I was going to go from the devil I knew—and was getting kind of attached to—to men that wouldn’t hesitate to do anything they needed to if it meant getting the money they wanted.
I’d been talking a big talk this entire time. But the closer we got to Reno, the more I realized that it had been just that: talk.
In reality, I was fucking terrified.
And Jack knew it.
Chapter 16
Jack
Alice didn’t say anything for the next half hour, as we pulled off the freeway and onto the road that would lead us under the big, obnoxious, and very old-fashioned Reno sign, and then into town proper. We passed under the sign and then through the mostly deserted streets—because no one was out and about at this time in Reno. They were either in the casinos themselves or in the bars, drinking away their winnings or drinking away the money they were going to use to gamble anyhow.
Or, I supposed, maybe they were at home in bed, good citizens that just happened to live in this town that always took a backseat to its larger, flashier cousin.
Either way, there was no one to see us as we drove through the not-adequately lit streets toward the rendezvous point. No one there to see one unmarked black van cruising through the streets, not slowly but not too quickly, either, as it transported one very wealthy, very successful woman toward the next stop on her tour.
As it transported one no-longer-so-willing kidnapper toward the next stop, and his payday.
I hadn’t had the guts to look at her since she’d asked what happened next—and called me ‘cowboy.’ It had been a strange addition, and for some reason it had yanked at the strings of my heart. Because it had seemed like… an endearment. In the middle of a situation that had no room for that sort of thing. From someone who had no reason to give it to me. Someone who had every reason to hate me, but had instead asked about my childhood and actually sounded sorry that I’d had such a rough time of it.
And the reason I hadn’t had the guts to look at her since she asked that? Because the answer had been both obvious and too uncomfortable to speak out loud, if I’m being honest: I turned her over to the guys who had paid me to yank her right out of her life, and they did whatever they were going to do in terms of negotiating with her company—who should already have received the demand for her ransom—got their own payday, and then sent her home.
And then there was the other reason. The fact that I could practically feel her shaking from across the van. And the fact that the guilt over her fear, the knowledge that I was responsible for it, was tearing my heart out, inch by slow, excruciating inch.
I got to the meeting place pretty quickly, though, as we’d chosen a place that was close to the outskirts of the city for both ease of access and ease of escape. When you were doing a handoff like this, you didn’t want to be in the middle of a crowded area. Even if you were doing the handoff in the middle of the night.
Still, it meant that we were there a whole lot faster than I expected to be. And way before I was ready.
I pulled into the deserted parking lot, my heart racing as we hit the first speed bump and slowed down. And then I finally turned toward Alice. Ready to explain what was going to happen. Ready to offer her more empty consolation, perhaps. Ready to tell her that she needed to behave herself, and that this would all be over before she knew it.
Then I saw the look of absolute terror in her eyes. The look she’d likely been trying to hide this entire time. The look she probably hadn’t even let herself acknowledge. Now that we were at this point, though, it seemed she had finally decided to be honest about how very frightened she was.
And in that moment, I realized I couldn’t do it. No, this wasn’t my first time. Yes, I’d turned over a number of other victims to these very same people—and I’d never had a second thought about it.
But I also generally went out of my way to keep those people out of my mind. I didn’t talk to them, I didn’t get to know them, and I certainly didn’t