Page 42 of Until the End (The Lost Letters #3)

Carson

I squeeze the steering wheel until my knuckles are white.

How the fuck are we going to get out of this?

Daren obviously won’t sit back and let us be taken, but he’s knocked out cold.

There’s not a damn thing he can do now. I’m just grateful this jackass took me, too.

God, I would be losing my mind if I’d been forced to stay behind.

“Wh-what’s your name?” Ginny stutters.

“Calvin,” he responds. The gun hasn’t dropped an inch since we got in the car. It’s freaking me out more than I ever imagined it would.

“Where are you taking us?”

I have no idea why Ginny is trying to have a conversation with this guy. He doesn’t seem like the sort to be swayed by personal anecdotes.

“Does it matter?” Calvin snaps. “You don’t have a choice.”

In the rearview mirror, I watch Ginny roll her eyes. I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing.

“Can I ask why you’re doing this, then?”

“Because I don’t have a choice. ”

“Everyone has a choice. They may not be great, but you have them.”

Calvin makes a derisive snort. “Easy for the princess to say.”

A minute later, he’s pointing at a dirt road.

I’ve lived in Sonoma my entire life, and I have no idea where we are.

This isn’t a property that I’ve ever been to, nor do I know who lives out here.

Nothing about this situation makes sense.

This random guy hasn’t said a word about why he’s kidnapping us, and now we’re pulling onto a long-neglected county road.

When Calvin first pointed that gun at Daren, I was terrified.

Now, I’m pissed off. It’s taking everything I have not to grab that gun from him and end this once and for all.

The only thing stopping me is the fact that I’m driving this car and would rather die than put Ginny and our baby in more danger.

As soon as I find an opportunity, this is over.

“Pull in here.” Calvin points to a washed-out gravel driveway.

The derelict house looms like a monster waiting to snatch its next victim. The white siding looks like it hasn’t been touched in decades, while the roof sags dangerously on the left side. Nobody has lived in this house in a very long time.

“Come on. Out.” Calvin waves the gun at me. I open my door, leaving the keys in the ignition. If I can overtake this guy, I want to make sure we have a quick way to get out.

I hold out my hand to help Ginny from the car. She’s got a look in her eye that says she’s over this already. I am, too.

“Inside. Now.”

“I’m really tired of him barking at us,” Ginny whispers. Again, I struggle to keep from laughing out loud. It must be the shock, otherwise I have no idea why I’m able to laugh in a situation like this.

I keep a careful eye on Calvin as he herds us into the house. The screen door squeals as we open it, and unsurprisingly, the inside of the house matches the outside. What little furniture there is looks as if it’ll break the second someone sits on it.

Ginny and I stand in the middle of the living room, waiting for what’s going to come next.

I use the time to take in Calvin. He’s not acting how I’d expect a stalker to act.

He’s been angry, sure, but it hasn’t been directed at me or Ginny.

You’d think he’d be salivating over having Ginny within arm’s reach.

Instead, he seems like he wants to be anywhere but here.

The gun is still pointed at us, albeit halfheartedly. He keeps checking over his shoulder as if he’s waiting for someone to arrive. This entire situation continues to perplex me.

A noise has Calvin turning his body toward the front door.

I jump into action, grabbing the hand holding his gun and twisting it to force him to drop the weapon.

It clatters to the ground, and we both move toward it, our bodies jostling against each other for the upper hand.

The hard metal slips against my fingertips until I finally get it under my control.

I have it pointed at Calvin in a second. He freezes with his hands out to the side. His gaze keeps darting toward the door, and my stomach drops when footsteps echo down the hallway.

“Ginny, get behind me. Now.”

Her body is flush against mine in a second, and I wrap my free arm around her to keep her against me.

I will not have her become collateral damage in whatever showdown is about to happen.

Whoever’s coming is the mastermind behind everything.

Calvin must’ve been a piece on the gameboard, just like we have been.

Ginny’s gasp can barely be heard over my curse.

Cecelia pauses in the doorway, her shrewd eyes taking in the scene. The look she sends Calvin could melt the skin off his bones. “ Imbecile.”

In seconds, she yanks a gun from the back of her business skirt and pulls the trigger. Ginny screams as the blast seems to fill the entire room. Calvin drops to the floor, a red rose blooming across his chest. My mouth opens and closes as my brain tries to process what I’ve witnessed.

My sides are squeezed tight, Ginny’s hands roaming over my body as if she’s reassuring herself that I’m okay. I squeeze her back in response.

“Good help is seriously hard to come by these days. Why I thought a compulsive liar and gambler would be an asset, I’ll never know.

I’ll just chalk it up to inexperience.” Cecelia sighs, her expression impassive, as if killing a man in cold blood is nothing.

“Now that the trash has been taken out, we can talk, just us three.”

I still have Calvin’s gun in my hand, and as much as I want to shoot her, I can’t bring myself to do it. I keep it pointed at her, though. She’s more than proven we’re in danger in her presence.

“Ginny, be a dear and come out from behind Carson.”

“No,” I growl. “She’s not going anywhere.”

Cecelia has the gun on me in half a second.

My insides are rioting, but I do my best to keep my composure. “If you shoot me, you’ll run the risk of it going through me and into Ginny. Is that what you want? After all the work you’ve put into getting us here? Not to mention the fact that I’ll return fire, and then you’ll be as dead as I am.”

Ginny’s whimper just about undoes my carefully crafted facade.

Cecelia grinds her teeth, her chest expanding with a deep breath. She doesn’t lower her weapon, but her arm relaxes a fraction.

“Now, what do you want from us?” I demand.

“Everything. I want all of it back. Because of you and your influence on Ginny, I lost everything. And she’s my ticket to getting exactly what I want.”

“How?”

“She’ll come back under my management, and everything will be right again.

Everyone will believe her when she tells the world the things being said about me are lies.

But first, I need you out of the way. You’re the reason we’re in this mess to start with.

If you hadn’t helped her run from Wesley, we’d have all gotten what we wanted.

I spent years putting everything I had into my business.

I was so close to becoming the top agent in the music industry, and then this bitch went and screwed it up in an hour.

But I’m going to fix it. I’ll have everything right as rain in no time.

“You know, making you think you had a stalker was easy. Wesley actually was stalking you there for a minute, so I used that to my advantage. Then the moron got himself locked up, and I lost that leverage. I had to use the trash over there as a substitute, and it just wasn’t the same.

My plan was flawless until Wesley ruined it. ”

The crazy look in Cecelia’s eyes tells me that pointing out how asinine this whole charade is would only lead to being shot, so I decide to try to placate her instead. “I’m sure there’s something we can work out. We don’t need to sink to violence to do that, though.”

My gaze flicks to Calvin. His body is covered in blood, and it’s pooled on the floor now.

“You think I care about a little violence? I’ve done plenty worse to get to where I am.

I’ll do whatever is necessary to get my life back.

My business has been ruined because of that bitch Mariana.

The debt hanging over my head won’t just magically go away because we decide to hold hands and skip.

Shut the fuck up and give me my talent back.

” The ugly sneer on her face sends chills down my spine.

“I can’t do that, and you know it, Cecelia. ”

“I don’t care what you can or can’t do. I will get what I want,” she screeches like a five-year-old not getting their way. Her eyes flash with malice.

It happens so fast. Our guns fire simultaneously, Ginny screams my name, and my body jolts with more pain than I’ve ever felt in my entire life.

I fall to the floor, pressing my hand to the gunshot wound in my chest. I can’t breathe. The world is flitting in and out.

“Carson!” Ginny screams. “Stay awake. Please, baby. Don’t leave me. Please.”

The plea in Ginny’s voice makes me force my eyes open. It hurts. Fuck, it hurts so bad.

“Get help,” I wheeze. “Go. Now.”

It’s the last thing I can get out before the pain swallows me whole.