Chapter Thirty-Five-Giselle
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE-GISELLE
“ G et up.”
An unfamiliar voice is talking in my ear and the next thing I know, someone is slapping me across the face.
“Ow! Okay, okay,” I respond and stumble as I am yanked out of the car.
“Hold this,” the same voice says and thrusts something at me.
I open my eyes and try to catch the carrier as Chen pushes it into my hands.
Buffy is heavier than she looks, and I stumble under the weight of the thing.
“Um, please,” I say, shaking like a fucking leaf.
“Afraid of a little python?” Chen laughs, and so does his driver.
I don’t think they know what kind of snake Buffy is, and I don’t know if it’s important or not. But it might be.
Trusting the snake to stay inside the thing, I rearrange it in my arms and follow the driver while Chen aims a gun at my back.
“Keep walking. Good. Now wait,” he says.
And I do. I have no choice.
It’s still light out, but I know it is later in the evening. The sun doesn’t set until around eight or so, but even with the diminishing light this place looks familiar.
We pulled into the back of an enormous brick house and are headed inside what looks like an old-fashioned double garage that sits behind the main structure.
“Inside,” Chen orders, and I have no choice but to obey.
Ten minutes later I am tied to a chair in the middle of a room and Buffy, the poisonous black mamba, is at my feet in her travel tank.
The driver is guarding the door, holding a very large, deadly looking gun, and Chen is on the phone.
I don’t understand what he’s saying. It’s not English, but I don’t recognize the language either.
A few minutes later, I see someone approaching the door and I narrow my gaze. She looks familiar too.
Holy. Shit.
I know where I remember this place from. We’re in Boston. At Margaret O’Doyle’s house.
“What the fuck, Chen? You brought her here!” she yells.
“Why?” I ask her. “Why did you betray the Vipers? You know what they’ll do,” I tell her, mad as hell that she had a hand in this.
Angel doesn’t share a lot about his business with me, but I know this woman is considered an ally. Maybe even a friend.
I don’t know what makes a person like this betray another, especially a fellow woman, but I know it won’t go unpunished. And that mollifies me just a little.
“Shut up,” Chen steps forward, cursing under his breath.
“You know I’m right. They are going to come for you both,” I tell him, and this time he slaps me harder.
“Shit, Chen, She’s right. They aren’t going to back down and now they’ll think I had a part in this!”
“You do have a part in this, Maggie mine,” someone else says.
Chen turns around to face the direction of the voice, and he is smirking. I’m still seeing stars over that last slap, but I recognize the silhouette of the woman as she comes into view.
“Giovanna?” Margaret says, sounding confused. “I don’t understand.”
“What’s there to understand? I used you to get an introduction to the Vipers. That was all I wanted you for. Now, you’re useless to me,” Giovanna says, raising a gun.
“You work for her, don’t you Chen? And you, you’re the Ghost!” I say suddenly putting it all together.
“Brava! Give that girl a cigar!”
Giovanna grins wickedly, turning around like a runway model.
“You’re Ghost? Wait. What do you mean? I thought you and I?—”
“What? You thought that was real? Oh, Baby, you’re so green. I wonder if Nico put you in charge just so he could manage you.”
“Fuck you. Now, where’s my brother?” Margaret yells, and I see tears well in her eyes.
Her brother?
If Ghost kidnapped Margaret’s brother, and was posing as her girlfriend, gathering intel, then shit, this whole thing is a complicated web of betrayal and backstabbing.
But it explains her part.
I think of Resa and everything I would do for her. It makes sense.
Angel will still be pissed, but I can’t blame her. I understand Margaret O’Doyle’s motivation to betray the Vipers. But not Giovanna’s.
Buffy hisses inside her tank, and I look down at her. The lid on top of her travel tank rattles and I look down, my fear growing and not because of the guns in the room.
Angel has told me enough about her to know that an agitated black mamba is not something I want near me.
“Please, enough with the drama. Baby boy is fine. He’s tied up in the other room. You can have him back, Maggie mine, but not until I say so,” she says, then hits Margaret in the face with the butt of her gun.
She shouts in pain, then drops to the floor. She just crumples like a pile of old clothes. And my fear level rises.
“Now, how is our little victim?” Giovanna says in a mock baby voice before stopping in front of me.
This bitch.
“I am not a victim,” I snap, angry at this woman for not only toying with my life, but with all of us.
“Not yet,” she says and smiles.
Giovanna is not a nice woman. I knew that before. But when she touches me, wrenching my face up with her nails digging into my chin, I want to vomit.
“What’s so special about a fat little nothing like you that Angel Fury would turn down a chance to fuck me?”
“Maybe it’s because I’m not a heartless bitch,” I spit the words at her.
She squeezes my face tighter, and I feel warm liquid dripping down my chin. I think this bitch cut me with her nails, and now I am even madder. The rattling at my feet intensifies.
I watch Giovanna raise her hand, she is lifting the gun to my temple.
Shit.
I know Angel is on his way, but he won’t get here in time. Sadness wells inside me. Sadness and regret.
I should have told him I love him. Should have said it every day.
Chen and the driver are dragging Margaret’s body off to the side.
One of them leaves and goes inside the other room, returning with a young man who is either dead or unconscious.
Chen is bent over, tying Margaret’s hands together. And it looks so much like a classic mob movie. The kind where they line up their enemies and shoot them before leaving town.
This bitch is going to kill me. And I don’t want to die like this.
Hell.
I don’t want to die at all. But if I am going out, I am going to do it my way.
“Any last words?” she says, moving back a step and taking aim.
“Yeah. Catch!” I shout just as I kick open the loose lid on Buffy’s tank.
The blank mamba is in a vicious mood. I’ve seen it before. I know when she is ready to strike. And as Giovanna looks down to see what I set in motion, it’s too late.
Buffy launches herself, the venomous serpent is in full on attack mode.
The snake bites her several times, and Giovanna screams, her gun, forgotten, drops to the floor. It goes off, hitting one of her guys. The driver, I think.
Chen is yelling, but I am too busy pushing myself back, away from where Giovanna is struggling to breathe. She is on the ground now and her face is grossly distorted. A side effect of the venom.
I am looking around frantically for Buffy, but I don’t see the snake.
“Where is it?” Chen shouts and lifts his gun.
But before he can start shooting, the garage doors bust open and there he is.
My Angel.
Three steps and Angel slices Chen’s throat with a wicked-looking blade. His eyes are glowing with rage, but that changes when he sees me and charges across the room.
Other men follow him, but I don’t pay attention. My focus is on him alone.
“Koukla. You hurt? You okay? Fuck. I got you,” he rumbles soothingly as he cuts my binds and pulls me into his arms.
Angel hugs me tight as I sob into his neck.
“I’m sorry. Giselle, I’m so fucking sorry. I failed. I should’ve protected you better,” he says over and over again, holding me so tight, repeating himself.
But I don’t understand. He didn’t fail. He saved me. He got here in time.
“You crazy man, you did nothing wrong.”
“I did. I fucked up. I’m sorry. Please say you’ll forgive me. Don’t leave. Please don’t fucking run again, Koukla, please. I can’t stand it. I can’t fucking live without you. Just give me another chance?—”
He’s rambling now, but he’s saying things I never imagined a man like him would ever say. My heart squeezes tight, and I know I can’t let him think like this. I can’t let him hurt.
Not now. Not ever.
“Angel,” I say his name.
I cup his face between my hands, loving the rough feel of his five o-clock shadow, then I pull him to me for a kiss.
“Koukla?” he whispers, kissing me one more time.
“I forgive you. You did nothing wrong, but I still forgive you.”
“You do?”
“Of course, I do. I love you, Angel. I’m not going anywhere.”
The air between us feels charged. I smile at him through my still falling tears, and it’s not a coy grin or flirty little tease.
It’s a full blown smile. And it belongs to him.
Just like the rest of me.
“I’m gonna spend the rest of my fucking life making you happy,” Angel says and picks me up, hugging me tight.
“You damn well better,” I tell him, laughing when he spins me.
“Fuck! Snake!” someone shouts, and Angel turns around.
He’s still not letting go of me, but I’m not complaining.
“Oh,” I tell him, watching with no small amount of amusement as a bunch of beefy men rush outside the garage because of one tiny little snake.
Buffy is a badass, though, so I am pleased they are giving her the proper amount of respect.
“You should probably get Buffy back in her tank,” I tell him, and his shocked stare meets mine.
“Buffy?” he says and his gaze flicks back to Giovanna’s dead form.
I glance away the second I see her swollen, discolored face and the horrific expression that is still frozen on it. A result of suffocating to death.
It’s gross. And not something I want to remember, so I close my eyes.
“Wait here. I’ll get Buffy.”
I nod and turn around. It takes Angel a few minutes, but with the help of a garden rake, he gets his pet viper safe and sound, secure in her tank.
“I’m building her a whole new habitat when we get home,” he says, and I grin.
“How about we move it to your office? I mean, I love this little girl, but I’m thinking she might be happier in the Den with the other Vipers.”
“Good point,” Angel agrees.
He gives me a wink and a smile, and my heart almost beats me to death. He hands Buffy to one of his guys, and then Angel turns back to me and wraps his arms around my body.
“Let’s get those scratches checked out. Make sure you’re alright. Then I’m taking you home. That okay with you?”
“Yes, Angel.”
And it is okay with me. Truly, one hundred percent, okay.