TRACY
After a terribly long day, Tracy climbed into her bed. She relaxed against the cool sheets and closed her eyes, but thoughts of Francis invaded her peace. After their tryst in the ladies’ room, Tracy had been avoiding him like bill collectors. Partly because she was embarrassed because she’d had sex with him in a public toilet, but it definitely wasn't her only reason.
Tracy’s hand instinctively moved to her belly. She couldn't believe that she’d gotten pregnant from one indiscretion. Of course, she knew that it was possible, but was it probable? Hell, she knew that she should have insisted that he used protection, but once he started playing with her sexually deprived pussy, common sense went out the window.
Tracy wanted to keep the pregnancy a secret and have a discreet abortion, but she couldn't go through with it. It was just nerves. It had to be. Tracy didn't really want to have kids.
Did she?
To make the situation worse, her ‘baby-daddy’ lived in Sicily. She would be a single mother, and being a single mother was not part of her life plan. The plan was to build her career and marry Steve. Only then would she have a child. Nothing in her plan included Steve dying and her getting knocked up by a sexy, but pushy as fuck Sicilian that lived a million miles away. But like most things, shit didn't work out the way it was supposed to.
Tracy rolled onto her side and hugged her pillow. She was exhausted all the time. Even though she hadn't experienced morning sickness the way that other women described it, her hormones were totally out of whack. Just getting up going to work every day was a chore. Even Tracy’s colleagues could tell that she wasn't herself. They were constantly asking her if she was ill or overworked. Well, everyone except for Will. He hadn't spoken to her in months, since the day after Natasha’s party. Tracy later found out that he didn't stand her up that night nor did he have an emergency to deal with. He had been threatened. According to Will, a couple of Luca’s goons threatened to break bones if he approached her door.
When Tracy confronted Francis about Will’s accusation, he responded with, “He lies. There were no…uh…goons. It was only me. He let a mere man run him away from you. He’s a pussy. What do you want with a pussy?”
Francis could be pretty harsh at times, not very often, but he had it in him.
Will must have been seriously spooked. He probably would have continued to avoid her had she not summoned him to her office. She practically begged him to tell her why he was so angry at her. As far as Tracy was concerned, he should have been mad at himself. Did he really think that Francis was going to hurt him? Jack, Maybe. Gianni, certainly. Luca, a guarantee. But Francis, no. He was the reasonable one. That’s why everyone listened when he spoke. Running away and ditching her was, as Francis said, a pussy move. Will was soft. Which was probably the reason she hadn’t been sexually attracted to him in the first place.
Honestly, Tracy didn't feel a great loss from Will not speaking to her, but working with him was becoming difficult. Will had resorted to pouting, mumbling under his breath, and rolling his eyes. A grown ass man was actually rolling his eyes at her. And since he was avoiding her, Tracy was reduced to communicating solely through their assistants. Because of that, things often got lost in translation.
Will Thompson turned out to be a man with bitch-like tendencies and Tracy nearly told him so earlier that day. It was during a meeting with execs from Whole Foods. Tracy was pitching her marketing strategy to Walter Mackey, the company’s co-CEO. She attempted to hand the meeting off to Will, who was the head of their financial and accounting division and responsible for running the numbers, making sure that the financials added up. But when she turned to Will, all she got was a childish smirk. He claimed that there had been a miscommunication on the part of their assistants. He went on to say that he was given the wrong campaign to assess. Tracy looked over at her PA, Kim. Kim shook her head and mouthed the words, “bullshit.”
Tracy was forced to improvise, basically pulling shit out of the air in order to survive the rest of the meeting. Luckily, Mackey agreed to another meeting at the Whole Food’s headquarters in Kentucky.
After the meeting, Will fled the conference room before Tracy could address his unprofessional behavior. She’d even gone to his office to confront him, but he had already left the building. It was probably a good thing that she had missed him because as angry as she had been, she would have surely made a scene. She tried calling him after leaving work, but her calls went unanswered. Will had gotten on her last nerve. Tracy closed her eyes and decided to deal with work issues when she was at work.
Tracy jumped at the sound of someone banging on her door. Through blurred vision, she looked over at her clock. It was one AM. She had dozed off.
“Who in the hell?” Tracy grumbled when the banging continued.
Still disoriented, she jumped out of bed and hit her knee on the bed’s poster. After grumbling expletives, she grabbed her robe from behind her bedroom door. She stumbled into the hall, rubbing the wall in search of the light switch. She turned on the light and slipped into her robe. She was thinking that someone had better be either dead or dying for them to have a good enough reason for banging on her door at one in the morning.
Tracy stood in front of the door and screamed, “Who is it?!”
“It’s Will! Open the door!”
Will?
Tracy unlocked the door and snatched it open. “What the fuck are you doing at my house at one o'clock in the morning?!”
“Why not hang out late? I got nowhere to be in the morning,” he slurred.
Tracy tightened the sash on her robe. “Will, what are you talking about? Are you drunk?”
“Yeah, bitch, I’m drunk. And don't try to act like you don't know what the fuck I’m talking about. You put that motherfucker, Mackey, up to reporting me to Leeman. I got fired because of you!”
Tracy was shocked by Will’s accusation. She hadn't said a word to anyone about the bullshit that Will had pulled. She would never have ratted him out, but she certainly wasn't going to try to explain that to him in his condition. She decided to simply end the conversation.
“It wasn't me,” she told him as she attempted to close the door.
Will shoved the door with enough force to push Tracy backward. Before Tracy could recover, she was punched in the face. Her vision blurred as she fell to the floor. Tracy had never been punched before, and the pain was enough to make her fold.
She immediately thought of Victoria fighting for her life in a filthy fighting pit. Her best friend had endured so much worse. She’d even lost a child as a result. Tracy then thought of the baby that she was carrying. So when Will approached to inflict more punishment for something that she hadn't done, Tracy kicked him as hard as she could between his legs. Unfortunately, she missed her mark and connected with his thigh. Thankfully, it was enough to slow him down, giving Tracy time to scramble to her feet and run toward her bedroom. Her plan was to lock herself inside and grab the small 380 that Jack insisted she have.
Tracy was no Victoria. She wasn't a skilled fighter nor was she a sharpshooter like Natasha. She needed to barricade herself in her bedroom and call the police. Sadly, she didn't make it to her room before she was yanked by her hair and pulled back.
“You're a fucking tease. A grade A cunt,” he hissed into her ear. “I bet that fiancé of yours didn't get murdered. He probably put a bullet in his own head just to get away from you.”
