Page 97 of Rescuing Mary

Truck felt helpless—and it pissed him off even more.

Deuce went over to Mary and grabbed her shirt, stretching the neck far enough that he could see the lace of her bra.

Truck growled and took a step toward the gangbanger and Mary—but stopped when Mary calmly reached into her shirt and pulled something out.

She held it out to Deuce and said with only a small tremor in her voice, “If you’re hoping to get a look at my tits, let me make it easier for you. Here.”

Deuce stared at her hand and dropped his own from her shirt. “What the fuck is that?”

“It’s my boob,” Mary said, as if she were offering him a piece of candy or something equally innocuous. She then reached inside her shirt again and pulled out the other one, and tried to give that to him too. “I had breast cancer. My tits tried to kill me so I had them chopped off. Now I wear fake ones. See? It’s squishy, just like the real thing.”

Truck would’ve laughed at the look on Deuce’s face if there was anything remotely humorous about the situation. The gangbanger looked horrified and disgusted.

“You don’t have any tits?”

In response, Mary pulled her shirt taut so it flattened to her chest, proving that no, she had no boobs at all.

“Are you one of those trans people or somethin’?” Shoebaloo asked in horror. “Are you a dude?”

Mary took a deep breath and shrugged. “Does not having tits make you trans?”

“She’s got short hair, dude,” Shoebaloo said. “I bet she’s a guy.”

“Fuck,” Deuce said, stepping away from her.

Mary dropped her hands and let her inserts fall to the floor of the vault. She didn’t cower from the gang members, but she didn’t outwardly antagonize them either. She’d done exactly what she should’ve. It couldn’t have been easy for her, and Truck wanted to take her in his arms more than he wanted to breathe. His hands shook with the effort it took to stay where he was.

“We gonna blow this shit up or what?” Truck asked, trying to turn the men’s attention back to the matter at hand. Namely, their greed.

“I should kill it,” Deuce said—and raised his pistol so it was once again pointed at Mary’s head.

Truck’s heart stopped beating.

Mary didn’t say a word, kept her eyes bravely on Deuce’s.

The inside of the vault was silent for a moment as everyone held their breath.

“Deuce, there are people outside on their cells—” a gangbanger started as he entered the vault. “What the fuck’s going on?” he asked when he saw Deuce pointing his gun at Mary.

“Bang!” Deuce yelled, then laughed when Mary jerked in fright. “Fucking weirdo,” he muttered, then kicked one of Mary’s fake boobs into a corner. He turned to Truck. “If you’ve in any way fucked this up, your freak girlfriend is gonna die. Then you’re gonna die. Got it?”

“Got it,” Truck said as calmly as he could. “The explosives I’ve set should blow up the boxes, but not the wall behind it. I don’t know what this vault is made of, but I’m assuming it’ll absorb the shockwave well enough.”

“For your sake, I hope so,” Deuce said, then walked over to Truck and grabbed the detonator out of his hand. He motioned Shoebaloo and the other man out of the room with a tilt of his head.

Truck narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

“Because you and your freak are gonna be in here when it goes off. You better hope you didn’t fuck it up,” Deuce said. “If you disable it in any way when we leave and it doesn’t go off, you’ll be sorry.” Then he saluted Truck with an evil grin and backed away with the crude, hastily built detonator in his hand.

“You can’t leave us in here!” Truck blurted. He’d reduced the amount of explosives, yes, but it definitely wasn’t safe to be in the vault when they went off.

“Watch me,” Deuce sneered, then backed out of the vault. After making sure the wires were situated so the door could still shut most of the way, he closed them inside with the explosives.

Truck stood there staring at the closed door for one precious second, not believing the asshole had actually left them inside with the explosives. If they hadn’t shot out the lock, he could’ve slammed the door shut, locking him and Mary safely inside the vault, and disconnected the detonator. But now there was no way to keep the thugs out.

Truck didn’t have time to completely disable all the explosives, either. Even if he did, Deuce would come back in and shoot them both on sight.

Making a split-second decision, knowing at any time Deuce could hit the detonator, Truck moved toward the explosives rather than away from them.