Frustrated, the driver smacked his steering wheel angrily. “F*ck! Didn’t he just say she was some costume designer? Why are there SWAT officers after us? We’ve been duped.”
“Boss, what are we going to do?”
The driver remained in silent thought for a few seconds before asking, “How close are they now?”
The thug sent a text, and the reply he received threw everyone for a loop. “B-Boss, they’re already out of the city. They’re less than ten miles away from us!”
Less than ten miles?
Natalie’s heart started beating faster as hope filled her heart.
I’m going to be free!
Natalie began to calm down, but the rest of the thugs in the van were panicking. “How can they catch up so quickly?”
The driver couldn’t help tightening his grip on the steering wheel as he replied, “Dumbass, they’re driving custom-made SWAT vehicles. Compared to this dump of a van, we’ll never be able to outrun them. We’re dead!”
The van instantly fell into silence.
None of these thugs were hardened criminals; they were merely offenders who’d had brushes with the law. All had priors and had served jail time, but murder and kidnapping had never been on their agenda. They only agreed to this job because they were offered a ton of money. They were also under the assumption that this was a simple kidnapping that wouldn’t involve murder.
They never imagined that the hostage’s background would warrant the assistance of a SWAT team. If they’d known this from the start, they would never have taken the job.
The van continued traveling for a distance and exited a tunnel. Suddenly they heard the faint sounds of a police siren.
The thug in the front passenger seat looked at the rearview mirror and spied the corner of a SWAT vehicle. His expression paled with horror. “Boss, they’ve caught up!”
Natalie also saw the SWAT vehicle, along with Shane’s Bentley. She cried in relief.
He actually rushed here to save me himself.
“You can stop shouting. I saw it too!” Drenched in sweat, the driver bellowed at his accomplice.
The latter was trembling with fear as he asked, “Boss, what are we going to do? Should we just surrender and release this woman to them? They might let us off easily if we cooperate.”
“Yeah,” the other thugs voiced their agreement.
The driver’s face contorted with fury as he spat out, “You’re all a bunch of dumbasses! Do you think they’ll really let us off so easily? They brought an armed SWAT team with them; they’re obviously not going to let us go even if we surrender. Either way, we’re dead meat.”
“B-But…”
“Enough!” roared the driver, his eyes filled with ruthless determination.
“Since we’re dead meat, we’ll end this on our own terms. Let’s just kill ourselves along with her; at least then we won’t burden our families. Who knows, the client might even be happy that we killed her and give our families a bigger payout.”
The thugs fell silent as they considered his proposal. They exchanged glances, beginning to see the appeal of his idea.
Natalie’s hopes of being rescued were dashed when she witnessed this scene. Instead, she was filled with a horrifying dread.
Shaking her head violently, she started sobbing against her gag, trying to convince the thugs to drop the idea.
They appeared to ignore her cries as they all took in deep breaths and hardened their expressions.
“Alright boss, we’ll follow you. It’s better to die at our own hands than die at the hands of those buggers.”
“That’s the spirit!” The driver nodded in relief. As Natalie watched in horror, the driver turned the steering wheel, speeding towards the guard rails.
They were driving on a road that’d been cut into the mountainside, and beyond the guard rails was a cliff. If the van plunged past it, none of the passengers would survive.
