REMISSION

STRIKE 1

"It took you long enough," a familiar voice came from the bathroom. Annie's shaking body now became stiff as a board. She wanted to run away but her body froze into position. "Wow, the mighty, cold Annie is scared. I didn't know I was that much scary," Richard said as he approached her with his arms open for a hug. "You, you are the client? Does Mr Ugly know its you? How did you even...we were supposed to have lunch...," she kept going but Richard put his palm over her mouth. "Ssssshhhh, this was all a part of my plan. Relax, Mr Ugly has no idea that I am the client and I am not ready to let him know that I know about his nasty plan for you," Richard said as he showed Annie to sit on the bed. He had a very weird smile on his face, the kind of smile that explained that he had a nasty, probably dangerous plan in his mind and Annie didn't like it. "You know what Mr Ugly is capable of Richard. Just a few minutes he assured me he was going to kill you if you found out what he has planned for me. I know you are new to this but I didn't know you are stupid Richard. Please, you already tried to help, hell you even raised my hopes up and look where that got us...you don't belong in the shadows and you are walking down a very dangerous path. Please turn back. How did you even know this would happen? " she tried to reason with him but by now she knew all too well he wasn't the kind of person who turned back once he had started on anything. "Entitled brat," she thought to herself as she watched him smile for the second time.

"First of all, relax. I assure you I have a plan that will get you off this mess for good. I promised you freedom.and I won't stop until you have it," he said as he handed a glass of whiskey to her. "About how I knew this would happen, well I didn't know really, I was just confirming my doubts," Richard explained but Annie wasn't satisfied with the explanation. "How did you come about the doubts in the first place? Are you spying on Mr Ugly? if you are, I would suggest you stop," she was just looking for a way to get him to explain further. Obviously, no one could spy on that short Ugly bastard without his knowledge. He was well connected and he seemed to know everything about everything and everyone.

"It all started last week when I first got into his office, he had a gun on his table and I had a bad feeling about it. I also could tell it was loaded but he told me it wasn't as he put it away after looking at the bag of money I had brought with me. He also mentioned that he had had second thoughts about letting you go but he then seemed to have a better idea so he let you go anyway. At first, I thought he just had a change of heart but then on the way back you told me what he had told you about money and my life. That's when I knew something wasn't right. Two days ago, I called him and told him I wanted one of his finniest girls and he assured me he was going to sell me the best. I tried to persuade him to at least send a picture of the so called best but he said it was against his rules. I had to go out of my schedule to plan the meeting place and stay anonymous which explains why I invited you to lunch. I wasn't sure he would send you but now I am. Now I know he has the worst plan for me and I want to know what it is. That's why you are here," Richard explained and he could tell that Annie was impressed by his brilliant thought.

"Well, now you know all that. What is your plan?" she asked. " Well, we will lay low, learn everything about Mr Ugly, then we will use it against him. He doesn't know that I already know about his plan to keep you. We will keep it that way. You will do what he tells you, pretend to like him and get closer to him and keep him distracted...," Richard went on to explain and while he was busy laying out his plan, Tiny and Mr Ugly were just outside working on their own brilliant plan. "You are sure it is the boy with her inside there?" Mr Ugly asked and Tiny nodded in agreement. "Let's just let them be and call that Strike one. We have him just where we want him," he added and the two left.