Chapter Forty - Rachel
CHAPTER FORTY
Rachel
Neither of us speaks when we hear the truck doors open and slam shut.
Ryder lays his head against the back, eyes closing and face going slack.
I wonder why he’d make himself so vulnerable in a time when he should be vigilant, but the answer comes as soon as the truck bed opens, casting sunlight on his peaceful face.
If they think he’s still unconscious, they may let their guard down.
Vance takes hold of my ankle, roughly dragging me to sit on the truck bed door before getting Mary’s help to do the same to Ryder.
I squint as my eyes adjust and process our surroundings: a giant field with a wide road that looks more like a runway.
An airstrip.
Sure enough, a small, luxury plane is parked several yards away, and the airstrip is otherwise abandoned.
The plane’s door slides open, and four men armed with large guns exit. They descend the stairs, standing at the base of the plane expectantly.
Vance does an inconspicuous check of his handgun—which looks like a toy compared to what the soldiers are carrying—before looking at Mary.
“I’ll go make sure everything is in order.
” He glares at me and Ryder—who is slumped with his head in my lap—then nods to Meredith’s side, where I’m sure another gun is strapped.
“Kill her if she starts causing trouble.”
If I wasn’t restrained, I would’ve flipped him off.
We watch Vance stride to the group with confidence I doubt he’s earned, and once he’s out of earshot, I send a cutting look to Mary.
“Why are you doing this? How does this protect Dominic?” At the mention of her son’s name, Mary’s calm facade starts to crumble.
She looks between Vance and me, checking that he’s far enough away before lowering her voice.
“I didn’t have a choice. Vance found out who we were and has been blackmailing me for years.
” Her eyes trail to Ryder, and I lean forward as if I could use my body to protect him, though I can’t in our current position. “Doing this… it’s my ticket out.”
“Why didn’t you ask me for help?”
“By the time we were friends, it was too late.” She casts a nervous look to where Vance is talking to the soldiers. “It was just some office supplies. I never thought it’d go on this long…”
She gets this lost look in her eyes, and a part of me actually feels bad for her. But not enough to erase what she put Ryder through.
“Moreno knows you’re behind this. You won’t be able to just go pick Dominic up like nothing happened. They’ll never stop hunting you down.”
That lost look sharpens like a blade before my eyes, and I feel the cut of it like a physical blow. “I didn’t survive years on the run just to have my son taken from me. I ran once. I can do it again. You have no idea the lengths I’d go for him.”
“I think I’m starting to get it,” I bite.
Ryder presses his head into my leg in a warning that I lovingly ignore.
“I met him, you know. Dominic’s father.”
Mary looks away from me, toward the men who are caught up in conversation and paying us no mind.
“I met him the day Lyla was born. He sat beside me on a bench and told me about how he’d lost the love of his life and their unborn child.”
“Shut up,” she grates, and Ryder presses into me even harder.
“I wonder,” I say, blatantly ignoring them both. “Did you know that he kidnapped Lyla and me? Did you know that he was the accident that Lyla’s been scarred from for weeks now?”
“Of course, I knew.” She twists to look at me with eyes that shine with anguish. “What do you want from me? An apology for being his dirty backstory? Because you won’t get it. I loved Mason, but he was power-hungry, even back then. If I hadn’t left, he would’ve destroyed Dominic.”
“You did a bang-up job all on your own.”
Her hand comes out of nowhere, connecting with my cheek in a smack that rings through the field. Ryder goes rigid on my lap, but Mary doesn’t notice. She steps forward, taking my chin between her sharp nails.
“I have had to beg, scrape, and fight every single day of my life, and I’m not about to stop now. I liked you, Rachel. I really did. I wish you’d taken my advice and left Ryder alone so you didn’t have to get caught up in this, but you didn’t, and now you’ll be a means to an end just like him.”
Her nails dig in so deep that my skin breaks, and I can’t help my pained wince.
Ryder twitches in my lap, and I know he’s about to interfere.
“No!” I rasp, eyes still locked on Mary, and Ryder heeds the warning.
Thankfully, Mary takes my outburst as a plea and releases my face with a shove.
“Ladies,” Vance says tightly as he approaches. “Let’s be civil in front of our guests.”
Two of the armed men have followed Vance to us, and they take hold of Ryder’s arms. The urge to fight when Vance takes hold of me is strong, but I don’t. I won’t be able to overpower him, and trying will only minimize my chances of getting out of this.
Moreno better be close.
We get to the base of the plane, and the door opens again, extending the stairs to make way for a man in a fitted suit to descend.
He’s clad in black head to toe, with dark hair cropped short and a tidy beard to match. He wears sunglasses that cover half his face, but the other half is set in a stern frown that reminds me a lot of Briggs.
Confidence, authority, and something far more nefarious radiate off this man like a danger sign blinking in neon lights.
“Who is this?” he asks with a razor-sharp tone and a head jerk in my direction.
Vance’s hold on me tightens. “Your ticket to controlling Bates. The mother of his child. He’d do anything to protect her.”
“Is that right?” He looks from me to Ryder’s limp body and back again.
I feel Vance’s nod. “For thirty-five percent more, she’s all yours.”
A lethal silence settles over the airstrip, like it alone could suck the life from each one of us. After what feels like an eternity, the man nods to one of the soldiers at Vance’s side.
One gunshot rings out.
Two voices shout at deafening volumes.
“Rachel!” Ryder jerks in his captor’s hold, eyes flying open to search me for injuries.
Vance wails in my ear, releasing me with a shove as he cowers to look at the bullet in his foot.
The man looks between Ryder and me with interest, and I know he’s just realized the truth in Vance’s claim. Ryder surrendered his surprise element to ensure I was okay.
He slides off his sunglasses to show his cold, cobalt-blue eyes and tucks them in the pocket of his coat with calculated movements. Though his face remains as hard as granite, his brow lifts as though whatever he sees pleases him.
“What the hell?” Vance hisses through tightly gritted teeth.
“Mr. Vance.” The man steps closer to me, but his focus is trained on Vance. “Do you take me for an idiot?”
“N-no, sir. Of course n-not,” he stutters.
“Then I suggest you stop treating me like one. Or should I tell the boss that you’re no longer an ally?”
Vance grunts as he pushes to stand, leaning his full weight on his good foot. “Of course not, Mr. Diaz. My apologies.”
My stomach drops.
I never paid much attention to how mafia families operated when I lived in LA, but the research I did on Mason over these last few weeks taught me a lot.
Like how Leon Diaz is the boss of the Diaz family and owns the southeast part of the country.
All I know of his character is that when debating which families to reach out to about if they’d been approached by Mason, Leon Diaz was the only boss Moreno refused to see.
This man isn’t Leon Diaz—according to the few pictures I’ve seen of him—but he looks similar enough that they have to be closely related.
The moment Diaz’s snake-like eyes slide to me, I shudder. There’s something horribly unsettling about the way they rake up and down my body, like he’s inspecting a car he’d like to buy.
If another family gets their hands on you, you will be assaulted, murdered, or both.
I’m about to be sold off like an object, and yet I cannot bring myself to regret coming for Ryder.
That familiar slither of anxiety crawls through my mind, but I don’t let the thought settle before I combat it with my mantra.
I can do this. I am strong. I am capable. I am not a victim.
I lift my chin, showing this man that I am not afraid of him, even if it isn’t true.
His lip twitches at that.
“I think I will be taking the girl.” He takes slow, leisurely steps toward me, and I try to back away, but Vance shoves me forward into the man’s hold.
Diaz catches my hips in a bruising grip and looks down at me with countless twisted fantasies openly written in his chilling eyes.
“Let her go!” Ryder snaps, and though I can hear him struggling, I can’t see him past Diaz’s body.
“Huh,” he mutters, “maybe you will be good for controlling the beast.”
“Perhaps we can come up with a more reasonable price, then,” Vance suggests, tone edged with well-concealed hysteria. “Twenty percent? Fifteen?”
“Mr. Vance, I pay for business, not toys,” he says, eyes never leaving mine, and I feel so sick that a part of me actually hopes I can throw up all over his pristine suit.
“If you touch her, I will kill you,” Ryder’s threat is accompanied by the sounds of the soldiers struggling to keep him in their hold.
In a quick turn, Diaz has my back against his front, and a blade digs into my throat as his other arm wraps around my middle, holding me in place. I wince when this position forces my restrained wrists to his groin.
Only weeks ago, the mere sight of a knife would’ve been enough to break me, but now, I barely register the one pressing to my throat as I take in the scene in front of me.
I have a full view of Ryder thrashing in the hold of two soldiers, and I have no choice but to watch in horrified silence as he goes rigid in their grasp the second his eyes find me.
“Ryder, don’t—”
The blade digs in deeper, cutting my words as well as my chin.
“Yes, Ryder, don’t struggle, or your girl is the one who will suffer for it.”