19. Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Nineteen
Wyatt
He's two minutes late for the drop. I always give people five extra minutes before I move on with the consequences of not showing. I'm not so rigid that I can't be empathetic to things like traffic. The five minute cushion has been beneficial to me in the past, too. You never know what high jinks might occur during a drop or exchange, despite your best laid plans. One thing's for certain, though. If the husband doesn't show with the money within the next three minutes, I'll be forced to go through with those consequences.
I just wish I knew what they were.
I shouldn't have slept with Larken last night. The handcuffs were a mistake. And I definitely shouldn't have held her. This situation is getting out of hand and will become dangerous in so many ways if I'm not careful. Careful. That's laughable. Careful ran out the window the moment I carried her out of her house.
I can't go through with the consequences I would normally employ. The jobs I typically take don't involve women, children, or innocent people. Larken has been on the receiving end of so much unfairness. She shouldn't have to pay the price for the husband's misconduct, especially since he doesn't actually care what happens to her. I'm thoroughly convinced of that. The husband only cares about the money. Her money. Sending video footage of her being tortured because of him won't spur him to do anything, and that's not something I'm interested in putting her through anyway. She's been through enough.
The only reason I'm not just letting her go and cutting my losses is that that would leave her in danger. From the way it sounds, Adrian can't access the greater part of her money or the company she inherited without her physical presence. He'll never stop coming after her. He'll never let her go. Well, that's not entirely true. He will let her go the minute he forces her to sign everything over to him. Then he won't need her anymore and he can let her go, right off the top floor of a building. That seems like something he'd do. He wouldn't want to get dirty. He'd push her off, or pay someone else to do it.
A gut-wrenching image of Larken plummeting backwards towards the hard asphalt from the top of a skyscraper flashes in my mind like a clip from a movie and my stomach turns. I close my eyes against it, but I can't un-see the look in her terrified eyes, even if it wasn't real; which brings me to the other reason I'm going to see this through.
I fucking hate this guy. The very fact that he's so willing to be so shitty is disgusting. I will never understand how women like Larken – intelligent, kind, extraordinary women – end up with spineless assholes like Adrian. It is absolutely mind boggling. I'm going to put him through as much misery as I can manage and hopefully he'll be no more than an unfortunate memory when I put Larken back on her feet.
That's another problem I'm going to have to work through. Larken will have to go back to her life. She worked for her life. She deserves to live it exactly as she was meant to without Adrian, or me, or any other man trying to control it. If Adrian delivers the money, great. I've already decided that any money he hands over rightfully belongs to Larken, so I'll give it to her once this is all over. If he doesn't, well, I know where he sleeps at night.
With forty-five seconds to go, Adrian makes an appearance. I picked one of those public gyms where you can buy a membership a couple towns away as the drop off point. He's supposed to put the bag with the money into locker number 156 and leave. I left the combination lock unlocked. He's been instructed to lock it after he puts the money inside, and then he's supposed to pick up a brochure from the front counter on his way out the door. I added that last instruction because I've paid for a membership here for years and he's never been here before. Larken said that he would only use the private gym at his country club. I make an appearance here every few months or whenever I'm in the area. It's not odd for me to be here, or to not come in for months at a time, since I travel so much for ‘ work’ .
The kid working the front desk may not have paid much attention to him when he came in, but making him stop to get a brochure will ensure that someone here sees his face and could more easily identify him since he's not a regular. I want him to understand that he's being watched and that he's been seen at an exact time at an exact location. People are less likely to do silly, foolish things when they know they aren't invisible.
He must have come directly from work. He's wearing a business suit and an overcoat and looks so out of place walking among the work out machines, mats, and the people dressed in gym clothes. He gets a few strange looks as he makes his way to the locker room, but nobody pays him any real attention. He's in and out of the locker room inside of a minute, and he dutifully picks up the brochure. I wait until his car leaves the parking lot and has been gone for a few minutes before I climb down the stairs from the track that runs around the inside of the building. I stop by the fountain and fill my water bottle before I go into the locker room.
The lock springs open after I put in the combination and I pull out the bag. It feels heavy enough. I carry it into one of the bigger toilet stalls to see if there are bricks or actual money inside. Color me shocked, it's all here.
I transfer the money into my shoulder bag and toss the one Adrian carried in into the garbage on my way out of the bathroom. He seems like the type of guy to put a location tag on a gym bag full of money, or the money itself, and I don't need that worry following me around.
The plan is for me to stay gone for most of the day. One might argue that it's a bad idea to ride around with a large sum of money casually resting in the trunk of your car, but I think it would be a far worse idea to drive directly back to what's supposed to be a safe house. All anyone would have to do is follow me to Larken, then they could possibly take her and the money. The money is one thing; there's always more money to be had. She's another. I'm not going to do anything that would make it easy for anyone to hurt her again.
And now I'm right back to the beginning of my thought process. I have no business being protective over her. None. But here I sit, ready to fight the world to keep her safe.
She was worried about me when I left this morning. She told me to be careful. Either she vastly overestimates Adrian, or I heavily underestimate him, and I'm betting on the former. I've dealt with men who could eat Adrian for breakfast, I'm not worried about him.
I send a text to Shaun to let him know that the drop has been made. I didn't tell either of them the location of the drop. I didn't want anybody to get any wild ideas of coming to my rescue. I wait until Shaun texts me back to leave. I've got a full tank of gas and hours to fill. The idea is to give the impression of running errands to anyone paying attention. People get curious if their neighbors are constantly coming and going. They also get curious if they never leave the house. Taking the day to run a nonexistent list of errands is a completely normal occurrence.
Shaun has a full day of god awful movies and junk food planned. He doesn't take anything seriously, but this is one distraction tactic of his that I can agree on. Larken will have a much better time of it if she spends the day killing brain cells with whatever rom-com cringe fest Shaun has lined up than she will sitting on the couch in a ball of anxiety. I just hope he doesn't make her sick with all the candy and chips he tried to convince me I didn't see hidden under a tea towel beside the microwave.