by Mia Kayla
“There’s nowhere to go now.”
We were only inches apart, and she yanked her gun out of her pocket and waved it in my face before shoving it in my chest. “That’s what you think. You think that either of you have outsmarted me?” Her eyes held danger now, desperate danger. “We’re leaving now. Get the brat. Now.”
Panic instantly hit me. I hoped that Mary had gone into a secure hiding spot. When I didn’t make a move, Kate took off running toward the back of the house, and I sprinted after her, making sure that she never caught my girl.
Kate headed to the bathroom and pushed open the door. “Where is she? Where did she go?” Her eyes turned wide as she stormed through the house, and I heard the closets opening and slamming shut. A few seconds later, she stalked toward me. “Where did she go?”
I raised both hands as relief flooded me. “I have no idea.”
That was when Kate raised her gun from her side and pointed it directly in between my eyes.
I blinked. In a flash, my life played like scenes from a movie in front of me.
This was it. This was how I would die.
I hadn’t experienced true happiness before Charles and this family that I’d grown to love. In every sense of the word, I loved them. Each of them individually—the children, Mary and Sarah, and Charles.
Tears lined my eyes. Because this was the story of my life. I should have known better. For me, happiness always was temporary. It never lasted. It was never in my cards to live without fear, without violence, without hating myself.
My only regret would be that I was never allowed a chance to tell him. There was no amount of time or measurement for when or how long it took for a person to fall in love. I knew that now because looking in the face of my death sentence, I knew that I loved him. And I wanted to thank him. Thank him for showing me what true, unconditional love was. Thank him for giving me the experience of being a mother, even for a short while. Thank him for making me feel important and worthy and valued.
For that, I would be forever grateful.
“Where did she go?” my mother seethed.
Her words broke me from this trance, and I straightened. An internal shift happened—one where the sadness and fear was overtaken by determination.
Mary was still not in the clear. The threat was here, present, in this house, pointing a gun at me that could be pointed at Mary next.
What I needed to do was take Kate far away from Mary, and then I could think through my next course of action, which would get her permanently in jail.
“I have no idea where she went.” All my muscles tensed with fire and fight because I wasn’t going down without one. “But I have what you are looking for. I can get you the ten thousand dollars you need.” My voice was even, exuding a confidence I didn’t feel.
“Liar.” She saw right through me, but I didn’t care.
I lifted my hands to the ceiling and then slowly motioned to my purse, so she wouldn’t feel threatened. Then, I plucked out an ATM card.
“I have their card. I can get you cash but only to the max. Then, we can think of another way to get you more. But the longer we wait here, the more likely you’ll go to jail than get your money.”
Voices sounded from the front.
Indecision played on her features, and I held my breath for what seemed like forever until she waved her gun toward the door.
“Let’s go. I know how to get out of here.”
Charles
I sat in silence, forced by authorities to stay in the car. Brad was so aggressive that he’d been put in the back of a car and ordered to calm down.
The only thing that could be heard in the car was Brad’s heavy breathing. Mason had gone utterly silent, his eyes glued to the front of the run-down house.
I had stopped breathing altogether. I closed my eyes and finally broke down. The silence and the not knowing and thinking about the worst-case scenarios broke me.
I rested my head against the steering wheel, and for the first time in forever, I prayed. I asked my parents and Natalie and all the forces that might be to help my child, to help Becky.
One strong hand rested on my shoulder. “It’ll be fine.” Mason’s words broke through.
“When has it not been okay?” Brad added.
My eyes slammed shut. I didn’t have the energy to breathe, let alone talk.
“What Brad means is that in the end, everything turns out all right.”
“Yes. Because you have to believe that we wouldn’t have made it this far without some sort of help. Mary is fine.” Brad didn’t sound too convinced, but he kept going, “Dad and Mom are looking out for us. And Nat. Nat will pull through. She’s not going to let anything happen to her baby girl.”
My body trembled, and I exhaled a shaky sigh.
One breath.
Two.
Three.
“When will it end?” I didn’t have to explain. My brothers understood.
“Maybe it never will,” Mason admitted quietly. Brad laughed, sarcastic and snarky, and Mason added, “Life is never going to get easy. We’ve lived through so much, and we continue to live through events that shake our world. But maybe it’s meant to be this way … in order to shape us, make us wiser, make sure we never take anything for granted. Make sure we know what’s important, and that’s family.”
“Okay, Vincent van Gogh,” Brad griped.
“You mean, Socrates?” Mason snapped back. “Vincent was a painter.”
I lifted my head, staring at these two. What the fuck? We were at the height of the most hostile situation, yet these two somehow found the time to bicker.
Brad smiled then, meeting my eyes. “Big bro, at the end of the day, at the end of it all and all we’ve been through”—he cupped the back of my neck, bringing me closer—“we’ve got each other.”
My eyes shone with tears. Wasn’t that the truth though? They had been my constant through it all.
I nodded.
And if I was being honest with myself, tragedy had brought us closer. I hated to admit it, and I wasn’t accepting that any tragedy was happening today, but it was still the truth.
When life had been perfect and we’d been relatively untouched, going about our day-to-day, we hardly saw each other. After work, before Natalie’s death and our parents’ deaths, we would only see each other at work. As crazy as it seemed—and though I would not wish tragedy on anyone—we were only closer now because of everything we’d gone through.
The commotion at the front of the house forced my head up as fresh panic had my heart beating frantically. First, three officers emerged and then two more, one carrying a small child.
All at once, we stormed out of the car, stay put warning be damned.
There was a barricade between the house and the sidewalk, so we couldn’t pass.
“Mary!” Brad shouted.
The officer crossed the barrier, and in the next second, he placed her in my arms. The relief I felt was so overwhelming that it choked me into silence. All I could do was kiss her and hold her tighter. I couldn’t even offer consoling words without the risk of breaking down.
She peered up at me with the bluest of eyes. “I’m hungry, Daddy.”
Then, I laughed. “I’m going to feed you whatever you want, little girl. Whatever you want, it’s yours.” I kissed her forehead again and pulled back. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, seeming shaken but in one piece.
“Where’s Becky?” I asked her, not sure if she’d know but needing details.
Mary’s face became sad. “She left with that mean lady. Her mom is so mean, Daddy. She’s so mean. We have to make sure we don’t let Becky live with her.”
I peered up at the house, the tattered shutters, the worn-down wooden front porch. Through the windows, I could see a dozen officers congregated inside.
Gone? What does she mean, gone?
“Stay with your uncles. I’ll be right back.”
When I placed Mary in Brad’s arms, he
wrapped her in his embrace and dropped to his knees, dipping his head in her neck, visibly shook. “Thank God you’re okay.”
Mason followed me to the front of the house, where I waved at the officer guarding the barricade. “Is there no one inside? What happened to the woman, Becky Summers—the one who was kidnapped with the child?”
He teetered back on his heels. “You’ll have to talk to the detective.”
“Then, call the detective down here. Now,” I snapped out.
Maybe Mary had misconstrued things. Maybe Becky was inside, but they were interviewing her. I took a step past the barricade, but Mason pulled me back, tugging at my shirt.
I broke free from his grasp.
“Charles …”
“Who is in charge?” I ground out.
I needed self-control, and for the most part, I had a limitless amount. But not today.
Not in this instant.
Not when I didn’t know if Becky was with her psycho mother.
I was one second from going to jail when a tall, broad male with a beard approached. “John, it’s fine. Let him pass.” He extended his hand, and I reluctantly took it. “I’m Detective Timson.”
I tried to keep the panic out of my voice and spoke rationally, “Where is Becky Summers, the woman who was with my daughter?”
He peered back behind him, toward the house swarmed by authorities. “That’s what we are trying to find out. There is no one in the house.”
“Her phone.” My tone was harder than I’d expected it to be. “We tracked her phone here.”
I was already getting out my phone to track hers when he told us, “We found the phone, but there was no one but the child inside.”
A pang so hard hit me in the chest, causing me to shiver. Momentarily, I was frozen, and every muscle tightened. “She’s gone?”
I felt impaled by his steady gaze. “Yes, sir. She’s gone.”
The relief I’d felt moments ago with Mary in my arms disappeared and was replaced with a feeling I had become used to more recently—fear.
Chapter 42
Becky
I stood by the ATM, purposely looking at the camera as I slipped the card in. Kate was steady by my side, her hand in her pocket, heavy on the trigger. I should know; she had cocked the gun in the car and ushered me right to the machine.
I was about to withdraw three thousand dollars. It wasn’t the total she needed, but she’d said she had a secondary plan on where to go, how to bridge the gap.
I felt nauseous as I slid the card into the slot.
It’s okay.
It’s fine.
Mary is safe.
I just couldn’t get past all this. I’d caused problems and tragedy for this family, and now, I was going to essentially steal from them too. I could possibly deny Kate, refuse to give in to her demands, end the cycle here, but then the survival part of me wanted this done, so I could call the authorities, tip them off on her plates, and run as far away from this woman and state as possible. I needed to keep her close before then.
I would no longer have a tie to the Briskens. She could no longer use them as leverage against me to get whatever she wanted because this was going to be the last time I would be used as a walking ATM.
After this, I’d disappear somewhere, a place where I couldn’t hurt the people I loved any longer.
The money spat out of the machine, and I plucked an envelope from the open slot and slipped all the bills inside. My breathing became rampant, and my stomach churned with unease.
Kate’s eyes widened beside me, at the amount of cash I held within my fingertips.
This is the last time.
The last time I hurt them. I swore it.
She yanked the envelope from me, shoved at my side with the gun in her pocket, and tipped her chin toward the car.
After I slipped back in the passenger seat, she opened the envelope and started counting the money inside. The gun stayed planted on her lap. I eyed it and debated if I could grab it and make a run for it.
My life was inevitably going to end in tragedy. It was as though my cards had already been written when I was born to a deadbeat mother like Kate Summers. Why couldn’t it have played differently for me? I stared at her profile, the line of her jaw and nose, the green in her eyes that I’d inherited.
A raw and primitive grief overwhelmed me at the lack of a mother figure that I had. When I had been younger, when I’d been in bed, crying at the circumstance of my situation, at another night with my mother not coming home, I’d tell myself that I would be a better mother—that I couldn’t control my own mother, but I could control the kind of mother I wanted to be.
Now, I knew I’d never get that chance.
“Good job, baby girl,” she uttered with a sick sort of pride. She stuffed the envelope in her right pocket.
She hadn’t called me baby girl since I was a teenager. The endearment was like tiny spiders crawling up my skin.
When she placed the car in drive, I turned to face her fully. “Where are we going?” I had tapped the cash advance on the credit card. Where else could she take me where I could charge and she could flip the product and get cash back?
She smirked. “We’re going to buy some jewelry.”
I frowned at her. Everything was closed right now. It was nine in the evening. “Where?”
“The pawn shop.”
I rubbed at my brow, irritation prickling my skin. When will this nightmare be over? I’d given her everything she needed. Now, I had to make my escape.
“This is it,” I said, my voice defeated. “This is the last time, Kate.”
“Yeah, yeah. For sure. I’m not greedy.”
I didn’t know if that was meant to be sarcastic or if she really believed that. I didn’t want to overanalyze this woman I would no longer see, so I stared out the window instead, hoping and wishing that Mary was okay—that she was safely in Charles’s arms right now, tucked securely in her bed.
I closed my eyes, resting my head against the window, wishing so hard for it to be true. I pictured her bedroom, her glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling, and I drowned in the memories of Charles and me in that bed, as bread to the Mary sandwich. Agony and an acute sense of loss flooded my senses, and I squeezed my eyes tighter to prevent full-blown emotional tears to fall.
Not only did I wish that Mary were soundly sleeping in her bed, but I also wished that Charles were right next to her. I wished he could move on from this, from me, even though I knew in my heart that I would never move on from him.
Twenty minutes later, we were in front of Al’s Jewelry and Pawn. Reluctantly, I got out of the car. The sooner this was done and over, the sooner I could close in on my plan to get this woman in jail.
The door chimed as we entered, and I took in a row of televisions against the far wall. Guitars hung from the ceiling. PlayStations and radios sat on shelves.
In the center were large display cases, holding everything from watches to rings to necklaces.
My shoulders slumped, and exhaustion hit me straight in the face, but I trekked through, forcing myself to relive the past few hours, which only emboldened my purpose—to make sure Kate would go to a place she could not hurt other people.
“Hey, lovely ladies.” A taller male with a darkish blond buzz cut emerged from behind the bulletproof glass. “How are you guys doing?”
I swayed a little and then rested one hand on the glass to steady myself. I hadn’t eaten anything or drunk anything in hours, and the adrenaline and emotional overload were making me light-headed.
“Looking for anything in particular? My name is Ben. Just let me know if you need anything.”
Kate ran one hand through her hair and smiled at the younger male who was half her age. “We’re looking for earrings or rings or anything big you got.”
He grinned. “Well, you came to the right place. We got a few pieces in this morning. What are you looking for?”
“Do you have anything two carats or higher?”
Kate asked, leaning against the glass to look at the inventory.
“Oh, big spender, are we?” His grin turned flirty.
She motioned in my direction. “My daughter here is a big spender. I’m more the woman who carries all her jewelry.”
I sent her a look. Did this man believe this? I didn’t have one ring on, and I wore tiny hoop earrings that weren’t even gold. They were gold-plated.
After he unlocked the display cases, he pulled out a black tray that showcased an array of jewelry, all mismatched. Some were rings with gemstones, some had diamonds, and some were earrings.
He took out a ring that was a lion’s head made of diamonds. It was ridiculously gaudy and just plain horrid, but it was no doubt a custom piece because who would take a bunch of diamonds and set it into an over-the-top lion’s head?
“How much is that?” Kate asked.
He lifted an eyebrow, his eyes sharp, ready to bargain. “Twenty-three hundred. It’s approximately one and a half total carats.”
Kate pursed her lips. “Do you have anything else that’s a little bit fancier?”
He nodded and then pointed his thumb toward the back of the store. “Yeah, I actually do. I’ll be right back.” Then, he disappeared through the door.
Kate paced the length of the display cases, hands behind her back, eyes scanning the merchandise. Her hand was in her pocket, and from the outline of her jacket, her finger was still very much on the trigger.
I leaned against the glass, wrapping my arms around my center to keep me steady.
When Ben emerged, he had four stacked black trays. He came to the front and set them on the counter, laying them in a vertical row. “Whatever you want, we have it.”
Kate picked up the biggest ring on the tray—a round solitaire stone. “How much is this?” The greed shone bright in her eyes.
“You’re going for the big one, huh?”
She tipped her chin in agreement.
“Twenty-three thousand,” Ben said, his tone smooth. “That’s three carats, internally flawless. The woman who sold it is going through a messy divorce. Her husband was basically the millionaire who cheated on her with his secretary. She took all his money and even sold his ring for more.”