by Alexa Rynn
“What the fuck?” He said, looking me up and down like I was from another planet. He shook his head and then lunged at me, swinging both of his fists but I had anticipated as much.
I blocked his first swing with little effort and then swiftly twisted his other arm behind his back, turning his body away from me. He squirmed under my touch but I just twisted harder, holding him in place.
“Ahhhhh,” he yelled. “Okay, okay, you got it, you got it.”
The woman looked confused now, water still falling from her face. It was all mixed with the blood now. She took a few steps back from us, staggering each time she tried to get on her feet.
“FUCK! LET GO OF ME!”
“Call the cops,” I told the woman. “Now.”
She shook her head back and forth. “I don’t… I don’t… he took my phone.”
I twisted the guy’s arm even further into his back, causing his screams to explode even louder. “Shut up,” I hissed into his ear. “You don’t get to cry, you don’t get to act like your feelings or pain matters even a little.”
I dug my hand into his pocket and pulled a phone and bunch of money out. I tossed it toward the lady and she shook her head. I rolled my eyes then dug into his other pocket and pulled out another phone. I tossed it to her when she nodded. This guy was unbelievable.
The poor woman gasped for breathe and looked back and forth between the two of us, terrified that maybe this was some kind of trick or test. Not that I could blame her, the whole situation was a little crazy.
“Relax.” I tried to make my voice soothing through my voice box. “I’m not going to hurt you but you need to call 911 right now.” The slime in my hands twisted around in an attempt to throw my on my back and I kneed him in the back, sending pain shooting up and down his bones.
Her eyes grew wide and she unlocked her phone, pushing in the number.
I took the opportunity to pull the crook into the side closet forcefully. I shoved him on the ground and kicked him in the shin before I started digging in my bag for some rope.
“What do you want from me, bro?” He inched closer to me. “You want a piece of the pot is that it? You got it, you got it, we can split whatever we pull off here today.”
I laughed and yanked him up off the ground by the tip of the arm I’d already injured. It made me sick how he thought I was anything like him, it was guys like him who had killed my father, guys like him who had no type of value in human life. He cried out in pain but I just rolled my eyes and tied his hands up before shoving him back down into the closet. “Don’t be so damn dramatic. It doesn’t hurt that bad, imagine what the woman you slap around go through every night.”
He spat out a lump of blood and salvia all over the floor and looked up at me with confusion and pure hate. “Who the hell are you?”
I shook my head and smiled through my mask. “Someone who believes in justice for the bad people in this world. And sometimes, if I’m lucky, it works out in my favor. Today it did.” I paused for a second, taking in the poor excuse for a person in front of me. He prayed on the weak because he was weak himself. “You picked the wrong city to fuck with.”
And then I slammed the door in his face.
A few minutes later I passed the cop cars zooming toward the apartment building but my mask and change of clothes were already safe and sound inside of my trunk. I snapped my Bluetooth on and answered my sister’s call.
“The whole point of the microphone is so that you can communicate with me, so that I can know that you’re safe,” Hayden snapped through the speakers of my car.
I grinned. “What can I say? I got caught up.”
“You always do,” she grumbled. “So, did you handle the other situation?”
“What other situation?” I knew exactly what she was talking about but it was still fun to make her sweat it out a little bit. “The guy’s tied up in the closet and has a broken wrist, he’s not going anywhere for a while.”
“Not that situation!” She sounded exasperated. “The one involving the girl.”
“What girl?”
“BRADEN!”
I laughed. “Relax, sis, I got the glove back. She didn’t even notice, she was too busy checking out my arms the entire time.” I slammed on my brakes to let a woman with a few kids cross the road. The car behind me honked but I decided to ignore him.
“Once again your charming good looks get you the girl.”
I scoffed. “Don’t hate on me, it’s not my fault that’s the way the game works.” I pressed down on the gas pedal and zoomed further down the street. “Trust me, Ms. Cooper isn’t going to be giving us anymore trouble. She’s probably curled up in a ball in the middle of her floor right now convinced she’s imagined the entire encounter.”
“I hope you’re right, Braden, for both of your sakes.”
I accelerated even more. “I’m always right.”
Chapter Eight
ADDISON
I pressed down on the button in the elevator too hard and a pain crept into my fingers. I had paid a kid out front twenty bucks to distract the security guard on the first floor so that I could creep into the elevator without being noticed. I watched the floors creeping further and further up, my anger climbing with the elevation.
It had taken me a few hours to put it together but I had eventually. The last place I had that glove was at the coffee shop when hot shot Braden Nash had been hitting on me. Then, suddenly, a half hour after he left it was nowhere to be found. Did he really think I was too stupid to put two and two together? He probably thought I was too mesmerized by his sexiness to think twice about anything else going around me.
Typical.
Well the smooth talker had been stupid enough to leave his REAL business card behind and one Internet search of his name told me right where his place of business was. I almost couldn’t believe I didn’t know who he was sooner; he was notorious in our town for being a rich playboy. There had been some tragedy years ago that involved his father being murdered right in front of him.
It almost made me feel bad for him but still, it didn’t give him the right to go around stealing things that didn’t belong to him. He knew nothing about the night I had, which meant he had no idea how dangerous I was.
Or maybe he did know about my night and that was the problem. He did own one of the biggest entertainment channels in the world. They were known for their fast pace journalism and hard-hitting stories. They even had their own magazine. He clearly had stolen the glove in an attempt to break the story wide open.
Probably after I had emailed his channel trying to get them to talk to me.
But this was my story.
And he wasn’t even trying to use me in it.
Not that I cared about the recognition, I didn’t want the attention, but I did want the man who had saved me to get the fame he deserved. I wanted him to know how thankful I was for him, how I couldn’t stop thinking about him since the night before.
The truth was that he had saved me in more ways than one. He had saved me last night physically and all day today emotionally. Having him to concentrate on was taking my mind off of everything else I had been through last night and the fact that my mother was blowing up my phone every second picking me apart. I had thought she would calm down after the hospital but so far she hadn’t let up.
I jumped off a few floors below and took the stairs the rest of the way up. I wasn’t sure why I did this but it seemed less noticeable to emerge from a stairwell then the main elevator. It paid off when I emerged into a small hallway seconds later. I peered out the door at the main secretary and rolled my eyes. This was hardly safe.
I started down the hallway, looking into various office doors but the man of the hour was nowhere in sight. Probably held up in some fancy office somewhere, couldn’t be bothered with slumming it down here with them common folk who do his job for him.
The office was packed but surprisingly no one stopped me. I said a thankful prayer that I had gone home and c
hanged into a dressier outfit before coming up here. I figured I wouldn’t get past the lobby if I started going crazy in my sweats and t-shirt.
I was just about to give up and head to the other side of the building when an arm tugged on the sleeve of my suit and pulled me a few steps backwards. I jumped forward and let out a large scream, causing a bunch of people in the office to turn and look at me.
The blonde man standing in front of me looked startled. He cleared his throat and straightened his tie, almost like he was uncomfortable wearing it. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you, Ms. Young.”
Ms. Young?
A girl who sat a few desks away from us looked me up and down suspiciously. Ugh, why didn’t she try being attacked in her sleep and then see how she felt the next day? I thought I was allowed to be a little jumpy.
The mysterious blonde man cleared his throat loudly. “Ms. Young, we’ve been waiting for you. Please, follow me this ways.” He held his hands out and gestured toward the back of him.
Shit, now what the hell was I going to do? He clearly thought I was someone else. If I corrected him I would have to explain what I was really doing here and then I would probably get thrown out of here before I had a chance to find Braden.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, trying to regain my composure. “I must have gotten turned around.” I smoothed out my suit confidently, not because it’s something I would normally do but because I think it’s something a businesswoman would do. I tried to smile but it must have come out as more of a grimace because soon he took a step forward and placed his hand on my shoulder.
“Look,” he said, sounding reassuring. “I always get nervous before a big presentation, too, but this is nothing to be worried about. You know all about this story, you’ve been prepping it for months.”
A story? Presentation? What presentation? Panic filled my body.
Before I had a chance to respond the mystery blonde in his suit was pushing me off down the hallway toward a big black door at the end of the hall. It was pretty clear even from a distance away that whatever was in that room was important.
“I think I just need to use the bathroom before we start,” I said in an act of desperation but the man made no signs of letting up.
“No time for that now! Everyone’s already waiting!”
He was much stronger than me and glided my body toward the room like I was as light as a feather. What was I supposed to do? I could start kicking and screaming but he would wonder why the hell I was flipping out on him.
Fuck, I was going to have to go inside of the room.
I told myself that it would be fine. Braden Nash wouldn’t miss a presentation for his own company. As soon as I walked in he would figure out I wasn’t who I said I was and then he would have to deal with me, he would have to give me back what he had taken from me.
But when we entered the huge conference room, Braden Nash was nowhere to be found. The rest of the room was packed full. Various faces sat along the long dark table in the center of the room and dozens of more people stood behind them, various notepads and folders in their hands.
And every single pair of eyes in that room were locked on me.
“Ah,” a random man at the end of the table with a nicely trimmed beard said. “I see you’ve found our mystery guest, after all, Troy.” He sounded annoyed and it occurred to me that they must have been waiting a long time for someone who wasn’t even me.
“I sure did.” The mystery blonde man who delivered me here spoke. “She just got a little lost, that’s all. But she’s here now and ready to go, isn’t that right, Joan?” He looked at me expectantly.
Shit.
The man with the beard tapped his fingers up and down on the table impatiently. “Then, why don’t we go ahead and get started?” His eye shot toward the front of the room where various posters and a huge movie screen was set up.
Shit, shit, shit.
Troy gestured forward and took a seat at the end of the table.
I glanced around the room again; hoping that I somehow missed Braden among the many faces but I knew it was a waste of time. If he had been there he would have said something by now, he would have shown his handsome face and singled me out, knowing very well I wasn’t supposed to be there.
I sighed in defeat and headed toward the front of the table. Maybe I could just read off the props in place and no one would know the difference. It’s was so damn silent in the room that I would be able to hear a pin drop.
I glanced at one of the posters and rolled my eyes. The story seemed to be about Clark Washington, he was the owner of various sports teams and businesses around the world. I narrowed my eyes at the cover story. Everyone knew Clark Washington was a grade A asshole and pervert. There was always some poor girl coming forward about sexual assault cases involving Mr. Washington but somehow they never seemed to make it to trial. The girl was either paid off or nowhere to be found. Still, money bought you power and every news outlet in the world was always printing stories that made him sound like one of the best guys in the world and from the looks of it this piece was going to be no different.
“Is something wrong?” The bearded man asked, crossing his legs over one another and letting out a huge sigh. He made a big show of lifting his sleeve up and looking at his watch.
What a jerk.
Made sense Braden Nash would employ a bunch of people just like him.
“No, no.” I glanced around the room and bit my lip. “It’s just, shouldn’t I wait for Mr. Nash before I begin?” I knew it was the wrong thing to say immediately. The entire atmosphere in the room seemed to shift.
The bearded man titled his head to the side and looked me up and down like I was a piece of trash that drifted in from the dumpster in the back of the building. He narrowed his eyes at me and no one else in the room seemed to be able to look at him or me, their eyes suddenly fascinated with something on the floor.
He shifted his eyes to Troy for a split second, who seemed suddenly fascinated by his own hands, before standing up and crossing his arms over his chest. “Do you have any idea who I am, Ms. Young?”
Something in his tone told me that I should have known exactly who he was. I bit my lip, I was growing more anxious by the second. This whole thing was getting way too complicated, where the hell was Braden? He seemed like too much of a control freak to let anything go on without his approval.
Everyone was still shifting around uncomfortably a few seconds later when the door to the conference room swung open and Braden walked in, like he could somehow read my thoughts.
Braden walked over to the chair at the head of the long table and started flipping through the papers in front of him like he wasn’t aware of everyone else’s eyes in the room on him. “Sorry I’m late everyone. I had some business to attend to.” And it could have been my imagination but I could of swore that Troy smirked when he said this.
Braden crossed his large hands over one another and leaned forward in his chair. “Okay, you may begin.” Then he looked up and spotted me. Me… I stood at the front of the room, looking exactly like the imposter I was. Surprise crossed over his face.
The bearded man sat down before Braden had a chance to notice him standing up in the first place. I guess he wasn’t as important as he thought when the real boss was in the room. “It’s fine, Mr. Nash, Ms. Young was late herself. She was just about to begin her presentation.”
He smirked at me like I should be embarrassed that he had told on me.
Braden looked at me and did the last thing I expected. He smirked. “Is that so? Well, Ms. Young, please begin. I’m just dying to hear what you have to say.” He leaned back in his chair, a twinkle in his eyes, as he looked my body up and down.
A flash of his arms covering the upper half of my body at the coffee shop flashed through my mind and an instant blush shot up and down my body. I tore myself away from him before I overheated.
Everyone was staring at me again.
Crap, I should have
known he would play along with this bullshit.
I turned my attention back to the boards in front of me and tried to form a sentence. I can practically see the satisfaction burning off Mr. Nash out of the corner of my eye. He loved the fact that I was uncomfortable as much as I hated it.
God, he was such an entitled prick.
I didn’t say anything and someone in the room cleared their throat.
This was ridiculous. Why wasn’t Braden throwing me out? Or saying something to me so I could call him out on what a dick he was. The last 24 hours had been some of the worse in my life and things were just getting worse. What else did I have to lose at this point?
“I think this story is bullshit,” I said loudly, crossing my hands over my chest and locking my eyes right on Braden. A few gasps emerged from the room but if Mr. Nash was surprised he didn’t give me the satisfaction of showing me twice in a five-minute span. Instead, his smirk just grew stronger.
“I mean you guys run one of the largest entertainment networks in the entire world and you’re still feeding the public this crap about what a great man Mr. Washington is just like every other news source in the world. Why don’t you try printing something about all the woman he sexually assaulted in the past ten years or the effect it’s had on their families?” I looked directly at the bearded man. “Or are the top dogs too scared to piss off Mr. Washington by telling the truth?”
The man’s mouth hung open. “What the hell is going on here?” He glanced at Troy, looking for answers. “This isn’t what we discussed. This isn’t the story that she’s here to pitch.”
Troy looked so helpless that I actually felt a little sorry for him. “I don’t… I don’t…” He started shuffling around the papers that were on the table in front of him frantically. “I don’t know. Her office said she was coming to pitch a story on the millions of dollars Mr. Washington just donated to the hurricane relief in…”
I laughed loudly, cutting Troy off. “I guess it’s okay to assault woman as long as you’re going to donate a bunch of money to charity. Make sure you print that in your story, it’s a great message to send to the world.”
