Chapter Eighty-One
Nathan
I waited and listened and wondered how much Bree was catching of their conversation. Did she hear about how their uncle purposefully bought suits too small so that none of his brothers could try to steal them? He might have been the runt of the family but he was the smartest.
They didn’t mention how he died or if anyone would mourn the old man.
Then they mentioned how long it would take to get to our destination. I didn’t like how the driver made it sound like they would just stop somewhere along the road.
I wondered how worried Bree was and if she was now going into shock. Our plan to separate might have worked but now I couldn’t check to see if she was holding on. Stronger people than her had cracked in the same situation.
“I told you not to bring that up,” one cousin snapped.
“Hey, man, I’m not the one that lost the bet. Why would you even give him the money? There was no way he didn’t cheat,” the other guard said.
I knew exactly who they were talking about. Javier had a special talent for goading people into outrageous bets.
I stopped. How did I know that? It floated up from some memory and made my gut twist with guilt. Bree had been right to ask how many friends I had made in the cartel.
“What was the bet?” I called out.
The van suddenly slowed and both men whirled around, shouting at me rapid-fire to get down and stay silent. They went full force with an intimidation tactic and shouted at full volume for much longer than necessary. I was glad I had the hood on because the ridiculous things they spewed made me smile.
“Shut your pig-snout face!”
“Don’t say another word or we’ll tie you to the roof instead!”
It took a certain type of creativity to sustain a long line of threats without sounding silly. They didn’t have the talent.
Then I heard the scrape of a barrel against the bottom of the van. The guard in the passenger seat picked up a sawed off shotgun and leveled it at me. I recognized the sound as he let off the safety.
I held my bound wrists up in the air and laid down on the floor of the van, arms stretched above me. Still, I had to wait at least twenty more seconds before they stopped yelling and the van picked up speed.
In the silent aftermath, I could hear Bree. She was taking long, slow breaths and she hadn’t screamed. She was holding on and we were going to make it.
Then I waited, uncomfortable on the hard floor of the van. I felt all the ruts in the road right in my ribs, and my arms began to ache. I counted my own breaths and copied Bree’s slow pace. It wasn’t long before the cousins started chatting again.
They didn’t say anything more about our upcoming ‘stop.’ Instead, they went back to discussing their uncle and the unfair distribution of their inheritance. It sounded like the cousin who was currently driving the van, had a reputation for being terrible with money. His cousin rode shotgun and came up with a hundred ways to poke fun at him.
The driver’s voice grew strained. “I don’t need math lessons. What I need are some better opportunities.”
I lifted my head. “I bet some of that inheritance would really help replace what you lost to Javier.”
I heard them both whirl around again, ready to shout me into submission, but there was a pause.
“You know Javier?” the driver asked.
“Ask him about our trip to Vegas sometime,” I said.
The guard in the passenger seat snickered. Bree must have been my good luck charm because suddenly I knew exactly how to put our plan in motion.
“We don’t need you to tell us what Javier was like in Vegas,” the passenger-side guard said.
“Just like you didn’t need to tell your brother how you were in on the bet with Javier?” I asked.
There was a shocked silence. Before the passenger-side guard could protest his innocence, the driver slammed on the gas. He found it easy to believe his cousin had scammed him out of money and he was angry that he had fallen for it.
“Sounds like it was a lot of money,” I said. “How much did you get in your cut? Ten percent? Or did Javier whittle you down. I’ve never met anyone better at negotiating.”
I sat up and chuckled.
Neither cousin noticed. They argued between them, the past offenses and irritations pouring out so quickly I couldn’t keep up. I leaned against the side of the van and grinned inside my hood.
The driver couldn’t pick a steady speed. He was so certain his cousin had betrayed him. The passenger couldn’t sit still and his seat creaked as he squirmed this way and that trying to defend his honor.
Any time there was a lull, I made up stories about bets I heard Javier had won.
“Did he ever tell you about the time he bet a deep-sea fisherman he couldn’t land a fish without a net. The fisherman fell in the water and Javier cruised around him for an hour, drinking all his beer.” I chuckled to myself.
I knew the discord I had struck was really working when they started to bring up family holidays and slights from when they were children. At one point the driver must have stolen the passenger’s girlfriend and that’s where the real testosterone started filling up the cramped van.
All through it, I fought the urge to crawl to Bree’s side. I didn’t want to disrupt anything or distract our guards. I strained to hear her long, steady breaths, but it was impossible as the cousins’ argument grew louder.
Soon they were shouting and the driving was becoming even more erratic. I hung on and new it was almost time.
The plan was going to work.