“I know this isn’t a game. Do you?” The torment in Jacob’s voice and gaze had shifted to something hard as steel and even more dangerous.
The bank man’s eyes widened and Cassie wouldn’t be at all surprised if he had just soiled his pants.
“Not such a big shot now, are you?” Jacob’s anger was definitely escalating. He was losing his grip on reality.
From her position on the floor, Cassie scanned her surroundings, taking note of every tiny detail, all the while praying Kade didn’t go into warrior mode. Crouched behind her desk, the branch manager’s hand reached slowly towardsomething beneath—an alarm, no doubt. Smart. But it also meant the police would be on their way, a complication that could make everything a hundred times worse. Despite how dangerous all of this was, how badly it could turn out, her heart still ached for the frustrated, hurt and desperately misguided teen.
“You,” Jacob practically growled at the man, the gun trained on him. “You’re going to fix this.”
Shaking his head, the man raised his hands, as if that would save him from being torn apart by a bullet like the shattered pot. “Jacob, please, I can’t just—”
“I want our money back.”
“It doesn’t work that way. You know that. Your father knows that. It’s only a paper loss. As I said before, in time you’ll get your money back.”
“Time? Emily doesn’t have time!”
Cassie could feel Kade’s body coiled like a spring ready to launch. She’d come to know him well enough to understand he wasn’t the kind of man to sit back and do nothing. On top of that, with his military training, he most likely was waiting for an opening, ready to tackle the boy, even shoot him if necessary. And deep in her gut, she knew he would risk his own life if it meant saving another.
She’d also worked with enough desperate gamblers to understand what was happening under the surface. Jacob wasn’t a criminal; he was a terrified kid watching his sister suffer, believing this man was responsible. He didn’t want to hurt anyone else—she had to believe that—he only wanted this man to do the right thing. The problem, of course, as far as she could tell, there wasn’t a damn thing this guy could do, besides make things worse. Especially if he kept opening his mouth.
Having calculated the risks, the potential outcomes, the response time for a small-town police force, taking a deepbreath, she inched out of Kade’s grip, quickly shoving to her feet before he could stop her. Kade could tackle him, but she had to try talking this kid off the ledge first, she had to.
On her feet, hands up, her gaze met Jacob’s. The only sound in the cavernous lobby was a still small voice. Kade’s whispering, “Oh, hell.”
Chapter Fourteen
The world condensed to a single, terrifying point: Cassidy, standing.
Kade’s every instinct screamed at him to move, to pull her back, to put himself between her and the trembling barrel of that gun. He was a soldier. His body was trained for this, hardwired to neutralize a threat, to protect. But he was frozen, his hand still outstretched from where she had slipped from his grasp. Any sudden movement from him, any aggressive action, and he knew Jacob’s panic could erupt into a tragedy that no one in this room would ever walk away from. He could only watch. It was the most profound form of helplessness he had ever known.
“Jacob,” Cassidy’s voice cut through the ringing silence. It was calm. Impossibly, unbelievably calm. She didn’t shout. She didn’t plead. She just spoke, her tone even and steady, as if they were the only two people in the room. “My name is Cassie. We met the other day. At the hardware store.”
Jacob’s wild, terrified eyes focused on her.
Kade’s heart slammed against his ribs. The gun was now pointed at his wife—his Cassie—and there were fifteen feet of open space between them. Too far to reach her in time if Jacob’s finger tightened on that trigger, and from where he was, even if he could retrieve his gun quickly, he simply didn’t have a kill shot, Cassie was in the way.
“I just want to talk,” Cassie continued, her voice remaining calm. “You must be tired. Would you like to sit down?”
The kid frowned and Kade would give anything to know exactly what he was thinking. “No,” he finally muttered.
“Okay.” Cassie stood perfectly still. “Have you had anything to eat today?”
Again, Jacob’s gaze narrowed before he once again shook his head.
“Are you hungry? I’m sure we can get some food sent in for you.”
“No.” This time there was no hesitation.
Cassie bobbed her head. “I heard about your sister Emily. I’m so, so sorry. I can’t imagine how scared you must be right now.”
His wife shifted slightly to her right and ignoring how his heart hammered against his ribs, he reassessed angles, recalculated the number of steps it would take to disarm the kid, weighed the risk of a ricochet off the marble floor. The risks were still too damn high. The one person he wanted to save more than anything, was the one most likely to get hurt—or killed.Damn it.
“You don’t know anything about it.” Jacob’s voice seemed to thicken with emotion, his anger slipping.
“You’re right, I don’t,” she said, her voice softening even more. “But I know what it’s like to feel like the whole world is against you. To feel like you have to do something, anything, to fix a problem that’s just too big.” She took a single, slow, deliberate step to the side, moving slightly away from the rest of the huddled group, drawing Jacob’s focus entirely onto her. It was a tactical move, one Kade recognized with a jolt of astonishment. She was isolating the threat.
“You’re just trying to help your sister.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement of fact, an acknowledgment of his motive that seemed to momentarily drain even more anger from his posture.
