Sheltered(47)

“Fritz, why are you doing this, what’s going on?” I say, trying to keep the tears out of my voice. I want to break down and cry, but I’m scared shitless and need to be calm.

“You fucked everything, Blair. Everything!” he shouts and swerves around a bend in the road. “But I’m going to fix this. I’m not going down for this shit.” He grasps the steering wheel in a tight grip.

The folders from Ryker’s house are in his lap. I look up, and this time I really see him. His blond hair is greasy and ratty looking. He was always so careful with how he styled it, never a hair out of place. Now his eyes have dark circles under them, and his cheeks look hollow. When did he last sleep? His hands are filthy, and his clothes look just as grimy, like he’s been rolling around in dirt. This is the complete opposite of the Fritz I knew. He looks like he’s having some kind of breakdown.

I’m afraid that whatever I say might provoke him, so I just keep quiet and try to think. How the hell am I going to get out of this? What it is even going on? How did I get mixed up in something like this?

I think my head has stopped bleeding, but I try to be as still as I can as Fritz speeds down the road. I can’t tuck and roll with how he’s driving, but maybe I can wait until he stops. I’m not wearing any shoes, but at this point I don’t care. I just know that he’s somehow snapped and I need to get away.

“You were supposed to do your job and all this was going to make me rich. I wouldn’t have to worry about my parents’ money or anyone else riding my ass. This was going to be my chance, but you fucked it all up. I thought some redneck trailer trash would be easy to blame. But then you had to get all emotional when you saw me fucking Lilith.”

He stares at the road as he talks, and though his name-calling hurts, the fact that he had sex with Lilith means nothing to me. At the time I remember feeling devastated, but now I couldn’t care less. I want to tell him that it’s fine if he’s with Lilith, but I keep my mouth shut, sensing he’s too close to whatever edge he’s on. In fact, I’m not even sure he’s really talking to me.

“I spent years trying to find the perfect person. You were so desperate for affection, all I had to do was send you a text every three days and you thought we were dating.” He makes a snorting noise like the thought is laughable. “Like I would ever be seen in public with someone like you. Someone of your class.”

He looks over at me, and for the first time I see the ice in his cold blue eyes. He looks at me as if he hates me. There isn’t a single ounce of affection there, and that’s the most chilling part of all of this. He turns back to the road and grips the wheel as he continues. His words would have cut me at one time. I might have even believed him, but not anymore.

“Lilith and I had this worked out long ago. I met her at one of my parents’ parties. I’m sure she was just looking for a quick fuck, but I knew I could use her like she wanted to use me. I knew from my parents’ whispers she was in debt up to her eyes and her ex-husband wasn’t paying her bills anymore. She needed money and so did I. I knew my family was about to cut me off, so I made a deal with her. We’d funnel the stolen artwork through her gallery and sell it all through one group of buyers. All we had to do was find someone to process all of it, so that if the cops came looking we wouldn’t have our names on it.” He says it all like he’s bragging, as if he’d come up with such a great plan.

“Me,” I whisper and close my eyes. How could I have been so stupid? I tried so hard to not be like my mama and to not let men use me like they had her, but I was only looking at it from one angle—sex. There were so many ways a person could be used.

“We were so close,” he grits out and pounds the steering wheel. “But these are not the kind of guys you can mess around with, and now the whole operation is fucked. They’re after me, Blair.”

For a moment, there is a pleading tone in his voice, and he sounds like the Fritz I once knew. But it doesn’t pull at my heart like it once did. Instead it makes me hate him. How could he use me like this? What if this had been me? Would he have sacrificed me to save himself? I don’t even have to think about the answer to that.

“But I can fix this,” he says, and I hear him sniff as he rubs one eye with the heel of his hand, then the other. “I’m going to fix this.”

I don’t know how long I’ve been in the car, but we’ve made it back to the city and he’s turning in to the art gallery warehouse. For a second, I think he’s going to park, and I might have a chance to make a run for it, but instead he pulls right through the loading door and I hear the metal crank down behind us, closing us in.

My door never unlocks as he turns off the car and gets out. I think about crawling out the driver side, but Fritz is at my door and yanking it open before I can make a move. He grabs me by my arm and jerks me out of the car, nearly dragging me over to a stack of crates.

He throws me down on top of one, and I bang my hip against a sharp wooden corner. I cry out as I try to lie on top it. I shouldn’t close my eyes, because I probably have a concussion, but my body is begging me to pass out and get away from all the pain.

“You idiot, you brought her here?!” I hear Lilith shriek as a door slams nearby.

“Shut up,” Fritz says so low that it sounds deadly.

I turn to face him, and I see him staring at Lilith. She’s gone white in the face at the sight of Fritz and the gun at his side. I don’t blame her. He looks like he’d be all too happy to use that thing right about now, and suddenly I’m sure he’s going to use it on me. I know it.