“What are you talking about?”
“You can take the mask off.” Now he chuckles.
“And let you see what I look like? Do you think I’m stupid?”
“I’m not going to tell anyone.”
“Isn’t that what they all say?”
“I don’t know how many times you’ve done this, but I swear I’m not going to say anything.” Just then, the door opens, and another man walks in with a mask over his face. He looks over at me, then to his friend.
“Did you sleep? You look like shit,” he tells him.
“You can’t even see my face, asshole.”
“And I already know it looks like shit,” the man laughs.
“Fuck you. Are we doing this?” He shoves to his feet, stretching, and that’s when I notice just how ripped he is. His shirt rises, and all I can see are colorful tattoos and muscles. He moves quickly to pull his shirt back down, careful not to reveal too much to me, before bending over to pick up the phone.
“Yeah, we’re doing this.” He passes the other guy the phone and tells him to call. I can only hear one side of the conversation before he flips the camera toward me.
“If you think I’m going to fall for this again, you’re crazy. Get your ass home, River, and I won’t have to punish you!” My dad roars into the line. The other guy tries to tell him this isn’t a joke and that she isn’t in charge here, but my dad won’t hear it. The line goes dead, and the men share a look through their masks.
“What the fuck was that?” one asks the other.
“She said she’s done this before. Faked a kidnapping.”
“You’re fucking kidding me?”
“No. I’ve done it before,” I chime in now.
“What the fuck? Why?”
“To see if he really cared,” I tell him.
“And?”
“He didn’t.”
Chapter 7
Royal
Jeremy is pissed. I’m a little intrigued. She’s tried this before, and he didn’t care. He didn’t care this time either, so now I don’t know what the hell we’re going to do with her.
“Send her ass back,” I say, waving my hand through the air.
“Like fuck we will,” Jeremy snaps.
“He doesn’t give a shit. We aren’t getting anything from him,” I remind him.
“We’ll call back. We’ll threaten her.”
“He doesn’t care,” she chimes in again.
“Shut the fuck up,” I tell her.
“We have to try,” Jeremy adds.
