Page 43 of Trailer Park Billionaire

“It’s fine,” I grumble. “We can figure this out.”

“Said the kidnapper to his accomplice,” Helena mutters, her eyes darting angrily between the two of us.

Kidnapping.

Yeah.

That’s a first.

“Oh, my god,” she lets out suddenly, like something just dawned on her. “Iris did say that you’re her neighbor. I thought she meant seat neighbor. But she didn’t. She lives here, doesn’t she?”

“Just around the corner,” Alex confirms. “Sweet kid.”

I should make sure Helena is okay. She looks okay. Pissed, but okay. “The ties aren’t too tight?” I ask, immediately regretting how stupid I sound.

Helena doesn’t bother answering, instead she just stares.

Kidnapping.

How do we unfuck this?

What are the rules for this?

If only I had taken Kidnapping 101 in college.

“Oh!” I blurt suddenly, open the cabinet next to me and grab a bunch of snacks, candy, and treats. “We’ve got a wide selection! What would you like?” I ask—maybe a little too upbeat considering the situation.

Helena furrows her brows, until, a second later, she realizes what I’m doing. “You know I’m not nine anymore, and I’m not trying to steal the museum’s donation—” she stops mid-sentence, her brain obviously working something out. It only takes a moment for realization to hit her again. “But you are! You’re a con artist trying to steal paintings from the museum!Hence, why you’re pretending to be a billionaire! Hence, the private tour of our archive!” She disappears in her thoughts once more before going on. “Hence why you kept walking into storage rooms ‘on accident.’ You were casing the joint!”

Alex gestures into the air as if to say,‘What now?’

I exhale slowly, scrubbing my hand over my stubble. Yeah, good question. I don’t know what to do now either. Even my hostage has more experience with kidnapping than I do. “So,” I decide to simply ignore her accusations for now, “what are you doing in our lovely part of town?”

“Taking my paintbrushes for a fucking walk.”

Alexei chokes on his own spit, leans against the door, and observes us silently.

“The better question is, what the fuck areyoudoing here?” she fires back, putting extra emphasis on the next four words: “Mr. Rich and Powerful?”

The audacity of this woman is intoxicating. Imagine having the gall to speak like this to someone who has you zip-tied to their kitchen table. I want to be exasperated. I should be exasperated by the whole situation. But instead, all I can think about is how ridiculous this all is—and how my biggest problem right now isn’t that my cover is blown…

It’s that I want to brush my hostage’s hair, find out who hurt her, and then hunt them down and?—

I motion for Alex to open the door. “We’ll be back,” I explain to Helena. “I’d recommend the poffertjes before Alex can get to them. It’s the mini pancakes. Dutch and delicious.”

She just stares, unimpressed. “Yep. By all means. Can’t wait for the genius plan you two are going to come up with to get out of this mess.”

I close the door quietly, then slam my head against it once or twice.

Alexei just grunts approvingly. “Let me know if you need help with that.”

“What are we going to do? This is a nightmare.”

“You know what we need to do.” He leans against the side of the trailer. “We need to take care of her. It’ll be a problem if we don’t deliver that painting in time. So…”

“What the hell, Alexander?” I whisper harshly. “We’re thieves, con artists, fraudsters, strippers if necessary?—”

“Hey!” he interrupts. “We promised never to talk about that night again.”