Page 53 of Ride or Die (The Shores #1)

CHAPTER

FIFTY-THREE

EVERYTHING IS NOT AS IT SEEMS

LAYLA

When I take one look at Colt, my heart drops. His eyes are tense, warning me that something is wrong.

My mom smiles at me, but it’s not friendly or loving. It’s dark and sinister. My dad glares at me, stoned-faced with cold eyes, sitting a little too close to Colt for my comfort.

There’s a heaviness in the air, a palpable tension.

“Come have a seat, sweetheart.” My mom gestures to the chair, but Colt shakes his head, subtly indicating not to. I take the hint. I'm not fucking stupid. These are not nice people, and there is nothing but mal-intent here.

I take in everything in the room, and it’s now that I notice Colt’s arms behind his back and realize they have tied him up.

“I’d rather stand. What’s going on?” My mother’s smile falls, and a more crazed look takes over.

“You never listened very well, did you? Everyone called you the good girl, but you never fucking listened. Furthest thing from a good girl,” she spits out, sounding like a lunatic.

My dad shifts in the seat next to Colt, and a gun comes up from under the table. He places it on the tabletop facing me.

“Enough dancing around this shit,” he says abruptly to my mother, getting up from his chair. “We want your boy’s money here. So you’re going to go get it for us or we’re going to kill him,” my dad says simply, like it’s the most normal request in the world.

I look at the two of them standing before me, frail, probably tweaked out as we speak. The abuse of drugs is evident in their mannerisms and demeanor. They’re junkies.

“He doesn’t have any money. He spent it all.” I lie, hoping they will believe me. My dad snorts, and my mom walks up to me.

“Yeah, like we believe that.” She reaches forward and rips the necklace Colt gave me right off, leaving a burn that stings the back of my neck.

“No money, but you’re wearing this?” Rage fills my insides as I watch her toss it over to my dad.

“Why are you doing this to us?” I try to keep my voice from shaking, not wanting them to know they’re affecting me. I’m a lot stronger than I used to be, but it's terrifying when your parents are threatening to kill the love of your life.

They don't answer, they just stare at me. I need to know why they would want to do this to their own daughter and her boyfriend.

“Like seriously why the fuck are you doing this? What did I ever do to you?” I ask more sharply, agitated by their lack of explanation.

“I told you, we want your boy’s money. For a smart girl, you’re awfully fucking stupid.

We need money and you have it. You’re not the ones getting out of here.

We are. We worked too damn hard to be stuck here while you escape this shithole suburb with your punk boyfriend. That’s our freedom!” my dad yells.

I snort derisively and fold my arms across my chest. “Everything that’s happened to you is your own fault. Colt and I worked our asses off for an education just so we didn’t become people like you. We put our lives on the line. We earned our freedom!” I shout.

Rage brightens my dad’s face at my attitude, his expression turning to one of pure evil as he marches across the kitchen and backhands me.

I yelp, my hand flying to my cheek to cover the sting.

Colt struggles in his chair, pulling against his restraints, but can’t break free.

Turning his anger back on Colt, my dad bolts back over and grabs his head, pressing the gun to his temple.

Colt winces, his eyes closing as mine widen in horror. I put out my hands in surrender, swallowing down my fear.

“Okay…Okay…Okay. I’ll get you the money. Just please put the gun down, I’ll stop being a smart ass,” I plead.

“Go get the fucking money! Everything he has!” my dad demands, finally pulling the gun away from his head.

Colt’s chest heaves up and down, his breaths coming loud and heavy.

He opens his eyes and looks at me sternly, silently telling me to cut my shit because my smart mouth is getting us into trouble.

Enough fucking around with these mentally unstable fucks, we can do more jobs for Williams to get out of here.

“I’ll be back soon. Stay safe, baby. I love you.” He stares at me intensely as I prepare to leave, and I know exactly what he’s thinking. We planned for something like this.

I take off from the house and run as fast as I can over to his place, thankful the stupid drug addicts let me go alone. But I can't help but wonder, how in the fuck did they subdue a strong guy like Colt?

Once I’m inside, I run into his room and see the packages of money he’s already gotten ready to be shipped in a duffle bag.

We are storing the larger quantities in the floor, the safe merely a decoy.

I pull back the floorboard and take out the remaining cash, setting it aside.

There’s about forty thousand there from the last job that I’m willing to sacrifice to these assholes.

I take the other packages from the duffel bag and throw them under the floorboard, covering it back up with the rug. My heart beats frantically in my chest the entire time as I grab a gun and knife from Colt’s safe, trying to come up with a good reason why we don’t have any more cash on us.

All I know is that I need to save Colton, and if that means shooting my fucking parents myself, then that’s how this shit is going down. This is why I also had him teach me to shoot a gun.

I’m sick of these fucks trying to take what’s ours. It ends today.

Scanning the room one more time, I take a deep breath before heading out the door and back outside with the duffle bag of forty thousand in hand. Worry settles like a rock in my gut as I sprint home, praying Colt is okay. Who knows what my parents are capable of in their fucked-up state.

Out of breath, I run inside, skidding to a stop when I see Daya and Axel have joined the party.

Jesus Christ, what a gong show.

“What in the actual fuck is going on? Why are you here?” I ask breathlessly, looking around at the five adults in the kitchen, who are all looking around at each other as well.

“I know you two are leaving, I've been looking for you. I want my fucking money!” Axel booms, clearly on something. He looks strung right out of his mind. Daya stands behind him, looking angry but also a little nervous, like she doesn’t trust Axel’s judgment at the moment.

By the look on his face, I sure as fuck don’t.

Colt is still tied to the chair, looking eerily calm as he sits there watching what is going on between everyone.

“Your money?″ my dad shouts and stands from his seat, his chair clattering to the floor.

Axel spins to face him. “Yes. They stiffed me on that job! That’s my fucking money!” he shouts.

“If anyone is getting money, it’s us!” my mother shrieks.

I can’t believe my eyes. Watching all these people scream about our money, even more so, Colt’s money. It’s fucking disgusting.

Colt makes eye contact with me, and I start slowly moving towards him as Axel and my parents yell about who is getting our money. Meanwhile, I’m still holding 40k in the bag. People are not going to be happy to share.

I move beside Colt and notice blood on the back of his neck. They must have hit him over the head to subdue him. My blood boils that these fucking assholes hurt my man.

I discreetly slip the knife into his hands as all these drug addict fucks argue, none the wiser to what I'm doing. His arms are still behind his back, but he manages to cut the thin rope they used. He drops it to the floor and gently starts sliding out of the chair.

For a brief second, we think we can slip out of the kitchen door unnoticed. They are all so distracted justifying why the money belongs to them.

But then we hear the click of a gun.

“Sit the fuck down,” Axel seethes and points the gun at us, scanning the room back and forth with it. My dad points one back at him while my mom stands in the corner with her hands on her face, and Daya backs away from everyone.

“Now give me the fucking bag and I’ll be out of your way, okay? You know I deserve that more than your junkie parents.” Axel looks crazed, and I think he may be the worst junkie here. I throw the bag down on the floor with a thud between them all.

“You're right, it's yours. There it is,” I say with my hands up.

A sick smile pulls across his face seeing me give up the bag. He chuckles. “Oh, Layla, if only you knew the shit your lovely parents are into.”

I wouldn’t doubt it. I know my parents are pathetic lowlifes who have succumbed to the ways of The Shores. That’s why I always intended to fuck them over and leave them behind.

Axel reaches for the bag, still pointing the gun directly at us.

“Fuck you! That’s our daughter and our money!” my dad screams at him, his hand unsteady with the gun.

“Please know we didn’t stiff you, Ax. That was Williams," I explain, and Axel snorts, looking at me with disgust.

"He gave you my share too?" I avoid his accusatory gaze, feeling guilty that we never gave him his cut. He's right, we could have. Greed is a motherfucker, and I'm just another one of these selfish assholes now.

It's every man for himself in The Shores.

Axel knows that a job made is a job paid, and he was sure that was still the case. And he's right, between the two of us, we brought home this forty thousand fair and square for that job, but it was still Williams who stiffed Axel.

He picks it up and my dad fidgets, looking agitated, but he doesn’t do anything except point the gun at Axel. My dad was always a little bitch. It’s why he ended up with the shitty life he’s lived. He fucked us.

“Why’s this bag so fucking light? Haven’t you been squirreling money away, Hawthorne?”

“Yeah, but I mailed all my money to a PO box in Canada. We lied about California. We’re heading to a quiet country town up North.” Colt lies. “It’s all gone, Axel, unless we go to Canada and wait for it to arrive.”

As Axel is about to respond, my mom wildly goes for the bag of money in his hand, and all hell breaks loose.