Free Mob Wedding Mayhem by Ally Gray Page B

find out I was here! she thought in a panic.
    They were half-dragged, half-carried down a narrow stair case that smelled of mold and plaster. At the bottom of the three flights of steps, one of the thugs opened the door and pulled the chain on a single bare overhead bulb. The dim light of the antechamber was enough for them to see the vault in front of them, its oversized door already standing open. With a quick, forceful shove, Jeremiah and Stacy ended up on their knees inside the vault. They turned in time to stare down the barrel of the gun aimed in their direction. Instead of the inevitable popping sound of a gunshot, the man kept the pistol trained on them while another assistant began to move the heavy door into place.
    The bars slid into position as the wheel turned in its bearing, plunging them into total darkness.

Chapter 13
    “ A nything ?” Stacy whispered, keeping her voice down in case anyone was still standing watch outside the vault. Even in the near darkness she could tell Jeremiah was shaking his head.
    “No, the walls are too thick. There’s no reception. But hey, at least there’s light, right?” he said, trying to keep her spirits up.
    “Great. It’ll be nice and bright when we finally suffocate to death,” she answered. It had already been an hour according to Jeremiah’s phone, and given the close quarters she wasn’t sure how much air they had left. A single tear slipped down her cheek, glistening in the light of the phone.
    “Hey now, none of that,” Jeremiah said in a soothing voice, but beneath his false bravado he, too, was terrified.
    “Why not? A good sobbing cry will help speed things along.” She waited for a moment as she struggled to gain her composure, but finally gave in to her misery.
    “You know the worst part about this? I mean, besides dying in a really large box? It’s having my wife spend the rest of her life wondering what I was doing here with you.” Stacy looked up suddenly in surprise and opened her mouth to protest, but Jeremiah cut her off. “That came out wrong. I only meant that I would wonder if I were her and the tables were turned. I won’t have the chance to tell her that it was all just part of my job, and that you and I didn’t disappear together.”
    “You should text her,” Stacy suggested tearfully. “Even if it never goes through, it’ll still be in your phone if… if they ever find us.”
    Jeremiah half-heartedly poked at the screen in his hand, and seeing him take her advice made it even more real. She began to cry again, realizing that she’d been waiting for him to say something about how silly her idea was.
    “You know the worst part for me? It’s knowing how Nathan’s going to find out… that I’m pregnant.” It was Jeremiah’s turn to stare in open-mouthed surprise. “He’s going to read it in a coroner’s report or hear about it in courtroom testimony instead of hearing it come from me. I should have told him…”
    “Why didn’t you?”
    “Because I knew how he’d act. He’d want me to take it slow, to not work so much. I didn’t want to say anything until I was really, really sure, but then I finally got in to see my doctor after we took on this event. By then, I kept putting it off and we kept arguing about stupid stuff… and now he’s going to find out his wife and his child both died, only he’s going to read it in a legal document instead of hear the good news over a candle-lit dinner.”
    Jeremiah leaned towards her and wrapped his arms around her in the dark, holding her tightly as she cried. She let her head fall to his shoulder and sobbed quietly until a new thought occurred to her.
    “No,” she said, sitting up and wiping her eyes. “I’m not going to die like this. If they want us gone, they’re going to have to man up and do something about it. I won’t fade away into nothing while they stand around doing nothing. I didn’t work my whole life just to end up running out of air in a big metal