the door open and took a backward step out into the cooling air. The evenings were dropping in temperature now that fall was heading our way. “If you run, I shoot you.”
“Of course.” I paused on the walkway in front of the apartment doors. “Where to?”
“Brown car.” I turned, seeing the brown car in question idling at the curb. I wasn’t sure if it had been there when I’d gotten off the bus, not that it mattered. There was one person in the driver’s seat waiting, his attention focused up at us.
“Let’s do this,” I said, taking a breath and pushing everything else out of my mind. My feet carried me forward, my breaths coming easier the more I moved away from the apartment. I didn’t hesitate as I walked toward the car, pulling open the back door without being told to.
“You done this before, huh?” Stan said, getting into the front seat. The two guys who had held Dad back slipped in on each side of me in the back. I didn’t look at them though, I kept my gaze focused forward on the road ahead as they pulled away from the curb. “Silence.” Stan hummed in the back of his throat. “Smart girl.”
I didn’t answer him. I had no intention of talking to him longer than I had to. Thank God we were only in the car fifteen minutes before they pulled up in front of a row of stores. A laundromat was squeezed in the middle of a corner store and a takeout place. I took in every bit of detail, making sure I knew what I was heading into.
I gripped on to my thighs, my nails digging into the black threadbare jeans I wore. “What’s the—”
“There,” Stan interrupted, not letting me finish. I frowned at him and followed where he pointed on the opposite side of the street.
Turning my head, I tried to figure out what he was saying. There was a restaurant there, but there were only a few cars out there and it didn’t even look like it was open.
“The restaurant?”
“No.” Stan turned in his seat, grinning at me. “The Mercedes parked outside it.”
My heart raced in my chest. I’d do many things, but stealing a car wasn’t one of them. I’d get caught for sure. “I can’t steal it,” I told him, feeling the burning on my cheeks. “I don’t know how.”
“You don’t need to steal the car.” He fished something out of his pocket and placed his gun on his lap. It hung precariously on one of his thighs, and I winced as I imagined it falling to the floor and going off accidentally. Actually, maybe that would be my out. I stared at it, willing it to go off randomly, but a hand grabbing my face had my attention diverting from the shining metal to the man who was clearly the boss of this group. He hung a black fob in front of my face. It swung back and forth. “Take this. Open the trunk. There’ll be a black bag marked with the numbers one-three-nine.” He paused, pinching my face harder in his grasp. “Get the bag. Bring it to us.” I nodded, grinding my teeth when he didn’t let go of my face. “You don’t get the bag; I go back and kill them.”
His threat was loud and clear, not that he needed to say it. It was unspoken, something which I’d learned when I was a kid. My parents’ lives were always used as a threat, and I wondered if it would ever stop. I told myself everything I did was to get out of the life they’d placed me in, but would I truly ever leave? I’d always be dragged back for things like this. I’d always be bailing them out.
He pushed my face away. “Go.” I didn’t get a chance to catch my bearings before I was being hauled out of the back of the car and deposited on the sidewalk. Stan held the fob out of the open window, dropping it into my palm. “We’ll be back in four minutes. Timer is on, princess.”
They sped away from the curb, leaving me all alone with my mission. I could have walked away. I could have run and not looked back. He’d go back to the apartment and get rid of my parents and then I’d be free.