Fingers whisking over the keys on her laptop, Alyssa pumped out an email to follow-up on the surge of correspondence for Out of Focus. Since the re-launch, their numbers had shot beyond the stratosphere, kicking up another whirlwind of media and publicity that left Alyssa with long days of buzzing energy and little room to breathe. At this rate, she'd have to seriously talk to Eva about not only hiring in a Social Media coordinator, but an accomplished and efficient assistant to back up the role.

And with her mind on the thought, she plucked through her contacts and fired out a request for a head hunting agency to send over a couple more resumes to add to the dossier she was composing for Jenelle and Eva tomorrow afternoon. So far she had six strong potentials and figured she should get as many for an assistant. The three of them could whittle down those numbers to the strongest two and move on from there.

Odds were she would be long gone before the hiring took place, but that wasn't an issue. She'd been diligent in composing a carefully mapped out cheat sheet, covering everything she'd handled or put into place during the last two and a half months.

And the thought brought her to a paused. Two and a half months. It was amazing how the passing of time had both stretched and snapped all at once. How it could move so slow yet pass in a blink. Startling, really.

The chirp of her cell phone brought her back and she glanced at the screen a second longer than necessary if only to make sure she wasn't imagining things. Swiping her thumb across to accept, she brought the phone to ear.

"Marissa?"

"Good morning Ms. Sloane," Marissa, the receptionist for Schulman & Co, said in her professional tone of voice. "I'm calling to confirm your availability for today's conference call?"

"Call?"

"Yes, I'd emailed the invite to your corporate email yesterday afternoon but haven't heard a response."

"I didn't see anything," she apologized, though why the hell would she bother to check emails for an account she had no reason to use anymore? Opening up a brower, Alyssa signed into the old email server, quickly logged in—and was surprised to find her old user credentials were still valid.

Skimming down the inbox, her cursor—and her breath—stopped at the sight of a familiar name. Gerald Moser. A calendar request sent yesterday with conference call details for this morning. In precisely ten minutes.

No message or explanation other than the brief email from Marissa stating, 'Sent on behalf of the President and Chairman of the Board of Directors. Please confirm your availability.'

Holy shit.

"Ms. Sloane?" Marissa's voice sighed while Alyssa sat in stunned, gaping silence. "Can I confirm with Mr. Moser?"

"Yes," Alyssa stammered and muttered a soft curse. There was no time to change, brush her teeth—hell, even run a comb through her hair. And she was about to have a sit down—in a Skype conference call—with the man who sat at the tippy top of the Schulman & Co ladder.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

"Great," Marissa said and Alyssa could hear both the smile and relief in her tone. "I'll let him know you're dialling in shortly. Thanks!"

"Shit," Alyssa muttered after Marissa hung up, bobbing in and out of her seat like a loon breaking the surface of a pond. Torn between making a mad dash for her room or sitting put. Maybe if she tugged on blouse, gave her hair a quick toss she could make herself semi-presentable and—The Skype icon her laptop chimed and the window sprung open with an incoming video call. Alyssa slumped heavily into her seat, groaned. "Shit."

Resigned to her fate, she clicked on the answer icon, activating the call. The light on her laptop camera blinked to life, a small blue pinprick next to the lens as the face of Gerald Moser came into focus. She recognized the tasteful

Gerald Moser had always been an elegant figure of a man, with a slim build and stately features. Hair ghost white and cheeks reddened with age. He wore a tailored navy blazer over a collared white shirt and black tie. Though he was visible only from the waist up, ever the creature of habit, she could clearly imagine his slacks were ruthlessly pressed as always over argyle socks and expensive loafers.

"Alyssa." Gerald perked up in his seat, smoothed a withered hand down his tie. "Wonderful, Marissa wasn't certain she'd manage to get a hold of you in time."

"Just in the nick." Alyssa smiled. "I have to admit I am more than a little surprised. What can I do for you?"

His expression flickered from jovial to pained. "I'm going to get straight to the matter, Alyssa, and I'm sure you've heard about the difficulty we've had over the last couple of weeks."

She hadn't, but wasn't about to let on otherwise and couldn't pretend that hearing the news didn't elicit a giddy little lick of joy in her broken heart.

"Certain accounts were not happy with your unfortunate departure, which I'm afraid has cost the company more than a couple of our more prestigious clients."

Alyssa sedately folded trembling hands on her knees; otherwise she was liable to punch them in the air. "That's terrible. I'm so sorry to hear."

"Yes. Yes," he sighed worried watch, fiddled with his tie. God, she'd never seen him so unsettled or nervous. "I think we grossly overestimated Mr. Chan's capabilities. Needless to say, certain findings in the auditor review have led us to believe he was...padding your accounts with falsified information. A ruse to oust you and one that unfortunately succeeded. It's all rather disconcerting and unseemly."

Channelling years of Yoga-zen into her face, Alyssa nodded, features set in a carefully composed mask of concern. All while her mind was jubilant with glee. "Yes, very disconcerting. But I'm glad the matter has been resolved."

"Well, not quite." Gerald cleared his throat, leaned a little closer towards the screen. Hands clasped and set on the edge of his desk. "I see now that we, the Board, were pre-emptive in how we handled this...issue. We failed to take into consideration your years of loyalty and perseverance to this company. I can only imagine how upsetting it must have been to be nudged out of the nest through no fault of your own, as we now know."

"Anyone would have been upset," she said with a hint of temper, but softened the jagged edges as best she could with a smile.

"Quite," Gerald nodded, "That's why it is with my sincerest pleasure that, on behalf of the Board and senior management of this firm, I speak for all of us when I say we would very much like to see you come back, Alyssa, as our Senior VP of Communications and with a sizeable increase in salary. Twenty-five percent."

"I see." Alyssa hooked her feet around the legs of her chair to keep from leaping up and into a spastic happy dance. "I don't know what to say."

"Oh, say nothing at the moment," Gerald said with a flounce of his hand. "We'd love to have you, at your convenience mind you. Would hate to interrupt the important work you're doing at that wonderful little gallery. How's next week? The other directors will be in town for our Fiscal fourth quarter. Marissa will see to your flight and travel details provided nothing has changed on that front?"

Alyssa exhaled slowly. "No, nothing's changed."

"Good. Excellent. So I shall have Marissa email you to coordinate and we will discuss matters further in person Tuesday of next week."

"Okay. Yes. Thank you Mr. Moser."

The window pinged shut as Gerald ended the call and Alyssa slumped back with a gasp. What the heck had just happened? Gerald Moser had called her personally to not only apologize, but offer her a senior VP ship with Schulman & Co. No—a senior VP ship, with a sizeable increase in salary that boarded on obscene. She'd make a hell of a lot more now than she would have had Justin not stabbed her in the back.

That bastard! She'd known he was ambitious, and hadn't ever grown to like him, but to throw her under the bus? Alyssa had seen many an ambitious career climber, but hadn't thought anyone could be so duplicitous. Well, that was done and dusted. He'd burned his own bridge and could kiss his reputation goodbye. No one would touch him after something like this.

So when her stomach roiled with a pitch and squeeze, she brushed it off as her body begging for breakfast instead of anything else like emotions. Or regret.

And, she thought as she ventured from the table to the kitchen in search of fixings for a quick breakfast, what reason would she have to feel regret? The doors to the boys club had been thrown wide open and she'd been given the keys to their coveted kingdom. She'd only dreamt of this moment for three years.

Unable to contain herself much longer, Alyssa tossed up her hands and gave a giddy, shriek that sent Cleo scampering for cover. She danced, she whooped, she spun circles until she was so lightheaded she couldn't see straight. If she didn't tell someone she was going to burst. Dazed, breathless, Alyssa stumbled from the kitchen in search of her phone.

Snagging it with trembling fingers, giggles spilled out of her like bubbles from a wand as she scrolled through her contacts.

Ethan. Her fingers stilled, her eyes pinned to his name as all of her excitement evaporated and suddenly she couldn't muster up the words.

This was only a touching base call, nothing had been written in stone. Telling Ethan now would only create waves she didn't need to make. There was no rush and, more importantly, no need. He knew this thing between them was only temporary. That she'd be leaving Haven in a less than two weeks. So what would it matter if she sat on the details a little while longer?

Later. The single word spun in her head, over and over on loop. I'll tell him later.

And like any coward,Alyssa set aside her phone. 

#

Randy arched his back, the muscles tight and strained from a long ass haul on a shit box bus. The chains draped from his cuffs rattled with each teeth rattling bump in the road. Around him the stale air stank of sweat or worse, whenever one of the twelve fuckers shipping out with him decided to let one rip. The swelling in his right eye dulled to a tolerable throb. Lobo had taken longer then he'd promised and that had left Randy in a fucking awkward position of watching his own back during the day as well as at night.

He thought about those long, grueling hours in the dark, listening to the harsh, rattling breaths of his bunkmate, waiting for a change in rhythm to indicate he was faking it or about to make a move.

Six exhaustive months behind bars. He knew Patron liked to make a man suffer, make him wait, but even that was pushing it. He was on borrowed time and the transport hadn't come a minute too late. Everyone thought he was stupid, Randy thought with a sneer. His asshole of a dad, slew of shit-eating teachers who'd said he'd never be much of anything. Even his fucking useless public defender back when he'd been busted at sixteen for boosting cars.

They all thought he was a fucking joke. But on the inside Randy had learned how to read people. How to see through the bullshit and how to play the game. Working his way up on the inside, riding those connections on the outside. He'd become somebody. Somebody people respected, when they saw he wasn't some skinny little kid they could push around anymore. No, no one pushed him around ever.

Until that bitch went and fucked it all up. Though he ached to scream his fury, Randy bit down on the inside of his cheek, kept his features calm and controlled. Not so much as a flicker showed, otherwise the guard side-eying him would whip out his Taser and take him down.

And he couldn't be put down. Not when he was so close.

Here the trees were thick along the side of the road and they hadn't passed a car since veering off the main interstate highway at least a couple miles back. While back in Salt Lake, Randy had made sure to keep his head down and worked his way in with the guards. Most wanted a crisp twenty for the trouble, but others just wanted to see you eat shit with a grin. So he did. Saying and doing whatever he had to with the guards and the shrinks and even the fucking warden, whatever—so long as it got him one step closer.

Months of planning, of lying awake in the dark at night and imaging his hands around her throat, was about to come to a head. Annelise. He'd slipped up with her, made the mistake of thinking she knew her place—understood the kind of man he was and the role he expected her to play. He'd grown up with two things his father drummed into his head as a kid, a man was to be feared by his woman. Respected. And now here he was, riding in the back of a fucking bus on his way to another maximum facility, all because she'd fucked him—again.

Well, this time he'd deal with her personally. Teach her a lesson—starting with those fucking whiny brats.

"Eh." A boot caught Randy in the side of his leg and he snarled. "I'm watching you, Kincaid."

Randy jerked his gaze to the guard, a bald black man with large eyes and crooked teeth. The guard's name was Diggs. One of the few who'd made the trip from Utah State Prison that Randy didn't know or hadn't worked a way in with. Not that it would have mattered. Guy was so clean he almost smelled like baby powder.

And imagined the immense satisfaction of stomping on his face until his skull split in half. With that thought calming him down, dropping his gaze, slouching his shoulders.

"Sorry," Randy said. His size always made him one to watch with the guards. Not like those tiny little fuckers up at the front—the weasels as Randy liked to call 'em, who could slither under their noses unseen until they stuck a shank in your kidney.

The bus bobbed and rattled over the rough roads, and he willed the tension to seep out of his body. To fade into the black recesses of his soul. Soon he'd be free of his place. Soon he'd have his justice and he'd see to it that Annelise paid with everything she had for every second he'd spent behind bars.

It was that thought, as the driver shouted—jerking hard on the wheel—that carried him through the chaos of spraying glass, tumbling metal, the heat of flames. And into the dark.