Good Girl Gone Mad

Chapter 3: Secrets

Thanks everyone for your responses on the poll last time! Hilarious but all wrong, sucks to be you. Enjoy this one :D

3:33 a.m. The blinking time displayed on Anna's alarm clock felt like a ticking time bomb, after twisting and turning between her sheets all night. The room's darkness takes a blue tint from the moonlight poking through the blinds, the air is dry and the sound of her roommate's soft breathing should make for the perfect sleeping setting, and yet. In just five hours she would have to walk through her office doors again, and so far it seems like she'll have to face them running on caffeine and adrenaline because sleep definitely doesn't seem to be on the horizon.

How could she sleep after the events of yesterday? The tall, tanned figure that lulled her to sleep two weeks ago thinking of his dreamy eyes, was now the nightmare keeping her up in the dead of night; his words bouncing around in her head in an infernal loop.

"You're going to do exactly what I say, and the first thing would be to keep your mouth shut"

"You were more docile the first time I met you..."

"Anna, Anna, Anna..."

"Now you cannot escape me"

"Anna...Looks like you're stuck with me....Anna"

Up until now, she was doing a stellar job at convincing herself that their bloody encounter last Friday had been a misunderstanding; that she had mistaken him for someone else, that it wasn't actually blood all over his chest, that the whole thing had been a vivid hallucination from staring at that computer screen for too long.

But there was no explaining it away now. Yesterday's conversation cemented the reality of this hot stranger's dark side in her mind for good. Now the question was: what was she going to do about it? No way to know how serious his threats of hurting her if she went to Mr. Wright were, but it sure seems like he's capable of...a lot.

That's when it dawns on her: if she's going to be taking on his case like Mr Wright said, then she has access to his file. Sleeping is not going to happen anyway, so might as well do a little digging on mysterious Mr. Abadelli.

She pulls her laptop out from her nightstand's drawer and starts investigating. Fortunately when someone's last name starts in "-Ab" it's pretty quick to pop up in a list. But the information that follows the name is what makes Anna freeze. "Case type: 3".

That's a high-profile criminal defense. You don't get type 3 for anything less than attempted murder.

She keeps scrolling.

Laptop gets closed right back down.

As if turning away from the screen was going to let her unsee what she had just read.

'Antonio Abadelli: known leader of the Abadelli Family organized crime group'

He's the mafia.

His threats were real.

So was the blood.

7:57 a.m. Anna's legs feel like they're going to give out from under her. Her phone vibrates in her pocket: 'Mom' again. Absolutely not. Not today.

After riding up the elevator to the seventh floor, which thankfully this time no one rode with her, Anna sets down her stuff on her desk and scans her surroundings. Never did she think she would have to look over her shoulder at this internship when she first accepted it.

The office phone rings.

"Wright Law Firm, this is Anna?"

"Anna! What a nice surprise. This is Lewis. Is Anthony in?"