Page 73

Madison

The pained shriek of a wounded animal makes me jump.

I’ve been hearing the gunshots for the last five minutes, and every one of them was like a knife in my heart.

I’ve been fantasizing about rescue—but when the gunshots started, Jake laughingly informed me that he had an armed guard with a killer bod to match her killer attitude.

He also told me that he only knew of one person who had even the slightest chance of knowing where to find me—Rhue.

Jake listens to the scream like it’s music, smiling softly and rocking back and forth. He opens his eyes and shrugs.

“Oh, well. That’s what I get for letting Julian saddle me with an amateur. Don’t worry—that’s not your Rhue-Rhue screaming. That’s my apprentice—a psychotic bitch Julian broke in for me. Man, I wish I could’ve done it myself.” He chuckles low in his throat, gazing at the ceiling.

Fear slides down my spine. For all that I thought I bonded with the guy, seeing the glassy-eyed thrill he’s getting from a wounded woman’s scream, watching him daydream about—god, I don’t even want to know what—is making the tiny bit of hope I’ve allowed myself to hold die a slow and painful death.

My breath shakes in my chest as I watch him clean and load his gun, still smiling that goofy, terrifying smile.

He catches me looking and his grin widens.

“Don’t you worry, little lamb. Soon, Mr. Rhue will be here, and I’ll tell him the deal—to swap you for his sister.

Then little Laura and I will run away to the Bahamas, and you and Rhue can go off to Tibet or Venezuela or wherever it is aspiring anthropologists go these days. Happy endings all around!”

I’m not stupid enough to say anything at this point. He’s clearly right on the edge of a breakdown—if he thinks he’ll get out of the country with Julian’s child, he’s out of his goddamned mind.

“Oh, I know what you’re thinking,” he says.

“You’re thinking, what if Laura doesn’t want to go with you, Jake?

And the answer to that is, she does. I know she does.

We’ve had moments, Madison—deep and meaningful moments.

Every time I step foot in the mansion, our eyes meet—and it’s like the whole world stops.

She smiles at me—she sees me, you know. Really sees me, kind of like you do—only, she likes me.

She said hello to me once—she knew my name, Madison.

” He sighs so happily, if he were a cartoon he’d have hearts for eyes.

His sick obsession with Laura is the only thing keeping me alive right now, and I hate myself for it.

I managed to convince him that this was a good plan—to trade me for Laura—gambling on the fact that it would take at least a couple hours for Rhue to get out here, another couple to get back to his dad’s place, and another two before Jake realized that his plan was no good.

I’d hoped that I could convince Rhue, somehow, without Jake being aware of it, to call the cops or the FBI or search and rescue to get me out of here in that four-hour window.

But then gunfire announced his arrival, and my window got a whole lot smaller.

Jake, with gun in hand, starts pacing the room, still chuckling.

I hate the sound—it’s like bubbles popping low in his throat, like gravel rolling down a plastic slide.

It’s grating and irritating and terrifying, like the alien growl of a bobcat ringing through the darkness.

The seconds turn into minutes, and there are no more sounds from outside; no more screams, no more gunshots, not even a creaking board.

A horrible thought occurs to me. What if it was like in the movies, where they fired at the same time?

What if he wounded her, and she got the kill shot?

He’d be gone—forever—dying out there in the cold somewhere, all alone.

I’d be trapped out here, unable to help him, unable to ease his suffering—at least until Jake got tired of waiting, which, judging from the way he’s swinging that gun around, won’t be too much longer.

“Shouldn’t you go check on your apprentice?”

“Hm? Oh, nah, she’s fine. Or not. Whatever. If it was a mortal wound, she’s already dead. If it’s a flesh wound, then she’ll be back any minute.”

“Even if she was shot in the knee or something?”

“Eh, she’s sturdy.” Jake shrugs and continues to swing his gun around. He checks his watch a few times, blowing out razzberries as the minutes tick by.

A few minutes later, the silence is disturbed by a thud—thud—thud.

Jake, looking mildly curious and not at all worried, cocks his head to one side and aims his gun at the door.

The door slams inward, revealing the grimacing, muddy, furious face of an extremely pissed-off Mackenzie.

She’s half-crawling, pulling herself along with her hands and tromping with her left knee, while her right leg drags uselessly behind her.

Blood trickles from a deep wound in the center of her right ass cheek.

“Ammo,” she croaks. “Give me some fucking ammo.”

“What?” Jake looks down at her, appalled. “I gave you so much! Bullets aren’t free, you know.”

“That’s what I said, but the bastard wouldn’t stay still!” She seethes up at him from the floor, clutching a gun in each hand. I really, really hope she’s completely out of ammo, because one of those guns is pointing at my head.

“Well, you can’t have any more ammo,” Jake says, turning his nose up. “You’ve had enough. You don’t want to spoil your dinner, do you?”

“I’m not eating it, you freak!”

“Oh, hush hush now, don’t want to use nasty language in front of the pretty lady. Now, Kenzie, listen. There’s been a tiny change in plans, okay? We don’t want to kill the little boy anymore. Now we want him to bring us his sister, then we can make a trade!”

Mackenzie turns her head slowly and glares at me. “What?”

“You’re missing a contact,” I tell her. “Only your right eye is purple.”

She blinks at me like she can’t believe how stupid I am.

Honestly, it’s an understandable reaction.

I’m feeling a little delirious, and the world just keeps getting wilder.

Her mismatched eyes were kind of a tipping point for me, I think—I feel a case of the giggles coming on, and I’m trying very hard to suppress it.

I’m pretty sure Jake would shoot me dead if I started to be annoying.

“Give me your gun,” Mackenzie says, holding her hand out in Jake’s direction without taking her eyes off me. “I’m going to shoot this bitch.”

“No!” Jake whines, slapping her hand away. “She’s our bargaining chip, Kenzie. What did we go over yesterday? Without a bargaining chip...?”

“You’re a broke-ass bitch,” she groans. “Jesus Christ Jake, why’d you have to pick her?”

“Me? I didn’t pick her, Julian did. And then Rhue did. Or was it Rhue then Julian? I don’t know. The point is, Rhue wants her, and Julian wants her dead. She’s a very desirable commodity and killing her now would be like throwing money away.”

“If Julian wants her dead, then fucking kill her already so we can get paid!”

“No,” Jake says, firmly. “Not until I have Laura.”

Mackenzie puts her face to the floor and growls in frustration. Jake squats down beside her and pats her shoulder. “I know. I know it’s frustrating. But you have to look at the big picture, sweets.”

“What big picture? Boss man tells us to kill his son’s girlfriend, we kill the girlfriend. Boss man says kill the PA, we kill the PA. You—you did kill the PA, didn’t you? Because I swear to God, Jake, if you have another impromptu hostage situation—”

“I killed her, I killed her, good lord, you’d think I was the apprentice with the way you talk to me.

No respect, no respect at all. Listen—following orders is all well and good, but you have to think long-term sometimes.

I don’t want to be Echeveria’s hit man forever.

That’s why I’m training you. Julian only wants Maddie dead because if she rats him out for raping her, his arms dealer buddies will stop backing him and he’ll be in deep shit with Russia and in debt to Iran. Nobody wants that.”

“Um—duh? So shoot her.”

“Ah, ah, ah, but you’re not thinking ahead.

If I kill her, I’m just going to be stuck in a perpetual cycle of killing all the women Julian touches for the rest of his life while Laura fades away beside him, killing herself trying to cover up his crimes and clean up his messes.

Nobody gets a happy ending. But if I run away with Laura and Maddie runs away with Rhue and we all leave the country, none of us will be around to threaten Julian’s rise to power, and we all get to go have endless honeymoons! ”

A metallic click from the window makes everyone freeze.

“Of all the things that are never going to happen—that is never going to happen the most.”