Page 35 of Rent a Mob Boss

I press my face against the top of her head and breathe in her strawberry shampoo. “Everything’s going to be fine,” I murmur. Who am I trying to convince?

“Why is that lady angry?” she whispers, looking toward the front seat where the woman sits as a passenger.

“She’s not angry, sweetie,” I assure her, almost choking on my own lie. Well, maybe it’s not a lie. I don’t think she’s angry. “She’s just⁠—”

“But she has a gun.”

My stomach drops. “You saw it?”

“In the mirror.” She says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Like she’s too polite to say duh, but she’s definitely thinking it. “I know what guns are. Uncle Tristan has one.”

Of course she knows what guns are. Of course Uncle Tristan has one.

Of course every detail I’ve been explaining away for months is now rearranging itself into a picture I should’ve seen a long time ago.

And of course it’s all coming together while I’m sitting in the back of a van with my hands tied together.

“Are the people who took us bad guys?” she asks.

“I think so.”

“Does Daddy know bad guys?”

I can’t answer that one. I can’t, because the most honest answer is I think your daddy might be a bad guy. That is not a sentence I’m going to say to this child. Not now, not ever.

She shifts in my lap and is quiet for about ten seconds, which I’m pretty sure is a record. “Quinn? What are those things around your wrists?”

“They’re called zip ties.” And they’re pretty damn tight. Biting into my flesh.

“How do they work?”

“I don’t know, honey.” Just like I don’t know whether I’d rather she be quiet or keep asking questions. At least if she’s asking questions, I can distract myself with the answers. But I need to think, and I can’t do that while going through a how-to on zip ties and their origins and uses.

“Can you break them?”

“Not right now.”

“What if you pulled real hard?”

“I don’t think that’s how they work.”

“You could use your teeth,” she suggests, looking up at me and bringing her jaws together, snapping them shut.

“I don’t think that would work. Do not try,” I add, when it looks like she’s going to do just that.

The driver shifts in his seat. The woman in the passenger seat sits with the gun resting on her knee where I can see it. She’s staring straight ahead, but I know she’s listening hard. Tension has every one of her muscles locked.

“What’s your name?” Lillie asks her. She doesn’t get an answer. That’s never stopped Lillie. “My name is Lillie. This is Quinn. She’s my dad’s girlfriend. She used to be just my nanny, but now she sleeps in Daddy’s room, so she’s his girlfriend. She’s really good at braiding hair.”

The woman’s jaw tightens.

“Do you have a pony?” Lillie continues. “I do. His name is Poptart. He pooped in our car once. And in my daddy’s bedroom. Daddy stepped in it. It was really funny, but I didn’t laugh when he could see me. He would’ve been really grumpy about that.”

I can feel my throat closing, half from terror and half from something else. Maybe hysterical laughter? Yeah, that sounds about right. Because a five-year-old is attempting to make small talk with her kidnapper, and the kidnapper clearly doesn’t know what to do with this. There is something so purely, defiantly Lillie about it that I want to cry.

“Does your gun have bullets in it?” she asks.

“Be quiet,” the woman snaps.