After the blow out with Lisa, Mahony avoided her as much as he could, and it was difficult, her desk being just one row away. A little bit of luck was on his side, all week, Leland was leaning on Lisa pretty hard on getting the shareholder's presentation done. As Mahony had suspected, Leland was only interested in Lisa cleaning up the presentation. More importantly, to pull all referenced documents mentioned in the presentation together to be shared with the shareholders should they wish to have the detailed information on hand. Getting all the documents ready had kept Lisa busier than she had ever been during her tenure at the company. As much as she liked to complain but being Leland's personal secretary, what Leland asked her to do wasn't outside the scope of her job description. The only reason Lisa was suddenly tasked now with the job was because the Chief Financial Officer's personal secretary was on maternity leave.

Life at the office remained peaceful for Mahony until the conclusion of the shareholder's meeting. Nearly three solid weeks of Lisa free days, since Lisa had extended it by taking a couple of days off to recover from stress right after.

Mahony was dreading the day Lisa returned to the office after her break, thinking that she now has ample time and energy to start her nonsense again. To his surprise, Lisa was quite pleasant and seemed to be back to her usual curated friendly banter. Mahony was relieved, perhaps Brad had gotten through to her after all. And, life was good for Mahony.

The usual morning routine was broken one morning when Lisa didn't show up five to ten minutes after Mahony did. For a brief second Mahony wondered what's up but didn't care enough to find out from others that had rolled into the office at their usual times. It wasn't until after ten that Lisa showed up with an annoyed look on her face.

The girl, from purchasing, that sat next to Lisa asked if she was alright. To which, Lisa answered loud enough for everyone in the room to hear that it was her daughter's first of school, starting first grade, and she had puked all over her. Not only was her daughter late for her first day of school, the outfit Lisa had worn to accompany her daughter with was ruined, of which she had to drop off at the cleaners after the parents could finally leave the school. The last snippet Mahony had caught of the conversation was that Lisa was in the process of looking up boarding schools for consideration. All Mahony could remembered thinking was pity for the child, one bad morning and mommy dearest couldn't get rid of her fast enough.

There was another reason Lisa was in the mood that she was in, interactions with Brad lately had been a tad tepid. Sure, she was busy but that didn't mean she didn't want some quality time for stress relief. Not only did Brad cancelled on her twice and the only time they did get together, Brad was in and out, and gone before she felt anything. Her pent-up stress was far from released and it's driving her crazy. All day, Lisa thought of nothing else but getting in touch with Brad. By the end of the day, she finally got a text back from him saying to meet at the usual place. Something clicked inside of Lisa when she saw the message and felt her entire being settled.

Ten minutes before the clock struck five, Lisa went to the washroom and freshened up, readying herself for a fun night she had craved. She punched out on the dot of five and was in the elevator to the basement to her car, as soon as she reached her car, however, she saw a note slipped between the thin gap to the driver side window and the door. She picked up the note and looked all around to see if anyone was nearby. Other than a group of people getting out of the elevator there weren't anyone else around. She didn't want to unfold the paper knowing what it'll say. Instead, she crunched the paper up and stuffed it in her purse before getting into her car.

It didn't take Lisa long to drive to the department store parking that she usually parked when she had to drive herself to the Paradise Motel. She then made her way out of the parking deck and headed down the street from the department store then across to get to the motel that's just behind the row of high-rises. She went through the side entrance like she usual do and headed to their usual room, knocked and within a couple of seconds Brad opened the door.

"There you're," Brad greeted with a smile. The smile quickly faded after one look at Lisa's face. "What's the matter?"

"This." She fished in her purse and took up the crumbled wad of paper and shoved it in Brad's hand.

Brad took the paper and uncrumpled it, revealing the message ... time's up, retribution is mine ... "Another one?" He asked.

"It was stuck to my driver's side window this time," Lisa said through gritted teeth, looking murderous. "I'm going to get that fucker. He's messed with the wrong person."

"Lisa, honey, you need to calm down," Brad soothed.

"If you tell me to calm down one more time ..." Lisa threatened.

"Who do you think is doing this?" Brad knew the answer that Lisa would give but he asked regardless.

Lisa glared at Brad. "Really?!" She stomped towards the bed and dropped down on the mattress; arms crossed. "Fucking Mahony. Playing these sick mind games. He knew I've been stressed, what with the shareholder's presentation, my daughter's first day of school, losing my pendant ... he knew when to push my buttons." She looked up at Brad, "Every time there's a stress point in my life these notes showed up. Don't you see," she stood up and paced towards the window, "he's deliberately pushing, twisting the screw."

"Slow down," Brad grabbed Lisa's arm, "you're not making any sense."

"I'm making perfect sense." Lisa shook off Brad's hand. "He's just twisting and waiting, watching me squirm until he goes in for the kill."

"Listen to yourself," Brad said.

"Don't you get it?" Lisa whirled around to face Brad. "Soon, he's going to make his demands—time's up, that's what the note said. If he thinks I'm going to just sit here and give in to his demands, he's got another thing coming." She shook her head. "That ship had sailed a long time ago. It's my turn to twist the screw on him." She snorted. "Only difference is, I'm not going to be so subtle."

"Whatever you're thinking, you should abandon it," Brad said. "I'm sure this," he held up the crumpled note, "can be resolved somehow."

"It's too little too late now," Lisa said, very calmly.

"Let it go," Brad said. "You don't even know if it's Mahony that's been doing this."

Lisa gave Brad a sardonic smirk. "It's obvious you aren't going to do anything about it. That's it then?" She grabbed her purse and left the room without a backward glance.

"Whatever you have planned I really hope you know what you're doing," Brad said to the closing door.

The words passive aggressiveness couldn't even begin to covey what Lisa went around doing since receiving the latest note she found on her car door. Every petty trick she could pull she pulled and then some to get back at Mahony. She was particularly proud of organizing the sudden silent stares of her regular office gossip buddies whenever Mahony walked by. The group had timed it to perfection, they'd immediately stop talking when Mahony walked into the breakroom and stared at him until he left the room. Lisa could tell that it unnerved Mahony, much to her satisfaction. As days stretched to weeks, Lisa found herself spending every available minute thinking of ways to torment Mahony around the office and was fueled by each successful jab she'd delivered.

Lifewas grand for Lisa when she had successfully turned the office against Mahony,she never felt more invigorated and powerful. As she continued to deliver herbrand of justice, she grew increasingly dissatisfied with each jab shedelivered. Mahony wasn't behaving as he should, come crawling, conceding, andapologizing to her. It made her angry that he had yet to admit that he wasresponsible for the notes. Forcing Mahony to admit that he had wronged herbecame an obsession to Lisa. Finally, she could no longer continue with thepassive aggressiveness methods she'd been employing. She decided to call himout on it.