“You can get your money back from your dad,” the other one pitched in, with a smile, pointing his gun at Larry.

  “What makes you think that if anything happens to the father, that Larry will have any money?” Blair asked them. “If the government seizes everything, he’ll have nothing, and he’ll be the same as you.”

  “I’m sure his father has hidden away money for the kid’s care somewhere along the line,” the second man suggested.

  Blair twisted and looked up at him. “Really? The man who you know so well? Do you really think he secured any money for his son’s future? Or did he put it all into this losing venture?”

  The man’s eyes widened, as he stared at her. “You really do know him, don’t you?”

  “I’ve looked after his son for quite a few years,” Blair shared quietly, “and it seems to me that his father is an all-or-nothing kind of guy, completely committed and certain of success at every turn. I highly doubt he set aside any money for Larry’s care.”

  At that, the two men stared at each other, as if unsure what to do with that information. The first guy spoke up eventually. “Well, somebody here needs to fork out the money, so we can get somewhere safe. If the authorities find out that we’re still alive, you can bet they’ll be after us too.”

  “Did you do anything wrong?” Blair asked.

  He stared at her. “Well, we were involved in the coup to overthrow the damn government. What do you think?” he snapped.

  “I think you bet on the wrong horse,” Blair replied, equally snappy.

  He took steps toward her, his fist back, as if to hit her, but she stood up to confront him.

  “Go ahead. Hit me. That’s who you are, right? Somebody who uses force to take things, whether it belongs to you or not,” she muttered. “So, as far as you’re concerned, if you can beat me up to get two pennies off me, you’ll do it.”

  “Do you have two pennies?”

  “No, I don’t,” she declared. “I’ve been working as a nanny, so what do you think?” He winced at that. “And a nanny for him above all, so do you really think he was generous?”

  “Hell no, he wasn’t generous with us either. That’s why we need something.”

  “We have a vehicle out there, but that’s all I can tell you.” Her voice was hoarse. “Nobody here has any money. Not the kind of money you’re talking about.”

  “What kind of money do you have?” the second man asked suspiciously.

  She pulled her pockets inside out and said, “Like ten bucks.”

  “God,” he mumbled in shock, then turned and looked at his buddy. “Do you really think he would have left his son broke?”

  “It wasn’t so much that he left his son broke,” Legend clarified. “I highly doubt he thought that far in the future or even considered the possibility of losing.”

  At that, the first man started to swear.

  “On the other hand, there are properties and probably a lot of valuables inside,” Blair noted. “So you might get something from there.”

  At that, the men stared at each other, as if wondering. “I don’t know, man. I’m not about to start lifting silver and trying to find a pawn shop,” he explained. “It has to be big money. Otherwise there’s no point.”

  The other man agreed. “Well, we can always kidnap somebody,” he suggested, looking back at them. “Which one of you has the most important family?”

  “Larry, of course,” Legend stated, “but we all know how that’ll work out for you.”

  “Doesn’t he have any other family?”

  “No,” Clary replied, “neither do we.” She looked toward Brody.

  “What about you?” the kidnapper asked, turning to Blair.

  She shook her head. “I’m the nanny. I have no family. It’s kind of a requirement for working for him. You probably don’t have family either, not if you work for Mr. Kartal.”

  He stared at her and nodded. “I never thought of that, but you’re right. Why is that?”

  “Because, if we have no one, we’re disposable.”

  “Disposable.” At that the first man sucked back his breath and then slowly nodded. “That son of a bitch. If he thought that far ahead, surely he would have thought about his son.”

  “Only if his father has money after this coup, and, even if his father’s dead, Larry can’t even access anything. He is a minor.”

  “Well, crap.” The two men looked at each other and stepped back. “We’ll have a little talk here, so you just keep to yourselves and don’t do anything stupid.”

  Clary looked over at Brody, raising one eyebrow.

  Legend wasn’t exactly sure what that look meant, but he presumed it was something along the lines of What will we do?

  Chapter 7

  Blair stood, completely ignoring the gunmen, and announced, “While you talk about it, I’ll finish the burgers.” They stared at her. As she walked into the kitchen, still visible to them in the same open front room, where she carried on with the food prep.

  “You don’t appear to be too bothered by anything,” said one of the gunmen.

  “Well, you’ve just basically told me that I don’t have a job. If Larry’s father’s been picked up, then I have my own nightmare to deal with. I will not go hungry on top of it.”

  At that, the one guy snorted. “Everybody who works for him no longer has a job. Anybody who had any kind of dealings with him is now under suspicion, and anybody who had business plans with him is now out of luck,” he stated flatly.

  “I guess in some ways that is to be expected, given the type of plans he had,” she noted quietly, as she finished slicing the tomatoes and vigorously pulled the lettuce leaves off the core, as she quickly finished the preparations for the burgers.

  “What will you do with those?” the gunman asked, coming up behind her. “I want you to go sit down.”

  “What? And waste good food? No,” she replied with finality. “Unless you’re planning on shooting all of us,” she said with emphasis, “people need to eat. We’re all tired. We’re fed up. I, for one, have a bad headache, thanks to one of you. Plus, now you’ve just dropped a bombshell that will have some pretty strong consequences for all of us.” And, with that, she slapped the burgers together and put them on plates. “If you’re expecting a burger, you need to tell me right now, so I can put on a few more.”

  The gunman glared at her, and she shrugged. “If you’re not, that’s even better because we don’t really have that many.” She kept on working, ignoring the armed men altogether.

  Frustrated, he turned and moved away, leaving her alone in the kitchen area. As he walked off, she heard him mutter something about the crazy broad.

  She shrugged. From his choice of words, he was probably British then too, just her luck. She may run into him again in England. Shaking her head, she wasn’t so much upset about losing her job. It was all about losing the connection to Larry, and yet, as she’d already acknowledged, she knew her termination would be coming at some point.

  She looked over at Larry to see him sitting rather frozen off to one side, beside Clary. She had her hand on him, and even Blair could see the energy flowing from one to the other. Clary was one of those people who would always be grateful to be here to try and help, and Blair was really grateful that Clary was here too. With Blair out of the picture, Larry would have a harder time coming up, but it was also not something that Clary could take on full-time, not with her married now, and pregnant with twins, and working for Terk too. Blair wasn’t even sure that Legend could handle it either. Being a full-time parent wasn’t the same as being a part-time parent. Having full responsibility for a child was a completely different situation.

  She looked over at Legend. “What do you want on your burger?” He frowned at her. She snapped, “Hey, I’m eating. If anybody else wants to eat, then come over and grab one. I’ve got most of them made up, but there might be a few other things you want on yours.”

  Legend rose and came over, and the gunmen just kept an eye on him. “Interesting move on your part,” he whispered.

  “Well, my life’s just been tossed into the gutter right now,” she murmured, “so whatever. At least we can eat.” She handed him a plate with two big burgers.

  He looked at it appreciatively and smiled. “It’ll be okay, you know?”

  “Well, some of it will be,” she said in exasperation. “The rest of it? Well, that remains to be seen.”

  “I’m sorry. My father was nothing if not very focused.”

  “He’s always been intensely focused,” she agreed quietly, “and I can’t really blame the man for that. It’s really all my fault for getting too attached to Larry. I knew it was happening, though I couldn’t have really stopped it. It was a good thing for Larry at the time, but now? Well—”

  “It’s still a good thing for me,” Larry bellowed, glaring at her. “Just because this has happened, it doesn’t mean I want you to disappear.”

  “I know that,” she said, softening her tone. “I’m not made of money though, and I have to work for a living, so …” She shrugged. “I don’t even know how I can make it work.”

  “Well, let’s not worry about it right now,” Clary noted. “I think we have bigger problems.” She tipped her head toward the two gunmen.

  Blair snorted at that. “You think? These guys are looking for a way to make money, just like I am. I don’t have anything to offer them. I don’t have two pennies to pull together myself,” she muttered. Then she turned, looked at Brody and addressed him. “Brody, your turn. I’ve got two burgers here made up for you.” She walked over and handed him the plate. He accepted it in surprise, looking over at the gunmen, staring, standing off to the side, just letting their captives eat.

  Brody shrugged. “Good enough.” Then he started munching away.

  She looked at Legend to see the surprised look on his face and then his acceptance, as if to say this was a moment that they would take, and they would eat because they didn’t know if they would get another moment to do so. She smiled at Clary. “Your turn,” she said cheerfully.

  Clary nodded and asked, “You want to come sit here with him?”

  She nodded, then walked over to Larry, sat down, and put an arm around his shoulders. “Buck up,” she told him. “You’ll be fine.” He looked up at her, and she saw the tears wanting to pour. “I promise. It will be okay.”

  “Yeah? You can’t promise that. If my father’s dead, everything in my world just flipped.”

  “That’s quite possible,” she agreed quietly, “and there will be people after you, as we well know. However, if you don’t have any money, and you don’t have anything to give them, maybe they won’t feel the need to take you.”

  He gave her that look and replied, “You know that, in many ways, I’ve already overstayed my welcome in this world.”

  She froze, looked at him, and asked, “What do you mean by that?”

  “Well, I wasn’t supposed to live this long, so, if I die now, … well, I guess that’s just the way the world rebalances itself.”

  She winced. “Don’t even think like that,” she snapped, glaring at him. “You have just as much right to a full and healthy life as anybody else.”

  He gave her a ghost of a smile. “You all can work as hard as you can to keep me alive, but you still can’t make sure of it.”

  At that, one of the gunmen stepped over and asked, “What are you talking about?”

  She sighed. “We almost lost Larry not all that long ago. He was very, very ill. He’s still not back to full health, so this is definitely not helping him.”

  “Well, so sorry,” he said in a mocking tone. “We’re trying to figure out what to do.”

  “I get that, but it’s not our problem—and certainly not Larry’s,” she snapped, “As far as I know, Mr. Kartal had money, but, if he’s been taken, I don’t know how it stands with his assets. The onsite property manager is a possibility. However, I doubt any cash remains or that it’s negotiable.”

  “Who is the property manager?” the one guy asked.

  She gave him the name. “But honestly I don’t know if he can do anything like this or if he’s just from an accounting firm in London.”

  At that, the guy winced. “With our luck that would be exactly what he’s done,” he muttered. “The bastard.”

  She stared at him. “So, did you just not get paid or were you supposed to get a portion out of the proceedings?”

  “Both,” he said. “Not that it’ll help now.”

  She nodded and didn’t say anything. Sometimes it’s better to just cut and run. At that a phone rang. She looked around, startled to realize it was hers. She got up and walked over to the kitchen ledge where she had left it, but one of the gunmen snatched it from her hand.

  “Who is it?” he snapped into the phone. When nobody answered on the other end, he turned and asked her, “What did you do?”

  “I didn’t do anything,” she declared, staring at him. “What are you doing answering my phone? For all you know, it’s my girlfriend.”

  He glared at her and asked, “Why didn’t she answer?”

  “Well, because no man should be answering my phone,” she declared. “Now what you’ve done is alerted her that I could be in trouble, and she’ll be worried.”

  He tossed the phone to her and stated, “Call her back and tell her everything is fine. Say convincingly that you’re busy.” When she hesitated, he pressed the gun against Larry’s head.

  Larry looked over at her, and she nodded. “If you harm Larry, I can guarantee that you will never get a dime.” Not only was her tone terse and intimidating, but she stepped closer to the gunman, who backed up a step.

  With that, Larry smirked, and the gunman lowered his gun.

  She hit Redial on her phone, recognizing Terkel’s number, and, before he could say anything, she told him, “I’m fine, baby. Everything’s okay. I’m just really busy. I’ll call you back when I have a chance.” And, with that, she ended the call. She looked over at Brody to see an odd look on his face, one of concentration though, and she realized something was going on that she didn’t understand.

  But then they all seemed to have skills and abilities that she’d never seen before. Even as she looked over at Legend, she saw something odd on his face. as he looked at her. She smiled down at Larry. “It’s okay, buddy. Just stay calm. It’s okay.”

  He looked at her and smiled. “You always say that. You always make it sound like everything will be just fine.”

  “Because it is,” she stated. “Besides, life is way too stressful to be worrying about it right now.”

  Larry gave a short, stuttered laugh. “There’s nothing I can even do. My father is dead,” he cried out, clearly in such pain that she immediately opened her arms and wrapped them around him, hugging him close.

  “I know, kid. Even if he isn’t yet, he will be soon,” the gunman agreed, looking over at him. “Sorry, kid, but your dad bet on a particular pathway, and it wasn’t any good.”

  Larry nodded. “If it had been good, would you still be standing here, holding a gun to my face?”

  The gunman stared at him, then slowly shook his head. “No, because your dad would have paid me.”

  He nodded but winced. “Maybe he would have paid you,” Larry noted sadly. “But you should know that he has history of not paying people.”

  At that, the gunman frowned. “How do you know that?”

  “I’ve just heard things as people were yelling on the phone sometimes,” he replied. “People get angry because they expected something and didn’t get it.”

  At that, the gunman looked over at his buddy nervously. “Is that true?”

  “I don’t know,” he muttered, staring at the kid. “Anything in particular?”

  Larry shrugged. “Not really. He just seemed to always have angry people on the phone.”

  “Yeah, I wonder why,” snapped one of the gunmen, “if it’s not paying people.”

  “Have you worked for him long?” Blair asked him.

  The gunman turned his gaze back to her. “How come you didn’t get a burger?”

  “Because I came over here to comfort Larry,” she said quietly, only half lying. She’d come over to let Clary go to the kitchen, away from them. Blair wasn’t sure what was going on between her and Brody, but, with their hands together, they looked different. She asked Larry, “Do you want a burger?”

  He shook his head. “No,” he whispered. “I can’t eat right now.”

  She nodded. “I get it,” she muttered. “I’m so sorry.”

  He gave a shuddering nod and then said, “I would take an apple though.”

  She laughed. “An apple would be good.” She got up, walked into the kitchen, where all the groceries were, and fished out an apple from one of the bags. She washed it and patted it dry and then brought it back to him. “Here. Crunch into that.”

  “What good will an apple do if he doesn’t want to eat?” asked one of the gunmen, suspiciously looking at her.

  “Well, he gets blood sugar issues, and sometimes, when his stress gets too bad, his jaw can lock up, so an apple helps him to destress.” The gunman didn’t quite know what to say to that, but then he apparently didn’t know what to say where kids were concerned at all. She looked over at the others, hoping that they would come up with a plan pretty-damn soon because she was getting tired of this.

  As she sat back down with Larry, he told her, “Go get yourself a burger. I’ll have the apple.”

  She hesitated, then nodded. “I’ll go grab one.” She rose and quickly snatched a burger, standing at the counter as she plowed into it. “Pretty good.”

  “How can you eat like that right now?” the gunman asked, staring at her curiously. “Most women would be far too upset.”

  “Maybe so,” she murmured, “but sometimes life is hard, and you get caught up in all these dramas, and there is just no way out. I don’t know what your plans are. You could be set on killing us, for all I know, but, if you take us anywhere, who knows when we’ll get food again.”