Page 129 of The Widower
“I wish you’d died instead of Mom and Maddison!” he screamed back through his sobs, then ran off, leaving me frozen where I stood.
I didn’t blame him. His father was a despicable man who only thought of himself. He’d probably be better off if they were alive and I was gone.
ISABELLE CAMPBELL
Before I left Colin’s house I heard him shouting at his son. I also heard what Joshua said, and I wondered how those words must have hit Colin.
“Why was Uncle Colin mad today, Mommy?”
“Because your mother decided to dig up his past, sweetheart.”
“It’s adult stuff, honey. Grown-ups have a lot of problems,” I answered briefly.
“Oh—will I have problems when I grow up?”
“You can bet on it.” I smiled.
“Hmm. Okay.”
We finished watching Frozen, and I put Hanna to bed.Tonight she’d been more wired than usual.
“Tomorrow I’m gonna play so much.”
“I’m sure you will,” I laughed at my daughter’s innocence.
What I didn’t know was whether I still had a job. That fight had been different from the others, and I had no idea how Colin would treat me tomorrow.Sometimes I couldn’t make sense of what went through his head after an argument.
I couldn’t stop thinking about what I’d been told today.I never imagined Colin could be as cruel as he’d claimed to be toward Jeniffer’s lover.
I went back to the living room. I couldn’t sleep, and our last argument kept replaying in my head.
Suddenly I heard a noise outside the house—like something wooden falling.
I opened the door.
Outside, I didn’t see either of the two bodyguards Colin had “assigned” to watch me. I walked toward the side of the house, and about six feet away I saw a man lying on the ground. I was about to go back inside to call someone when one of Colin’s guards stepped in front of me, looking nervous, and behind him another man appeared holding something pointed at his back.Then I realized it was a gun—and I froze.
“Quiet! We’re all taking a little drive!”
CHAPTER 30
“This is my chance to do the right thing—to sacrifice myself for others…”
ISABELLE CAMPBELL
I told Hanna to close her eyes and covered her ears the moment we left the house, told her it was a game we were playing.My mother stared at me in panic.
We were in one of Colin’s security cars. The two guards sat up front, and behind their seats were three henchmen—two of them holding a gun to the guards’ backs.
“Any funny business and everyone dies!” this time it was the one who looked like their boss, the man in the middle with no weapon in his hands, who barked the warning.
We were packed in tight—six of us in the back seat.
In a few minutes we were at Colin’s mansion. The car windows were heavily tinted; from the outside you could barely see anything.
Right in front of the main gate, one of the mansion guards waved the driver to lower his window. That’s standard procedure to enter.
“Lower it just enough so he can see you—otherwise we’ll have big problems. You can bet on that. If they ask why you came back, say your boss ordered it.If you don’t, the women die right here in front of you.”
