Chapter 19 #2
“He didn’t like that I’d lied,” Andrea said in a way-too-calm tone.
“Told me he was making an example of me. Took three of my fingers and beat the shit out of me. Then he threw me into the basement of one of his trap houses. Hoped I would bleed to death, but if I didn’t, he was sending another falcon—a fucking newbie at that—the next day to finish what he’d started.
I was to be her first kill. But I got the fuck out of there.
I’ve been in hiding for the last week, just waiting for tonight and the chance to get my revenge. ”
Gillian wanted to feel remorse that Andrea had been beaten so badly, but she couldn’t. Not when she was there to kill her.
Then something else occurred to Gillian—and she felt like the most gullible person ever. “Luis didn’t assault you on that plane,” she said flatly.
Andrea smirked again. “Nope. I gladly sucked him off. And it was awesome.”
Gillian felt sick. She shook her head. “I’m not going with you,” she told Andrea.
“Yes, you are. Get in,” Andrea demanded.
“No,” Gillian said, taking a step back. She had no idea how many minutes had passed, but Walker had to have realized she wasn’t standing by the front desk anymore. He’d find her. She just had to give him enough time.
Andrea lifted the gun and aimed it right between Gillian’s eyes. “Get. In. The. Car.”
Gillian was tired of being scared. Tired of looking down the barrel of a gun.
She had no idea what came over her—but she was done being a victim.
“I cried for you,” Gillian said in a steely tone.
“I felt horrible that you had been treated so badly on that plane…or what I thought was badly. I even talked to the other passengers about doing something to help you out. And the entire time you were probably laughing at us. You didn’t care about those passengers who were killed.
You were cheering on those monsters the whole time!
I have more respect for Alfredo Salazar right now than I do for you. ”
Andrea didn’t even flinch. “I don’t give a shit about anyone but myself. I cared about Luis, but now he’s gone. Because of you. One more chance. Get in the fucking car!”
Gillian stared into the eyes of a woman she’d thought she knew. A woman who’d witnessed the most traumatic experience of Gillian’s life.
Andrea wasn’t who she’d thought. She was a cold-blooded killer.
At the same time she heard a shout from her right, Gillian moved.
Instead of reaching for the gun aimed between her eyes, she swung her fist and hit Andrea’s bandaged hand as hard as she could.
The gun in Andrea’s hand went off, and Gillian felt an immediate rush of fire in her upper arm. She dropped to the ground even as something went flying over her head. She caught a flash of black, and then someone pulled her backward and threw himself over her.
Struggling under the heavy weight, Gillian did her best to fight.
“Easy, Gillian, it’s me,” Lefty said into her ear.
She immediately stopped moving, and instead gripped his sleeve with the hand on the arm that didn’t hurt.
“Just give him a second, and then we’ll move,” Lefty said.
His words didn’t make much sense, but Gillian remained still, trusting him.
Trigger was more irritated with the fighting couple in the lobby than anything else.
He stepped in when the man shoved his girlfriend, but the woman didn’t back off, even when her man had been subdued.
It had taken way too long for hotel security to get there and take over, separating the couple and calling the police to straighten everything out.
It had only been minutes, actually—but it seemed like longer when Trigger looked back to where he’d last seen Gillian, only to find the space near the front desk was empty.
For the second time that month, his heart stopped beating in his chest.
“Where’s Gillian?” he asked Lefty when his friend came up beside him.
Within moments, his entire team was in the lobby, trying to figure out where she might’ve gone.
It didn’t take long for one of the guests milling in the lobby to tell them she’d seen someone in a knee-length green dress with her arm around another woman—who looked as if she’d recently been beaten up—heading down a hallway toward a back door.
Trigger had no idea who the woman was, but the hair on the back of his neck was standing straight up. He’d never ignored his instincts before and wasn’t going to start now.
He and the rest of his team headed down the hall. They couldn’t draw their weapons, not in the middle of a crowded hotel, but they were just as lethal without them.
The second they exited the hotel into the parking lot at the back of the building, Trigger saw Gillian. She and another woman were standing face-to-face at the far left side of the first row of vehicles. It looked like they were simply talking, which made the butterflies in his stomach relax.
But then the mystery woman raised a gun and pointed it at Gillian’s face.
Trigger was moving before he’d even thought about it.
His team was well trained, and they immediately fanned out. Doc, Oz, and Lucky split off to the right to come up behind Gillian and the woman, and Lefty, Grover, and Brain followed Trigger.
He couldn’t hear what was being said, but it didn’t matter. No one pointed a gun at his woman. No fucking one.
As he got closer, he heard the other woman say, “One more chance. Get in the fucking car.”
He opened his mouth and let out an almighty roar that he hoped would shock the woman into turning and looking at him. Gillian seemed to move at the same time. He didn’t see what she did, but the other woman screamed and a gunshot sounded in the quiet Texas night.
Trigger leapt over a now crouched Gillian and tackled the woman. She fell backward, her head hitting the pavement with a loud thump. He wanted to turn and check on Gillian, but he trusted his team to pull her away to safety and administer first aid if needed.
The sound of the gunshot still ringing in his ears, Trigger’s adrenaline was flowing through his veins as he subdued the woman under him. She struggled weakly in his grasp, and as he stared down into her bruised and battered face, he realized that he recognized her.
“Andrea Vilmer?” he asked in shock.
“It’s Vilchez,” she hissed, then tried to spit in his face.
It all clicked then. She was the seventh hijacker.
Vilchez was Luis’s last name, and she was obviously related to him. Sister, wife…it didn’t matter.
Blood was seeping through the bandage on her hand, and Trigger spared only a brief thought as to what might’ve happened to her. He was more concerned about making sure she never got a chance to hurt Gillian again. She’d done enough. More than enough.
He hauled her upright and quickly secured her hands behind her back with a zip-tie. He had a feeling Gillian might make fun of him later for having the damn things on his person, but he’d learned the hard way on a mission to always have a way of securing the enemy.
It was only then that he looked back at Gillian. Lefty was on top of her, looking back at him. Lucky and Doc came up next to Trigger, and he immediately let them take control of the spitting-mad woman he’d tackled.
“The police are on their way. And Brain’s calling Branch and Tucker,” Lucky told him.
Trigger heard his friend’s words, but he couldn’t look away from Gillian as Lefty slowly moved off her.
Blood. It was staining the ground under her, but he couldn’t tell where it was coming from. Feeling as if he was moving in slow motion, he went toward her. Gillian blinked. Then blinked again. But this time it took a moment for her eyes to re-open.
Everything in Trigger’s world stopped. “No,” he said in a choked whisper as he went to his knees next to Gillian.
“I’m sorry,” she said in a rasp he could barely hear. “I shouldn’t have left the lobby with her.”
“Don’t talk,” he ordered, terrified out of his mind, any and all medical knowledge he had going straight out the window. This was his woman lying there bleeding—and he couldn’t think of one damn thing to do about it!
“It’s Andrea.”
“I know,” he said. “Please, don’t talk.”
Her eyes closed again. “Salazar beat her up because she lied and told him I knew who she was, and was telling the authorities.”
“Don’t leave me!” Trigger begged. “I can’t live without you.”
Her eyes opened again, and she looked up at him in confusion.
“Save your strength. The ambulance will be here any second. Just hang on.”
“Walker—” she began, her brow drawing into a frown.
“Shhh,” he ordered.
“I’m not dying, Walker,” she told him firmly.
He looked at the blood under her and pressed his lips together.
“I’m not,” she insisted. “My arm hurts like hell, and I think Lefty squished all the air out of my body when he jumped on me to protect me from stray bullets, but I’m not dying. At least…I don’t think I am.”
Trigger blinked, took a breath—and everything suddenly came into focus. The blood under her was only on one side. Her pupils were reacting to light, and her breathing was a little fast but even.
“Fuck,” he said, sitting back on his heels. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
He heard Lefty and Grover chuckling from next to him.
“Shit, man, you seriously thought she was dying?” Lefty asked.
“Shut up,” Trigger grumbled.
“You did!” Grover crowed. “Hey guys, Trigger saw a little blood and freaked out!”
He tuned-out the ribbing his team was giving him when he felt Gillian touch his arm. He immediately leaned closer and grabbed hold of her hand.
“I’m okay,” she told him quietly.
Trigger nodded. “Now that I can think straight, it looks like it’s just a graze. But you’re still going to the hospital,” he said sternly.
“Okay, but only long enough for them to sew me up. I’m exhausted. I’ve worked my ass off today, and you promised to do dirty things to me when we got home.”
He barked out a laugh and closed his eyes as he shook his head. When he opened them again, he saw tears in Gillian’s eyes. “I’m sorry about Andrea.”
“Me too,” she agreed.
Trigger knew Gillian would have some hard days ahead of her.
They’d both known the seventh hijacker was one of the passengers, but to have been betrayed by someone she’d thought was her friend had to hurt.
He’d do whatever it took to erase the pain and betrayal from her eyes.
He also knew spending time with her true friends—Ann, Wendy, and Clarissa—would help as well.
But he had no doubt his Wonder Woman would straighten her shoulders and be back to her usual brave self sooner rather than later. As sirens sounded in the distance, Trigger vowed to be by her side every step of the way.