Can You Come Get Me” The Beaten Black Maid Calls Korean Mafia Boss—He Arrives in 17 Minutes

[00:00:00]Blood tastes like loose change and regret.

[00:00:04]When the burner phone rang, the city's most dangerous man didn't expect the voice on the other end to be hers.

[00:00:11]Ragged, breathless, and asking for a ride.

[00:00:15]He had 17 minutes to tear the city apart.

[00:00:19]He did it in 15. The hexagonal tiles of the butler's pantry were freezing.

[00:00:25]Naomi rested her cheek against the white porcelain, letting the biting chill numb the throbbing in her jaw.

[00:00:32]From this angle, the world was reduced to grout lines that smelled faintly of lemon bleach and stale mop water. She didn't cry. Crying was a luxury reserved for people who had someone to wipe their tears.

[00:00:47]Naomi only had the throbbing rhythm of her own pulse echoing in her ears.

[00:00:52]A heavy, wet sound that synced perfectly with the sharp ache radiating from her lower ribs. She was 32, perpetually exhausted, and fundamentally unimpressed by the world.

[00:01:07]For 3 years, she had worked at the Kelley estate. A sprawling architectural mausoleum of dark mahogany and inherited arrogance.

[00:01:17]She survived by mastering the specific protective geometry of taking up as little space as possible.

[00:01:24]She was a black woman in a house built by old white money.

[00:01:28]Invisibility wasn't just a professional courtesy, it was a survival tactic.

[00:01:34]But tonight, the geometry had failed.

[00:01:38]Richard Kelley was not a creative man when it came to violence.

[00:01:41]He was a creature of sloppy habits and unchecked entitlement. Prone to uncoordinated outbursts when his authority felt even slightly challenged.

[00:01:52]The catalyst had been entirely mundane.

[00:01:55]A tray of crystal champagne flutes, a frayed edge of an expensive Persian rug, and a momentary lapse in Naomi's usually flawless balance.

[00:02:06]The glass had shattered across the dining room floor just as Kelly was losing a high-stakes hand of poker. He hadn't yelled. Yelling was for people who felt they needed to assert their presence.

[00:02:18]Kelly already knew he owned the room, the house, and everyone breathing inside it.

[00:02:25]He had simply stood up, grabbed Naomi by the collar of her starched black uniform, and dragged her down the hall.

[00:02:32]She remembered the smell of gin on his breath.

[00:02:35]Botanical, sharp, and medicinal.

[00:02:38]Mixed with the suffocating scent of expensive cigar smoke. The beating hadn't been dramatic or cinematic.

[00:02:46]It was quiet, pathetic, and brutally physical.

[00:02:50]He shoved her into the pantry, the metal shelving catching her shoulder.

[00:02:55]When she stumbled, his closed fist had found her face.

[00:02:59]A heavy gold signet ring had torn the skin just beneath her left eye.

[00:03:05]The kick to her ribs came after she had fallen to the floor.

[00:03:08]A clumsy swinging blow driven by the heavy toe of a cordovan leather loafer.

[00:03:15]It cracked something deep inside her chest, stealing the air from her lungs.

[00:03:20]Then he had walked out, locked the heavy oak door from the outside, and returned to his cards.

[00:03:28]Naomi coughed, her chest seizing violently.

[00:03:32]She spat a dark glob onto the pristine tiles.

[00:03:36]It looked black in the dim flickering light of the fluorescent overhead tube.

[00:03:41]Her fingers, trembling and numb, fumbled in the deep front pocket of her apron.

[00:03:47]She bypassed the crumbled receipts and the spare the keys. Her fingers closing around a heavy, outdated block of plastic.

[00:03:56]It was an old Nokia burner phone.

[00:03:59]It didn't belong in a house like this.

[00:04:02]It was ugly, brutally functional, and completely untraceable.

[00:04:07]Abby Cole had left it on the kitchen counter 3 weeks ago. Abby Cole.

[00:04:13]A name that sounded like old English money, but belonged to a man born in Seoul, adopted by nobody who mattered, and forged in the brutal underbelly of the city's shipping docks.

[00:04:24]He now ran the Eastern Syndicate with a quiet, terrifying efficiency.

[00:04:29]He came to the Kelly estate twice a month to collect the off-the-books percentages that old money frequently owed to new power. Naomi usually served him his scotch, neat, two fingers.

[00:04:42]She never made eye contact. He never said, "Thank you."

[00:04:47]They existed in the same room like two parallel lines of silence. But one night last month, Abby had walked through the back kitchen door instead of the front.

[00:04:58]His knuckles were split open, dripping thick, dark blood onto the pristine marble countertops.

[00:05:04]Any other maid would have screamed, or dropped a glass, or called for security.

[00:05:10]Naomi had simply paused her scrubbing, turned around, and handed him a clean, damp dish towel.

[00:05:18]She hadn't asked questions. She had just turned her back and continued washing plates. The next morning, the burner phone was sitting by the sink.

[00:05:28]Attached to the back was a small piece of masking tape.

[00:05:32]Press one.

[00:05:34]Now lying on the freezing tiles, Naomi stared at the illuminated green screen.

[00:05:41]Cynicism was her armor, and calling a mafia boss to save her from a domestic beating felt like the punchline to a terrible, naive joke.

[00:05:51]Men like Abby Cole didn't rescue maids.

[00:05:55]They dealt in leverage, extortion, and bodies buried in concrete.

[00:06:00]She had nothing to offer him. Her thumb hovered over the heavy plastic keypad.

[00:06:05]Another sharp, agonizing pain radiated from her ribs as she tried to shift her weight.

[00:06:12]The cold was seeping into her bones.

[00:06:15]She held down the one.

[00:06:18]The line hissed. It rang twice.

[00:06:21]The sound of a heavy car door slamming shut echoed through the receiver, followed by the deep, vibrating hum of an engine.

[00:06:31]Speak.

[00:06:33]His voice was low, devoid of inflection, a flat line of sound. Naomi opened her mouth, but her bruised throat seized.

[00:06:42]A pathetic, wet gasp escaped her torn lips instead.

[00:06:47]She squeezed her eyes shut, hating herself for the weakness, hating the copper taste of blood in her mouth.

[00:06:54]Naomi.

[00:06:56]He didn't ask who it was.

[00:06:58]He knew.

[00:07:00]The tone of his voice shifted imperceptibly, the flat coldness hardening into something dense, sharp, and entirely awake.

[00:07:09]Who? Kelly, she whispered.

[00:07:13]The word felt like sandpaper scraping against her vocal cords.

[00:07:18]She gripped the phone tighter, her knuckles turning ash white.

[00:07:22]Can you can you come get me?

[00:07:25]Silence stretched across the line. It wasn't an empty silence. She could hear the faint, rhythmic thwack of windshield wipers, the distant hum of the city.

[00:07:36]Then, the distinct metallic clack of a magazine sliding into a handgrip. "17 minutes," Abby said.

[00:07:44]The words were perfectly measured.

[00:07:47]"Keep breathing until then."

[00:07:49]The line went dead.

[00:07:52]Abby Cole hated the rain. It smelled like wet iron and made the city streets slick with oil, garbage, and incompetence.

[00:08:02]He sat in the back of the armored black sedan, staring at the muted green screen of the phone resting in his leather-gloved hand. He didn't harbor any romantic delusions about the woman who had just called him.

[00:08:15]He didn't write poetry in his head about the stoic curve of Naomi's shoulders or the quiet, heavy dignity in her dark eyes.

[00:08:24]He was a violent man who lived a violent life.

[00:08:29]But what he felt toward her was a gravitational pull, an acute irritation that a woman who moved through the world with such careful, invisible precision was trapped in a house run by a sloppy, arrogant pig like Richard Kelly. She was a ghost in that house.

[00:08:47]Abby respected ghosts. They survived.

[00:08:51]Kelly was a liability who left messes, and Abby despised messes.

[00:08:57]"Turn the car around," Abby said, his voice barely rising above the hum of the tires.

[00:09:03]His driver, a broad-shouldered man named Thomas, glanced in the rearview mirror, his brow furrowing.

[00:09:11]"We have the sit-down at the docks in 20, boss. The Russians are already "Turn the [ __ ] car around, Thomas. Kelly estate."

[00:09:20]Abby didn't yell, but the temperature in the vehicle seemed to drop 10°.

[00:09:25]"You have 15 minutes. If we hit 16, I'm taking it out of your salary."

[00:09:31]The sedan violently jerked across two lanes of traffic, the The tires screaming against the wet asphalt as Thomas ripped the steering wheel to the left.

[00:09:42]Abby didn't brace himself against the momentum.

[00:09:45]He sat perfectly still, methodically unbuttoning his charcoal wool overcoat.

[00:09:50]He checked the chamber of his SIG Sauer.

[00:09:53]He wasn't acting out of chivalry or a sudden burst of heroic adrenaline.

[00:09:58]He was acting out of a sudden, suffocating intolerance for Richard Kelly's continued existence. Back in the pantry, time did not pass. It decomposed.

[00:10:10]Naomi counted the hexagonal tiles.

[00:10:13]142 visible from where her face rested against the floor.

[00:10:19]The cold was no longer just on her skin.

[00:10:22]It was seeping into her muscles, making her limbs seize and tremble involuntarily.

[00:10:29]Above her, muffled by the thick drywall, the sounds of the poker game droned on.

[00:10:35]Ice clinking in heavy crystal glasses, deep, booming, oblivious laughter.

[00:10:42]5 minutes. Her breathing had grown shallow and ragged. Every intake of air felt like a rusted nail driving into her sternum.

[00:10:51]She closed her eyes and let her natural cynicism wash over her.

[00:10:55]A dark, familiar blanket.

[00:10:59]He's not coming.

[00:11:00]Why would he?

[00:11:02]She was just a uniform, a shadow holding a silver tray.

[00:11:07]Men like Abby Cole didn't derail their empires for collateral damage.

[00:11:11]10 minutes. The smell of the mop water was making her nauseous.

[00:11:17]She tried to push herself up onto her elbows, but her left arm buckled.

[00:11:22]She collapsed back onto the floor, biting her tongue to keep from screaming.

[00:11:27]The metallic taste of fresh blood flooded her mouth.

[00:11:31]She swallowed it down.

[00:11:33]14 minutes.

[00:11:36]The faint rhythmic thumping of jazz music filtering in from the dining room abruptly cut off. Naomi's heavy eyelids fluttered open.

[00:11:45]She stopped breathing, pressing her ear flat against the freezing porcelain.

[00:11:51]The booming laughter upstairs had stopped.

[00:11:54]Footsteps. Not the uncoordinated shuffle of a drunk man, but heavy deliberate strikes against the hardwood floor.

[00:12:02]They moved with terrifying predatory efficiency. A voice yelled.

[00:12:08]It sounded like Kelly's personal bodyguard, a massive ex-cop named Davis.

[00:12:14]The yell was loud, authoritative, and then it was abruptly swallowed by a sickening wet crunch.

[00:12:22]The sound was followed by the heavy dead weight thud of a body hitting the floorboards.

[00:12:28]There were no gunshots, no dramatic movie dialogue, just the intimate brutal muffled sounds of close-quarters violence. Naomi held her breath, her heart hammering against her bruised ribs.

[00:12:42]The silence that followed the thud was heavier, more oppressive than the noise.

[00:12:48]The brass lock on the pantry door didn't click open.

[00:12:51]It shattered inward as a heavy boot kicked the solid oak dead center, ripping the hinges out of the door frame.

[00:12:59]The door slammed violently against the metal shelving inside, sending a cascade of heavy canned goods clattering and rolling across the tiles.

[00:13:09]Abby stood in the doorway. He didn't look like a savior in a storybook.

[00:13:14]He looked like a storm contained within a bespoke suit.

[00:13:18]The overhead fluorescent light caught the sharp angles of his cheekbones.

[00:13:23]His knuckles were smeared with fresh bright red blood that wasn't his.

[00:13:28]And a damp lock of dark hair clung to his forehead, wet from the rain.

[00:13:33]He smelled of ozone, wet wool, cedar, and raw copper. He stepped into the pantry, his dark, calculating eyes scanning the room.

[00:13:44]He bypassed the broken lock, the splintered wood, and the spilled cans, his gaze locking instantly onto Naomi curled on the floor.

[00:13:55]He didn't rush to her side. He didn't drop to his knees and whisper sweet, panicked reassurances.

[00:14:02]He walked over slowly, the shattered glass from a broken jar crunching under the soles of his leather dress shoes.

[00:14:10]He crouched beside her, his movements stiff, precise, almost clinical. He reached out.

[00:14:17]His leather-clad fingers were cold from the rain as they gently tilted her chin upward to the light.

[00:14:24]Naomi flinched instinctively, a sharp hiss escaping her teeth as her bruised skin pulled tight. Abby's jaw muscles feathered, a rapid ticking motion beneath his skin.

[00:14:38]His dark eyes traced the swelling, purple-black mask around her left eye, the dried blood caked on her split lip, and the unnatural, protective way she was curling around her torso.

[00:14:51]The vague irritation he had felt in the car instantly crystallized into a cold, absolute rage.

[00:14:59]It wasn't a hot, screaming anger. It was the kind of rage that made rooms go quiet and men stop breathing.

[00:15:07]"He used his hands?" Abby asked.

[00:15:10]His voice was a flat, dead thing.

[00:15:13]"Feet," Naomi rasped, her voice wet and broken. "Loafers."

[00:15:18]Abby let go of her chin.

[00:15:20]He He up slowly, looking down at his hand.

[00:15:24]He wiped a single smeared drop of her blood onto his expensive silk tie.

[00:15:30]It ruined the fabric instantly.

[00:15:32]He didn't even blink.

[00:15:35]"Can you walk?" he asked, not looking at her, but staring intently at the dark hallway beyond the broken door frame. "I think my rib is broken." she whispered, her chest heaving.

[00:15:47]"That wasn't the question, Naomi."

[00:15:50]It wasn't cruel.

[00:15:52]It was purely practical.

[00:15:55]She gritted her teeth, placed a trembling blood-stained hand on the lowest metal shelf, and dragged her weight upward.

[00:16:03]Pain flared white-hot behind her eyes, blinding her for a second, but she swallowed the scream that clawed at her throat.

[00:16:12]She stood, swaying heavily, gripping her side. Abby finally looked back at her.

[00:16:18]The ticking in his jaw had stopped.

[00:16:21]He stripped off his heavy, wet, charcoal overcoat and draped it over her trembling shoulders.

[00:16:28]The coat smelled intensely of cedar, expensive tobacco, and him.

[00:16:34]It was heavy, warm, and engulfed her entirely, hiding the blood-stained uniform.

[00:16:42]"Walk to the front door." Abby said, reaching inside his suit jacket.

[00:16:47]His hand emerged gripping the black steel of the SIG Sauer.

[00:16:51]"Thomas is waiting on the porch." Naomi leaned heavily against the splintered door frame, clutching the lapels of the coat together.

[00:16:59]"Where are you going?"

[00:17:01]Abby stepped past her into the hallway, the glass crunching under his feet.

[00:17:07]The metallic click of his thumb disengaging the gun's safety echoed loudly in the sudden, pristine silence of the mansion.

[00:17:16]"Upstairs." Abby said without looking back. To ruin his loafers. The hallway felt 10 miles long.

[00:17:23]Naomi moved with a slow, mechanical limp, dragging her right leg slightly to compensate for the agony radiating from her left rib cage.

[00:17:34]Abby's heavy wool coat swallowed her.

[00:17:36]Its hem sweeping against the imported silk runners that lined the Kelley estate's corridor. She passed the bodyguard, Davis.

[00:17:45]He was slumped against an antique credenza, his massive frame awkwardly folded inward.

[00:17:51]He wasn't dead, but his breathing was a wet, struggling rasp, and his jaw hung at an impossible, jagged angle.

[00:18:01]He smelled of cheap drugstore aftershave, panicked sweat, and raw, bright copper.

[00:18:08]Naomi didn't stop. She didn't feel a surge of vindictive triumph.

[00:18:13]She just felt tired. Outside, the rain was coming down in sheets, bouncing off the slate steps of the front porch.

[00:18:22]The black armored sedan sat idling in the driveway, its headlights cutting harsh, white cones through the downpour.

[00:18:31]Thomas, the driver, stood holding an umbrella.

[00:18:34]He didn't look like a chauffeur. He possessed the thick neck and dead eyes of a man who moved bodies for a living.

[00:18:42]Yet, when he saw Naomi emerge from the heavy double doors, he stepped forward quickly. He didn't offer a polite, empty greeting.

[00:18:52]He just opened the rear door, angled the umbrella to keep the freezing rain off her face, and offered a thick, calloused hand to help her lower herself into the backseat.

[00:19:03]"Careful of the doorframe," Thomas grunted, his voice a low rumble. Naomi sank into the dark leather.

[00:19:11]The car smelled like expensive leather cleaner, ozone, and the faint stale ghost of cigarette smoke.

[00:19:19]She curled into the corner pressing her uninjured right side against the window.

[00:19:25]Inside the mansion, the poker room was an exercise in expensive, suffocating mahogany. Abby walked up the grand staircase. He didn't rush.

[00:19:35]The house was quiet now save for the rhythmic drumming of rain against the skylights.

[00:19:41]He reached the second-floor landing and pushed open the heavy double doors to the billiard room. Richard Kelly was standing behind the felt table, a heavy crystal decanter of gin clutched in one trembling hand, a snub-nosed revolver in the other.

[00:19:58]Two of his poker buddies were already gone, fled through the back terrace doors the moment the shooting had started downstairs. Kelly looked pathetic.

[00:20:07]His tie was undone, his face flushed with a mixture of imported alcohol and sudden, piercing terror.

[00:20:15]He recognized Abby immediately.

[00:20:18]Everyone with a bank account over eight figures in this city knew Abby Cole.

[00:20:23]"Cole!" Kelly barked, trying to inject authority into a voice that was cracking at the edges.

[00:20:30]"What the hell is this? You're breaking into my house? I pay your people. I pay your [ __ ] percentages on time." Abby didn't answer.

[00:20:38]He stopped 3 ft from the table. His dark eyes cataloging the room.

[00:20:43]The spilled chips, the cigar ash ground into the rug, the cordovan leather loafers on Kelly's feet.

[00:20:50]"You want more money?"

[00:20:52]Kelly took a step back, the revolver shaking violently in his grip.

[00:20:57]"Fine. Name the number. Name the [ __ ] number, Abby, and we'll Abby raised the SIG Sauer.

[00:21:04]He didn't aim down the sights. He simply pointed it and pulled the trigger. The gunshot was deafening in the enclosed room.

[00:21:12]A physical shock wave that rattled the crystal glasses on the bar.

[00:21:17]Kelly screamed, a high reedy sound as the bullet shattered his right kneecap.

[00:21:24]The revolver clattered uselessly to the floor, sliding under the billiard table.

[00:21:30]Kelly collapsed, clawing at his ruined leg, thrashing violently against the dark red Persian rug. Abby walked around the table.

[00:21:40]He looked down at the man, his face an unreadable flat mask.

[00:21:46]There was no sadistic pleasure in his eyes, only the cold administrative focus of a man taking out the garbage.

[00:21:55]"She poured your drinks," Abby said, his voice quiet, easily cutting through Kelly's agonizing groans.

[00:22:03]"She scrubbed your floors. She was quiet. She was a ghost. I I don't know who you're talking about," Kelly spat, tears of pain streaming down his red face.

[00:22:15]"Are you out of your [ __ ] mind?"

[00:22:18]"You broke the geometry, Richard," Abby said softly.

[00:22:22]He lifted his right boot and brought the heavy, steel-reinforced heel down directly onto Kelly's left foot.

[00:22:30]The sound of the metatarsal bones snapping under the cordovan leather was a sharp, wet crack that echoed off the mahogany walls.

[00:22:40]Kelly's scream hitched, turning into a breathless, choking gasp. Abby raised his boot and did it again to the right foot.

[00:22:49]He didn't say another word.

[00:22:52]He didn't deliver a villainous monologue or spit on the man.

[00:22:56]He simply turned around, holstered his weapon, and walked out of the room, leaving Kelly sobbing into the expensive, blood-soaked rug. 4 minutes later, the rear door of the sedan opened.

[00:23:09]A gust of freezing rain blew into the cabin before Abby slid into the seat next to Naomi.

[00:23:16]The door slammed shut, sealing them in the quiet, climate-controlled bubble.

[00:23:22]"Drive." Abby said.

[00:23:24]Thomas put the car in gear.

[00:23:26]The heavy sedan pulled smoothly out of the Kelly estate, the tires hissing on the wet asphalt. Naomi kept her face turned toward the window, watching the wrought-iron gates disappear into the darkness.

[00:23:40]She could feel Abby's presence beside her.

[00:23:43]He was an intense, solid mass of heat in the cold car.

[00:23:49]He reached into the center console, pulled out a small, foil-wrapped packet, and tore it open with his teeth.

[00:23:57]It was an antiseptic wipe.

[00:24:00]She listened to the damp, abrasive sound of him methodically scrubbing Kelly's blood off his knuckles. "You ruined your suit." Naomi whispered.

[00:24:10]The words tasted like copper.

[00:24:13]Abby paused.

[00:24:15]He looked down at the smeared blood on his silk tie, then glanced at Naomi.

[00:24:20]Her face was pale, the swelling around her eye now a vivid, angry violet.

[00:24:26]"It was off the rack." He lied, tossing the bloodied wipe into a small trash receptacle.

[00:24:33]He leaned back against the leather, staring straight ahead at the rhythmic sweep of the windshield wipers.

[00:24:39]"Don't talk. Breathe shallow. We'll be at the clinic in 10." It wasn't a clinic.

[00:24:45]It was the back room of a 24-hour veterinary supply warehouse near the docks.

[00:24:50]The air smelled brutally of industrial bleach, iodine, and wet cardboard.

[00:24:57]An old man named Elias, a former trauma surgeon who had lost his license to a gambling addiction two decades ago, ran his gloved hands expertly over Naomi's ribs.

[00:25:10]The overhead fluorescent bulb buzzed with an irritating, relentless hum.

[00:25:16]"Two fractured," Elias muttered, wrapping a thick, tight bandage around her torso.

[00:25:22]"Lucky. A little to the left and that loafer would have punctured a lung.

[00:25:27]Mild concussion. The eye will swell shut by morning. You'll need ice, rest, and absolutely no heavy lifting." Naomi sat on the edge of the stainless steel examination table.

[00:25:39]Her ruined uniform was in a biohazard bin in the corner.

[00:25:43]She was wearing an oversized gray sweatshirt Elias had pulled from a locker.

[00:25:48]It smelled faintly of mothballs, but it was dry and it was clean.

[00:25:54]"Thank you," she managed to say.

[00:25:57]Her jaw was stiffening, making every syllable a mechanical effort. Elias just grunted, snapping off his latex gloves.

[00:26:06]He handed her a small plastic cup containing two white pills and a paper cup of tepid water.

[00:26:12]"Take these. They'll drop you like a stone. You need sleep."

[00:26:17]Elias left the room, the heavy metal door clicking shut behind him. The silence was immediate and suffocating.

[00:26:26]Naomi sat alone, staring at the scuffed linoleum floor.

[00:26:31]The adrenaline that had kept her upright for the last hour was suddenly gone, leaving behind a hollow, vibrating exhaustion.

[00:26:40]She felt incredibly small.

[00:26:43]She had spent three years making herself invisible to survive, and tonight, she had detonated her entire existence with a single phone call.

[00:26:54]The metal door clicked open again.

[00:26:56]Abby walked in. He had shed the ruined suit jacket and tie.

[00:27:01]He wore a crisp white dress shirt, the sleeves rolled up past his forearms, revealing a dense network of black ink.

[00:27:09]Faded, jagged tattoos that told stories of dockyard brawls and old syndicate wars.

[00:27:17]He didn't look at her with pity.

[00:27:19]Pity was useless.

[00:27:21]He pulled up a rolling metal stool and sat down across from her.

[00:27:26]He placed a burner phone, a new one, sleek and black, on the steel counter next to her hip. Naomi stared at it.

[00:27:34]Her cynical mind, trained by a lifetime of hard lessons, immediately started doing the math.

[00:27:41]What is this?

[00:27:42]A phone, Abby said.

[00:27:45]His voice was tired, the flat effect dropping just a fraction.

[00:27:50]I know it's a phone.

[00:27:52]Naomi looked up, her good eye meeting his dark, unblinking gaze.

[00:27:58]I mean, what's the bill?

[00:28:00]Men like you don't break into mansions and shatter kneecaps out of the goodness of your hearts.

[00:28:05]I don't have money, Abby. I have $84 in a checking account and a duffel bag of clothes in a closet I can never go back to. Abby didn't flinch.

[00:28:15]He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

[00:28:19]The harsh overhead light caught the faint silver scar that cut through his left eyebrow.

[00:28:25]You think I bought you? He asked.

[00:28:29]The question wasn't angry, it was genuinely curious.

[00:28:33]I think the world runs on ledgers, Naomi replied, her voice trembling slightly, though she desperately tried to keep it steady.

[00:28:42]You just saved my life.

[00:28:44]I'm trying to figure out what column you put me in. Abby looked at the floor for a long moment.

[00:28:50]He listened to the rain drumming against the corrugated steel roof of the warehouse.

[00:28:55]"I grew up in places that smelled like this." Abby said quietly, gesturing vaguely to the sterile room.

[00:29:03]"Concrete floors, bleach. I spent 20 years climbing out of the dirt so I would never have to take orders from men who wore cordovan leather loafers and drank inherited gin."

[00:29:16]He looked back up at her.

[00:29:18]The intensity in his eyes was raw and unpolished. "You didn't ask to be saved, Naomi. You asked for a ride. I chose to do the rest because Richard Kelly is a disease and I was tired of watching him breathe the same air as someone who actually works for a living."

[00:29:36]Abby stood up. The legs of the metal stool scraping harshly against the linoleum.

[00:29:42]"There is no ledger.

[00:29:44]There is no bill.

[00:29:45]You sleep here tonight.

[00:29:47]Tomorrow, Thomas takes you anywhere you want to go.

[00:29:51]City limits, state lines, doesn't matter."

[00:29:55]He walked toward of the door. "Abby."

[00:29:58]She called out.

[00:30:00]The name felt heavy on her bruised tongue.

[00:30:03]He stopped, his hand resting on the metal handle, but he didn't turn around.

[00:30:09]"Why did you leave the first phone on my counter?" She asked.

[00:30:13]It was the question that had been haunting her since she picked it up off the freezing pantry tiles.

[00:30:20]"Why me?"

[00:30:22]Abby let out a slow, quiet breath.

[00:30:26]The muscles in his broad back shifted under the white cotton of his shirt.

[00:30:30]"Because." He said, his voice dropping to a low, rough register.

[00:30:36]"When I walked into your kitchen bleeding, you didn't look at me like I was a monster.

[00:30:40]You just handed me a towel.

[00:30:43]He pushed the heavy door open.

[00:30:46]Take the pills, Naomi. The world will still be broken tomorrow. You don't have to fix it tonight.

[00:30:53]The door closed with a solid metallic thud. Naomi sat alone in the humming sterile room.

[00:31:00]For the first time in 3 years, she didn't feel the need to shrink.

[00:31:05]She picked up the plastic cup, swallowed the two white pills, and finally, staring at the blank screen of the new phone, allowed herself to cry.

[00:31:16]The tears stung the open cuts on her cheeks, but she didn't wipe them away.

[00:31:22]She just sat there, wrapped in the faint smell of mothballs and cedar, and let the quiet wash over her. If you loved the intense, grounded tension and raw reality of Naomi and Abby's story, don't leave just yet.

[00:31:37]Hit that like button, share this video with your fellow dark romance lovers, and make sure to subscribe for part three, where the consequences of Abby's absolute rage catch up to them both.

[00:31:50]Drop a comment below. Would you have made the call?