Chapter 005: $100,000 Ransom or die
1439 Words
JADA’S POV
“Don’t play dumb,” he growled through the small opening behind the driver’s seat.
The truck lurched forward.
I grabbed the wall and tried to steady myself. My heart was hammering so hard I could feel it in my throat. I fought to keep my breathing even, to think.
“Who are you?” I demanded.
He laughed, harsh and short. “You really don’t remember me?”
“No.”
“Three years ago,” he said, his voice rising, “you destroyed everything I had. You ruined my business just to protect that hockey star you were obsessed with. Because of you I lost my company. My house. Everything. I’ve been driving this thing just to survive.”
I listened without speaking. None of it landed with any recognition, but I believed the rage behind it. That part was real.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“Money.”
I almost laughed. “I don’t have any.”
“Right.” He snorted. “The famous Jada Brooks doesn’t have money.”
“Check for yourself.”
He reached through the opening and grabbed my phone from where it had landed on the floor. He opened the banking app himself.
Balance: $0.00.
“f**k!” He slammed his fist into the steering wheel. “What the hell?!”
“I told you,” I said.
He glared at me in the rearview mirror. “Fine. Then you’ll call your family. Or the hockey star. Someone will pay.”
“They won’t,” I said. “They’ve already told me I’m not worth helping.”
He stared at me through the mirror for a long moment. Then he laughed, sharp and humorless. My calm tone made him angrier, which was fine. Let him be angry.
He pulled a dirty cloth from the seat and tied it tight over my eyes.
Darkness.
“Let’s see how tough you act later.”
He drove for what felt like twenty minutes, turns getting sharper, city sounds fading. When the truck finally stopped and he pulled me out, the air was different. Cold, damp, smelling of rust and stinking water.
A warehouse.
He shoved me forward and my knees hit concrete hard. The door clanged shut. He pushed me deeper inside and into a small storage room, and the lock clicked behind him.
I heard his footsteps fade.
Then, outside, his voice, low and urgent on a call. He put it on speaker. I pressed myself toward the door and listened.
My mother answered on the second ring. “What now, Jada?”
“I have your daughter,” the man said. “Fifty thousand to start.”
A pause. Then Mrs. Brooks sighed. “She’s acting again. Trying to get attention. Do whatever you want. She’s not our problem anymore.”
The line went dead. Furiously, he banged the door open, grabbing my hair.
“I'm going to call your boyfriend. You better convince him to send the money!”
I shuddered and he landed a slap on my cheek, causing me to fall.
“Do you hear me?!”
I shook my head, stars ringing in my ears. “Y..es.”
He dialed again.
“Jada?” Zayden’s voice came through. Impatient.
“Someone has me,” my voice cracked as tears welled in my eyes. “He wants ransom.”
Zayden laughed once. “Nice try. If this is another stunt, you picked the wrong night. Handle it yourself.”
He hung up.
“s**t!” The man cursed, running his fingers through his hair. “One more number…and I swear I'm going to kill you!”
He dialed Mila’s number.
“I have your sister. But you must send a ransom to get her back unscratched.”
“Kill her if you want,” Mila said flatly. “I never want to see her again. Do me that favor.”
The line went dead.
I sat down on the cold concrete and pulled my knees to my chest.
So this was my life.
Even without my memories, the shape of it was clear. I had no one. Not one person who would come. The man had kidnapped me expecting leverage and found there was none, because the people who were supposed to love me had already decided I wasn’t worth the cost.
His turned to me, staring at me with something that had shifted from rage to something uglier. Confusion, maybe. Frustration at having no one to threaten.
He grabbed my arm and dragged me deeper into the warehouse, into a smaller back room, and locked the door behind me.
I sat in the dark with the blindfold still over my eyes and let the tears cascade down my cheeks. There was no one to see me, and I was so tired of holding myself together in front of people who had already decided what I was.
I cried until I didn’t have anything left, and then I just sat in the quiet.
~
In a study lined with dark wood and leather-bound books, Horace Wallace stared at the phone his assistant had just set on the desk.
Jordan spoke from the doorway. “Sir. You know what she’s done. The contracts she broke on your name. The way she used your influence to chase after your son. The lies she told. You don’t owe her anything.”
Horace closed his eyes. “I know.”
Jordan waited.
The phone rang again. The same number. Jordan answered on speaker.
The truck driver’s voice came through, rough and clipped. “Like I said. Tell your boss I have Jada Brooks. I want real money.”
Jordan’s thumb moved toward the end button.
Horace reached across the desk and caught his wrist.
“I’ll transfer it,” Horace grabbed the phone from him. “How much is it?”
The man on the other end stumbled over the number. “A hundred thousand dollars. No negotiations!”
“Give me the details.”
Jordan went still, staring at him.
The man on the other end stumbled over the account number. Horace listened without interruption, verified the details once, and made the transfer.
“It's done. Let her go. Now!”
The line went quiet. Then the man muttered something and hung up.
Jordan stood there for a moment, shaking his head slowly. There was nothing he could say that Horace didn’t already know.
~
An hour later, outside the warehouse, headlights cut through the dark.
The storage room door opened. The truck driver yanked the blindfold off without speaking, shoved me through the warehouse and out into the cold night air, and the truck disappeared before I could see which direction it went.
I stood on an empty road with my legs shaking, arms wrapped around myself.
A black SUV pulled up. The driver stepped out and opened the rear door. He wore a dark suit with a calm face.
“Miss Brooks. Mr. Wallace sent me. You’re safe.”
I climbed in without a word.
The car was warm. I pressed myself into the seat and stared out the window while the city lights blurred past, and tried to remember how to breathe without shaking.
When we reached a private building downtown, the driver handed me the phone. “Mr. Wallace is on the line.”
I pressed it to my ear.
“Thank you,” I said. My voice cracked on it. “For getting me out.”
Silence.
Then a man’s voice, quiet and measured. “You’re welcome.”
I remembered Zayden’s parting words in the burned hallway. The contempt in his face when Mila had mentioned a father I supposedly despised. The only person who had helped me tonight was the one man everyone seemed to agree I had every reason to hate.
I took a breath. “Are you… are you my boyfriend?”
The silence that followed was longer.
And then the line went dead.
~
Horace set the phone down carefully on the desk.
Jordan watched from the doorway but said nothing.
Horace looked down at his right hand. The little finger was missing from the second knuckle down. A smooth sheath covered the scar. He stared at it for a long moment.
Then he murmured quietly to himself.
“What kind of act are you putting on this time, Jada?”
He exhaled.
“And how much more of this can I still take… before I stop answering your calls?“
- Writer
