True Meaning Of Sacrifice Ch. 04

Date: 11.09.2007

Keywords: 04, True, Sacrifice, Of, Meaning, Ch.,

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She thought frantically about what to do, but couldn't think of any way out of it. She had been firm about deciding to refuse Ryan no matter what, but wasn't prepared for this.

If Michelle refused, they probably would never get the chance to find evidence against Ryan. Mike was out of town, so she couldn't be sure she'd be safe. Alan had done something that could ruin his career to help. As she thought about how much was riding on what happened, Michelle reluctantly agreed to go, hoping once Ryan left the office, she and Stacy could think of something.

"What am I supposed to do?" she asked her friend. "Do we give up everything now? All the things that bastard made me do and he'll just be able to walk away. "

Stacy was about to say something when Alan ran into the office, breathing heavily. "You can't go. It's a trap!"

"What are you talking about?" Michelle asked.

"Sarah warned me that something was wrong, so I went to the office and pulled today's tape. He was making plans with John and Paul. He said they were going to take you to Tony's."

Michelle felt her knees give out as she fell back against her desk. "Why, I haven't done anything wrong?" Even as she said it, she knew the answer. Ryan was a sadistic pig and wanted to take out his frustration over what had been going on. Once she went along with them, it would be too late for her to say no.

"But he wants me to go in an hour, what can I do? Is there anything from the tape that we can use?"

Alan shook his head. "It sounds bad since we know what's going on, but he could just say that you agreed to go. If they find out about the camera now, I'm screwed because there's nothing to warrant what I've done besides your word."

Stacy racked her brain frantically. Mike would kill her if she let Michelle go with them. "I don't care what the consequences are. You can't go. Remember how bad Tony hurt you last time, and that was by himself."

Michelle paced as she tried to come up with some way to get out of this without putting herself in danger or ruining their chance to get Ryan. They were so close. She couldn't give up now. Then it hit her. "Guys, give me a second, I have to make a call."

Jim was in the middle of a sales meeting with a client when his secretary knocked on the door. "Beth, I asked not to be disturbed."

"Yes sir, but it's your daughter. She says it's an emergency."

He excused himself and picked up the phone. After a brief conversation, he became very agitated. "I don't understand," he said. There was a flurry of conversation on the other end, then he said, "Don't worry, I'll be there."

He turned back to the client. "Dave, I'm sorry but I have to leave right now." He turned and hurried from the room, not even giving the man a chance to ask what was wrong.

As he sped along the highway toward Michelle's work, Jim tried making sense of the conversation on the phone. "Dad, you have to help me, right now. There are some men that are going to hurt me unless you can get here before I have to go with them." When he told her he didn't understand, she became painfully specific. "It's the people who caused Mike's accident. They've been making me do things." As she paused, trying to find a way to continue, Jim briefly thought about asking exactly what she meant, but was afraid of the answer. "They threatened to kill him if I didn't do what they told me to."

"I just found out they want me to come with them somewhere and they're planning to hurt me. I can't go to the police and Mike's out of town. If you don't get here before 5:00, I have to go with them. Please help me." He could feel his heart breaking at the sound of his daughter's pain.

"There isn't time to explain," she continued, "But you have to come up with a reason why I have to go with you. If they don't believe it, Mike and I are both in danger."

Jim saw the exit he had to take and realized he only had a few minutes to come up with some kind of excuse for something he couldn't even begin to fathom. Even though he wanted to use the baseball bat he always kept behind his seat, he kept telling himself he had to trust his daughter that this situation was dangerous. He couldn't imagine how something like this could have happened, but tried to clear his head. He looked at his watch and saw that it was already 5:00. She was his little girl, if anything happened to her...

He forced himself to stop thinking like that as he swerved, narrowly avoiding an accident. He swore to himself that whoever was responsible would wish that all he was doing was using a bat on them.

Michelle left the office slowly, trying to think of some way to stall. As she walked out the door, Ryan pulled up in front of her in his Mercedes. She looked in to see John and Paul sitting in the back seat. She took a deep breath and reached for the door handle when she was startled by the screeching of tires. She looked up to see her dad's car slide to a stop just a few feet away from her.

"What the hell?" Ryan yelled as he got out of the front seat.

Jim quickly pulled himself out of his car. "Michelle, thank goodness I caught you, Stacy said you left."

Michelle tried to appear surprised instead of showing the incredible relief she actually felt. "Dad, what's wrong?" she asked. She hadn't had time to explain everything to him, so she could only hope that he understood enough about the situation to come up with an excuse that Ryan would have to accept without suspecting anything.

"It's your Mom," he said, running up to her. "She's at the hospital and they think she's had a heart attack. I just got the call while I was on my way home. When Stacy couldn't find you, I was so worried that you were gone. I had to come find you." He hugged Michelle and took a second to assess the situation. He expected to see mobsters or thugs, but instead saw three well-dressed businessmen in a fancy car. He knew Michelle would never have said the things she did unless she was serious, so he wanted to get her out of there as fast as possible. "We have to go now."

As they turned to walk away, Michelle heard Ryan mutter in frustration. When they got in the car, Jim put it in reverse and pulled quickly away.

During the trip to her house, Michelle checked the rearview mirror constantly, making sure Ryan wasn't following them. She couldn't believe the level of paranoia that she felt. This situation had obviously pushed her past her breaking point. When they got to her house, they went inside where Michelle made them both some tea. Then she did the second hardest thing she could imagine, telling her father everything.

When she finished, he held her as she cried. He wanted to go home and get his gun, but she begged him not to. "Now that Alan is helping, we really believe we can prove I'm innocent and send his ass to jail," she said bitterly.

"You mean you'd be willing to go along with them for a while longer? You can't be that worried about this embezzlement nonsense, Michelle. There's no way for him to frame you for something like that. It wouldn't hold up in court."

"No, I won't let him touch me," she said, avoiding his eyes. "He just caught me by surprise today. They haven't tried anything in weeks, so I thought there was still time to get evidence against him before I had to tell Mike. Forget about the blackmail, if I can't prove my story, Ryan's going to get away with everything. The worst thing he'd have to face is getting fired." Michelle paused, "If I can't prove they were threatening Mike's life, how can I ever face him?"

"Michelle," he scolded softly, "he's your husband. You don't have to go through this to prove something to him."

"Yes I do," she said firmly. "I should have told him the day Ryan made a pass at me. Everything that happened after that is my fault for keeping it from him. Now I'm in so much trouble that I need to at least be able to convince him that I didn't do this for myself. I don't expect him to forgive me, but if I can prove they forced me, maybe he won't hate me afterwards." Her father just shook his head, wondering how any man could deal with what Mike would be hit with.

Later, Jim took her back to work and picked up her car. She followed him back to her parent's house where she spent the rest of the weekend. Sunday, Michelle and both her parents went to her house where they waited for Mike to get back. When he came home in the afternoon, Michelle and Mary worked on lunch for everyone while Mike went downstairs for his workout.

When Jim made his way down the stairs later, he could hear Mike hitting the heavy bag hard. They had anchored it at both ends so he could work his kickboxing practice along with punching. Mike hadn't seriously worked on his martial arts in years, but had used it to rehab from the accident. Once he found out about what happened to Michelle, he had been working at an insane pace that he couldn't hope to sustain. It didn't matter because he knew he had to be ready, for Michelle's sake. Right now he was giving the bag an incredible workout.

"Easy Mike, you're going to break something."

Mike never looked back at him but muttered under his breath, "I don't care."

That comment didn't go unnoticed by his father-in-law. "What's that supposed to mean," he said suspiciously.

Mike paused to catch his breath and leaned his head against the bag. "It means that if you hadn't been there Friday, what would have happened would have been all my fault."

Jim was caught off guard. "How did you find out?"

"Stacy called me while Michelle was calling you. She kept me updated until you picked her up. That son of a bitch did something out of his normal routine and surprised me. I'm sure he was planning something really bad. If you hadn't been there..." He started hitting the bag again, trying to find some way to vent his frustration.
"But tell me, don't you get horny yourself .... Cuddling a male body in the nude must be a turn on for you as well"

"Partho, we are here to solve Paresh's problem .