Reborn Heir in the Trap Car

1 The four of us had chartered a private Cadillac Escalade for Columbus Day weekend, heading north toward the coast. Two hours past the city limits, the driver adjusted his rearview mirror, his voice dripping with forced casualness. "Hell of a drive. Why didn’t you boys just hop on the Acela?" My heart slammed against my ribs like a trapped bird. In my previous life, that exact question had been the spark. Back then, my three roommates had tumbled over one another to show off. They sneered at Amtrak—the crying babies, the stained upholstery, the hassle of booking holiday parlor cars. Money isn't an issue, they’d bragged, tossing around brand names like confetti, so why not charter a private ride and treat it like a luxury road trip? Every word of their hollow, collegiate posturing had seeped into the driver’s ears. Somewhere along the state route, the SUV had veered off course. By the time any of us noticed, we were surrounded in a gravel clearing by his associates. My parents paid an astronomical ransom without a second thought. It didn't matter. The crew panicked, cut our zip-ties, and slit our throats anyway. I whipped my head toward the leather bucket seats beside me. "Splitting the charter came out cheaper," Zach blurted out, his voice pitched an octave too high. "Holiday rail tickets are practically highway robbery right now." Tyler and Scott nodded frantically in unison, their knuckles white, their faces drained of color. In their eyes, raw, suffocating terror was fighting against the dizzying realization of a second chance. They had come back, too. "Oh," the driver muttered. A subtle tremor of disappointment crept into his tone. "The way you boys carry yourselves, I figured you rolled in cash. Thought this was just pocket change to you." A collective, silent breath escaped my roommates' chests. They genuinely believed that by crying poor, they had slipped the noose. I leaned forward, letting a cold, theatrical crease form between my brows. "What on earth are you talking about?" I scoffed, my voice cutting through the humid silence of the cabin. "We booked a private livery because public transit is disgusting. Who cares what it costs? Convenience is the only thing that matters." In an instant, I dragged them back into the crosshairs. Tyler’s eyes bulged, fixed on me in pure, paralyzed horror. Zach looked as though he might be sick right onto the carpet. I didn't give them room to breathe. "If my parents didn't interrogate me every time I took out the Gulfstream, we wouldn't even be in this cramped truck," I continued, rolling my eyes at the plush leather ceiling. "We could’ve had our estate driver bring the custom Prevost motorhome. This Escalade is fine, I guess, but it doesn't even have a private lavatory. We’re actually going to have to stop at a public service plaza." I wrinkled my nose in theatrical revulsion. "Sharing a restroom with the general public. The thought alone makes me nauseous." Tyler opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He blinked furiously at me, signaling with frantic, twitching eyes. The driver’s gaze shifted in the glass, lingering on me with predatory interest. "Well, now," he said slowly, a hungry little grin pulling at the corner of his mouth. "I had a feeling you weren't typical state-school kids. A real blue-blood. Never had actual old money in my back seat before." I crossed one leg over the other, smoothing the cuff of my cashmere sweater. "Obviously. My family’s conglomerate is ranked in the top five nationally. Even the governor clears his calendar when my father calls the capital. Honestly, if I hadn't wanted to duck my mother’s nagging this weekend, a guy in your tax bracket wouldn't share oxygen with me in this lifetime." I turned my head slightly, cutting my eyes toward Zach, who was trembling so violently his teeth clicked. "Zach, what is wrong with you?" I sighed, clicking my tongue. "Are you shivering? I told you to bring a real shearling coat. You’ve been wearing that Gucci windbreaker for months—don't you know their ready-to-wear has zero thermal insulation?" The driver’s eyes tracked my gaze, landing heavily on Zach. Zach looked as though he were standing on the gallows. He forced a smile that looked more like a death grimace, his hands coming up to clutch his knees. "Bennett... I’m sorry," Zach stammered, tears suddenly spilling over his flushed cheeks. "I’ve just been so ashamed. I lied to you. It’s all fake. The jacket, the shoes—it’s all Canal Street knockoffs. I was vain. I wanted you to think I belonged in your world." He buried his face in his palms, a jagged sob racking his shoulders. Tyler and Scott immediately leaned in, patting his trembling back with frantic, desperate earnestness. "It's true, Bennett," Tyler piped up, his voice trembling with manufactured humility. "We're sorry. Our families are barely lower-middle-class. We just wanted to be your friends so badly. This entire weekend... the three of us put our share on high-interest Klarna loans." I almost admired the shamelessness of it. To claw their way out of the grave, they were willing to strip themselves down to the bone. Then I narrowed my eyes, letting an arrogant sneer curl my lip. "Fake?" I snapped, pitching my voice into sharp indignation. "Wait—what about that custom mechanical keyboard and optical mouse you gifted me for my birthday? Were those knockoffs too? Are you kidding me? No wonder my actuation timing felt like absolute garbage during ranked matches!" 2 Tyler and Scott traded a frantic glance, their jaws tightening with swallowed fury. They wanted to scream at me, to strangle me for walking them straight toward the cliff, but with the driver watching, they had to choke down their rage and play the pathetic, repentant charity cases. "We didn't mean to, man," Tyler muttered, ducking his head with an air of wounded grievance. "The day you moved into the dorms, you had private movers and an assistant in an Armani suit unpacking your thread-count sheets. We were terrified you’d ice us out. We tried our best with that keyboard—it wasn't authentic bespoke, but the tech forum said it was a top-tier replica. We use them ourselves, and the switches feel great..." I rolled my eyes, slamming my glass bottle of Voss water into the cup holder with a sharp thud. "Of course you can’t tell the difference," I sneered, looking out the tinted window. "When you spend your whole life using dollar-store peripherals, an imitation switch is the pinnacle of luxury to someone at your level. But I was raised on custom German hand-soldered builds. It’s repulsive to force cheap plastic on my hands." I turned away, letting my dismissive silence settle like smog in the vehicle. To be fair, the counterfeit switches had thrown off my muscle memory for weeks. But right now, the plastic didn't matter. Survival did. Scott’s complexion was gray. He risked a sideways glance at the driver’s motionless neck, then looked at me, wringing his hands. "Bennett, we don't know anything about high-end tech. My mom’s on SNAP benefits... we really didn't know..." He was desperately scouring his brain for more tales of poverty when his gaze caught a green highway sign overhead. REST AREA — 1 MILE. Scott lunged at the opportunity. He grabbed Zach by the elbow and leaned toward the front console. "Sir? Could you pull over at this upcoming plaza? Zach’s crying so hard his eyes are going to swell shut. We need to get him into the washroom and splash some cold water on his face." The driver met Scott's eyes in the mirror for a fraction of a second before looking back at the asphalt. He didn't answer immediately. He clearly had no desire to pause. Tyler saw the hesitation, his pulse hammering visibly in the hollow of his throat. He looked at me, then took a desperate breath. "Scott and I will handle Zach," Tyler said, forcing his tone into something breezy and compliant. "Plazas get crowded, and luggage snatchers love holiday weekends. Bennett, why don’t you just stay in the warm car? We'll leave our phones with you so we don't drop them." Before I could answer, all three of them shoved their iPhones into my lap. I looked down at the three glass screens, then leaned back into the leather headrest, showing zero intention of moving an inch. The driver's eyes flicked between the heap of phones in my lap and my relaxed, indolent posture. Convinced that his real prize—the billionaire’s heir—was safely planted inside, he finally flicked on his blinker and steered the heavy SUV down the off-ramp. I gave a vague, bored wave of my hand. "Make it quick. I have a reservation at the hotel spa, and I need a nap before dinner." The moment the vehicle came to a complete halt, Tyler and Scott practically hauled Zach out of the door, their feet hitting the pavement like men fleeing an executioner’s block. I stayed reclined, pulling a titanium EDC worry-stone from my pocket. Ignoring the driver's lingering stare, I thumbed the textured metal, letting it click in rhythmic, steady snaps. "Unbelievable," I muttered aloud to myself, loud enough for the front seat to hear. "Now I have to recalibrate my entire grip. Gifting me knockoffs... I knew those switches felt mushy." Outside, the moment they turned the corner past the brick facade of the rest stop, Zach stopped his sniffling. He wrenched his arms free from Tyler and Scott, dragging them into the blind spot behind the service building’s dumpsters. His breath came in ragged, wheezing gasps. "You guys remember, right?" Zach whispered, his eyes wild. "The detour. The warehouse. The cable ties." "We remember," Tyler hissed, shivering. "We're out of the car. We ditch the bags, ditch the coats, and run through the woods toward the highway entrance. We can flag down a state trooper or borrow a trucker’s phone." Scott hesitated, looking back toward the parking lot. "Wait... what about Bennett? We left him alone in the SUV. He doesn't know. Shouldn't we try to get him out?" Zach turned on him, his face twisted in venomous disgust. "Are you insane? You want to play the martyr now?" "He's our roommate, Zach—" "He's an arrogant, condescending prick who just spent the last twenty minutes painting a target on our foreheads!" Zach spat, saliva flying from his lips. "If we go back for him, we spook the driver. If the driver realizes we know, nobody walks out of here alive! Bennett clearly didn't come back. Look at him—he’s still acting like the king of the world. Even if we told him, he’d laugh in our faces." Tyler nodded firmly, grabbing Scott’s jacket. "Zach’s right. This isn't us abandoning him. It’s natural selection. God didn't give him a second chance; He gave it to us." Scott swallowed hard, the remaining trace of his conscience dissolving beneath the cold reality of self-preservation. They locked arms, preparing to round the corner toward the trucker lounge to find help. They took two steps. A tall shadow stepped out from the concrete entryway, blocking the path entirely. 3 It was the driver. He leaned against the brick wall, tossing a set of keys in his palm. His face was carved into an affable, paternal smile that didn't reach his flat, dead eyes. "Thought you boys might've gotten turned around," the driver said smoothly. "Took so long, I figured I’d come make sure nobody fell in." Zach’s knees buckled. If Tyler hadn't clamped a hand around his bicep, he would have collapsed onto the damp gravel. Tyler bit down on his tongue until he tasted copper, forcing his lips into a wide, breathless grin. "Thanks, man! Yeah, we... we left our phones in the car, so we were actually just trying to figure out which door led back to the lot!" The three of them stood there, trembling like wet dogs under the gray autumn sky, trapped beneath the driver’s heavy, unblinking gaze. As they walked back to the vehicle, flanked closely by the driver, Zach muttered under his breath, his knuckles white with rage. "Unbelievable. The driver leaves the car, and Bennett sits right there with twenty minutes to walk away, completely oblivious. I swear, the devil protects his own." The heavy rear door swung open. I was sitting precisely where they had left me, legs crossed, arms folded, tapping my foot against the floor mat in pure, theatrical irritation. "Did you fall into the sewer?" I snapped, glaring at them. "I’ve been sitting here breathing stale air for twenty minutes." The doors slammed shut. The child-safety locks engaged with a heavy, pneumatic clack. The Escalade purred back to life, rolling down the ramp and merging back into the highway traffic. We were right back on the rails toward the slaughterhouse. Zach swallowed hard, desperately leaning toward the front console, trying a different angle. "Nice rig, man," Zach said, his voice paper-thin. "Must cost a fortune to maintain an Escalade. Why do long-haul livery driving? Isn't it exhausting?" The driver chuckled, a hollow sound. "Bills don't pay themselves. Livery work pays when nothing else does." Scott chimed in, trying to build an alliance of shared misery. "My dad drove a yellow cab for fifteen years. Crushed his spine. I hated seeing him come home broken every night." The driver glanced at Scott in the mirror, his fingers tapping an erratic rhythm on the leather-wrapped steering wheel. "The economy’s in the gutter," the driver murmured, his tone darkening. "What else was I supposed to do? Last winter, my division head promised me a senior vice-president track. I bought this truck to celebrate. Took out a high-interest loan. And what did I get for Christmas? A termination letter and an escort off the property." His grip on the wheel tightened until the knuckles went waxy. "Ten years at that firm. Missed my daughter’s birthdays. Worked eighty-hour weeks. And the moment the board wanted to pad their quarterly margins, they dumped me like medical waste. Now I’ve got this car note, zero severance, and no prospects. So tell me—what the hell else was I supposed to do?" His voice rose with every sentence, his boot pressing heavier on the gas pedal. The speedometer climbed past eighty-five, the engine humming an aggressive, strained whine. My roommates had intended to bond over shared class struggle. Instead, they had stepped straight onto a landmine. Tyler panicked. Seeing the driver’s rage boiling toward corporate elites, he turned his head and looked directly at me. "Corporate layoffs are so heartless," Tyler stammered loudly, aiming every word like a flare. "Bennett, your family controls dozens of multinational holdings. Do your dad’s companies pull ruthless stunts like that?" I looked at Tyler. My eyes were dead and empty. I saw the trap he was laying—deflecting the driver’s simmering, murderous class resentment entirely onto my shoulders. He wanted the driver to hate me. He wanted me to be the lightning rod. Tyler shrank slightly under my gaze, but held his ground, waiting for me to walk into the fire. I smiled. A cold, razor-thin smile. "If an employee gets laid off, it’s because their contract allows it," I said, leaning back into the headrest with deliberate, aristocratic insolence. "My family honors contracts. Nobody forced those people to sign their offer letters." The cabin went dead silent. "If a worker stops generating value and expects a multi-million-dollar payroll to carry them out of sentimentality, they’re delusional," I continued, inspecting my fingernails. "Capitalism isn't a soup kitchen. My family doesn't run charities." The only sound in the car was the muffled roar of the tires on asphalt and the electronic chime of the GPS warning of an excessive speed violation. The driver didn't speak. His hands were frozen on the wheel, squeezing so hard the leather groaned. Scott looked like he was about to faint. He tried to laugh, a dry, choking rattle. "Well... I mean, you can’t look at it purely like numbers, Bennett. If someone gives ten years of their life, they helped build the company..." "And they were compensated for those ten years," I cut in dismissively. "Every two weeks, direct deposit. If they feel aggrieved, they can hire an attorney and file a civil suit. But my family employs three entire floors of white-shoe litigators in Manhattan. If someone wants to pick a fight with the Montgomerys, they’d better make sure their family’s savings and their own physical health are sturdy enough to survive the countersuit." Dead silence fell over the vehicle. In my palm, the titanium worry-stone clicked. Snap. Snap. Snap. 4 I raised an eyebrow, looking at the three frozen statues beside me. "What? Why are you all looking at me like that?" Zach broke first. He thrust a trembling finger into my face, his voice cracking into a high-pitched shriek. "Bennett Montgomery, you are an absolute monster!" He stood up as much as the low ceiling allowed, his face mottled with simulated righteous indignation. "I knew you were sheltered, but I never realized you were this vile! You’re a parasitic, blood-sucking sociopath!" I leaned back, my expression hardening into frost. "Oh, now I’m a parasite, Zach? What about the past two years? You drank my Macallan, ate my dry-aged steaks, wore my spare watches, and let me cover your table minimums in the Hamptons. You didn't seem to have a problem with my family’s capital back then." I sneered, crossing my arms. "You know what? I'm done playing nice with charity cases. The second we reach the resort, you three are off my tab. We’re done." A flash of ecstatic triumph lit up Zach’s eyes. "We don't need to wait for the resort!" Zach screamed, leaning forward to pound on the partition. "I refuse to breathe the same air as this scumbag for another minute! Driver, pull over right now! Let us out on the shoulder! We are done with him!" Tyler and Scott joined in immediately, shouting, reaching for the door latches, creating absolute chaos in the rear seats. The driver glanced in the rearview mirror, his brow furrowed, clearly unsettled by the explosive brawl erupting at eighty miles per hour. Seeing that they were about to tear his door handles off, he tapped the brakes and veered onto the gravel shoulder of the interstate. He popped the rear hatch and hauled their three duffel bags out onto the dirt. Watching them scramble out of the car like rats abandoning a sinking ship, I let out a sharp, amused laugh. I slammed the passenger door shut, rolled down the window an inch, and called out to the driver, who was still standing by the rear bumper, staring back at the three boys. "Leave them," I ordered, my voice dripping with bored irritation. "Much more legroom without the dead weight. Let’s go. I’ll double your tip at the destination." The driver stared at me through the rear glass for three long seconds. Then, he climbed back into the driver’s seat, pulled the shift into drive, and hit the gas. Through the tinted rear window, I watched the three silhouettes shrink against the vast, desolate backdrop of the highway shoulder. I let out a slow, quiet breath. Every man for himself. They thought they had outsmarted fate. They thought they had engineered their own salvation by feeding me to the wolf. Whether they lived or died now was entirely between them and whatever god they prayed to. As the miles stretched on, the driver began probing again. "So... an allowance like yours," he said casually, keeping his eyes on the road. "A kid from a family like that... what do you pull a year? Five hundred grand?" I scoffed loudly. "Five hundred grand? That wouldn't cover the maintenance on my mother’s show jumpers in Wellington. Don't use a working-class calculator to measure my family’s balance sheet." I paused, tilting my head back as if recalling a trivial memory. "If you follow high-end art news, you might’ve seen the record-breaking yellow diamond pendant sold at Sotheby’s Geneva last month. I bought it as a paddock ornament for my yearling filly. I usually hate overseas auctions—European security is laughably soft. Some local crew actually tried to hit our transport convoy outside the hotel." The driver’s knuckles twitched on the wheel. "Yeah? What happened?" "My father’s private security detail carries diplomatic carry permits," I said flatly. "Four men in tactical gear. The thieves didn't even make it past the curb before three of them were permanently neutralized. The pendant was delivered to my suite without a scratch." The driver fell silent. His eyes narrowed slightly, a shadow of cold hesitation finally creeping into his calculations. At the next toll plaza, he pulled over briefly to pay cash, his gaze darting repeatedly toward the highway exit signs. The closer we got to the state border, the more frequently he checked my reflection. I leaned back, resting my cheek against my knuckles, and broke the tension myself. "Something on your mind, driver? You look jumpy." He ran his tongue over his front teeth, forcing a sheepish grin. "Just... checked the traffic app. Looks like there’s a massive pileup on the interstate ahead. Construction, lanes closed. I was thinking we might save an hour if we cut through the old industrial county road." I smiled. The trap was closing. "Take the county road," I said. The moment we cleared the highway exit, he reached out and switched off the dashboard navigation system. The scenery disintegrated from rolling autumn woods into gray, weed-choked post-industrial wasteland. Rusted corrugated metal, cracked asphalt, abandoned silos. I looked out the window at the rotting fences. I knew this road intimately. In my previous life, this was where the nightmare had reached its crescendo: an abandoned textile plant half-swallowed by scrub oak and silence. I didn't panic. I watched the jagged roofline of the factory break the horizon. In the front seat, the driver’s breathing had grown shallow. He rubbed the leather of the wheel obsessively, his thumbs flicking back and forth. I took a slow sip of Voss water, letting the cold liquid wash down the phantom metallic taste of blood that lived in the back of my throat. "Pull over right here," I said suddenly. "I want to get out."