Chapter 36

Once again, Elsa found herself dealing with the aftermath of a major screwup. Same place, different time. As she picked at her chicken sandwich in the lobby café of the Mirage, the one thought running through her mind was the stupid question she had asked less than an hour ago.

Have you ever been in love? Who in their right mind would ever start a negotiation like that? Someone who wasn't in their right mind apparently. A part of her wanted to just get the next flight out of here and call it quits, find a way to smooth things over with the board; but she knew that giving up would be career suicide, and if she returned she'd have to face her most glaring problem…

Those last few words by Rapunzel continued to torture her, exactly how many selfish choices had she made when it came to her and Anna? Did she even deserve to see Anna again? No...no Elsa couldn't think like that, she had to make things right. For once in her life she had to think of someone other than herself, she'd given Anna two weeks of silence and that was two weeks too many. Whatever it took, Elsa would see her again and explain herself. And hope and pray that she wasn't too late.

Even with the weight of her mistake pressing down on her, it still couldn't snuff out the love she had for Anna. This newfound, maybe always there, begging to be confessed. The thought of not seeing Anna ever again pained her. Whatever it takes, she told herself, whatever it takes.

So, she couldn't go back yet. Not in her state, not with a pathetically miniscule amount of self-confidence. She needed a win, so it was time to figure out her gameplan. Okay, so yes she had screwed up big time in her negotiation by going in blind. She should have spent more time studying up on Mrs. Badroul, her mannerisms and behaviors, and she should confidently know the personal reason for wanting this partnership.

Though it wasn't like Mrs. Badroul was giving her much to work with either. Everything she said or did, the older woman just had a knack for making her feel worse. Elsa had never met someone so stubborn, so set in her ways, so subtly aggressive, so-

Holy crap, she was just like Elsa. But like...browner, and with darker hair, and had a tiger.

Elsa took a bite out of her cold sandwich and stifled her laughter, because she knew how she worked- which meant she knew how Mrs. Badroul worked. In order to break through Mrs. Badroul's own icy exterior, she had to ask herself one question:

What would Anna do?

Anna was the only one to successfully break through Elsa's surface, and while she didn't have the luxury of eight years of history between her and Mrs. Badroul, she could still use the methods Anna used.

Anna was persistent, she also refused to take no for an answer but in an endearing way. She was honest but not brutally honest, she would tell it like it is but in a way that didn't offend you. Most importantly she didn't give up, if you didn't give her an inch of space she'd make it. So that's exactly what Elsa would do.

Now with a gameplan intact, Elsa finished her sandwich- as cold and unappetizing as it was, it was also the only thing she'd had to eat today- and called for a taxi.

Sneaking into New World Oil was surprisingly easy. Although it didn't hurt that there was no security upfront, and she could easily slip through the masses going on their lunch break and get into one of the elevators.

The drive, again, was uneventful, but she at least had the decency to answer most of Vignesh's, her taxi driver's, questions, mostly as a way to practice having to be a lot more talkative and open than usual.

She had no idea what floor Mrs. Badroul would be on, and just assumed it would be the top floor, so she pressed the button that said "80" and waited. And waited. And waited. A part of her wondered if the CEO was watching her through security feeds, waiting till she got to the seventieth floor to stop the cart so she'd be forced to walk the other ten.

Fortunately, that wasn't the case. The elevator dinged, the doors slid open, and she stepped inside the longest hallway she'd ever seen. It reminded her of the hallway at the resort, except there wasn't an Exit at the very end, and there weren't doors to other rooms all along the side walls. There was only a double door at the end, olive wood with gold tiger heads as the door handles.

Each step muffled by the velvet carpet brought her closer and closer, yet still Elsa's nerves hadn't gotten to her. No matter what was going on behind those doors, even if Mrs. Badroul was in the most important meeting of her life, she was filled with an unwavering determination to get her attention.

Unfortunately, it seemed as if the narrow hallway hadn't disclosed the full size of the door. It got wider the closer she got, and on either side were the two bodyguards that she had met earlier that morning, standing with their feet apart and hands folded up front.

"No visitors." The man on her right said.

Immediately, Elsa put her hands up as if to surrender. "I'm not here to visit, I just need ten minutes of Mrs. Badroul's time, it's important."

"No. Visitors." The man on her left repeated empathically.

"I'm not…" Elsa groaned and rolled her eyes, "Look I'll be in and out in no time, I mean no harm to your boss, I just want to talk to her."

The two brown behemoths looked at each other, nodded in sync, and advanced slowly towards Elsa. Not good, she had to think fast.

When they were only three feet away, Elsa stepped back a couple steps, "Alright fine! I'll go, but now you have to explain to your boss that-" She didn't finish her thought, she'd already sidestepped the twin towers and sprinted to the door.

The ridiculousness of that move wasn't lost on her, neither was the fact that it actually worked. She didn't have time to congratulate herself though, she had a job to do and it was stupidly hard to run in flats. Not daring to look back, she kept moving forward until her hands had reached one of the tiger heads and she yanked the door open, locking it behind her before they could go in with her.

She breathed a momentary sigh of relief, still in shock that that actually worked, and turned around to face her fate and realized that she wasn't alone.

Well of course she wasn't alone, this was thankfully Mrs. Badroul's office and she was here. But five feet away from her was Hans, currently being backed into a corner by her snarling tiger. As if the similarities weren't glaring enough, she also had a massive window, a fridge, and a bed that looked recently used. Honestly the only things that were starkly different were the furniture choice, color scheme, and lack of mementos.

The two other humans stared at her with wide eyes, and knowing that either of them were too stunned to speak, Elsa was the first to break the tense silence filled with growling and loud knocking. "Hi! It's me again."

Mrs. Badroul blinked, "I...can see that. Why exactly are you here, Ms. Andersen?"

The knocking grew louder and more frequent, "Well, I-I was just in the neighborhood and I thought I'd stop by and…" Yeah, silly jokes only worked for Anna. "Okay screw it, I need to talk to you, Mrs. Badroul. Again."

"Enough! I am okay!" The baroness shouted at the door as the knocking ceased. She sighed, "We have been over this, I told you that you did not make a good impression and I will not entertain another attempt at a negotiation with you."

Hans tried to pipe in, "Yeah and we've kinda got our own negotiation going on so if you'd mind-" But he was silence by a spine-tingling growl.

Hiding her amusement, Elsa put her hands up again, "Look, I know the first impression I gave you was...abysmal, I know that I put my foot in my mouth way too many times, but I-I want another chance. That person in the car...that wasn't me. I mean it was, but it wasn't like an accurate version of me. I want to show you that you've got it all wrong, I want to make a better second impression."

"I hardly see what a second meeting would show me that I haven't already seen."

"Well aren't you willing to find out?"

Mrs. Badroul frowned, "Not particularly, no."

Elsa sighed, "Look, I've got two more days and I don't wanna spend them as a damn tourist, pardon my language. I want to spend it doing what I know and what I love. And you can push me out of here yourself, get your bodyguards to keep me from leaving The Mirage, or even sicc Rajah on me...but I will find a way to get to you until you meet with me."

If Elsa wasn't sure how Anna felt before, she sure did now. The way that Mrs. Badroul was looking at her made her feel incredibly uneasy, and she wanted again to just get out of there and cut her losses, but she didn't. She'd gotten this far, and dirty looks be damned, she'd get this meeting.

Mrs. Badroul shifted her intimidating glare back and forth from the cowering Hans still trying to pretend he had this tiger situation under control, to Elsa, who could all but hear the debate going on in her mind.

Finally, she let out a defeated groan, "1:30 at Abu's. And you are paying. I will not miss my lunch because of you."

Elsa clapped her hands together and suppressed an uncharacteristically giddy noise from escaping her throat. She was venturing too closely into the Anna method of negotiations. "Thank you! I promise you won't regret it, and you can order whatever you want."

Mrs. Badroul closed her eyes, looking like she'd rather be anywhere else right now. "Just leave me be, Ms. Andersen."

"Right! Gotcha…" Elsa unlocked the door, mouthed a "Thank you" to the furious bodyguards before sidestepping them, and paced back to the elevator, still in awe that this ridiculous plan had worked.

Elsa had wanted to get a good night's rest for tomorrow's make-or-break appointment, but the fully awake nightlife of Agrabah had different ideas. There were two separate pool parties going on at The Mirage, the bright lights and music created the perfect concoction for insomnia, leaving Elsa to press the pillow around her head harder till it was practically in her ears.

Deciding to not wait this out in her hotel room, she went to take a walk instead. Maybe it would help prepare her mind for tomorrow, and plus she hadn't had time yet to explore this gorgeous city.

She did know how dangerous it was at night according to the news reports, so she made sure to stay a safe distance from the resort.

The rest of Agrabah, it seemed, reveled in the nightlife as well. Illuminated by the scarce streetlights, merchants continued to sell their wares and the more questionable businesses were crowded with patrons looking to drink or screw their problems away.

Elsa felt like a fish out of water with her pale skin, gray hoodie and blue jeans- the most casual non-gym attire she'd worn since college- but most of the citizens were nice and polite to her. Most of them anyway, a handful of creeps made lewd non-English remarks and gross gestures, but she easily avoided them.

There was certain uniqueness to this side of Agrabah, a mixing of the rich and poor lifestyle, the latter more than the former. Aside from a couple fast food restaurants and designer clothing stores right next to The Mirage, the rest of the area looked like a borderline slum. Beggars were littering the street, an old married couple was bickering outside of their clay house, she literally saw a child steal a handful of apples from a merchant while another child distracted him.

It was eye-opening to say the least, she had gotten so accustomed to just how okay and well-adjusted Arendelle was that sometimes she forgot that other cities, other countries, weren't like that. As fascinating and perspective-altering as Agrabah was, she was already missing Arendelle after one day.

She missed the scenery, the not-so-blistering heat, her office surprisingly, and she missed the people. Especially Anna. God, she missed Anna.

It was kind of insane how much she'd let herself fall for the redhead once she stopped denying her feelings. Every little thing about her produced another butterfly in her stomach: from her smile, to the perfect pattern of freckles on her face, to the loose strands of hair on her head that refused to stay in line, to her laugh, to the way she stood with her hands on her hips when she was deep in thought, to her voice telling her that she wanted her…

Before Elsa could fall into the rabbit hole of her screw-ups again, she found herself in an unfamiliar area. The streetlights flickered, the handful of houses looked abandoned, and the atmosphere was quieter than she'd like it to be. Luckily, she could still hear the booming music from The Mirage and reoriented herself.

Deciding it was finally time to get some sleep- and remembering she'd packed some ear plugs for situations like this- Elsa began her walk back. She didn't make it that far before she heard something that caught her attention. In a bad way.

In a nearby alleyway was what clearly sounded like a fight going on, a very one-sided fight. There were things being thrown around, punches being thrown, and a weak voice begging for mercy in broken English.

Against her better judgment, Elsa crossed the street to get a closer look, partially due to morbid curiosity but also because the one winning the fight sounded very familiar. She stayed out of the way of the dim streetlight and peeked around the corner, seeing that her suspicions were confirmed.

Even in the cover of night, she could see the murderous intent on his face, his unbuttoned and slightly torn vest, and the gleam of his ring coming down to connect with another hit on his poor victim's face.

"No more. Please no more…"

"You did this, you brought this on yourself." Hans hissed as he pulled him up by the collar of his tattered shirt and beat him back down with another hit. "You! Did! This!" Each word was accented with another defenseless punch.

Elsa was frozen in fear, knowing that her and Mr. Arendelle's suspicions were confirmed. He was violent, mercilessly violent. She didn't know what this man did to him, if anything, but she knew that he didn't deserve this kind of punishment. Despite the fear, she wanted to step in, do the dumb thing and be a hero.

But before she took a single step, another thought came to her mind. If she got evidence of this happening…it may not be a scandal here, but it certainly would be back home. And after getting the evidence she needed, she could be a dumb hero and get Hans off of him, killing two birds with one stone.

Still thankfully covered by the darkness of the street, she navigated to her phone's camera, carefully peeked around the corner again, and pressed the button to take a picture.

Not realizing that she had forgotten to turn the flash off.

The momentary brightness illuminated the evil deed. For a split second she could see the balding middle-aged man weakly putting his hands up to find mercy that would never come, she could see Hans sitting on his chest, fist raised in the air for another punch, and she could see that his rage-filled eyes were no longer on him, but on the one holding the phone.

Elsa ran.

She was feeling confident about her chances of getting away, after all that time logged on the field and the treadmill, and from proving to herself that she could do it after slipping past Mrs. Badroul's bodyguards. All she had to do was run back to the resort, get on the elevator, make her way back to her room, and lock the doors. Everything would be okay once she got back.

But Elsa only made it a few feet before being stopped by a wall of velvet that knocked her back and grabbed her roughly, pinning her to a wall with the hand holding her phone twisted behind her. In the heat of the moment, she had forgotten to check up on the whereabouts of Hans' bodyguard.

When he saw that she was clearly incapacitated, Hans sprint turned into a smug walk, his grin grew more fiendish as he came into the light. He laughed, "You almost had me there, Elsa. You aaaalmost had me…"

Elsa struggled in the stoic man's grasp, trying to squirm away from either the hand twisting her arm back or the one pressed into her shoulder, but the more she struggled the more he pressed. She hissed as the pain on her joints increased. "Tell him to let me go, you psychopath."

He looked away as if he was actually considering it, and then shook his head, "Not gonna happen. You've seen too much, and now I have to do some damage control so you don't do something stupid like rat me out."

"Yeah?" She growled. "And what are you gonna do? Kill me?"

Hans chuckled, "That'd be even dumber than letting you go with that evidence you've got. Speaking of which, I'm going to need you to hand over your phone."

"Not a chance, jackass."

His expression darkened from her lack of compliance, he nodded towards the gorilla with sideburns, and the hand gripping her wrist that held her phone clamped down. An unfortunate wail came from her throat and her phone fell to the ground. Without relaxing his grip, he slid the phone over to Hans who caught it under his foot.

"You know that little stunt of yours in Jasmine's office didn't sit well with me, in fact...it made me a little angry." He took a handkerchief out of his pocket, unfolded it, and wiped the blood off his face. "And I don't like being angry, because it makes me do terrible things. Messy things."

He moved on to his hands, "I'm always careful, though, I never want people to see anymore than they need to. It's better for everybody if we leave some secrets behind closed doors; I'm sure you know all about that don't you, Elsa?"

Elsa tried to wriggle free again, earning her a rough shove back on to the wall.

"Watch it. We don't wanna leave any marks." He said, glaring at his bodyguard. "Now where was I? Right, I was getting to the part where you almost screwed everything up. Including you, I can count the number of people who've tried to be a hero against my 'evil deeds' on one hand. No one has successfully stopped me though, and no one will. You wanna know why?"

Elsa didn't respond.

"Because I'm smarter than everyone else. I'm always three steps ahead. Even before you knew I was a threat, I had already infiltrated your precious kingdom. If you thought I'd go anywhere in this shithole of a city without backup, without a plan, then you must be dumber than I expected. Then again, you just proved that a second ago, didn't you?"

He took a second to laugh to himself and then continued his monologue. "You almost had me. You almost beat me at my own game. Almost. But you never will, and you need to accept that and embrace the fact that I am at your backdoor and there is nothing you can do to stop me."

At that moment, either a surge of stupidity or bravery overcame Elsa and she spit right in his face. It was worth it, even if she was now pressed even tighter onto the brick wall. She'd heard enough of this supervillain nonsense.

Hans barely even flinched, he simply patted down his cheek with the handkerchief, folded it back into his pocket, and let out a fiendish chuckle. "Let her go." he demanded.

The bodyguard did as he was told, releasing his grip on Elsa and standing with his arms folded next to Hans. Elsa did her best to look angry despite the pain she felt in her wrist, she swore there was a broken bone somewhere.

"I told you that you were playing a dangerous game, Elsa." Hans said mockingly. "You should get out while you still can."

"Fuck you." She replied through gritted teeth. Probably not the smartest thing to say in front of a violent maniac trying to rationalize his actions, but it still felt really good let that out.

Hans frowned, and picked up her discarded phone off the sidewalk. "You really shouldn't test my patience. Don't make me regret going back on my promise of going easy on you this time. Or else…"

He handed the phone off to his bodyguard, who effortlessly crushed it in one hand. Elsa could only watch in horror as the plastic and metal remains fell to the floor. The dreaded realization that that easily could have been her arm, or worse, was not lost on her.

"By the way, tell your board I've decided to leave a day early." Hans said as he and his bodyguard walked back into the darkness. "Good luck with Jasmine tomorrow, I'll see you when you get back."

A/N: I could really use a chicken sandwich right now.