Atonement

•19•

I wake up, memories from last night flooding my brain along with a terrible headache. Every nerve in my body is stimulated with anxiety, remembering the words Haz spoke. This can't ruin things between us.. we work too well together.
Avoidance...
I'll just avoid him as long as I can today. If we don't see each other then we don't have to talk about it. My phone dings, and I grab it off the night stand.
Haz: I need to talk to you. Come to my office soon please.
Oh god.. oh no. Avoiding isn't going to work.
I quickly pop some ibuprofen, and clean myself up for the day before anxiously heading towards Haz's office.
Here we go..
I knock on the door, and walk inside. He sits at his desk, papers sprawled out in front of him as he frantically looks through them.
"Good you're here." He says.
"Yeah.. you needed to talk to me?" I ask.
"Yeah listen I know you're probably hung over, I definitely am, but I really need you to file all the deals from the last week so I can get the finances figured out for my clubs." He says.
Is that it? Really? Just needs me to file things?
"Yeah of course." I nod. "Was uh, was that all?"
"Well there is one more thing." He says, standing from his desk and rounding over to me.
Oh no I knew this was coming.
"Could you please get Eli to work more, I really can't stand all these incompetent guys taking his place." He laughs.
"I'll talk to him." I say, slightly confused.
"You're the best darling." He grins, his hand resting on my shoulder before he gets back to work.
I turn and head out of the office. I'm honestly just really confused, does he not remember last night? Everything he said to me?
I knew he was drunk, but I didn't think he'd forget. Now I'm stuck with his.. confession I guess you'd call it, and I have no clue what to do with it.
As I sit at my desk, filing everything for him I get an email. The same name from yesterday popping up.
Robert Silas: the longer you ignore me, the higher my price becomes. You can't avoid me forever Mrs. Alderidge.
I feel an empty pit form in my stomach, this man isn't going to leave me alone.. What if he's the one my mother warned me about. He might be the reason she needed money from me.
Aurie Alderidge: who are you and why are you reaching out to me? What do you mean your price?
I send the email, getting a response quickly.
Robert Silas: let's meet up.
I breath deeply, typing back a place to meet up. I will bring my gun. I will be safe. I everything will be okay, there's no reason to tell anyone.
A knock on my office door makes me jump in my seat. I call for them to come in, and it opens, revealing Kyler. The new recruit from last week.
"Hello Mrs. Alderidge." He smiles. "Mr. Osterfield sent me your way."
"Of course he did, he sucks with new recruits." I laugh. "And you can call me Aurie."
Kyler makes his way in, and I get him all set up with a schedule of trainings with Orion and Jordan.
"Sorry I normally have all this sorted beforehand but everything has been crazy lately." I shake my head.
"Isn't the mob always crazy?" He asks.
"Yeah.. pretty much." I say.
I can already tell I'm going to like having him here. New and young recruits are always my favorite because they work really hard, and aren't assholes like the rest of the guys.
"So a few tips, Orion can be an ass, you just tell on him to me and I'll take care of it. As for Jacob, he's really rough when training so just beat the shit out of him I really don't care." I say, making him laugh.
"Sounds good." He nods.

•Toms Pov•
I walk down to Eli's office, wanting to have him send me the footage of me getting stabbed. It makes me feel pretty badass now that I'm better, and I honestly just want to see what happened.
Walking into the office, Eli is nowhere to be seen, but the computer is on and footage is already pulled up. Is that Haz? I get closer to the screen, seeing it's Haz and Aurie's mother in the basement.
Looking around to make sure no one is going to catch me, I press play and watch.
Haz holds a knife to her throat threateningly, making my eyes widen slightly. Sometimes I forget how ruthless my best friend is.
"Because even though you were taught to do what's best for the mob, you'd rather disappoint the mob a million times over than disappoint her." Aurie's mother says, and Haz drops the knife to the ground, leaving the room.
"Oh my god.." I say under my breath.
Haz is into Aurie? He hasn't been into anyone in years.
Oh no.. he's probably pissed about what I said about her. If I had known he was into her I wouldn't have said that..
I leave the office, quickly making my way to Haz's. The door is open, and he's working on his laptop.
"Hey." I say, walking inside.
"What's up?" He asks, not looking up from the computer.
"About what I said" I start. "About Aurie being screwed up.."
he shakes his head, shutting the laptop and giving me his attention.
"That girl lost her mother at nine, grew up around all this shit, lost her dad, lost her job, found out her mother abandoned her, and then killed her. You don't get to call her screwed up." He says firmly.
"I know that was pretty low of me.." I admit.
"Just some advise, why don't you stop making her think you like her, then talking shit about her. She deserves better than that." He says.
"Yeah." I nod. "You're right."