Beyond Ransom (The Ransom Series) Read Free Page B

all.
    The moment of connection that passes
between us quickly dissipates.  He folds up the knife and turns around to walk
away from me.  He returns the knife to the other man, who’s smiling widely as
he tucks it away in his back pocket.
    “Much better,” he says proudly.  He has
the phone out again, snapping another picture of me, now in my bloodied and
beaten state.
    I don’t try to hide the desperation in
my eyes.  I let the fear show openly on my face.  My moment of resilience and
strength is over.  All that’s left is a broken, fearful, stupid girl.
    The man smiles at me.  “Time to make a
phone call.  Shall we give Mom and Dad a hello?”  His face becomes stern. 
“You’ll keep your mouth shut unless I tell you to speak.  Do you understand?”
    I nod slightly.  Fresh tears threaten
to spill out of my eyes at the thought of my parents.  They’re about to
experience their worst nightmare, the incident my dad has been trying to
prevent happening to me since the day I was born.
    I sit here, helpless, as he connects the
call over speakerphone.  My heart feels like it’s going to beat right out of my
chest with each ring of the phone.  Do they even know I’m missing yet?
    “Hello?” my dad’s tremulous voice
echoes into the room.  I know the sound of worry in his tone.  He’s completely
aware that something bad happened to me.
    “Ah , Robert,
it has been too long,” my attacker greets him.
    A few seconds of silence fill the room.
    “Mark, you fucking son of a bitch.”
    Mark.  As in Mark Castili?  Dad never talks
to me about work, but there was no way for him to prevent me hearing about his
most highly publicized case: a powerful criminal mastermind he took down when I
was still in middle school.  I thought he was safely tucked away in jail,
though.
    “Good to talk to you again, too,
Robert.  I have someone here who you may be interested
in speaking with.”
    “Morgan?” he calls to me, his voice
cracking slightly.
    I look up at Mark who nods at me.
    “I’m here, Dad,” I say quietly.  It’s
too much.  I can’t help the tears escaping from my eyes.
    “God, it’s so good to hear your voice. 
Are you okay?  Did he hurt you?”
    “She’s fine, Robert,” Mark interjects.
    “I want to see her,” Dad demands.  “I
need to see that she’s okay before we take this conversation any further.”
    “I had a feeling you might say that.” 
Mark pokes around on his phone for a moment.  “There.  You should have a
picture.”
    Silence fills the room again as we all
anxiously await my dad’s response.
    He sighs heavily over the phone. 
“Thank God.”  He has clearly been sent the wrong picture.  Fucking Mark and his
fucking before and after pictures.
    “Let’s discuss my terms,” Mark says,
getting right on with it.  “I want six million dollars cash provided in large
duffel bags.  One million for each year you kept me in jail seems reasonable,
right , old friend?”
    Ransom.  My heart sinks.  I’ve been
taken for money.  I’m being offered in trade for an amount that I already know
my parents don’t have and won’t ever have between their bank accounts and
assets at any one time.
    Hope is quickly fading away from me.  All
thoughts of being found or rescued are swallowed up by thoughts of my painful
destruction by these men.  They’ll use me until I’m spent, then they’ll dispose
of me, all because they didn’t get paid.
    “Six million.  You really think I have
that kind of cash?”
    I can hear the hopelessness in my dad’s
voice.  It seeps into me, withering my heart into nothing and chipping away at
my resolve.
    I’m never going to get out of here.
    “I’m sure you can work your magic,”
Mark says confidently.  “The good news for you is that I’m a patient man.  I’m
not giving you a twenty-four-hour or even a week deadline.  You take as long as
you need to pull the money together, but I’ll be keeping your beautiful
daughter in the