Page 96 of Rival for Rent
I knew I should feel scared. And I did. The man was pointing a gun at me, after all. But his words also annoyed the hell out of me.
“Don’t act like you wanted me to figure it out,” I said indignantly. “You were covering your tracks and you know it. You don’t get to do that and then make fun of me when it works.”
Ridiculous objection. Ridiculous to object at all. The guy had a gun. My heart was pounding, my mouth dry. But weeks of living with Mason had made me braver—and left me with significantly less control over my tongue.
Probably not a good thing under the circumstances.
“Yeah, well, I’m done with that now,” Myers said. “Now get up.”
“But why?” I asked, still stuck on that basic question.
“Because you’re gonna walk downstairs and hang yourself.”
“Not that,” I said quickly. “I mean, why do you want to kill me in the first place?”
Definitely a stupid question. I should have been concentrating on finding a way out of this—preferably one that didn’t involve swinging from the end of a rope. My stomach dropped through the floor at the thought. But I couldn’t shake the need to know. If Myers was going to kill me, I wanted to knowwhy.
“Killing you is ancillary,” he said. “That fucking center is what really needs to die.”
“What do you have against it?”
“Oh no. We’re not doing this. I’m not giving a big, long speech so you have time to think of an escape,” he said, waving the gun at me. “Now get up.”
I didn’t move, but my mind was racing, fitting pieces together. I risked a guess. “Does it have something to do with your daughter?”
Myers’s face contorted with rage. Literally contorted. One second he was calm, and the next, his cheeks went red, his eyebrows drew down, his nostrils flared, and his lips twisted into a rictus snarl. He looked like a cartoon villain. I would’ve laughed if I hadn’t been so terrified.
“I don’t have a daughter,” he growled through gritted teeth. “I have two sons—and one of them has been perverted by people like you. You made him sick—and you makemesick. That center is a cancer, and I’m not going to let it open. Now get up.”
He cocked the gun, and my heart stopped for a second in terror. For a split second, I thought it was the sound of a bullet firing. I wasn’t even sure I’d ever heard a real gunshot before. I’d definitely never seen a gunused. I froze.
“Do you need me to make you walk?” he said, stalking into the room. “I’ll drag you if I need to.”
“No, no, I can—I’ll do it,” I stammered. I didn’t know why, but the thought of him touching me was somehow as terrifying as the gun itself.
I pushed the covers back slowly and stood up, moving carefully. No sudden movements. I didn’t want to startle him. I had to find a way out of this, and the longer I could drag things out, the better chance I had of thinking of something.
Bella, who’d been watching me talk with Myers with maddening placidity, hopped down from the bed and moved to my side. If she realized how upset I was, she didn’t show it.
If only Mason were here. But he wasn’t. He was sitting in the ER at George Washington, still waiting on doctors. I glanced longingly back at my phone where it lay on the bed.
“Can I just text—” I started, but Myers barked a harsh, “No!” before I even finished the sentence.
So I wasn’t going to get to say goodbye. If Myers had his way, Mason would come home later and find my body. That thought made me want to weep. Not because I was going to die, but because Mason would be the one to find me.
“You really don’t need to do this,” I said, meeting Myers by the door. He aimed a kick at Bella, and she danced back, but her big brown eyes looked confused, not angry. Poor girl. “The center is on hold for the foreseeable future.”
“Yeah, like I’m going to believe that,” he said. He put one hand on my shoulder and pressed the gun to the small of my back. “You told me that was fake at the hospital.”
“It was, then,” I said. “But ever since that video came out, they’ve cut ties with me. Financially too. And they don’t have any other backers lined up. They can’t finish construction.”
“They’ll find something,” he said, pushing me out into the hall. He guided me to the top of the stairs. Bella followed a few feet behind. “People like that always do.”
“People like what?” I asked, unable to stop myself from bristling. Stupid. The goal was to keep him calm, not provoke him. But I couldn’t help myself.
If Mason were here, he’d tell me I was an idiot. But if Mason were here, none of this would be happening. Myers wouldn’t have been able to control both of us with just one gun. And if Mason had been alone, he would’ve found a way to stop him—some military tactic, some feint or rush to disarm.
But I wasn’t Mason. And now, I’d never get to say goodbye. Never get to thank him for everything he’d done. Never get to tell him I loved him.
