Page 73 of Deadly Secrets

I nod but then the sound of footsteps booms down the hall, getting louder as they approach our door. On instinct, I step in front of Ryder just as the doorknob jingles then opens with force.

“Come, now!” Men start to file into the room. They are all wearing blue and gray camo fatigues with guns strapped on their belts.

They reach us and rip Ryder and I away from each other.

“Don’t touch him,” I growl, trying to knock the man’s hands off my son.

The man holding Ryder backhands me and I feel an explosion in my lip. It stuns me for a second before I’m back shoving at his hands. Two other men come over and I’m yanked away as my team jersey is ripped open by the men. They shove me up against the wall as they start to take my son from the room.

Over my dead body. I continue to struggle, getting in a few good scratches every now and then.

“Watch yourself,” a big burly man says as spittle lands on my sore cheek.

“Get your fucking hands off me,” I spew as they fist my shirt and haul me out of the room behind Ryder. “You’re making a big mistake.” I don’t make it easy for them to maneuver me around. I’m fighting, kicking and biting where I can.

They take us down a hall and around the corner. All the walls are white and it’s minimally decorated. I can hear a man talking to someone as we breach the door to a new room that looks identical to the one we just left, except that this room has a desk and chair.

Ryder is thrown into the chair and I lose it. How dare they handle a child like that. I start to ramp up my battle and start telling off the giant that has his paws on me.

“You fucking bastard, let me go. Don’t touch my son,” I rival my energy with my words.

An older man in a white button up shirt and khaki linen pants with brown loafers is talking to a camera as I’m wrangled to the corner, opposite of Ryder.

“You stole from me. You owe me millions of dollars,” the older man says in an annoyed thick accent. “You killed my only heir, now I will avenge him and take a son for son.”

That last sentence has me pausing as I let the words sink in. What the hell does he mean a son for a son?

Another guard from behind the camera produces a handgun and hands it to the older man. He takes the gun, then makes his way towards the desk where my entire world is being held down.

“What are you doing?” I start screaming, struggling harder against the man holding me. “Leave him alone! He’s just a boy!”

All I can think about is getting these men away from my son. What is wrong with these people that they’d take an innocent boy that has nothing to do with this situation and use him as leverage or a pawn.

Ryder sees the man coming with the gun and begins to wrestle against the guard holding him down in the chair.

The closer he gets to my boy the harder my body fights, but it’s of no use. I’m no match for a man twice my size but I’m trying. God how I’m trying.

As if someone pressed the slow-motion button, I watch the guard tip Ryder’s chair so only the back two legs are firmly on the ground. The old man sweeps the chair and Ryder falls back with a thud. The air leave my son’s lungs.

“What are you doing? Take me… Come over here…” I beg and plead.

In horror, I see the man raise the gun and angle it towards Ryder.

Time stands still as my son’s entire life, from the moment I found out about being pregnant up until this afternoon, flash before my eyes. The reel plays Ryder taking his first steps to his first day of kindergarten, to the first time he picked up a baseball, to him telling me that he loves me just last night. An entire lifetime of my son sparkled in just seconds.

“MOM!” Ryder calls out to me and I see his head turn my way but the old man is in the way for us to make eye contact.

BANG.

BANG.

BANG.

The sound of the gunshots pierce through the room and it feels as though my heart exits my body. I can hear myself screaming for Ryder but it feels like I’m underwater drowning. My mind is blank and it’s as if my skin is being fileted wide open with my nerves exposed. I’m raw. I feel like I’ve left my body and I’m watching someone else experience this horrible train wreck.

The old man walks back around the desk and says something but I pay it no mind as my eyes never leave where my son is laying on the cold floor. I’m not going to survive this.

“Wake him up and take them back to the room,” I hear as my brain starts to compute again and my surroundings start to come back into focus.