep in thought. She was considering her schedule and the various officials she would need to visit. Finally, she had come up with the optimal order and path. While she was doing that, she had also gone through five files and tagged the mentions of the people of interest

She finally spoke "Okay, I'll do my best."

Emilia saw the man pulling a rolled-up thick paper from his pocket. Now she really wanted a suit like that, with pockets deep enough to fit something like that inside. Yet, a moment later, the man had also pulled out a stack of £50 bills.

"Excellent. Here's a contract. Read it carefully. You can get started with the assignment after you've signed it."

She pondered over why anyone would have a contract rolled up instead of carrying it in a briefcase, yet as she was rolling it open, the reason became somewhat apparent: it turned out that the contract was on a very long roll of thick, yellowish white paper. As she was pondering over why anyone would use that instead of regular sheets of paper connected by a staple or a paper clip, she started studying what was written on it.

There were eighteen clauses and subclauses within the contract that summed up to her setting up the four companies mentioned, stating the amount of time and the fact that the five hundred pounds must only be used to fulfill the contract and nothing else.

She found the conditions in the contract acceptable, even though the material, on a closer inspection looked somewhat leathery. Once she was done carefully inspecting each of the clauses for loopholes, she signed it. Once she was done, she rolled it up and discovered that there was a much thinner version left on the table.

"That's your copy.", the man simply said. "Put it somewhere safe, as it is the only proof you have for now that you're working for me."

Emilia wasn't sure why she would need any proof that she was taking an odd job, but in the end, she figured that the old man was simply eccentric, as if that wasn't evident enough from the physical appearance of the contract.

She didn't leave work until eight P.M that evening, and through some miracle, she had managed to work her way through the ���priority files'.

The following day, Emilia took sick leave – she had been worked like a slave in that company so she might as well put all her effort into trying to impress that mysterious Mr. Vywin. But first, she was going to buy some nitroglycerin pills for her mother.

When she was about to pay, the pharmacist's phone rang. The pharmacist answered it, then turned to Emilia and asked: "Are you Emilia Burke?"

"Yes?"

"There's a Charles Vywin asking for you."

Emilia froze in panic. Was Mr. Vywin having her followed? How did he know where to call for her?

With a shaky hand, she took the phone.

"Hello?"

An admonishing voice spoke to her: "Miss Burke. It hasn't been a day and you have already made a personal purchase with the money I gave explicitly for setting up my companies. A pharmacy is in no way related to that."

'There is definitely someone following me' she thought. In her panicked state, she didn't even notice that no matter how good a person following her is, they wouldn't be able to determine the origin of the money used.

"Sir, my mother's heart condition got worse and I didn't have any time to go to the bank."

"I understand. This better be the only time this happens. I expect professional behavior from now on."

About a week later

Emilia was working on seemingly the exact stack of papers, yet at the same time, it was different on a closer inspection. Indeed, she had slain the previous behemoth, but it had resurrected and came back only stronger.

She had been hoping that Mr. Vywin would come and whisk her away from this pit of misery, but as the days passed with nothing happening, she begun suspecting that she had somehow failed to impress the man. Mr. Vywin hadn't even come to reclaim the leftover money.

Suddenly, she felt a presence in front of her desk. In her heart, she prayed that it wouldn't be her boss, but as she looked up, all her hopes were dashed.

"It seems that you've been slacking off recently. Not only did you take a two-day sick leave last week, but you didn't make up for it during the weekend. If this happens again, I have no choice but to fire you. The way I see it, you should try and make up for the lost time during this week at least."

Suddenly, however, a voice she was anxious to hear again sounded: "I don't think Emilia can do that, whatever your name is. You see, she has just been hired by me and will have to get enough rest each day to be at her peak performance during working hours."

'Ah, this explains it.', Emilia thought. 'He's so strange because angels don't usually get a lot of experience among humans.' She had immediately recognized who that voice belonged to, and right now, she felt as if she was being saved somehow. She didn't even care that it also meant slamming shut the door to her backup plan and throwing the key into a crucible to be possibly cast into a bullet to shoot at this company.

"You can't do that. She's my employee and I have to be notified a month in advance.", her boss, or former boss, as she would've liked to call him, crushed her budding hopes.

"I can and I will. She's still registered as on her probationary period, which means that the contract can be terminated anytime. That time is now."

Once again, Emilia's hopes were reignited – being chronically overworked, she had failed to notice that caveat, otherwise she wouldn't have even worried for an instant.

The old man, or angel, as Emilia currently saw him, walked closer and said: "Pack your belongings. There's an office with a decent view and your name on it, waiting to be put to good use."

Emilia looked at her now confirmed former boss whose body was jiggling and shaking in suppressed anger. The man seemed hell-bent on exacting a modicum of revenge by staring menacingly as she steeled her nerves to slowly and carefully pack all her belongings.

Half an hour later, Emilia had been driven across the city in a luxurious black sedan, arrived at what she thought to be possibly one of the tallest buildings in London and escorted inside by Mr. Vywin.

Not a minute later, they exited the elevator on the twentieth floor.

"This here is my floor. Well, I also rented out the two floors below it, but for all intents and purposes, that's the floor you'll be working on. Once the companies are properly up and generating good revenue, I'll look into getting my own building."

After a few turns in a long corridor, they reached an office that had two signs with golden letters and black background beside the door: 'Vywin inc. Ltd. Corporate Lawyer' and under it her name, Ms. Emilia Burke.

"There we go, that's your office for the time being. I'm not quite sure how fast you'll get the real thing. Here, these are your keys."

Emilia took the keys she was handed and opened the door. Inside, she saw a room that wasn't much bigger than the one she had been working in, but at least it was in perfect condition and had a window with a view to the city. There seemed to also be a door to the storage room at the back wall.

Emilia placed the box with her belongings down on the table and started unpacking.

"Emilia, what are you doing?", Mr. Vywin asked.

"Setting up my desk.", she stated, even though she didn't know why she bothered to answer such an obvious question.

"That's not your office. Your office is through there.", Charles said, pointing at the door that she had thought to be one belonging to a storage room.

Emilia returned the picture of herself and her mother back into the box, picked it up and once Charles had opened the door, went inside. Then, she stood still, stunned. The room had to be at least three hundred square feet with large windows with a view to Thames. There were two more doors at the sides of the room and Emilia really hoped, for the sake of her own sanity, that neither of them led to an even bigger room.

"This is your office. The door on the back is a storage room for paperwork. The one on the left? I don't know, you figure out what to do with it. Oh, right, it does have a small kitchen in it. If you want to remodel or have any questions or issues, go to Karen in human resources two floors down.

Now, let's get the actual contract for you. Since you performed your first assignment above expectations, I've decided to forego the probationary period. Of course, you will retain your right to quit on the spot for the next, let's say two months."

As soon as Emilia heard the name of the one in charge of the person she was supposed to contact if issues arose, she felt that she should try her hardest to solve them by herself as much as possible and turn to Karen only if she was at the end of her rope.

Once again, Emilia saw a roll of paper emerging from Mr. Vywin's pocket. She could've sworn it wasn't there before, as his suit wasn't bulging out at all. She decided to just go along with it, if the office was anything to go by, the pay would be more than enough to overlook a bit of eccentricity.

A while later, Emilia had a question for her future employer: "It says here that any memories of my employment will be used as collateral in the case that I act against the interests of the Vywin family. What does that even mean?"

"Emilia, there are many secrets in the world. Secrets, that if you knew them, your memory would have to be erased. Not by me, but there are those more powerful than myself, and I wouldn't be able to stop them as things stand for now, so it's best to maintain ignorance of a few things for a while longer.

I hope my answer was satisfactory to you, as that's the best I can do for the time being. As for why your memories are set as collateral, let's just say that this is a special kind of contract, with the power to enforce the terms.

I have added the clause for the protection of both my family and yourself, so that it would be meaningless to try and use you against us. I will, however, set up a backup of sorts, so even if you do lose your memories due to the contract being broken, they can be restored."

Emilia didn't know it yet, but the contract that she had been given was the most lenient one that Gaude was willing to offer. Gaude had decided to perform an experiment of free will on Emilia, under the watchful eye of a pair of stealthy house elves, naturally. Those elves served a dual purpose: one was to provide security to Emilia and the other was to make sure that the manifestations of her free will were properly monitored, as no experiment would be worth anything without recording the process and results.