“He’s with the grandparents. RV trip. Grand Canyon, right?” He gave a small laugh. “Don’t look so scared. Your boy’s fine.”
Rage cut through the fear like a bullet slicing through flesh. “You stay away from my son!”
“I said he’s fine.” His tone hardened for the first time, and she stilled at the shift. “You don’t need to worry about him right now.”
“I always worry about him. I’m his mother!”
“You can have more kids.” Gary said it like he was offering comfort. “Don’t worry about your past.”
Summer stared at the back of his seat, unable to process the words for a heartbeat.
More kids.
With him.
A cold, crawling horror moved through her body, making the zip tie at her wrists feel tighter. She couldn’t let herself spiral. Couldn’t let the fear eat her alive before she found a way out. Vander would be coming. Black Heart Security would be coming.
But until then, she was the only person inside this truck who cared whether she lived.
“Gary,” she said carefully, modulating her voice the way she did with drunk customers at the bar, calm enough to slow them down before trouble started. “You don’t want to do this. You’ve always been nice to me at the Stockyard. I know you think this makes sense right now, but we can fix it if you pull over.”
His chuckle sent dread sliding down her spine. “There it is.”
“What?”
“The negotiation.” He tapped a finger against the steering wheel. “You all do that at first.”
Summer’s mouth went dry all over again. “All?”
“There was Marcy outside Boise. She promised she understood me, then tried to jump out at a fuel stop.” He shook his head. “Broke her ankle. Screamed like I did it to her.”
Summer pressed her shoulder into the sleeper wall, wishing she could disappear through the metal.
“Then there was Denise in Oklahoma. She cried for about three hours straight. Said she had a sister waiting on her.” His voice flattened. “Everybody has somebody waiting when they don’t want to listen.”
Her pulse thundered in her ears, but she forced the question out because she needed information, even if every word cost her. “What happened to them?”
Gary didn’t answer right away.
The road hummed beneath them.
Summer’s breathing turned shallow.
“Where are we going?” she asked instead, because maybe that question was safer. Maybe keeping him talking bought her time. Maybe if she learned a route, a direction, anything, she could use it.
“Open road,” he said, sounding almost peaceful now. “That’s what you need. You and me. No landlord. No bar. No rich ranch people pretending they’re better than everyone else. No man in a cowboy hat playing hero because he got handed a second chance he didn’t earn.”
Oh god. He was talking about Vander.
The resentment in Gary’s voice sharpened.
Summer’s fear shifted, rearranging around another awful truth. Gary hadn’t just noticed her. He’d noticed Vander.
The attention he showered on her, the protection in every move he made, and the way he stayed close to her. Maybe Gary had watched them at the bar. At the ranch. At the auction.
He’d seen enough to hate what they were building before she’d even fully trusted herself to believe in it.
“I don’t want that,” she said, unable to stop the words.
