Angela

I rode the bus the next morning in a daze. I didn’t leave Marcus’ house until early in the morning and I was beat. We had stayed up and talked about everything. I had offered myself to him, I had basically thrown myself at him and he hadn’t taken the bait. Instead of doing what I wanted, Marcus had given excuses. They were good excuses, but it didn’t help the aggravation that it had left with me. I was way too bothered to go to work.

Most of the morning I wasn’t paying much attention. I was thinking about Marcus and I wanted to call him, but I knew that I shouldn’t. While he said a lot of things that I wanted to believe about us being meant to be, there was still the question of if it was real. He said I hurt him and I am starting to think I did. So where did that leave me? If he wanted me so bad, why didn’t he take what it was I was offering to him? The whole scenario left me confused and I wasn’t sure if I was coming or going.

“Are you okay Angela?”

I turned to see my boss standing there. Ever since that first day, Mark had been far nicer than he should have been. He watched me more than I liked to think about. I caught him doing it a lot and though he hadn’t come on to me directly, I could tell that he was testing the waters. I wasn’t going to be able to hide how I was feeling from someone that was far too interested in what I did on a daily basis.

“Yeah I am fine Mark. Just been a long day.”

“It’s only three Angie.”

I didn’t like him calling me that name. Hearing it come out of Marcus’ mouth was so much better and I didn’t want anyone else to call me that.

“Angela.”

“Right, sorry. I didn’t know that you cared.”

I shrugged and bit my lip for saying such a thing out loud. I wasn’t paying too much attention and I shouldn’t have been short with him. He didn’t seem to mind too much and even got a little closer to me. “I like what you are doing around here Angela. I knew that it was the right choice to hire you.”

His eyes were filled with a need that I didn’t want to have anything to do with. Even if Marcus wasn’t next door and whatever was going on with us wasn’t happening, I wouldn’t be with Mark. He just wasn’t my type and that was the end of it. He was nice, cute and rich, but there was something that he just didn’t have. Maybe it was the tattoos and need for danger. Whatever it was, the ‘it’ factor wasn’t there, beyond perfectly legitimate reasons. Maybe I just wanted all of the things that were bad for my health. I should grow up and stop that, but there was a draw to a man like Marcus. Mark just didn’t have that.

“There you go again. I feel like you are not really here. You are here, but not all of you is present with me.”

He was put off in a way because I was not fawning over him like I had seen other women in the office do. His ego was far too big and I didn’t want to be one of many that stroked it to that level.

“I am sorry Mark. I just have a lot going on. I didn’t mean to bring it to work with me.”

My apology made him smile and I could tell that he felt like he was in the right again. He was in control and the grin made me a little uneasy. He looked a little too happy about all of it and I almost wanted to take it back. What the heck did he want?

“Was there something that I could do for you Sir?”

It was an innocent question not meant the way it was taken. I didn’t even justify it by correcting it. I didn’t care where his mind went. Mine was a million miles from all of that.

“No, but if you want to get out of here early, all of the work is basically done. I wouldn’t be offended if you took off a little early.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I was thinking about….”

I thanked him and turned around to get my things. I had a feeling he was going to ask me to go somewhere with him to have a drink. Maybe he was going to say it was nothing but drinks. I knew that it wouldn’t turn out that way or at least he would try to make it turn out another way.

“See you tomorrow Mark.

I heard him mutter something to himself and I felt a sigh of relief when I got out of the building. Mark was a nice guy, but the fact of the matter was that he wasn’t for me. I could see that this was going to escalate. It already was as Mark got bolder with his moves. I should start looking for something else before Mark did something that I wasn’t going to be able to handle. I had a feeling that it was going to get complicated to a point that I didn’t want it to be at.

My mind was once again thinking of everything else but what it was I was doing. The law firm was only a couple of blocks from the bus stop, but I was moving slow. It was going to be almost twenty minutes before the next bus ran and that gave me time to really think. It wasn’t about my job and how long I was going to have it and it certainly wasn’t about the ex that wouldn’t stop calling me. I was thinking about the man from long ago. Marcus was on my mind and I didn’t even see the guy coming out of the alleyway to my right. I should have seen him, but I wasn’t paying attention and I didn’t even know he was there until I literally ran into him.

“Where are you off to in such a rush?”

“Sorry Sir, I didn’t see you there.”

I moved to go past him and he stopped me with a few tight fingers gripped on my shoulder. “I asked you a question Angela. It is good to answer when someone like me asks a question.”

The first thought was alarming. How did the man know my name? I certainly didn’t know him and I looked up into his shadowed face to see if I recognized him. I hadn’t been here in many years, but his was a face I would remember. He had piercing baby blue eyes that were as cold as they looked and a mole on the side of his lip that moved when he talked. I would have remembered him. The accent reminded me of the man that I had met that one night in the bar last week.

“Answer me.”

“I am on my way home.”

“You aren’t meeting anybody there?”

“Who the hell are you…”

I was cut short with the pinch getting harder to ignore on my shoulder. I whimpered a little bit with the pain. Who was this man and what did he want?

“No, no one. I am just going home.”

It was the truth, but as he started to drag me along to the alleyway that he had come out of, I knew that I was in trouble. I tried to scream, but there was no one to hear me and it only echoed off the high walls of the buildings on either side of us. What was I have supposed to have said?

I tried to kick and fight my way out of it, but as soon as I realized that he wasn’t going to let me go, I gave up. I had a feeling that I was going to need all of my strength for another time. I didn’t know what he was going to do to me, but the further back into the alleyway that we got, I saw a car and I started to fight him some more.

“Let go of me! I don’t even know you.”

I didn’t know him. Maybe he had the wrong person. God, I really wish he did and this was all a misunderstanding. I didn’t like the thought of some other woman running into him in the middle of the night, but I didn’t want it to be me, not right now.

“Calm the fuck down or I am going to have to shut you up myself. The boss won’t be happy if I mess up your pretty face.”

The boss? Now I knew that he had the wrong person. He was talking to me like I would have known all of this. The rough looking man was not the kind of person that I would be around and I certainly wouldn’t know anyone like him and his boss.

“Look, I don’t know you and I am sure that you have the wrong person. What do you want with me?”

We were getting closer to the SUV and I could see now that I had seen it before. He must have been the one that was parked on my street all of those times. What did he want?

“I don’t understand Sir.”

He chuckled and told me that it had been a long time since anyone called him Sir. I couldn’t help it. I was a nervous wreck and seemed to get more formal in times like this.

“You don’t have to. Get in or I will throw you in. That is your only choice at this point Angela. You can go to the boss conscious or unconscious. Your choice.”

It didn’t seem like either one of those choices were ones that I wanted to take. I didn’t want to go with him, but I had no doubt that he would do exactly what he said he would. It wouldn’t take much for a man like the one hulking over me to do exactly that.

“I will get in the car if I have to.”

“Good choice. Come on. I was supposed to be back an hour ago. You shouldn’t work so late, it ages you quicker.”

It was a strange thing to say and when I looked back at him from the passenger seat, he just laughed like what he had said was so funny. There was no humor in it from my point of view. Maybe I was just too close to it to see it, but I didn’t return the grin. What the hell had I gotten into and why? The burning question in my mind was why? What did they want with me and who was his boss? I hoped that whoever it was would listen to me better than his goon was. I am sure as soon as I explain it all to them, I will be set free and this will all be a distant memory.

I had to believe it.