Page 59 of Boss

Chapter 13

Summer of 2000

Crystal Beach, Texas

“Angela, Macie! Hurry up, get your things and get in the car!” Jameson Turner shouted at his daughters. Kassidy could hear the seriousness in his tone. Her mother was dragging her to the door. She didn’t understand anything. She glanced back to see her father with Jesus Garcia. They were speaking.

“Ma? Where is Clarissa? I want to say goodbye.”

“Hush now Kassie, get in the car.”

“No! No!” Kassidy broke from her mother and ran to the house. She pushed past her father legs and ran inside. Clarissa was on the sofa crying. Her mother was yelling at her. None of it made sense.

“Clarissa? They say I have to go. We have to leave?”

Clarissa looked up. Kassidy went to her. She hugged her. “Don’t worry Kassidy. It’s going to be okay.”

“Kassie!” her mother said. “Come with me now.”

“Why are you crying? Why is everyone so upset.”

Clarissa looked up with fear in her eyes. Kassidy mother snatched her away. Kassidy screamed for her mother to let her go. But she was carried out of the house. She was then forced into the car. She had to sit between her sisters. Through her tears she saw her father take a gun from Jesus Garcia. He walked to the car with it in his hand. He handed it over to her mother.

“Why do you have this James?”

“Not now. Let’s go.” He put the car in reverse and turned to look back. It must have then he saw how distressed Kassidy was. He paused. “Kassidy, look at me. Stop crying. Everything is okay. We’re going home but we will come back. Promise princess.”

Kassidy nodded and wiped her tears. Her sister Angela used their mother’s handkerchief to clean her face. She then pulled her over closer. “It’s okay Kassie, you’re okay,” Angela said.

The car sped out of the Garcia’s bed and breakfast. Kassidy could see them all on the porch. Watching. Even Clarissa. She tried to wave but her father drove to fast. She put her head in her sister’s lap and drifted off to sleep.

Kassidy woke to her mother screaming. She opened her eyes and sat up.

“James!” her mother cried out.

There was a slam to the back of their car. Her sisters screamed. Kassidy didn’t understand. Someone was hitting their car. Her mother was screaming. Her sisters were crying. And her father was trying to control their vehicle on the dark road.

The person behind them hit them hard again and this time her father lost control. The car flipped into a roll. It flipped and flipped and flipped and Kassidy hit her head.

Kassidy opened her eyes. There was fire. She was on the side of the road and her leg hurt really bad. The car she was in with her family was on fire. Kassidy tried to understand but she saw the flames. Lots of flames. There were people coming to her. A man and a woman. The man picked her up as the car exploded. They were thrown back to the ground.

“Mama!” Kassidy cried. Where was her mother? Where was her daddy? Where were her sisters. Why was their car burning? All she could remember was the glass and the bang to her head. Now there was fire. None of it made sense.

Present

Tarek hit the back of the black Arabian mare named Smoke. “Let’s go, girl!”

The horse charged out of the barn and galloped across the snow covered land. Tarek leaned in. Smoke could easily get up to thirty miles an hour. Still in the weather, and with Kassidy on the roads in his truck, it wouldn’t be enough to stop her. Tarek knew he had to try. If she got to the police and reported him before he could get the leverage he needed on her and her accomplice, he was screwed.

26.

“Ow!” Kassidy groaned.

She blinked out of her stupor, and pain once again rattled her skull. She was upside down. The windows on both sides of the truck were shattered. Her vision blurred, but she refused to collapse into unconsciousness, again. She fumbled with the seat belt that was painfully tight on her chest and found the release.The airbag also made it hard to breathe. She dropped an inch or two onto the roof of the truck.

“Shit!” she panted.

With all the strength she could summon, Kassidy pushed herself to crawl out of the window. How did this happen? How did any of it happen? One moment she was working in an office printing off contracts for her boss. The next she was his prisoner and fighting for her life. The terror rose in her again. She had to get out of the truck and escape. Everything in her said he would be coming for her soon. She felt it.

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