“How, Deanna? How did I destroy everything? I beg you, help me make sense of this. How? All I did was cook!”
“You charmed them. All three of them. You got my Vincent hooked.”
“Vincent hasn’t been yours in a very long time. You ended it, right?”
“He was always mine. He willalwaysbe mine,” she hisses and takes the gun out. She doesn’t point it at me directly. She does, however, enjoy waving it around because it gives her an even greater illusion of power over me. “All you had to do was stay out of their bedroom. Once the winter season was over, I’d make my move.”
“Oh, so you had a plan? You and Vincent were going to get back together, is that it?”
“He was going to welcome me back with his arms wide open.”
“And Alex and Max?”
“They were going to accept me, for Vincent’s sake. I know it,” she mumbles, staring at the gun in her hands with wide, cold eyes.
Maybe I can still reason with her. Maybe I can get her to admit she’s been lying to herself, that the truth is nowhere near this fantasy she’s trying so hard to project.
“Deanna, Max and Alex never really liked you,” I say. “You didn’t share the same rapport with them as you did with Vincent.”
“They would have come around. But then you stepped in.”
“I promise you; it wasn’t my intention. Had I known you guys had something in the pipeline, I never would’ve allowed our relationship to develop. You should’ve just told me, woman to woman.”
“I warned you. I told you that you wouldn’t be able to handle them.”
I give her a wry smile. “You never told me you had plans. It’s a little different because I could definitely handle them—and then some.”
“Are you trying to get yourself killed, bitch?” Deanna snarls and points the gun at me with a trembling hand, but her finger is nowhere near the trigger.
“No, Deanna. I’m just trying to make you understand that no matter what you do, you’ll never get Vincent back. You’ll never get Alex or Max. The most you’ll get out of this is the money, I guess. They’ll pay. But only if you let me live.”
“I thought I cared about the money. Looking at you, so helpless and pathetic, I don’t think I’m interested in the ransom anymore,” she says with a vicious smile.
“You knew where to find me earlier,” I reply, a thought crossing my mind. “And I know you’re nowhere near computer savvy enough to work with cryptocurrency and anonymous internet stuff.”
“So?”
“You had help,” I say slowly, eyeing her. “Is Jeremy involved in this?”
Deanna laughs lightly. “Maybe you’re not as dumb as I thought you were.”
“Did he rope you into this?”
“He gave me an opportunity to get revenge plus some money on top. I’m thinking I could do one better now. I could get money, and I could get you out of the way, too. He’ll be mad, but he’ll have some cash to roll through for comfort, at least.”
“What are you saying, Deanna?”
She gets up and comes closer. Her finger is firmly on the trigger of the gun as she raises it toward my head. My heart starts racing, the prospect of imminent death sending shivers down my spine.
“I’m saying that, if you die, Raina, it’ll be the end of many problems, especially for me,” she replies.
I could kick her in the teeth, but she’s not close enough, and she’s still holding a gun. I need to talk her out of whatever madness she’s tempted to unleash in this abandoned suburban house.
“If you kill me, Vincent will never even look at you again. He’ll do everything in his power to make you pay.”
“Then I might as well just kill you. If I can’t have Vincent, then you shouldn’t have him either.”
“Deanna, no, please,” I manage as she takes another step forward. “Jeremy needs me unharmed, okay? He needs proof of life for when the money gets sent, right?”
