“Will it …” Mrs. Francis glared at him. It didn’t sound like much of a question to Jade, and she had the feeling she was missing a few key details.
“Enough of this bullshit,” Rueben snapped. “You,” he pointed to Jade. “You’re taking me to the safe. Right now.”
Jade shook her head. “No, I don’t think I will.”
Rueben closed the distance between them, grabbed her arm with one hand, and the other pulled her hair right at the root. With his fingers threatening to rip a chunk of her strands, he dragged her to the back of the bank.
Behind her, she heard Mrs. Francis and Pippa exclaiming all kinds of things to try and stop the bad guys, but it was for nothing. These assholes had a mission, and Jade could tell that nothing would deter Rueben. More than that, she knew exactly who he was and what he was capable of.
“This is a small town,” she pointed out. “You do know that there won’t be much money in here, right? At best, you’ll get a few thousand dollars. Is that really worth all of this trouble?”
Jade could only hope that he bought the lie. Of course, there were more than a few thousand dollars in the bank. They were a secluded town, and they were pretty self-sufficient. There were a few very wealthy people in Half Moon Key, and they all trusted the bank.
They wouldn’t trust the bank after this unless she could find a way to get Rueben the hell away from the safe. Rueben pushed her down the steps, and it was only because she knew the building backward and forward that she was able to hold on to the railing to keep from falling. She took her time, slowly going down the stairs, playing for time.
“You won’t get away with this,” she said once they were in the basement where the safe was.
Of course, it was locked. It wasn’t a fancy electronic one. It was made of steel and had a few massive dials on its front. It could be opened without power. All that was needed was the combinations.
“Open it,” Rueben ordered.
“No.”
“Open it,” Rueben repeated himself, pushing her face into the steel front, using his grip on her hair.
It hurt her cheek, but she didn’t want to show him any weakness. “You’ll have to kill me.”
“Don’t be boring. I will kill you, but it’s shitty to die for money. Just be a good girl and open the safe.”
“I don’t think you should call a grown woman a good girl. That’s not a great way to communicate.”
“You’ve got spine, and you’ve got cheek. I’ll give you that. I can tell why Parker likes you, but don’t be stupid here. Just give me the money.”
Jade turned to face him and crossed her arms. “No.”
Was she playing for time? A bit. Why? She didn’t know. There was no one coming for her. She knew that Parker was fishing with the sheriff, Mason, and Jack. All the way at the fishing hole, would they know the power had gone out? She didn’t think they would have found out. This was a lost cause.
And she wasn’t the only person in the building.
There was every chance that Rueben … an absolute psycho … would hurt Pippa or Mrs. Francis to get to her. Pippa was the single mother of a few children. She couldn’t have that on her conscience. And Mrs. Francis was an elder. Jade couldn’t let anything happen to her. Half Moon Key might never recover from that loss.
“If I give you the money, you will leave? You won’t hurt the two women upstairs?”
He chuckled. “Are you really trying to negotiate with me right now?”
Jade nodded. “Yes.”
“You’ve got balls, I’ll admit that much.”
She opened her mouth to reply, but a loud commotion from up above cut her off. There was a series of loud, world-shaking thuds, a few shouts, and … most impossibly … the roar of a few animals.
“Fuck,” Rueben growled.
And before her eyes, her captor reached out and grabbed her around the neck.
TWENTY
PARKER