Page 42 of Risk (Gods #3)

I t’s been one hour and fifty-six minutes of uncomfortable silence and meaningless, pointless fucking talking with Gary while we sit in this hot fucking car.

The only reprieve I’ve had from the heat is when Gary has a cigarette, which has been often, and opens the window.

I’ve never prayed more for a man to smoke so I could get some cool air on my face. Sweat is trickling down my back, and I have under-boob sweat that is now trickling down my sides.

I’m baking out here and intermittently watching the clock on the dashboard, counting down the minutes, and the entrance that we came through for Kaden to appear.

I hear a cell phone trill, and Gary pulls it from his pocket. He answers it, putting it on speakerphone.

“I’m here. Where the fuck are you?” Kaden’s angry voice fires out of the cell phone.

“You come alone?”

“I said I fucking would, didn’t I? Is Missy okay?”

“She’s fine, boy. Calm down.”

“I’ll fucking calm down when I see her.”

“I need reassurance that you haven’t brought the pigs or anyone else with you.”

“And how the fuck am I supposed to do that?”

“FaceTime, boy. Transfer the call to FaceTime and show me the inside of your car and your surrounding area. And do it now. I don’t want you having time to get rid of people and screw me over.”

I hear the distinct tone of the call transferring over to FaceTime, and I get a glimpse of Kaden’s face on the screen.

Then, it’s gone, and he’s showing the inside of his car, which is empty, and then what looks to be a deserted street that I don’t recognize.

Clearly, Gary didn’t give him this place as his meetup to start with.

I hate to say it, but Gary is a smart man. He’s a man who doesn’t want to go back to prison. Not enough to stop him from kidnapping his son’s girlfriend and holding her hostage though.

“Satisfied?” I hear Kaden say.

“Almost,” Gary responds. “You’ve got no trackers on you, do you?”

“For fuck’s sake, old man! When the fuck would I have had time to arrange that with anyone, least of all the cops? I’ve spent the last couple of hours convincing the bank that I wanted the five hundred grand for legal purposes.”

“It’s your fucking money. Why’d you have to convince them of that?”

“Because normal, moral people of good standing don’t usually withdraw five hundred grand for no good reason.”

“But you got it?”

“Just fucking said I did, didn’t I? Now, show me Missy. I want to know she’s okay.”

Gary pauses for a beat and then lifts his phone up, the screen facing me, showing me Kaden’s face.

The relief on his face at seeing me is palpable. I can almost feel it, like his hand is touching the skin on my cheek.

“You’re okay? You and the babies?”

Tears prick my eyes for the first time since this whole ordeal began.

“We’re fine,” I say through a watery smile.

“I’m sorry.”

“You’ve got nothing to be sorry—”

Gary pulls the phone away from me, turning it back to his face. “Enough of this shit. Drive straight for two more miles. You’ll see a turnoff for an old rail yard. We’re there. I’ll be waiting for you.” Then, he disconnects the call.

“Come on, girl. Out the car.”

He unlocks the car, and I open the door and swing my cramped legs out onto the gravelly dirt surface, stretching out the aches in my legs. Then, I push myself out of the car to stand and stretch out my back. One of the babies decides to give me a good, hard kick at that moment.

I press my hand to my stomach and silently tell them both, It’s okay. We’ll be out of here and home real soon. Your daddy is coming to get us.

Gary rounds the car and takes hold of me by the arm. “This way.”

He starts leading me across the yard. We come up to the rail line, where trains have been zipping over frequently throughout these last few tortuous hours.

He stops before the tracks, looks both ways, and then tugs on me to cross them.

We’ve only moved ten feet beyond the tracks when Kaden’s speeding car comes toward us, kicking up gravel. The car comes to a sliding halt twenty feet away. Then, he’s out of the car, a black backpack in his hand, and striding toward us.

“Stop right there,” Gary barks at him when Kaden’s about ten feet away.

I see the tightness in his jaw, his hands flexing at his sides, and I can almost hear the words he wants to say, but doesn’t, feels like he can’t because his father has a gun pointed at me.

His eyes are running over me from head to foot, looking for any sign of injury.

I try to tell him that I’m okay with my eyes.

I don’t think me saying anything right now will help.

“The money in there?” Gary gestures to the backpack hanging from Kaden’s hand.

“Yeah.”

“Throw it over here.”

“You let her go. When she’s safe with me, I’ll throw over the bag.”

“You think I’m stupid, boy? There could be nothing in that bag. And what’s to stop you from leaving the moment she’s over there?”

“The gun in your hand.”

“You think I don’t know you’re packing. There is no way you came here without a weapon. You’re my blood after all. So, you’re gonna throw me that bag and your fucking gun. Now.”

“I’ll throw you the gun. And the bag when she’s with me.”

Gary pauses for a long moment. “Deal. Gun to me now.”

Kaden reaches into the back of his waistband and pulls a handgun from there. I didn’t even know he owned a gun.

He tosses it across the distance between us. It lands at Gary’s feet.

Gun still poking me in the ribs, Gary leans down, not taking his eyes off Kaden, and picks up the gun. He puts it in the waistband of his jeans.

“It registered?” Gary asks him.

“No,” is Kaden’s response.

Where the hell did he get an unregistered gun from and when exactly? I guess that’s a question for later, if ever.

“Good. Okay, off you go, little lady. Slowly walk over to Kaden.”

He gives me a shove, and I start walking toward Kaden, our eyes fixed on each other. I want to run to him and fall into his arms, but I also know there’s a loaded gun pointed at my back.

When I reach Kaden, he pulls me into his arms, and my whole body starts to tremble with the relief at being back with him. I didn’t want to think it during these last few terrible hours, but I was terrified I would never see him again.

“Fuck. I’m so sorry, Beautiful. I am never letting you go again,” he grits out into my hair.

I can’t speak, knowing I’ll start crying, and I don’t want to give Gary the satisfaction of knowing he made me cry. Men like him get off on that shit.

“Bag over here now, boy. And if it’s empty, I’ll fucking shoot you both, and I’ll lose zero sleep over it.”

Kaden tucks me into his side, keeping a tight hold on me. “I wouldn’t expect any less from a bastard like you.”

He throws the rucksack to him, and Gary catches it with the hand not holding the gun pointed at us.

He opens the bag and looks inside. The excitement on his face at what I’m assuming is the money he asked for is sickening.

He reaches inside and pulls out a wad of cash. “Do I need to count it?”

“Every fucking cent is there, old man. I hope it brings you nothing but misery.”

Gary laughs, stuffing the wad of money back in the bag, fastening it up.

“This money is gonna give me the life I should have had after I killed your bitch of a mother and was free of her instead of ending up inside that hellhole that I spent all those years of my life in. Wasted fucking years!” Gary walks backward, gun still pointed at us.

“And it’s going to be even sweeter, knowing that it’s your money I’m spending.

My bastard of a son, who I wish had never been born.

But then, if I had spunked you out onto your mother’s stomach and wiped you up with toilet paper and flushed you, I wouldn’t have the bag of cash right now.

So, you were good for something, I guess. ”

Kaden says nothing, but I can feel the rage emanating from him, like it’s a living entity.

Gary’s smirking, still walking away from us, backward, gun pointed at us.

He derives some sick kind of pleasure from what he’s said to Kaden.

Like he’s been wanting to say these things to him for a long time and he’s now getting off on finally being able to do it.

I hate with every fiber of my being that Kaden has to listen to him.

“She begged for her life, you know? Your slut mother. That whore was fucking everyone in the neighborhood. Needed a lesson. She begged for her life and begged me not to hurt you. Fucking cunt.” He reaches the train track and stops to glance down at his feet for a second before stepping back over the metal track line.

“The best thing I ever did was remove her waste of a space fucking ugly face—”

It happens so quickly. I feel the intense rumble of a train, and then it’s there. It’s like time slows down, but speeds up as well. Gary seems to freeze momentarily and then swings around to see the train.

Right before it hits him.

The sound is like nothing I’ve heard before and something I never want to hear again.

The rucksack that was in Gary’s hand comes flying across the space and lands off to the left of me, about thirty feet away.

I hear the screech of the train slamming its brakes on.

I look at Kaden. He looks frozen, and then he seems to come to.

“We need to get out of here,” he says.

“Shouldn’t we—”

“No. We don’t need to be here.”

“But the train operator—”

“Likely hasn’t seen us. I don’t want you getting dragged through this. You’ve been through enough.”

“But we didn’t do anything wrong. If we leave the scene of an accident, we could get in trouble.”

“We won’t. Trust me, please. Go to the car now, babe. I’m gonna grab the rucksack. I want no trace of us being here.”

He kisses me firm on the lips and starts to run over to where the bag sits on the gravel ground, covered in dust, and I hope to God there is no blood or anything else human on it.

I turn and move as quickly as I can to the car, getting into the passenger seat. Kaden’s back in the car as I’m buckling up. He tosses the rucksack into the backseat and drives us out of there quickly.

There is absolute silence in the car. Not even the radio is on.

We’re probably a few miles down the road when Kaden pulls the car off to the side and sets the car into park.

He turns in his seat to face me. “Are you okay?”

“Am I okay? I’m not the one who just saw…” I can’t even seem to get the words out.

He reaches forward and takes my face in his hands. “You were kidnapped and held at gunpoint, babe.”

“I know, but—”

“I am so sorry it happened.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“He did this to you because of me.”

“He did this because he’s evil, sick, and crazy.” Was evil, sick and crazy. I press my hand to one of his that’s holding my face. “This wasn’t your fault.”

I can see in his eyes that he doesn’t believe me.

“Kaden, what happened wasn’t your fault.”

“He didn’t… hurt you, did he?”

I widen my eyes so he can see the truth in them, reinforcing it with my voice. “No. He didn’t hurt me. He scared me, having that gun pointed at me the whole time. But he never hurt me. The only thing he did was not let me open my window, and I got too warm.”

“And the babies are okay?”

I lean in and press my lips to his, giving him a soft, gentle kiss. “The babies are fine.” I give him another quick kiss, and then I tilt my head back so I can look into his eyes again. “Now, how are you feeling? After what you just witnessed.”

He blinks slowly. When his eyes reveal themselves, they look clearer. “I don’t feel sad he’s dead. I’m glad. I feel relieved, but disappointed.”

“Disappointed?”

“That he didn’t suffer more. A few seconds of the momentary panic he felt at knowing he was going to die and could do nothing about it isn’t enough for me. I wish he’d suffered more. I know that makes me a bad person.”

“No, it doesn’t. You’re entitled to feel however you want. And after what he did to your mom and you…I’d be surprised if you felt anything different.”

His eyes close again, and he presses his forehead against mine. One of his hands leaves my face, and his palm rests against my bump. “I love you,” he tells me. “I’m sorry I hadn’t told you sooner—I should have—and the last thing I wanted to do was tell you over the phone like I did—”

“I love you too. I don’t care how or when you told me. Just that you did.”

“I love all three of you. You and the babies. I love our family.”

“And we love you.”

He kisses me softly, reverently, his fingers sliding up into my hair.

Then, we hear the low sounds of a siren approaching.

“We should get out of here,” Kaden says.

He puts the car back into drive and is back on the road when a police car comes flying past us. On its way to the train tracks, where Gary committed his final evil deed and took his very last undeserving breath.