Franklin's office was a map of his mind. Case files, financial reports, and corporate manifests were spread across every surface in a pattern only he understood. He wasn't just reading; he was absorbing, cross-referencing, building a fortress of facts around his family's company.
His eyes were fixed on a personnel file for the logistics division manager, a man named Robert Walsh. The numbers were just a little too perfect. The efficiency metrics were high, but there was a pattern in the driver turnover—a quiet exodus of experienced drivers replaced by cheaper, newer hires. It was a small thing, a detail most would miss. But to Franklin, it was a single, frayed thread. He was pulling on it, and the whole sweater was starting to unravel.
He was so deep in his analysis, tracing shell corporations and hidden bank transfers linked to Walsh, that he didn't look up when his door opened.
"What?" he said, his voice flat, his finger resting on a suspicious transaction dated two days before the driver, David Elkins, had died.
There was a hesitant pause. "It's Mike. Mike Ross."
Franklin finally glanced up. The kid was standing there, looking earnest and out of place, clutching a file to his chest like a shield. "I know who you are. What do you want?"
"It's this case Harvey gave me. A commodities broker. His partner is skimming. I've got the evidence, the paper trail, but the partnership agreement is a nightmare. There's a clause in section 4, subsection C that I think could be a loophole, but I can't find any precedent for it. I was wondering if you could—"
"Not now," Franklin cut him off, his attention already drifting back to the spreadsheet on his screen. The numbers were singing a song of betrayal, and Mike's voice was static. "I'm busy."
Mike took a step forward. "It'll just take a second. I just need a fresh pair of eyes."
Franklin leaned back in his chair, a cold, sharp smile touching his lips. "You see all this?" He gestured to the chaos on his desk. "This is a wrongful death suit against my company. My family's company. They're trying to say we worked a man to death. So I'm not just going to settle. I'm not going to make it go away quietly. I'm going to let it go to trial. I'm going to walk into that courtroom, and I am going to annihilate them. I'm going to expose every lie, every shady transaction, every single person involved in this shakedown, and I am going to make sure they regret the day they ever decided to come after what's mine."
The intensity in his voice filled the room. Mike just stood there, captivated. This wasn't the aloof, bored genius from the bullpen. This was something else. Something raw and personal.
"Let me help," Mike said, the words out of his mouth before he could stop them.
Franklin raised a single, white eyebrow. He looked amused. "Help? You just said you have a case for Harvey. A case you're clearly struggling with. And now you want to drop it to help me with a multi-million dollar corporate litigation? Help me how? By getting me coffee?"
"I can do the research," Mike insisted, his pride stung. "I can run down the cases, find the precedents you need. I'm fast."
"You're also Harvey's," Franklin stated, his eyes narrowing. "And Harvey doesn't like to share his toys. I don't need a conflicted associate getting underfoot. Go finish Harvey's work. Prove you can handle that first. Then we'll talk."
"But this is more important," Mike argued, stepping closer to the desk. "This is about your family. Harvey's case is just... money."
Franklin's amusement vanished. His face went cold. "Don't ever presume to tell me what's important. You have a job. Do it. Harvey may indulge you, but in my world, you either perform or you're gone. Now, get out of my office and go perform."
Mike opened his mouth to argue again, but the look in Franklin's eyes stopped him dead. It was a final warning. He nodded, a flush of embarrassment and frustration on his cheeks, and turned to leave.
As the door clicked shut, Franklin's gaze returned to his screen. The kid was persistent, he'd give him that. A part of him, the part that remembered a past life of mediocrity, almost admired the sheer, stupid bravery of it. Mike Ross, a fraud who hadn't even gone to law school, trying to waltz into the deepest, most personal fight of his life.
He knew all about Mike, of course. His initial curiosity about Harvey's bizarre new hire had led him to do a little digging. It hadn't taken long. A dropout, a pothead, a genius with an eidetic memory who took the LSAT for others. He was a reflection, a distorted echo of his own gifted mind, but without the discipline, without the purpose. A kid playing lawyer while Franklin was waging a war.
He refocused on the transaction on his screen. Robert Walsh. The manager. The payment he'd received was from a shell corporation called "Aethelred Holdings." Franklin's fingers flew across the keyboard, pulling up the complex corporate genealogy he'd been building for years in his search for his parents' killers.
He typed "Aethelred Holdings" into his private database.
The system churned for a moment, then a single, stark line of text appeared on the screen.
Aethelred Holdings: Wholly-owned subsidiary of Lombard Consolidated.
Franklin froze. His breath caught in his chest.
Lombard Consolidated.
The name was a ghost. A phantom from the deepest layer of his investigation. It was a shadowy investment firm he had tentatively, hypothetically linked to the man he suspected of ordering his parents' murder—a ruthless energy magnate named Daniel Hardman.
The same Daniel Hardman whose name was on his firm's letterhead.
The frayed thread he'd been pulling on hadn't just unraveled a sweater. It had led him straight into the lion's den.
His phone buzzed, shattering the silence. It was his investigator.
"Talk to me," Franklin said, his voice dangerously quiet.
"We found something else on Angela Elkins," the voice on the line said. "It's not just the money. She made a call. Two days ago. Lasted twelve minutes."
"Who did she call?" Franklin asked, his eyes glued to the name Lombard Consolidated on his screen.
"The number is a burn phone. Untraceable. But we triangulated the signal when it was active. It was pinging off a cell tower a block away from our offices."
Franklin's blood went cold. "Which offices?"
"Saint Pearson Hardman."