Page 41 of Risk (Gods #3)

G ary stuck to back roads through the busy city, and then he pulled onto the highway, taking us out of the city. I tried to pay attention to where we were going, not that it was going to help me in any way, but we’re somewhere on the outskirts of Allentown.

The roads are quiet and mostly free of cars. He knows exactly where he’s going. I have a feeling he already planned this all out—probably from the moment Kaden refused to give him any money. He’s just been waiting and biding his time.

He truly is a sick individual, and I’m stuck in a car with him.

Gary takes a turnoff and pulls the car into a deserted area that’s filled with old rail cars. Looks like the place that they come to die.

I don’t want to die.

I’m not going to die. I’m gonna be fine. Kaden will get the money, and he’ll come and get me, and this will be all over. A horrible memory. But a memory all the same.

He parks the car over by the side of the railroad.

I wonder if it’s an active railroad. There’s constant rumbling from the ground, like you feel when there’s an oncoming train, but I’ve not seen one yet, which makes me wonder if there’s an underground railway tunnel running below here as well.

Although, if a train does come through here, it’s not like I can flag a passing train down for help.

He turns the engine off. I can feel him looking at me, but I refuse to make eye contact with the man.

“How far along are you?” he asks, grabbing a pack of cigarettes from the dash and lighting one up.

I really don’t want to inhale cigarette smoke. “Can I roll down my window?” I ask.

“No.”

He does, however, roll his down, and he blows the smoke out of it. To my surprise, he holds the cigarette by the window so the smoke curls up into the air outside, disappearing.

So, he doesn’t mind kidnapping me at gunpoint, but he’ll make sure not to blow smoke in my direction.

Fucking psycho.

“You didn’t answer my question.” He takes another inhale of his cigarette.

“What was it again?”

He lets out an annoyed sigh. “How far along are you?” He waves the gun-toting hand in the direction of my bump.

“Five months.”

“You’re big for five months. Mind you, Kaden’s mother was big with him, and he was big, like me, and you’ve got the Scott genes growing in there.”

How is this man in any way genetically connected to Kaden?

Well, Kaden might have his genes, but he must have his mother’s good heart because I see nothing good in the man sitting beside me.

I’ve studied and researched men like Gary Scott for the last six years of my life, and he has all the hallmark traits of a narcissistic sociopath.

The best way to be with men like that is to play to their ego.

“I am having twins. But they are big for their age, is what the doctor told me, so it clearly must be the Scott genes.”

He puffs his chest out. He likes that.

“Twins, eh?” He scratches his chin, which is covered in days’ old stubble that’s speckled with gray. “There’s none of them in my family, and there were no twins in Kaden’s bitch mother’s family.”

I flinch at the tone and slur he uses about Kaden’s mom. It’s hard, knowing that the man sitting beside me is the sole reason for the pain that Kaden has endured his entire life. That he beat the life from Kaden’s mom, using his bare hands.

“I’m a twin,” I tell him in a quiet voice, not wanting this man to know any more than necessary about my family.

“He the boxer or the football player?”

So, he already knows about my family. Obviously been doing his research.

I swallow down the bile I feel rising in my throat. “Neither.”

“You’ve got another one?”

He didn’t know that, and it clearly irks him. Apparently, he didn’t do his research well enough.

But then the man only cares about money, so obviously, he got sidetracked by Zeus and Ares.

“Yes.”

“This one make as much money as the other two?”

When I pause, he clicks out the chamber that holds the bullets and then clicks it back into place.

I shake my head. “No. He just finished law school.”

He barks out a laugh at that. I don’t know what is going on in his sick mind for him to find that funny.

I feel a more prominent rumbling in the ground that comes up through the car, and then a train comes from round the corner, hurtling past at a hell of a fast speed.

When it’s gone, Gary puts the radio on in the car and sets it to what sounds like a local news station.

“You know what the babies are then?” he asks.

I want to come back with a snarky retort that normal me would come out with, but I bite it back.

And why the fuck does he want to chat about the babies with me when he kidnapped me and is literally holding me at gunpoint in exchange for money that he’s extorting from his son?

“No. We want to be surprised.”

He says nothing at that.

He takes a last drag of his cigarette and then flicks it out of the open window and rolls it back up. He takes his cell phone from his pocket and begins single-handedly typing out a text.

I watch, assessing whether I could grab the gun from him. But I know it’d be a stupid move. He outweighs me by a hundred pounds. I’m heavily pregnant. And even if I did manage to get the gun, what the fuck would I do? I’ve never fired a gun before.

There’s a first time for everything though.

I swear to myself that if—no, when —I get out of this, I’m going to go to a shooting range and have lessons on how to shoot a gun.

I never thought I’d be a person who’d want to do this or want to ever own a gun. But then again, I never thought I’d be kidnapped and held at gunpoint either.

When Gary has finished typing out his text to whoever it was, he tucks the cell back in the right pocket of his jacket.

“I messaged your boyfriend. Told him where to come meet us. He’s only got an hour and a half left.”

Has it only been an hour that I’ve been in this car with him? It feels like so much longer.

I hear a cell phone beep. He pulls it from his jacket and reads it. “Your boyfriend done good. He’ll have the money within the hour, so not much longer left to wait, and then you’ll be free to go.”

I wonder if he actually intends to let me go, or will he get the money and kill me and Kaden anyway?

“I’m not gonna kill you, girl,” he says, almost like he’s reading my mind. “So long as Kaden does the right thing and shows up alone with the cash, I’ll let you both go, and you’ll never have to see me again.”

I slide a look in his direction. I don’t trust the man. I’d be stupid to. And I’m pretty sure Kaden won’t trust him either.

“You don’t believe me?”

I lift my shoulder. “I want to.”

He lets out a loud laugh, then says, “I like you. Shame I won’t get to know my grandbabies. Maybe in another life, we’d have gotten along okay—me, you, and Kaden—and I’d have been a good father and granddad. But not in this life.”

“There’s always time to change. It’s never too late,” I whisper.

Another laugh. “It was too late for me a long time ago, girl.”

His ominous words leave me cold. All I can do is pray that my babies and I walk away from this in one piece, and so does Kaden.