The bar was crowded that night, crowded enough that the bartender didn't seem to notice that Mike should have been cut off hours earlier. Crowded enough, that when his phone rang for the seventh time, Mike didn't hear it.
"Another," Mike slurred.
Not that anyone could actually hear him. He hadn't gotten service in over an hour, and he could feel the numbness of the alcohol beginning to wear off. Well, at least he thought he could. In reality, he was no where near close to sober.
"You look awful, bad day?" A man asked as he sat down beside him.
It took Mike longer than usual to comprehend what he'd just said.
"Two words," Mike spoke slowly, "Harvey. Specter."
The man grimaced at the name, Mike assumed he must have had a run in with Harvey too. He looked him over. Yeah, the guy definitely could have been a lawyer. He was only a little older than Mike, and he was wearing a nice suit.
"I feel you there. That guy sure gets around, doesn't he? Someone ought to put him in his place," the man suggested casually.
"Maybe," Mike began, "but if you're putting Harvey in his place, you might as well put Louis in his, too."
Mike finally got the attention of the bartender and was able to order another drink. The bartender did a double take after he set the drink down.
"Mike, was it?" The bartender asked, "yeah, sorry buddy, after this one you're cut off. I'll call you a cab if you need me to."
The bartender was then called away, and Mike was left to talk with the man sitting beside him, the man whose name he still had yet to ask.
"Did you say you knew Louis too? Louis Litt?" The man asked him.
"Don't even get me started on him. Sometimes I wish I didn't have an eidetic memory, so I didn't have to remember all the crap that comes out of his mouth," Mike said louder than he had meant to.
The man chuckled.
"I know what you mean."
This small piece of validation only encouraged Mike, and he began to tell the man everything and anything that had happened that week at Pearson Specter Litt, only briefly mentioning the case Harvey and Louis had been working on.
If Mike had been paying attention, or if he hadn't been so drunk, he might have noticed that the man's demeanor had changed. He might have noticed that the man had straightened up as Mike started to talk about what working at Pearson Specter Litt was like, or that he'd looked disgusted when Mike expressed that he actually enjoyed working there. In fact, if he had been looking at the man at all, he might have noticed a number of reactions that would have given him some clue that he needed to stop talking. But the thing that would have been most helpful for Mike to notice, was the fact that the man he had so openly trusted, had reached over discreetly and drugged Mike's drink. The drink that he had just finished the last of.
"Anyway," Mike began to trail off, "I, I don't think I ever caught your name?"
The man smiled, but something about the way he smiled was unnerving to him. Mike began to notice that he felt disoriented, and very tired.
"Matthew," the man stated smoothly, "Matthew Gonzalez."
Mike immediately recalled the briefs he had accidentally shredded. Miller vs. Gonzalez. Matthew Gonzalez was on the other side, the wrong side.
That's when he finally realized something was off, but it was too little too late. Mike got up to leave, mumbling some excuse about his fiancée being worried, but his legs refused to work, and he fell to the ground.
"I've got him," Matthew told the bartender who looked rather alarmed, "don't worry, I'll take care of him."
Mike felt himself being lifted up and carried out. It was the last thing he remembered before everything went silent.
It was roughly three days later when Mike found himself in a place between sleep and reality. He could hear what was going on around him, but he couldn't quite bring himself to open up his eyes.
"Just exactly how much did you put in his drink," a gruff voice asked, "he's of no use to us if he's dead, and I'm not going down for murder on top of everything else."
"I didn't expect him to drink the whole thing at once, but I don't blame him either, working at a place like that," a familiar voice said.
Matthew. Matthew Gonzalez. Mike's brain registered the voice, but still couldn't bring itself to wake up properly.
"Whatever, Gonzalez. If he dies, it's on you," the gruff man retorted.
Mike heard a door slam, and did his best to open his eyes. He'd never felt so groggy in his life, and the stabbing headache he'd woken up with wasn't helping either. He managed to sit up, and finally, finally, was awake enough to take in his surroundings. He found himself handcuffed to a metal shelving unit attached to the wall. The handcuffs made a small clanking sound whenever he moved, not that he could move very much at all.
"Thank God," Matthew muttered to himself.
Mike couldn't bring himself to speak yet, but was grateful to find a water bottle beside him. He appeared to be in a small apartment, but there was next to no furniture, aside from a lonely folding chair in the far back corner.
"Aren't you wondering where you are, why you're here?" Matthew asked impatiently.
No, Mike hadn't been wondering any of that. He'd barely woken up, and his head was killing him. He hadn't had the time to form questions about why he was being held captive.
"Well, I'll tell you why," Matthew began.
Mike rolled his eyes with what little strength he had. Seriously? A wise person didn't reveal the cards they were holding, that defeated the purpose of the game. He figured someone like Matthew would know that, being a business man and all. But then it dawned on him, Mike was the card that Matthew was holding, and this didn't really feel like a game.
"Harvey's going to be so pissed when he finds out you're holding me...what? Hostage? Did you really think kidnapping me would be a smart idea?"
"Harvey's not going to find out. You see, Mike, after I'm done with you, I'm going to know everything about Harvey and Louis' plans for my case. On top of that, I'm going to know all of their possible weaknesses, just in case Plan A fails. Once we're through, if you even so much as utter a word of this to Harvey, we'll inform him that you willingly helped us from the start."
Mike scoffed. There was no way in hell he was going to tell Matthew any of those things, and there was no way Harvey wasn't going to know about everything that transpired between him and this shady Gonzalez dude.
"Who do you think he's gonna believe? He's known me for seven years, you have no proof, and Harvey knows I wouldn't do that to him."
Matthew smiled and pulled out a tape recorder, hitting the play button. Mike recognized his voice instantly.
"You were right earlier, someone does need to put Harvey in his place, he's got, like, zero respect. A whole zero. Why not mess with him a bit? Care to help me out?"
"That sounds good," came Matthew's reply, "I have just the idea."
Mike stared at the tape recorder with a strange combination of disbelief and infuriation.
"That was taken out of context! Anyone can tell from the audio that I was intoxicated. No Judge is going to believe you over me."
"Maybe not, but that wasn't really the point," Matthew said, "are you really willing to take the chance that Harvey might believe it? And even if he doesn't, he won't ever trust you again. I mean, you said some pretty hurtful things about him that I just happened to record. It looks like you have no choice but to help me now."
"Over my dead body," Mike challenged.
There was no way Matthew was blackmailing him into helping him. Mike didn't intend on throwing everything he'd worked so hard for away. On top of that, Mike didn't know a whole lot about the case, aside from bits and pieces he'd heard or read here and there. It occurred to him that if Harvey heard those tapes there's no telling what could happen. He just had to hold out long enough to figure out a plan.
"If you wish," Matthew replied.
Matthew left the room, and when the door opened again a well built, intimidating man entered. Mike gulped, he knew from what he'd overheard that they didn't intend to kill him, but he also knew that wouldn't stop them from beating the information out of him. Mike was never going to a bar again. Curse his blabbering mouth and uncanny memory.
In the next seven days, Mike revealed as little to Matthew Gonzalez, and his body guard, Steve, as he could manage, and not without putting up somewhat of a fight. The information he gave them was as outdated as he could make it, with it still being relevant to their case. He got away with it the first three times, but the fourth time they'd seemed to have caught on. He'd only had the pleasure of being acquainted with Steve six times, and never for more than two hours. The rest of the time he was ignored, locked up in the sorry excuse for an apartment for hours. Alone.
Mike heard Matthew talking outside the apartment a couple days earlier about Harvey seeming distracted. He had laughed that taking Mike might have proven useful after all. Mike did his best to hold back his tears, and instead fueled them into anger. He wasn't going to cry here.
On the twelfth day he'd been missing, Matthew came in to give him what he deemed good news.
"You're free to go, Mike," he said sincerely, opening the door wide.
Mike looked at Matthew dumbfounded, and then to his handcuffs, which prevented him from walking out the door.
"They threw the case out, thanks to you. Your information may have been crap half of the time, but your absense was just the distraction we needed," he smirked victoriously.
Mike swore softly. He was furious, which was often an emotion he felt when he was completely and utterly helpless. He remembered the time Jessica had threatened him, and he made the choice to betray Harvey. He feared he'd done that yet again, even if the circumstances were slightly different. Clenching his fists, he vowed he'd never put himself in this situation again.
"Oh, right. Your handcuffs. Let me help you. Also, before you get any ideas, in case the tape recorder wasn't enough to keep you quiet, I have a different insurance policy. I recall you mentioning a fiancée? Sure would be a shame if something happened to her," Matthew said suggestively, while unlocking Mike's handcuffs.
Mike rubbed his wrists for a good minute before rearing back and punching Matthew Gonzalez straight in the face. To say Matthew reacted poorly would have been an understatement, and soon enough Mike's head collided with the back of the shelving unit he had been attached to for so long. Mike would later deem that it was worth it.
He woke up in a hotel two days later, with no recollection of any of this.