by Mia Carson
He sighed and circled around her, his steps heavy. The noise from the bar suddenly seemed too far away, and Anna tried to swallow the sudden lump in her throat when Johnny leaned in even closer and ran his fingers along her bare shoulder. She regretted always wearing tanks to work.
“You know, if you would take me up on my offer, we wouldn’t have to worry about the money at all,” he whispered in her ear as an icy chill shot down her spine. She shuddered and cursed inwardly, and he took it for a sign she was interested. He moved in closer and kissed her neck.
She shoved him away angrily, and he fell backwards, tripping over a case of booze to land hard on his ass with a curse. “Get out of my bar. You’ll get your damn money.”
He scrambled to his feet, spitting curses as he snatched her arm in his iron grip. “One way or another, you’ll figure it out that your life would be much easier if you decided to be with me. We were together once, remember?”
“Sadly, I do,” she replied hotly. “It was one of the worst nights of my life.”
His eyes narrowed to slits and his grip tightened until she stomped hard on his foot. He let her go, and with one final threatening glare, limped from the room. Anna sank to the case of tequila, hanging her head and staring at the floor. One night… she got drunk one night with Johnny when they were still friends, and he was suddenly obsessed with her. She’d tried to let him down easily so many times, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. His interest in her bar was creeping her out, too. She couldn’t lose this bar, though. It was all she had left of her parents, and no man could force her out of it. She’d get the money and make sure he had nothing to complain about.
Hefting the case into her hands, she hastened back out to the bar and carried on as if nothing had happened. The cab arrived for Aiden, and she escorted him to it to ensure he got inside and didn’t wander off, as he tended to do. Once he was gone, she headed back inside, out of the freezing cold, and glanced proudly around. Exposed wooden beams lined the ceiling, and brick made up the walls. The bar had a lodge feel to it—cozy, but not so cozy it lost her dad’s rough and tumble personality. He had been a biker until he met Anna’s mom, Wendy. Her eyes darted to the license plates of his old motorcycle hanging on the far wall beside photos of her family and his friends.
“Don’t worry, Dad, I’m not going anywhere,” she whispered to him and went back to work.
Two weeks later, Anna was considering taking out stock in tequila. Johnny and his persistence in reminding her repeatedly about the money she still owed him gnawed at her. Add that to his deluded notion that she actually had feelings for him, and she was quickly approaching the edge of what her sanity could take.
She wiped down the bar as closing time neared. Her hand paused as her forehead scrunched. “Missy? Where’s the bat?”
Her bar was no exception to the occasional fight that broke out, so she kept a baseball bat tucked beneath the bar to deter anyone from taking a fight too far. She glanced around, moving her hand under the lip to see if it had rolled back further, but it wasn’t there.
“Dunno. I haven’t seen it all day, actually,” Missy said. “Do you need it?”
“No. I guess I left it somewhere when I cleaned this morning.” She drew her hair back into a messy ponytail and stopped worrying about the bat. She had other issues to deal with, like trying to figure out how to get Johnny that money.
She tried to talk to him normally, as two civil adults, but it escalated into a screaming match two days ago in the middle of her bar. Missy and the other bartender, Pat, had to hold her back. She had the bat in her hands and was ready to test her swing using Johnny’s head as the ball, but they had stopped her from going too far. He threatened to shut her down if she didn’t either take him up on his offer or get him the money by the end of the week. She spat in his face and let her bartenders drag her to the back room to cool down. Not that it mattered much. Everyone saw the fight, and she was sure a few people recorded it. Sometimes she hated the age of technology.
“Missy, do you mind closing up for me?” she asked.
“No problem. Are you all right?”
“No, not even close.” She sighed. “But I have to figure out a way to get that money.”
“You know you could always ask me,” Missy insisted, but Anna shook her head. “This is our place, too. I don’t have much, but if it would help, I don’t mind, really.”
“It’s not your job to deal with the financial burden. I’ll be fine, really,” she promised and tossed Missy the keys. “See you tomorrow.”
She walked towards the back stairs, backed up and picked up a bottle of tequila from behind the bar, saluted Missy, and disappeared through the back door that led to the rear stairs leading up to the next floor of four apartments. If she went this way, she had less of a chance of bumping into Johnny. Sadly, his apartment was only down the hall from hers. If she went this way, she could avoid walking by his front door. She twisted the bottle of tequila open on her way up and took a swig, wanting to take the edge off and relax so she could come up with a plan.
At her front door, she dropped her keys. When she bent to pick them up, she spotted the bat from the bar leaning against the wall by her door.
“What are you doing here?” She picked it up, turning it over as if there would be some clue as to how it had migrated upstairs. She tucked it under her arm and proceeded to open her front door again when a yell startled her. “Shit! What the hell is going on?”
Another yell sounded, and she hurried down the hall, following the sounds of a struggle to Johnny’s front door. He cursed loudly and a crash echoed through the door.
Anna lifted her fist and pounded on his door. “Johnny! You all right in there?”
She set the tequila at her feet and tried his front door when he didn’t respond. The door swung inward and silence met her on the other side. No lights were on, and she reached around, searching for the switch. She flipped it, but nothing came on.
“Johnny?” She crept inside one step at a time, gripping the bat tight in her fist as her other hand reached for her phone in her back pocket.
She heard steps behind her, but before she could turn around, something hard whacked her in the back of the head. She fell to her knees and everything went dark.
“Get her up! And get the damn paramedics up here!”
Anna groaned and tried to move, but her head throbbed and her vision swam. “What…what happened?”
“Ma’am, can you hear me?” a gruff voice said in her ear as a pair of hands hoisted her into a sitting position, dragging her arms behind her back. “Ma’am?”
“What? Yeah, I hear you—Why…why are you handcuffing me?” In a panic, she started to struggle, but the cop pinned her to the floor hard and she stilled instantly. “I don’t understand. What did I do?”
“You beat a man with a baseball bat,” the cop informed her.
“What?” She shook her head, trying to clear her muddled thoughts. The cop sat her back upright.
“Can you stand?”
“I didn’t do anything wrong!” she yelled. “I heard a fight and I came here to break it up!”
“Fight with who?” the officer asked. “Come on, let’s get you on your feet.”
Anna stood with the cop’s help. She stared around the apartment. “This isn’t my place.”
“How much have you had to drink tonight?” he asked as he turned her around. Five more cops filled the living room and paramedics blocked her view of someone sitting on the couch.
“A swig of tequila,” she replied, frowning. “Why?”
“I think you had more than that. The bottle is empty and you smell of it.”
Anna breathed in and cursed at the heavy stench of booze on her. She’d only had one swig, she could swear to it, but he was right. What the hell happened? She couldn’t remember much past walking upstairs and hearing a fight.
“Why don’t you tell us what happened?” the cop offered, even though he sounded like he’d alrea
dy made up his mind about Anna and this situation.
Anna rubbed her wrists behind her back. She’d never been arrested before and the cuffs chafed at her skin. “I left the keys with my bartender, Missy, downstairs,” she explained, closing her eyes to get everything right. “I picked up the bottle of tequila from the bar and walked up to my apartment. I live down the hall.”
“And what happened then?”
“I…I heard yells coming from Johnny’s apartment and there was a crash. His door was unlocked, so I came inside to check on him and then…and then…nothing.”
“Ma’am, you and Johnny Tory were the only two people found in this apartment. There is no sign of anyone else being here.”
“I’m telling you I heard a fight!”
“I think you had a bit too much to drink tonight. You took your bat from the bar and you broke down his door to have it out with him.”
Anna wanted to argue, but the paramedics stepped to the side and she froze. Johnny sat on the couch, his face black and blue, his cheek swollen, his eyes blackened. His nose looked broken and his t-shirt was torn. He certainly looked like a man beaten. He glared at her fiercely, spitting blood out on his floor.
“Bitch,” he snapped and lunged to his feet.
“I didn’t do this!” Anna yelled as the cop dragged her away. “I didn’t lay a finger on him! Someone knocked me out, damn it! Let me go!”
The cop, along with one other, managed to remove Anna from the apartment. They took her downstairs and out the front doors. An ambulance and four cop cars lined the sidewalk outside the building.
“Anna?” Missy yelled from the crowd of faces. “Oh, my God! What happened!”
“Nothing! I didn’t do it!” she ranted. “That bastard! He set this up!”
“And how did he beat himself up with a bat?” the cop asked as his partner opened the back door of the squad car.
“I was knocked out! How the hell should I know?” she snapped.
The cop sighed. “He said he knocked you out after he managed to get the bat away from you long enough to do so. He called us before he passed out, too.”
“He’s lying. Please, you don’t understand.”
“We understand you threatened him with that same bat two days ago,” the cop told her firmly. “He showed us the video, said you’d been threatening him off and on for weeks now.”
Anna’s eyes widened in fury. “That’s bullshit! He’s been harassing me!”
“You can talk more with the detectives at the jail. They’re going to take you and get you booked for the night. Bail will be set in the morning,” the cop said and helped her get into the back of the car without hitting her head.
Anna shook her head as the door slammed shut in her face. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be happening. She hadn’t done a damn thing wrong except try to help the asshole attempting to drive her insane. She sunk down low in the back seat and hung her head. Nothing made sense, but she knew she had nothing to do with what happened to Johnny’s face, no matter how much she would have loved to have been the one to beat the shit out of him.
What she did know is she was in deep trouble if she couldn’t find a way to prove she had nothing to do with this. Anna chewed on her bottom lip the entire ride to the station. She had no family to call to bail her out, and she couldn’t ask Missy to put up that kind of money. She could put up the bar if it came down to it, but if she lost the bar, she lost her only connection to her parents.
Anna fought back the angry tears threatening to slip from her eyes. She would not break down and cry. She would not give that bastard the pleasure of seeing her fall apart. Somehow, she would get out of this. All she needed was a damn miracle.
Chapter 2
“Here are those cases you asked for,” Walter said, setting the stack on Harold’s desk.
Harold nodded, though his gaze remained on his computer screen. He had a few more pages to type up before he could turn in for the evening. When he reached the end of the paragraph, he gave his fingers a rest. “Thank you, Walter. Are you headed home for the night?”
“Unless you need me, the wife would probably like to see me before she tucks the kids in for bed.”
Harold picked up the files and set them in the center of his desk. Kids. He wondered if one day, he would be so lucky to go home and tuck kids into bed. Shaking his head to chase away such a distant dream, he flipped open the first case file and frowned.
“Of course, have a good night—but one thing. Why did you bring me these? They’re not my clients and certainly can’t afford me.”
“You don’t remember what time of year it is?” Walter asked with an arched brow and soft smile. “January, sir. You always do the same thing every January to keep up the tradition your father and your grandfather created.”
Harold grunted. “Pro bono cases. Some days I wonder why I bother.”
“Because it reveals your charming side,” Walter reminded him. “Your case load is light at the moment anyway. What harm can it do for you to help some poor soul?”
“Yes, yes. Thank you, Walter. Have a good night.”
Walter left the fancy, high-class office of Harold Jenson III, housed in an older building with several other legal offices in it. The man himself wouldn’t go home to his old stone and brick mansion anytime soon. He shoved the file stack to the side to look through once his current work was finished. He had deadlines to meet, and Harold was always punctual. Such a characteristic was expected of him, as was everything else about his personality and his current status in life. His family was from a long line of lawyers—successful lawyers. Harold had followed in his father’s footsteps and had yet to lose a case. He planned on keeping it that way for the next few decades to come until he could pass the same legacy to his son. The only sound in his office was the ticking of the old clock, reminding him of the time and how much he spent of it in the office he’d inherited from his late father.
When he finished his work, he stared with annoyance at the cases stacked before him. Once a year, Harold picked a case to take on pro bono, and hated it every single time. These people were always so whiny and beneath him. He charmed them as he did all his clients, but at the end of the day, he longed to return to his plush life and those who filled it.
“Knock, knock,” a woman called from the doorway.
Harold swung around in his chair. “Well, speak of the devil and she shall appear.”
“You were talking about me? With whom, I wonder?” Bailey waltzed into his office and settled in the chair across from his desk.
“Myself, as always.”
He had grown up with Bailey, went to private school with her, and graduated law school with her as well. They were better suited as friends, much to their parents’ disappointment. She and their other two friends, Christian and Rodric, made up a tight knit group. Back in their college days, Harold had dubbed them the four musketeers, setting out into the world to right wrongs and fight for justice. Of course, that was not how his life was meant to be. He defended the rich and forgot about his dreams of helping those less fortunate a long time ago. This was his life, and he would remain in it, comfortable and content.
“The boys are waiting if you’re ready to go.”
“Yes, our Friday night meet-up,” he mused, setting the first case file aside. “I’ll be ready in a few moments.”
“What are you looking for? It must be awful if your frown lines are showing,” she teased.
“Pro bono. I need to find a case to take on. You know how it goes.”
“Yes, I do. I don’t worry about mine until summer, though. Warmer weather makes me a little more amicable to taking on a free case,” she mused. “Anything interesting?”
He sighed as he tossed another few aside. “Nothing yet, no.”
“Why not save it for tomorrow morning? I’m dying for a glass of red wine and listening to Christian whine about how horrible his day in court was.”
“I almost forgot. How is his trial going
?” Harold smirked, picturing Christian in front of a courtroom full of people. He was a very easy-going man and could charm a wheelchair from a cripple. Harold had his suave moments but was nothing compared to his friend. He envied him that trait, but out of the four friends, Harold had the winning record.
“So far so good, but it’s an easy one. He’ll get his client off, I’m sure of it,” she said, sounding bored. "Oh, Harold, just pick one and let’s get going.”
He pursed his lips at her and shuffled towards the bottom of the stack. “Five minutes.”
She mocked his words and paced around his office. Harold watched her, admiring the curves of her delectable body as always. He’d experienced a few fun nights with Bailey, but he could not picture himself with her for the long haul. His parents were both lawyers, and their relationship hadn’t been a happy one. Harold flipped open the next folder, ready to dismiss it as he had the others until his eyes caught the name.
“Shit,” he whispered. The grey-eyed woman in the photo stared back at him, and his heart lurched as his gut clenched in anxiety.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, nothing at all,” he said, offering her a smile. “I found my case, is all.” He tucked the folder into his leather briefcase and turned off his desk lamp. “After you, my dear.”
Bailey eyed him suspiciously but sashayed ahead of him out of the office.
Harold walked around his study Saturday morning, sipping his coffee and avoiding the file he’d selected as his pro bono case. He felt it hovering over him as if she were right there in his study, eyeing him with that crooked grin on her lips and those damn grey eyes laughing at him, mocking him as she always had. Calling him Harry until he cringed. He loathed that name, but she hadn’t cared. She called him what she pleased.
Until she left your sorry ass, he reminded himself bitterly, his eyes narrowing on the briefcase. She left you without so much as a goodbye.