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“If I get a vote?—
“Shh,” she says coldly to me. “Fine. Put her in the trunk. But if anything happens to her?—"
“It won’t.”
As soon as I feel his giant mitts on me, I struggle. I can’t help it. I’m about to die, and I’m not going to make that easy. But he lays me in the trunk. “See? Not so bad in there. Just be quiet and don’t cause any problems and there won’t be none for you, neither.”
“Wait—"
But the lid shuts.
I take a breath and try not to scream. To my surprise, the trunk isn’t as uncomfortable as I thought it would be. It’s lined with blankets and pillows. This is their usual prisoner transportation car. Lucky me.
I’d pull my blindfold off, but I’m sure I’d be in trouble for that. Not that it matters anyway. Trunks aren’t exactly made for sightseeing. But something in my mind flashes to an old book I read. It was a spy novel, I think. The spy was kidnapped and placed in the back, and there was a lever in the trunk for accidents, like if kids were playing in a car, so they could get out, and he used that lever to spring it open.
Where is that lever?
Feeling around, I pull my blindfold down a little to see, but I was right before. It’s pitch black in here and there’s no point in incurring the wrath of my captors if I can’t escape, so I pull it back up. As I’m groping blindly, the car starts up.
Here we go.
Okay, no one has shot me, and I might be able to pull a lever to escape. Win-win. Keep looking. As I do, I grab onto something that feels like it might be a lever, except it’s sharp. We hit a bump right then, and it cuts my palm. Dammit. It’s not deep, but it hurts. Then again, if that’s the worst injury I end up with over this, I’ll take it gladly.
I press the wound to my coat, hoping to staunch the bleeding, but it’s not bad and seems to end fast. Bet that was the lever. Someone cut it to make it impossible to use. Nothing else in the trunk would match the description I read in the book, so I’m not escaping anytime soon.
But at least no one has shot me. I’ll take it.
I lay back and try to think of what to do next. Make noise when we stop? It’ll attract the attention of the woman and the Big Guy first, and I don’t look forward to their potential reactions. There’s really not much more to be done, other than waiting.
Great. More of the same.
It was strange to watch Andre on the phone after our conversation. He seemed so adamant that I trust him about Anderson, so forceful about it. But when he was on the phone, he vacillated from laughing to threats with ease. Whatever he did professionally, it wasn’t good. He sounded like a maniac.
But thinking about what he told me about the Wests leaves me confused. He said I didn’t know who I was really involved with, and that if I stayed involved with Anderson, I would get into a lot more trouble than I was already in. Details? None. Just threats.
I defended myself and told him I didn’t know anything, and he said he knew I wasn’t involved, and that was why he was being so friendly about everything. I scoffed at that. “Getting threatened and kidnapped and tied to chairs is fucking friendly to you?”
He smiled at that. “Yes. Very.” The man is a fucking sociopath.
I gulped. “Well, it’s not where I come from, Mr. Moeller.”
“You and I come from two very different places, then. It is plain by how you are that you don’t know anything, Ms. Devlin. I beg you not to change that. Your ignorance is what keeps you from facing other consequences at the moment. It keeps you safe. From me. From others. We are exploiting that privilege tonight.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you will go home.”
My whole body tensed with excitement at that. “Seriously?”
“Provided you continue to cooperate with us, yes.”
“What, um … what else do you want from me?”
He smiled. “Let’s have breakfast.” He did something on his phone and within a minute, a feast was delivered to us. My mouth watered at the pastries and fresh fruit and scrambled eggs and coffee, but I didn’t recognize the cup of what looked to be incredibly dark hot chocolate. He sipped that first, smiling, so I did the same. It was incredible. The richest chocolate I’d ever tasted. After that, breakfast was relatively pleasant, given the conditions. Might as well enjoy what could be my last meal.
After breakfast, he started his calls in Italian, and after a while, the woman came and took me to another part of the penthouse, where we watched TV. It was all so weirdly normal that I didn’t know what to think of any of it. But I was wiped out from the stress and from being up all night, and I ended up dozing off in an easy chair. After all, these people could kill me at any moment, whether I was asleep or not. Might as well rest while I could.
When I woke up, it was to hushed voices in the other room and I was alone. I listened at the door, but it was more Italian. Shortly after that, the woman brought me a turkey sandwich and said to eat fast, because we had to be somewhere. On the way through the penthouse, Andre stopped us. “Remember what I said, Ms. Devlin. Remain uninvolved with the West family, or things will not be as easy on you next time.”
