Page 76 of Billion-Dollar Ransom

THREE HAD JUST proposed one final round of Mastermind (and he meant it this time, even though the children were refusing to go to bed until Four was back home) when there was a frenzied knock-knock-knock at the door.

At first, relief flooded Three’s veins, because he thought Four had finally returned. But why on earth would his wife knock on the door of their secret kidnapping hideout?

Cal and Finney Schraeder were obviously thinking the same thing. Both eyed the door nervously. Who could be visiting at this late hour? And then the two of them exchanged glances. Maybe it was the police coming to rescue them. But… what would that mean for Three?

“Stay right here, guys,” Three said, and he moved slowly toward the door.

He almost wished he were the kind of professional criminal who carried a firearm.

He’d actually never held a gun, and they’d dumped their only weapon, the Taser, not long after they’d scooped up Cal and Finney.

So he was defenseless against whoever had decided it was cool to show up late at night.

Maybe he should duck back into the kitchen and look for a butcher knife… but what good would that do? Was Three supposed to get into a knife fight with a professional who was here to kill him and his wife?

Because that’s where Three’s mind was going now.

Someone had been watching them. Someone saw Four leave.

Someone called One and told him that Three and Four had broken the rules.

One then called someone else, maybe one of the other numbers, maybe someone outside their little group, and told that person to kill whoever answered the door and then take the children.

Then it came again, even more rapid this time: knock-knock-knock-knock.

Would professional killers do this? Wasn’t their whole thing slipping inside undetected and using guns with silencers to murder their sleeping victims? They didn’t usually roll up, knock on the door, and announce, Hit men here! Open up!

Three was relieved but confused when he opened the door to find his trembling wife.

“We have to leave,” Four said. “Right now.”

“And go where, exactly? What happened? How’s our girl?”

“She’s outside in the car waiting for us.”

Three’s eyes widened in shock. “She’s where ? You gotta be kidding.”

Four quickly recapped the call from the woman claiming to be Six, a supposed coconspirator. The most important part of that brief conversation was the revelation that One had intended to double-cross them all along. Three shook his head furiously, not believing it.

“Doesn’t make sense,” he said. “There’s no way One would risk losing all that money. I mean, what’s to stop us from taking the kids with us?”

“What’s to stop him from killing us the moment Cal and Finney are gone? One knows everything about us. We know nothing about him!”

“Honey, it just doesn’t add up.”

“Sure it does. And maybe Six just found out the hard way. Maybe she kidnapped some other member of the Schraeder family and learned the truth about One at the last minute, right before he could kill her. Maybe she’s spreading the word so the rest of us don’t end up on a slab somewhere.”

Three rubbed his eyes. It was late, he was bone-weary, and he knew there was zero chance of sleep anytime soon. And now his wife was spinning around with crazy what-ifs and half-baked conclusions right when they had literally everything on the line.

“Sweetheart, you need to bring our girl back to the hospital,” he said. “You know we can’t care for her on our own. We don’t have the equipment.”

“She’ll be okay until morning,” Four said, rather unconvincingly.

“That can’t be right. Did you clear it with her nurse?”

Four shot him a withering look that made him realize how stupid this question was.

There was no way the oncology team would have let their daughter leave.

Either Four had taken their daughter out of the hospital against medical advice or she had sneaked her out.

Returning her to the hospital might not even be an option.

“Even if we left,” Three said, “don’t you think One would find us? You know what kind of resources the man has.”

“All I know,” Four said, “is that if we run right now, we still have a chance.”