He shut the door on my side of the truck and, without a word, climbed behind the wheel. He unzipped the backpack and set it on the floorboard at my feet. “Stick the cash in there.”
But I didn’t move. I didn’t want to let go of the cash that I had earned. The chips he had discarded in the other car were worth far more than what was in my lap. The cash was just what I had brought to start with. The chips nearly closed the gap of what Joel owed. I just hadn’t been able to cash them out. I couldn’t let any of it go.
“Amelia. If you want to live, put the money in the bag.” His tone was low and menacing. The sharp snap of my name hit like a lightning strike. The instructions rolled like thunder.
I swallowed as my fingers curled around the stacks of bills. “I can’t,” I whispered.
“You have to.”
I shook my head. “It’s not even for me.”
“I know. And if you want your brother to make it out of this alive, you’re going to put it in the bag.”
I snapped my head over to look at him and immediately regretted it. A wrecking ball of a headache rolled through my skull, making me nauseous all over again.Damn chloroform.
“H-how do y-you know about Joel?”
“Because I know that you collect baseball memorabilia. And I know what swinging that signed bat feels like.”
This time, I did throw up. Thankfully, I still had the barf bag on hand.
“You . . . It was—it was you. You tried to kill my brother,” I rasped when the heaving subsided. Tears stung my eyes at the reality that I’d had a crush on a monster.
“I did what I was ordered to do,” he clipped with a roll of his eyes. “Better me than someone else. You’ve been counting cards to pay his debt. But do you know who he owes that money to?”
Gingerly, I shook my head as tears rolled down my cheeks. “He said ‘a guy.’”
Jude let out a sound that was somewhere between a scoff and a laugh. “A guy . . .” He faced me. “He owes John Valentine.” Jude’s eyes narrowed. “And do you know who owns the Four Horsemen?” There was a patronizing lilt to his words.
John . . . The gentle old man I had played beside time and time again? The man who had offered tips and treated me kindly.
. . . The man who had been sitting beside me the night Jude pinned me in a supply closet and begged me to not touch my drink.
“John Valentine,” I whispered as reality set in.
My hunch was right. I was winning money off the very person Joel owed.
I had won an ungodly amount of money off someone who was credited anytime some horrific, unsolvable crime happened. Someone who was, allegedly, one of the most untouchable, violent mob bosses in recent history. Someone who was East Coast folklore.
But folklore always came from a thread of truth.
“And he told you to kidnap me? To scare me?” I asked.
Jude didn’t even flinch. “He told me to kill you.”
For some reason that defied logic and reason, I lifted my chin. “Are you going to?”
For a fleeting moment, something akin to humanity flashed across his eyes. But as quickly as it came, it was gone. “I will do everything in my power to keep you alive.”
And much like my answer about not running, he skirted the question with an answer that was goodenough.
“That’s not a no.”
“Do you want me to lie to you?” Jude asked.
He had me there. “I can’t leave Joel. If I don’t win enough tonight, he’s as good as dead.”
Jude just shook his head as his voice softened into something regretful. “Hate to break it to you, but there are worse things in life than dying, little fox. Even if he had all the money, he’d never truly be free.”
