Hostage

Bonus Chapter IV

Tetrodotoxin interferes with the transmission of signals from nerves to muscles and causes an increasing paralysis of the muscles of the body. Tetrodotoxin poisoning can be fatal.

Short A/N

I'm actually surprised no one asked what Gloria did with the three million dollars she collected from Keenan. Lol. Cause that's a fucking huge amount of money. Anyways, just incase you're curious now, here you go.

Gloria Hastings.

(Kilindini Harbour, Mombasa)

I tugged down on my cap, keeping my head down as Daniel, one of the sailors placed my backpack into my hands. It was dark and the air smelled like seashore. I could hear loud whispers and chuckles from the other passengers as they got off the ship with loud grins on their faces. They appeared to be really happy to have made it to land. I muttered a few words to him as I pushed some hundred dollar bills into his hands.

"Nice doing business with you, puta." He said and I mumbled a few curses at him, giving him the middle finger as I flung my bad over my shoulder.

The last few months had been hell.

Being in a confined space for months with a bunch of fugitives and cargo, having only two options; One, shut up and go with the flow or Two, Go overboard.

Option two was not an option.

I didn't want to die, no. Staying alive was the one reason why I had left New York City in the first place. Staying alive was the reason why I had ended up here, in East Africa.

Now, I know that most of you are wondering; 'what in the world is going on?'

I'll tell you.

My name is Gloria Hastings, and I'm a conman, a convicted criminal in the USA.

Months ago, I put my very existence on the line when I made a deal with Keenan Monroe, the oldest of the Monroe siblings.
Before I made the deal with the Monroe's, my life had been in danger, all the bad things I had done, the people I had conned were finally beginning to catch up with me. And my daughter, Kimberly had made it clear to me that New York City was the last stop.

'Any more mistakes and you're on your own.' Those has been her exact words.

I had been desperate for a way out, a way to survive. A way that didn't include putting Kimmy  in harms way all over again. She deserved to live a normal life. She deserved a life without me, her baggage of a mother.

And then, I had found out about Andre Monroe and his mental condition.

It wasn't easy to come up with a plan... a way to dupe the Monroe's and get away unscathed. But if we're being honest, I didn't exactly dupe them. I did help Jason Monroe get away with shooting Sam Levine. It's true that I took Sam Levine to the party, yes, and I had given him the gun.

But what I didn't do was tell him to go after Roxanne Monroe. He had done all of that on his own accord and I had been fortunate enough to reap the benefits.

Now you're asking; how? Because everybody thinks I'm dead.

Keenan Monroe paid me a sum of three million dollars to make it all go away. And he married my daughter, Kimberly to buy my silence, to keep me from talking.

That money saved my life.

Keenan's three million dollars bought me the policeman who allegedly shot me. Of course I'd have a bulletproof vest underneath my blouse. I was Gloria Hastings. And I had conned men almost as powerful as the president of the United States. I was meticulous, and smart, and calculative.

I had known right from the moment I made that deal with Keenan, that after I took the blame for Sam Levine's death, I would be sent straight to prison. And in the world I lived in, prison equaled death.
I had messed with the lives of too many powerful men... too many people wanted me dead.

So instead of dying in a fucking prison cell, I had been forced to come up with another plan. And I did.

The morning after my confession, I had had Tetrodoxine induced into by blood streams. Now, most of you might not know what it is, so I'll explain. It's a poisonous chemical that messes with the transmission of signals from nerves to muscles by blocking sodium channels. It's symptoms can lower the rate of the heart, and can mimic death.

I could have died, yes.

But my life in itself was a gamble. I had to go hard or go home. Die, or survive.

The three million dollars also got me Doctor Martins, the doctor at the general hospital who declared me dead and had switched my body with an unidentified corpse before I was to be taken to the Mortuary.

He had provided me with respiratory support and supportive care until all the poison had been excreted from my body.

And he wasn't cheap.

But I had three million dollars, and I had to survive somehow.

After my treatments, I had gone into hiding for a few months while trying to process a route for my escape.

The international airport wasn't an option.

It was impossible to book a flight ticket when you were a fugitive the entire world thought was dead. Eventually , I had made it onboard a cargo ship going to Kenya, Eastern Africa.

I had had a shitty couple of months.

But I was a survivor.

I know you all think that I'm a horrible person and a horrible mother. But I'm not.

Everything I did, I did for Kim.

There was no doubt that her life would be so much better without me being there to constantly draw her back every time she took a small step forward. I had nothing to offer her. But Keenan did. And I knew that because he was an honorable man, he would keep his promise to me and take care of my daughter.

So it had been a win-win situation.

I had gotten the opportunity to start life all over again and I had given Kimmy the life she wanted.

Of course I would miss her, she would always be my little girl. I had done a lot of questionable things, and made a lot of bad decisions in my life. But turning my back on my daughter was undoubtably the most difficult thing I had ever had to do. I had damned the consequences and walked away because I knew that I would never be able to give her the life that she wanted. I could never be the mother who had friends and a nice stable job.

And there was not a thing in the world my baby wanted that she didn't deserve.

Kimmy would never know of my sacrifices.

Because in her heart, I would always be her terrible conman of a mother. I would always be the reason why she didn't get to attend med school and become the doctor she always wanted to be.

There was much more to life than meets the eye.

And I hoped in my heart that in the end, she would grow up to be a better woman and a better mother than I was.

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If you enjoy mystery or triller stories with a little bit of romance, then Please check out my new story; The Bridge in between. You can find it in my author profile. It's a good read, I promise.

Love, Chay.