3. Victoria
3
VICTORIA
Thursday, September 26, 6:30 AM
I have to seize this opportunity—I’m not sure if I’ll get another chance. I’ve never been this amped up on adrenaline and it feels like every nerve in my body is lit up. I’m vibrating in anticipation and fear.
It’s hard to tell whether the jitters are from excitement or exhaustion. It’s hard to sleep when you’re handcuffed to the bed and can see the gun on your captor’s nightstand.
Liam wanted to get on the road early for some reason, and we needed to get gas before we left town. Stupidly—but luckily for me—he decided to leave me in the car while he went inside to pay the clerk in cash. Did he really not think I’d try to get away from him the second I had a chance?
And I knew this was it when I saw someone pull up to the pump one row over from ours. Before he could even step out of his car, I slide myself into the front seat through the unlocked door.
I have no choice but to hope with everything I have that this man will assist me.
“Sir, please help me,” I beg through the roaring of my pulse in my ears. The driver is middle-aged, with glasses and light brown hair. His brows are pinched together at my invasion of his space. “I’ve been kidnapped and I need to use your phone.”
“What?” he gasps, shock twisting the wrinkles in his face.
“He’s my ex-boyfriend. Please , I need…” A sob rips from my throat and I try to hold back my tears, locking my jaw to stop its trembling. “I need to call 911.”
He fumbles for his phone in the center console, seeming almost as unsettled as me, and hands it over. “Here you go.”
I know I need to call the authorities, someone who can get to me quickly, but that isn’t the first call I want to make. My first thought is Dante. I want to know he’s coming to get me, but I don’t know his phone number from memory. I know Ellie’s, though. I can call her once I’m safe, see if she can find Dante…
My thumb shakes as it hovers over the keypad on the screen and I clutch the phone in my lap, unable to believe I’ve found a lifeline so quickly and easily.
A gunshot cracks through the air, followed by the tinkle of breaking glass.
Something warm hits the side of my face and I jolt in terror.
“Get the fuck out of the car, Vee.”
Liam.
My lips part, and slowly I turn my head to the side, struggling to process what I see in the driver’s seat.
The man who so kindly handed over his cell phone is slumped across the steering wheel, a red hole in the side of his forehead. Blood drips from the wound, and his hazel-green eyes are frozen wide in shock, staring past me.
A blood-curdling scream crawls its way up my throat, my mouth opens, but no sound escapes.
My scream is stuck, trapped, and won’t leave.
The sun is just starting to rise, and an innocent man at the gas station—probably on his way to work—is dead.
I killed him.
I’m the reason he’s dead.
“ Now, Victoria . ”
My muscles are slow to respond, and my thoughts feel sluggish in my brain. I don’t know what to do. Liam has a gun and I have nothing . Slowly, clumsily, I open the passenger door and follow Liam’s instructions like a dog with its tail tucked.
I don’t want to die, and I especially don’t want Liam to kill me. There has to be a light at the end of the tunnel. I refuse to accept that there’s no hope for me. I have too many plans, and dying in the middle of nowhere isn’t one of them.
The phone still in my palm reminds me that I at least have that option, so I shove the device in the front of my underwear and try to walk normally around the minivan. Liam meets me at the rear and yanks me forward into his chest and spits his next words into my face.
“You think this is a fuckin’ game? You just made me kill that man!”
I’d like to say that Liam feels bad about it, but he wouldn’t have done it in the first place if he had any empathy for human life.
He could’ve warned the man. Liam could have done anything else but take a good Samaritan’s life.
My situation is growing more precarious with each passing second. Clearly, Liam will do whatever it takes to get what he wants and now he’s involved me in a murder. He’s desperate, which means nothing is off limits for him.
It’s becoming more likely, almost a guarantee, that he’ll just eliminate me once he gets my money. He just shot a man in cold blood and I married Liam’s uncle instead of him.
I’d say it’s a safe bet that revenge is at the top of Liam’s to-do list.
“You have to let me go, Liam,” I mutter, unable to stop my tremors or hide the fear in my voice. “This isn’t worth it.”
He squeezes my biceps harder, and I know the pads of his fingertips will leave bruises. “ You’re not worth it, you’re right. But I need your money to get out of here. And I’m not taking you with me. You’re dead once the money’s in your account.”
My stomach drops as he gives voice to my worst fears. Liam’s right. The further he goes down this path, the more of a liability I will become. He needs to get across the border, past government officials, and there’s too much risk that I’ll scream for help. He could always gag me and toss me in the trunk when he crosses, but then he’d have to worry about someone searching the car and finding my bound body.
I’m starting to think getting rid of me has been Liam’s plan all along. That the whole going with him part was just a front to keep me calm and cooperative.
Now, he’s executed a man without batting an eye and there’s no trace of the guy I dated last year.
He’s gone.
And I need to get the hell away from the lunatic in his place.