Chapter 14 #4
The asshole Deuce had finally moved the gun away from her forehead, but that didn’t make him feel any better. Now he had one of his gangbanger friends guarding her…and the guy was extremely handsy. Every time the fucknugget touched Mary, Truck wanted to fucking kill him.
But he couldn’t. Not yet. He had to bide his time.
Deuce had zeroed in on the one thing that could control him. Mary.
The TNT the gang had brought in could do some serious damage but they obviously had no clue how powerful the stuff was.
The assholes packing it against the safety-deposit boxes had been using way too much.
He hadn’t lied; if the gang members had set it off, everything would’ve been blown to bits.
He wouldn’t stand by and risk Mary’s life like that.
He’d had to speak up. He didn’t regret it, he just hoped he could rig the explosives to do the least amount of damage possible while still doing what Deuce wanted it to do…
namely, open as many of the miniature safes as possible.
It took twenty minutes or so to remove most of the explosive materials the other men had placed against the side wall of the vault.
He put it all back in the boxes and put the boxes by the door of the vault so the gang members could remove it from the general area.
It took another ten to rig up the electric blasting caps and attach the wires.
It was a crude job, but Truck thought it should work.
Truck stood up holding the detonator, which was connected to the wires coming out of the explosives. “There. It’s done.”
Deuce clasped his hands together in glee. “Awesome. Shoebaloo? Want to have some fun before we get our loot?”
Truck stiffened. He better not mean what it sounded like he meant.
The other gang member smiled and nodded. “Abso-fucking-lutely.”
“Snake, out. Get Cheese, Grass, and Nightshop in here.”
“Want me to take this guy out too?” Snake asked, gesturing to Truck.
“No. He stays. I want him to watch. Keep your eye on him, Shoebaloo.”
Every muscle in Truck’s body tensed as the extremely overweight gangbanger raised his pistol and aimed it at him. They weren’t going to hurt Mary in front of him. No fucking way.
He thought about setting off the explosives right then and there, but he couldn’t risk Mary getting hurt.
Then he thought about bum-rushing Deuce, but there was the pesky matter of the gun the other man was holding.
Shit…he’d probably be okay if he got shot once, but there were more gang members on their way in.
They’d fill him with holes, and then he’d never be able to help Mary.
Truck felt helpless—and it pissed him off even more.
Deuce went over to Mary and grabbed her shirt, stretching the neck far enough that he could see the lace of her bra.
Truck growled and took a step toward the gangbanger and Mary—but stopped when Mary calmly reached into her shirt and pulled something out.
She held it out to Deuce and said with only a small tremor in her voice, “If you’re hoping to get a look at my tits, let me make it easier for you. Here.”
Deuce stared at her hand and dropped his own from her shirt. “What the fuck is that?”
“It’s my boob,” Mary said, as if she were offering him a piece of candy or something equally innocuous.
She then reached inside her shirt again and pulled out the other one, and tried to give that to him too.
“I had breast cancer. My tits tried to kill me so I had them chopped off. Now I wear fake ones. See? It’s squishy, just like the real thing. ”
Truck would’ve laughed at the look on Deuce’s face if there was anything remotely humorous about the situation. The gangbanger looked horrified and disgusted.
“You don’t have any tits?”
In response, Mary pulled her shirt taut so it flattened to her chest, proving that no, she had no boobs at all.
“Are you one of those trans people or somethin’?” Shoebaloo asked in horror. “Are you a dude?”
Mary took a deep breath and shrugged. “Does not having tits make you trans?”
“She’s got short hair, dude,” Shoebaloo said. “I bet she’s a guy.”
“Fuck,” Deuce said, stepping away from her.
Mary dropped her hands and let her inserts fall to the floor of the vault.
She didn’t cower from the gang members, but she didn’t outwardly antagonize them either.
She’d done exactly what she should’ve. It couldn’t have been easy for her, and Truck wanted to take her in his arms more than he wanted to breathe.
His hands shook with the effort it took to stay where he was.
“We gonna blow this shit up or what?” Truck asked, trying to turn the men’s attention back to the matter at hand. Namely, their greed.
“I should kill it,” Deuce said—and raised his pistol so it was once again pointed at Mary’s head.
Truck’s heart stopped beating.
Mary didn’t say a word, kept her eyes bravely on Deuce’s.
The inside of the vault was silent for a moment as everyone held their breath.
“Deuce, there are people outside on their cells—” a gangbanger started as he entered the vault. “What the fuck’s going on?” he asked when he saw Deuce pointing his gun at Mary.
“Bang!” Deuce yelled, then laughed when Mary jerked in fright. “Fucking weirdo,” he muttered, then kicked one of Mary’s fake boobs into a corner. He turned to Truck. “If you’ve in any way fucked this up, your freak girlfriend is gonna die. Then you’re gonna die. Got it?”
“Got it,” Truck said as calmly as he could. “The explosives I’ve set should blow up the boxes, but not the wall behind it. I don’t know what this vault is made of, but I’m assuming it’ll absorb the shockwave well enough.”
“For your sake, I hope so,” Deuce said, then walked over to Truck and grabbed the detonator out of his hand. He motioned Shoebaloo and the other man out of the room with a tilt of his head.
Truck narrowed his eyes. “Why?”
“Because you and your freak are gonna be in here when it goes off. You better hope you didn’t fuck it up,” Deuce said.
“If you disable it in any way when we leave and it doesn’t go off, you’ll be sorry.
” Then he saluted Truck with an evil grin and backed away with the crude, hastily built detonator in his hand.
“You can’t leave us in here!” Truck blurted. He’d reduced the amount of explosives, yes, but it definitely wasn’t safe to be in the vault when they went off.
“Watch me,” Deuce sneered, then backed out of the vault. After making sure the wires were situated so the door could still shut most of the way, he closed them inside with the explosives.
Truck stood there staring at the closed door for one precious second, not believing the asshole had actually left them inside with the explosives.
If they hadn’t shot out the lock, he could’ve slammed the door shut, locking him and Mary safely inside the vault, and disconnected the detonator.
But now there was no way to keep the thugs out.
Truck didn’t have time to completely disable all the explosives, either. Even if he did, Deuce would come back in and shoot them both on sight.
Making a split-second decision, knowing at any time Deuce could hit the detonator, Truck moved toward the explosives rather than away from them.
He heard Mary shout his name in protest, but he ignored her, all his attention on the bricks of explosives.
He quickly yanked two wires out of the bottom row of explosives, hopefully making the inevitable explosion survivable.
If it was just him, he’d take his chance with Deuce and the others.
But it wasn’t. He had to think about Mary.
Truck turned away and rushed toward her.
Other than a small “oof,” she didn’t make a sound, just clung to Truck as hard as she could.
He picked her up off her feet and brought her to the far corner of the vault.
Placing her down as gently as he could, he said, “Curl up into a ball, Mare. Cover your ears.”
He waited until she did as ordered, then he rushed back for the table in the middle of the room. His only choice was to do what he could to protect them from the explosion that Truck knew was coming any second.
He knocked the now empty boxes and various other things he’d used to set up the explosives to the floor, then tried to lift the table—before realizing it was bolted down. He’d hoped to use it to hide behind. Swearing, he made his way back to Mary.
He gathered her into his arms and wrapped himself around her as best he could. He wanted every inch of her body covered. For the first time, Truck was glad he was as big as he was. He was made this way to protect his woman. He was a big-ass scary dude for this moment right here.
Her hands came up and covered his ears instead of her own, and without picking his head up from where it was tucked against her body, he did the same for her.
He was huddled over the woman he loved, praying harder than he ever had in his life, his entire body tense and waiting for the explosion, when Mary blew his mind.
“I love you,” she whispered.
He didn’t hear her, but he felt the words against his neck.
That was all she said. She didn’t elaborate. Didn’t go on and on about if they didn’t make it out of that vault alive…she just wanted him to know.
It made her words all the more poignant and meaningful.
Truck opened his mouth to reciprocate, when the world around them exploded.