How the Hitman Stole Christmas - Sam Mariano Page 0,10

can keep from speaking it into reality, maybe… maybe it’s not all bullshit. Maybe he really is taking me to that shop so I can get my car towed and I can return home safely.

What’s the alternative? It’s too uncertain, too horrible to even consider.

It takes a few more minutes before I get my courage up. If my instincts are right and my fleeting first impression of him as my savior was wrong, then my denial could get me killed. Clinging to a false sense of safety could keep me in a truly perilous situation. I have to let go.

I have to get out of this car.

He can tell I’m nervous. I’m not skilled enough at deception to convince him otherwise, but I do my best. My voice is still a little shaky when I look over at him and say, “You know what, actually, can you just please stop the car at the next exit? Wherever you can. Just as soon as possible, please.”

He looks at me but doesn’t say anything.

His silence unsettles me even more. “I really, truly appreciate all your help, but I have to be getting home. You were right before, I should have just called a tow truck. So if you could stop the car and let me out, I would really appreciate that. I can—I can get a ride back to Brady’s place. I just really, really want to go home.”

Finally, he speaks. “I don’t want to hurt you, Autumn.”

My stomach rocks at the way he says that—like maybe there’s a chance he will anyway.

My voice gives out on me, my courage faltering, too. “Please,” I whisper, looking over at him with pleading eyes. “I just want to go home. I won’t even tell anyone we met. I won’t tell anyone anything about this night. I promise, if you just let me go…”

Since I’ve gone and acknowledged that it seems I’m not free to leave, that I’ve maybe sorta been kidnapped and I’m only just now realizing it, Jasper is pensive for a moment before he responds.

“Do you believe in fate?”

What?

I don’t know what fate has to do with anything and I really don’t care. I can’t believe I’ve been chatting up my kidnapper like a fucking idiot, but it’s even more astounding that he thinks I’ll still want to now that I’ve realized he means to kidnap me.

Or worse.

I don’t actually know what he wants to do to me.

Swallowing past the lump stuck in my throat, I answer, “I don’t know.”

“I’ve wrestled with it myself over the years,” he tells me. “I wasn’t always convinced, but I’m starting to come around to the idea of it. Maybe everything does happen for a reason.”

He’s so calm as he speaks, so in control when I’m thoroughly freaking out over here. I guess that makes sense, though. I’m the only vulnerable one here. I’m the dipshit who mistook her kidnapper for a good Samaritan and got into his car without a fight.

He has all the power here. Whether I get out of this car, whether I ever make it home, whether I see another sunrise—it’s all up to him.

Disheartened by that realization, I summon a little more patience and appeal to him once more. “Jasper, I promise if you let me go—”

He cuts me off, impatient. “Yeah, yeah, you won’t tell anyone, I heard you the first time. Also, a lot of people say that,” he adds, cutting me a look of severity as if unimpressed with my originality.

My eyes widen. “A lot of people? That seems to imply this isn’t the first time you’ve been in a situation where someone might plead with you for…”

For mercy?

For their life?

I don’t know how to finish that sentence, but any word I could plug in would imply violence and depravity—and that indictment doesn’t seem to offend him in the least.

I trail off in horror, wondering who the hell this man is.

“Anyway,” he says casually, like we’re having a conversation. “Think about it. If you hadn’t taken that wrong turn, you wouldn’t have been on that road. Hell, even if you were on that road, if your rental car would’ve broken down anywhere else but that small stretch of it, you could’ve called for help. I’d have driven right past you and we never would’ve met. But it wasn’t anywhere else. It was on that tiny stretch of road where your phone couldn’t get service, it was along that empty back road I happened to be on. What do