Chapter Thirty-Eight - Rachel #2
“Let’s try this again,” he bites out.
“Vance, what are you doing?” Meredith asks, voice low and cautious.
“Getting the truth.” He wrenches my head back, setting the gun directly under my chin.
“I’m only asking one more time before I let you bleed out. What are you doing here?”
I can barely see him from the position he’s forcing me into, but I still do my best to glare as I whisper, “Ryder.”
He laughs, and the cigarette scent fills my nostrils again. “Are you the knight in shining armor coming to save the damsel in distress?”
“I’m not leaving without him.”
That makes him laugh even harder. He lets go of my hair and stands, giving me a chance to catch my breath before he, once again, aims the gun at my head.
“You’re not leaving at all,” he says, finger twitching for the trigger.
I expect countless memories to flash through my mind as I stare into the barrel of his gun, but my reeling mind is too overwhelmed, and I’m only left with three of the strongest emotions I’ve ever felt in my life.
The first—I’m ashamed to admit—is fear. I don’t want to die, and I loathe that this man could force that fate upon me in the form of a bullet through my skull.
The second is grief, not for my own life, but for Lyla’s. She’ll have a lifetime of memories that I will have no part in. Her first day of school. Her first date. Her first heartbreak. Her first job. Her wedding day.
I’m going to miss it all.
The last feeling is regret. I regret leaving Ryder after Lyla’s birth. I regret building walls that kept us apart for years. I regret every second I spent staying away when all I’ve ever wanted was to be his.
What I don’t regret, however, is that my life will end having done everything I could to save his.
“Wait!” Meredith’s voice shakes with the command.
“I don’t give a damn that she’s your friend,” Vance says with a huff. “She’s a loose end now.”
“We’ll take her with us.”
Vance gives her a look, and I’m sure mine is just as bewildered.
“Ryder is in love with her. If she’s in danger, he’ll tell them anything they want to know.”
The fury that boils in my veins is so violent that I can barely see straight. She’d save my life, only to sell me off as leverage over Ryder.
Friend of the Year award over here.
The idea brings a glint to Vance’s eyes. “I could jack up the price, too,” he muses. “You’d be a good leash for the dog, wouldn’t you?”
I glare at him with all the fury burning inside of me.
”I like this one,” he says with another laugh, tapping the gun against my cheek, which is wet from the blood that glides down my face.
“I have duct tape in the bed of my truck. Grab it,” he says to Meredith, who scurries to do as he asks. “We’ll need to move what’s in there to your car, so we can throw them in the back.”
I don’t have much of a choice but to let Meredith use the duct tape to bind my hands behind my back.
I’m not na?ve enough to think Vance’s plan to sell me gives me any sort of immunity.
He’ll shoot me in the head the second he thinks I’m not worth the hassle.
Though I’m not keen on the idea of being sold, this is buying time for Moreno to get here.
I’m kept on my knees by Meredith’s car while they transfer bags and boxes from Vance’s car to Meredith’s.
I think through every possible plan, but all I have is the hope that Moreno hurries. I have no idea how long it’s been, but he can’t be far now. It’s just a matter of time before he pulls up and gets us out of here.
Meredith pulls me to stand while Vance secures the cover over the truck bed.
“Why?” I ask under my breath. “What possible reason could you have for doing this?”
She turns my shoulders so I’m facing away from her. “Protecting my son.”
“Protecting? If anything, you’ve risked his life by stealing from the Morenos. If you needed money, all you had to do was—”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.” Her words cut through mine as she pushes me forward. “No idea what I’ve had to do to keep him safe from them.”
I resist her, turning on my heels to search her expression. “From who?”
I think about the envelope that I stashed in my glove box and wonder if I should’ve read it before coming here.
Meredith’s eyes are wide, panicked, and I realize—with overwhelming grief—that I’m not facing a mastermind villain but a desperate mother.
She doesn’t say anything, and I’m about to press when Vance says, “We don’t have all day, Mary. Throw her in the back.”
Mary?
The color drains from her face, and she shoots him a lethal glare. “What the hell, Vance?”
He feigns ignorance. “Oh, my bad. Did I blow your cover? Well, now I know you won’t be trying to help her escape.”
Cover? What cover?
And why does that name sound so familiar…
I stumble when a hand shoves me from behind, but I’m too preoccupied with the pieces of the warped puzzle coming together. The timing. The features. The lack of information about her past.
I’m pushed against the truck and turn just in time to see Meredith’s horrified gaze as the pieces fall into place.
“You’re Mary Anderson,” I whisper. “You’re the woman Mason Consoli was in love with… and he’s Dominic’s father.”