Page 77 of Billion-Dollar Ransom

THREE KNEW HIS wife was right. She usually was. Only a fool would patiently wait for someone to walk up, place the barrel of a gun on his forehead, and pull the trigger.

But running meant destroying any hope of their daughter surviving.

Wasn’t that why they had agreed to this outrageous plan in the first place?

There had been no other option. Oh, Three and Four had convinced themselves that no one would get hurt aside from some wildly rich jerk.

Parents were supposed to sacrifice everything for their kids—even their souls, if need be.

That’s what they’d told themselves when One approached them with his take-it-or-leave-it-right-now offer. Three knew that if they turned down One, they’d regret it forever.

But wait… was there a way to do both? Keep themselves safe and yet still honor their agreement—the spirit of it, at least, if not the letter?

“We can make this work,” Three said, “if we bring Cal and Finney with us.”

Four shook her head. “No. I thought about that while I was driving back here. If we break One’s rules by taking them out of this house, we’re done.”

“So we tell One that we had to move. Maybe we noticed a local cop car drive past too many times. Maybe we didn’t want to risk getting caught before the ransom was delivered—”

“Don’t forget, One will double-cross us no matter what. There won’t be any money. ”

“Which is all the more reason to take the kids,” Three said. “They’re our leverage. He needs them for this plan to work. We can set some rules of our own!”

Four paused to consider that, and Three continued to press his case.

“And we can’t leave these kids here alone to fend for themselves. They’ll run first chance they get, and then what? You really want them wandering around this city at this hour?”

Four nodded. Her mind had been on their daughter and her needs.

“How about we keep them for now,” Three said, “and maybe when we hear the ransom has been paid, we negotiate with the mysterious Mr. One. If he wants these kids back, he’s going to have to honor our agreement.”

“So where will we go?” Four asked. “We never came up with an option B for a hideout.”

Three smiled. “We can have that conversation in the car, right?”

Which reminded him of who was sitting in the car right now—the most important human being in the world to both of them. Three could see her silhouette in the back seat, where she waited patiently for her parents to finish their debate.

Their precious girl had no idea what her parents had actually been up to over the past few days.

She’d been told they’d taken a very lucrative house-rehab job somewhere in the San Gabriel Valley, a two-day gig they absolutely could not turn down.

The real estate business her mom worked for (their daughter called it her “fancy-mansion side hustle”) sometimes hired her father, a skilled handyman.

Their brave girl understood that you didn’t turn down money, and besides, she’d get to spend some quality time with her auntie Shannon.

But what would their daughter do when Mom and Dad came out of this house—which was clearly not being rehabbed, by the way—with two white kids not much younger than herself and said that they had to go on the run?

How were they going to explain that to her?