Page 81 of The Right Garza

“Economical,” she calls after me as I jog down the steps to her car. “Thrifty! Frugal!”

“Dumb!”

~

The gas lightglares at me from the dashboard as I peel out of the parking lot of the liquor store with the trunk of Maggie’s small car loaded with booze. There’s another order I need to pick up before the traffic gets crazy, but with the needle dead on E, I figure being stuck in traffic is more favorable to breaking down in traffic.

Cursing under my breath, I navigate in the opposite direction toward the gas station.Freaking Maggie. Who tries to be stingy withgas? Straight up nonsense.

At the station, I pay for the gas inside then drive up to the pump and get out to fill the tank. As I unscrew the cap and fit the pump inside, a black SUV with pitch dark windows pulls up behind me, at the same time an identical SUV drives around the row of pump stations before it reverses in front of Maggie’s car.

The hairs on the back of my neck prickles. Something doesn’t feel right. I pat my pockets for my phone but it’s not on me. It’s in the car.Shit.

I try to remain calm, act normal. Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe it’s just a coincidence that two identical pitch-black SUVs drove in at the same time for gas.

Yet even as I try to convince myself of this, I know I’m right to be suspicious. Something bad is about to happen, I can feel it.

Simultaneously, doors from both SUVs crack open.

Dammit.

Though the tank is barely half-full, I yank out the pump and hastily and try to screw the cap on, all while debating whether I should attempt to dive through the window the car, lock myself in—assuming I make it—and call Trent,ortry to make a run for it screaming at the top of my lungs.

I glance around. There are multiple other vehicles at pump stations, some waiting in line, everyone minding their own business. People scrolling or talking on their phones, one woman in a silver Prius is shouting at her toddlers in the backseat.

It’s broad daylight with people all around me. Maybe I’m freaking out for nothing. No one would try to—

Two bulking, tattooed men emerge, both moving determinedly toward me from either direction.

Shit.

I’m trapped by the pump, Maggie’s car, and the men. But I still have totry. There’s no way in hell I’ll make it through the car window in time to shut myself in, so I whirl in the direction of the pump and try to squeeze through the sliver of space between the pump station and the column. “Fire!” I scream. “Fire!”

Hands like steel grip me and haul me back. When I open my mouth to scream again, it’s immediately covered by a rough, calloused hand. Determined to not make it easy for them, I kick and wail and claw. But I’m no match for these hulks.

“Hey, hey, what’s happening there?” someone shouts.

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” someone else mutters grumpily. “I bet it’s another one of ‘em stunts for the goddamn internet.”

I’m lifted up off the ground and carried like a bag of feathers, my screams stifled in a hand that feels like sandpaper and smells like stale beer. I’m being kidnapped in broad daylight and no one’s doing anything to stop it. Where’s a millennial with a cell phone when you need one?

I’m thrown into the back of the SUV parked in front. Released, I gasp for breath, catching my breath, then begin to scream for help again when someone covers something over my nose and mouth. Ghastly toxic fumes flood my nostrils. I hold my breath in an attempt to block it, but I must’ve inhaled too much already, because darkness overtakes me before I can process another thought.

Chapter TWENTY-FOUR

“Fuck ‘em.”

Trent

“Are you sure aboutthis?”

“Positive.”

I sign my signature across the dotted line, then slide the contract across the table to my twin.

Clarke, our lawyer, in a display of paid patience, folds his hands and looks between us.

True picks up his pen to sign, then pauses. He tap-tap-taps the pen on the table as he looks at me under his brows. “You’resuresure, though? I mean, it’s a lot of—”