Glad you were released, I'm sure it was an intense experience. It reminded me of a book called "Never Split the Difference" by Chris Voss where he talks about

Glad you were released, I'm sure it was an intense experience. It reminded me of a book called "Never Split the Difference" by Chris Voss where he talks about his approach to negotiating hostage releases. The basic strategy is instead of saying "no" to the price, say some version of "How am I supposed to do that?" which communicates a willingness to negotiate but an inability to accept the price. The side effect is that it builds empathy as it sounds like you'd accept the price if there was any possible way of doing so. The final move is to throw out a precise, random low ball offer like "$5,470" where it sounds like you've scrounged up all the money you can. The idea is that with kidnappers, time is money. If after a few days or weeks they don't get paid, the low ball offer sounds like better than nothing. In some negotiations, he kept talking to them for months elegantly saying these empathetic "no" statements until they actually gave up and stopped guarding the captive. It's a fascinating read that goes into other forms of negotiation too like salary discussions.