The kind of lawyer Jeremy needed wasn't an ethical lawyer that did everything by the book, he needed a morally ambiguous lawyer; someone who knew how to manipulate the justice system to meet his needs, not merely navigate them legally. He needed a predator, someone who viewed the law not as a sacred text but as a complex, malleable set of rules designed to protect the powerful, and who was willing to teach Jeremy how to become one of them.
He found that kind of attorney in a man named Alan Payne, forty-five years old, with twenty years of practice that had polished his expensive suits and chipped away at his conscience. Payne operated out of a mid-rise on the edge of Boston's Financial District—not the glittering glass towers, but a respectable building that suggested solidity without inviting the scrutiny of true wealth.
The next morning, Jeremy found himself in the muted, cool gray lobby that housed Alan Payne's legal practice. The waiting area was designed to appear calming, but the air felt heavy with the scent of old paper and nervous ambition.
The first person he saw was the receptionist, or perhaps the legal secretary, a woman in her late twenties whose professional demeanor cracked slightly under the weight of a tedious morning. Jeremy approached her with a practiced, open smile—the smile of a polite, recently-grieving teenage boy.
"Excuse me ma'am, I would like to see the lawyer, Mr. Alan Payne. I have an appointment," Jeremy said, the smile never slipping away once, masking the sharp, calculating mind beneath.
She checked a digital calendar, her eyebrows raising momentarily at the name and the sight of the boy in a dark blazer who looked far too young to be dealing with a man like Payne. "Oh, yes. Mr. Sanders. Mr. Payne is expecting you. His office is the last door down the hall, on the right. Just go right in."
Within moments, Jeremy stood before the door. It was a solid mahogany slab, a theatrical barrier separating the world from the architect of its legal troubles. He knocked once—a firm, confident rap—before pushing the heavy door open.
Alan Payne's office was predictable: dark wood, shelves lined with books that looked more decorative than read, and a panoramic but unremarkable view of the city. Alan himself was impeccably dressed, a study in corporate gray, but his eyes, sharp and predatory, belied the calm veneer.
"Mr. Alan Payne, I am Jeremy Sanders." Jeremy advanced, extending his hand for a firm, brief handshake. He noted the slight hesitation in Payne's grip, a minor tell that suggested the lawyer was already trying to place him on his scale of desperation and potential profit.
"Mr. Sanders," Alan returned the handshake, his posture straightening as he assessed the boy. He gestured to a leather chair across the oversized desk. "Please. Have a seat. What can I do for you today? My secretary mentioned a probate matter."
Jeremy slid into the chair, maintaining the air of quiet tragedy. Without preamble, he reached into his inner jacket pocket and handed Payne a crisp, official letter from the insurance company. The letter confirmed the payout from the unexpected life insurance policy—money Jeremy had been meticulous in securing before his father's funeral. It stated, in unambiguous legal terms, that due to the recipient being a minor, the company was depositing the certified check with the Middlesex County Probate Court for the appointment of a conservator.
Payne's gaze tracked the numbers, then darted back to Jeremy. He adjusted his glasses, a slow, practiced move designed to convey seriousness.
"Three hundred and sixty thousand dollars," Payne murmured, the figure rolling off his tongue with a mix of respect and greed. He tapped the paper with the pen he held. "And let me guess, you want me to convince the court that this money is well suited to be in your possession—unrestricted, now. Is that the gist of it?"
Jeremy simply nodded, the grieving boy's face firmly in place.
Alan leaned back, the leather of his chair creaking softly. He was already calculating his percentage. This was an easy mark. A desperate kid, recently orphaned, convinced he was ready for a windfall. The court would never grant a sixteen-year-old unsupervised access to that much capital, but the attempt was billable, and the kid would be so desperate, he'd sign away a third, maybe even forty percent.
"Well, Mr. Sanders, this isn't a simple matter. Judges are extremely risk-averse when it comes to minors and large sums. I could certainly make the argument—I'm one of the few attorneys in Boston with deep connections in this particular probate division. But for a case this complex, this unique... I will be needing half of that money. An upfront retainer, and the rest contingent upon your access to the principal."
Alan's tone was smooth, practiced, the sound of a professional squeezing the last drops of profit from a distressed situation.
"Is that so?" Jeremy's voice remained soft, but the temperature in the room dropped a noticeable ten degrees.
"Of course, yes. Fifty percent, contingent. It's the cost of success. Not many people in Boston can handle this kind of case effectively, dodging the permanent custodian appointment." Alan even allowed himself a small, smug smile.
Jeremy stood up slowly, deliberately, and then turned his back to the lawyer, moving towards the heavy mahogany door. The movement was calculated to appear as if he were giving up, defeated by the price. He paused at the door, his hand resting on the cool metal of the handle.
He didn't turn around. His voice, when it came, was no longer the soft, tremulous tone of a grieving teen. It was flat, ice-cold, and utterly without emotion—the voice of the Old Soul making a cold calculation.
"You know, I could leave right now and find another lawyer who charges thirty-three percent, and you'd lose a very substantial fee," Jeremy stated, still facing the door. He allowed a beat of silence to emphasize the cost. "But I think it's better if I threatened you instead."
Alan Payne, still in his comfortable, leaned-back posture, blinked, confusion replacing his professional smugness.
Jeremy finally turned, and the mask was entirely gone. His eyes, usually deep brown, were now unsettlingly clear and fixed on Payne.
"So this is what's going to happen. You will take my case. You will receive five thousand dollars from the payout, and not a penny more, for your fee. And in return, perhaps I won't send the neatly compiled portfolio of evidence of your long-running infidelity to your wife. Divorce court is truly brutal for men these days, Alan. Especially when they are caught lying under oath about assets they tried to shield from a settlement."
The shock that radiated from Alan Payne was so sudden and powerful it was almost physical. The Montblanc pen that Alan was holding, which he habitually used to nervously tap the desk, snapped cleanly in his hand, the brittle resin giving way to his convulsive grip. Ink bloomed instantly on the pristine blotter.
Alan had dealt with desperation. He hadn't dealt with omniscience. Many people who came to see Alan were desperate, and he used that desperation as leverage to extort as much as possible from them. He thought that this was business as usual, a simple calculation of need versus greed. He was wrong. The person in his office wasn't a desperate client; he was a blackmailer who had somehow completed his due diligence better than any opposing counsel Alan had ever faced.
This is impossible. The burner phone. The rental in Cambridge. The money transfers—those were all untraceable.
"How…did you...how did you know about that? That's privileged information," Alan stammered, his voice still shaking, betraying his expensive suit and twenty years of courtroom confidence.
Jeremy was now calmly back at his seat, crossing one leg over the other. His posture had changed from passive supplicant to cool, undeniable controller. "It doesn't matter how I know about it, Alan. What matters is the reality of the situation: with this information, your wife is leaving you with a majority of your assets, including your retirement funds and, crucially, your reputation. Not only will you lose your money, but the bar association will take a very keen interest in how well you've been managing client funds while distracted."
Jeremy allowed Alan a moment to let the full gravity of professional ruin sink in.
"Get me that money, Alan, and I will personally remove all traces of your extracurricular activities and the related financial mismanagement, ensuring this information vanishes completely. You have until the high school year begins—the start of September—to get this done. That gives us eight weeks. Fail me, and I will air your dirty laundry in public. In fact, divorce would be the least of your problems. The damage to your professional standing will ensure you never practice law again."
Alan Payne swallowed hard, the muscles in his throat visibly working. His eyes darted nervously to the locked door, then back to the composed, dangerous boy across his desk. He slowly picked up the snapped pen pieces and tossed them into the waste bin—a silent, symbolic admission of absolute defeat.
"I need to understand what I'm working with," Payne said, his voice now flat, devoid of its earlier avarice, and purely tactical. The greed was replaced by a more fundamental motive: survival. "You want the court to grant a sixteen-year-old unmonitored control of an almost four hundred thousand dollar trust fund. The judge won't just look at your grades, Jeremy. They'll look for relatives, guardians, and any history of behavioral issues. They will want to appoint a fiduciary—a professional who manages the money until you turn eighteen. That's the entire point of probate when a minor is involved."
"I have no relatives," Jeremy confirmed, watching the calculation in Alan's eyes. "I was an only child, and my father's immediate family is deceased or estranged. And I have no record. My behavioral history is being a straight-A student, on the debate team, who just suffered a tragic loss. That is what you argue, Alan. I am the ideal, grieving young man who needs stability, not bureaucratic interference."
"That's the textbook argument, which fails eighty percent of the time," Payne countered, running a trembling hand through his slicked-back, perfectly coiffed hair. "The court's first duty is parens patriae—to protect the minor from himself. And that includes protecting the money from opportunists. The judge will see a windfall waiting to be blown on a sports car or cryptocurrency. They will see only risk."
He pushed the insurance letter across the desk again, this time as a collaborator, not a threat. "Our first hurdle isn't convincing them you're responsible enough. It's preventing the appointment of a custodian. If the judge appoints a fiduciary, even a temporary one, that person has full authority over the funds until you turn eighteen. We have to make the court believe appointing anyone at all would be detrimental to your well-being. We have to sell them on a false reality—a reality where the court's interference, not its lack thereof, is the true danger."
Payne began sketching rapidly on a clean notepad, his professional instinct overriding his fear. "The standard defense is getting an independent counselor or a financial professional to testify to your maturity. Expensive, time-consuming, but doable. But to bypass the custodian entirely? To have the judge cut the check directly to you? We need to demonstrate two things: financial necessity and unique competence."
"Financial necessity?" Jeremy leaned forward, genuinely intrigued by the legal gymnastics required. "The house is paid off. My living costs are minimal. I liquidated assets to create a survival fund that can keep me going for months before I even touch the principal."
"Exactly. No necessity," Payne confirmed grimly, marking a large X next to his point on the notepad. "In fact, the court will see your existing stability as a reason to be cautious. They'll say, 'The money can sit safely in trust until he's eighteen.' Unless..."
Alan Payne paused, the tactical light of the professional game returning to his eyes, an avaricious glint that signaled he was thinking not of his wife, but of the legal play. "Unless you have a demonstrable financial plan—a legally viable, tangible business venture—that requires the principal capital to survive, a venture that an average, risk-averse fiduciary would be too conservative, too stupid, or too slow to manage. The judge might release the funds if it's proven that their failure to release them immediately would destroy your immediate future. It transforms the question from 'Is he responsible enough to have the money?' to 'Is the court's failure to act costing the minor his future?'"
Jeremy allowed a genuine, faint smile to touch his lips. The Old Soul recognized the tactic immediately. It wasn't about integrity; it was about leverage, applied now not through blackmail, but through the judiciary's own bureaucratic fear of legal liability.
"A business venture," Jeremy repeated softly, the words testing the concept. "Something unique and high-risk that requires a $360,000 capital injection right now, and something a greedy, small-minded, state-appointed custodian would certainly shut down due to perceived risk."
He reached out and tapped the pad where Alan had written the two key phrases: Financial Necessity and Unique Competence.
"The deadline is the start of the high school year," Jeremy reminded him, his voice firming the terms of their agreement. "You handle the legal maneuvering and the court dates. You create the legal framework that makes this venture legitimate and urgent. I'll handle the necessity."