Chapter 19
Victoria
“Get up, you stupid slut!” he yelled.
Victoria still held Alayna’s hand from when she’d pulled her down to the floor.
No tear gas had come in, but something worse had entered.
She could see his hand grabbing a chunk of Alayna’s hair and pulling her up from the floor.
Victoria didn’t let her hand go so she was jerked to her knees with the action.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked looking at her.
Before she could answer Victoria felt a wave of something familiar. She narrowed her eyes and stared closer. She knew him. And the moment he took a second look she could tell he knew her too.
“Fuck! You better not have been running your mouth!” he shouted at Alayna then used his grip on her hair to toss her over the bed. “As for you Miss Prosecutor, you’re about to lose this case bigtime!”
He raised his hand to slap her and Victoria acted solely on instinct.
After her father’s death she and her mother had taken every self-defense class they could find.
Naomi actually held several belts in the art of Taekwondo while Victoria had leveled out at the black belt because she’d entered college and became too busy to attend the classes.
Needless to say, she could handle herself very well.
The arm that blocked Officer Hall’s ensuing assault and the follow up jab to his nose with a palm heel strike proved her point.
Blood immediately spewed from his face and Victoria took the seconds that he stood there stunned and calling her all kinds of names to run over and help Alayna up from the floor.
“Stay behind me,” she instructed her.
“He’ll kill us both,” Alayna whimpered, pulling on the sleeve of Victoria’s shirt. “Let’s just go. There’s a window in the bathroom. We can get out while he’s bleeding,” she pleaded.
But Victoria knew that wasn’t going to work. Hall wasn’t going to be out of commission much longer. He was too angry for the pain to really stop him. She looked around quickly, trying to find anything she could use as a weapon because he was definitely going to come for her first.
She knew who he was. Sure, Alayna did too, but he had her so afraid she hadn’t even told Victoria his name and probably would’ve had to be thoroughly coerced to divulge that information.
But he was greedy, he’d come for her and now Victoria knew exactly who he was.
And it hadn’t taken her long to figure out what he’d done.
He was the one who’d taken Alayna. He could because he was a cop, he would’ve known where the other officers were holding her and it would’ve been easy for him to walk right in and grab her.
Her question was why. But that would surely have to wait as just as she’d expected he swiped his hand over his blood soaked face and turned immediately to her.
“They should have killed you when they had the chance. I told them scaring you wasn’t enough. But that’s okay, I’ll take care of it,” he spat.
He reached into the front of his pants and pulled out a gun, big and black was all she really saw before the front door was kicked off its hinges.
Hall whirled around to see who’d decided to join his little party. Victoria gasped when his gun was now pointed directly at Ben.
“Sonofabitch!” Ben yelled.
“Drop it!” Dev and Trent came from behind with their follow-up and guns drawn.
It was Officer Hall, the smart-ass from the crime scene the night Victoria’s house had been attacked. A quick glance over the man’s shoulder and he saw Victoria, a frantically screaming woman right behind her.
“I’m not dropping anything. You’re the intruders. I’m the fuckin’ law. You drop it!” Hall yelled with clear distaste.
“You’re a crooked cop who’s going down,” Ben told him, still holding his ground.
He hadn’t pulled out his own weapon and now wished like hell he had. If the gun were in his hand he’d shoot and damn the consequences.
“Just like before you don’t have any evidence, Donovan. You can’t prove anything,” Hall replied.
Trent pushed past Ben, “I can prove you were the one who went into the safe house and set off tear gas so you could take the witness out the back door. You’ve had her all this time, while steady deposits have been dumped into your account from Sal’s Pizzeria for some security alarm equipment, I know damned well you never delivered. You’re caught, jackass!”
Hall moved fast, like lightening as he streaked across the room, yelling some sort of battle cry before tackling Victoria to the ground and rolling over with his arm tight around her neck, the nose of his gun pointing squarely at her temple.
Ben didn’t think, only reacted.
His gun was in his back waistband. He reached for it and had it aimed straight between Hall’s eyes before the man could pull Victoria to a standing position.
“Let. Her. Go,” he stated slowly, his finger poised on the trigger of his Glock.
“I got him Ben, you don’t do anything stupid,” Dev said from behind.
Ben shook his head. “He’s the stupid one,” he said taking a step closer.
“Ben, no!” Victoria tried to scream but the bastard tightened his grip around her neck.
“Shut the hell up! All of you just drop your weapons or I swear I’ll shoot this bitch attorney. Then I’m going to kill that whiny whore who thought she was smarter than me taking my money, then trying to run away!”
Ben’s gut clenched, the sight of that gun touching Victoria’s temple making him want to wretch or leap forward and kill, probably both. Rage simmered inside, building to an intense heat as sweat prickled his brow. She couldn’t die. He just wouldn’t let her.
“You’re not going to kill her,” Ben told him, taking a step closer.
He could sense Dev moving behind him, ready to shoot the second Hall’s finger pulled the trigger. Well, Ben wasn’t going to let it go that far. He was ready to shoot now.
“I’m going to splatter her brains all over this cheap ass motel wall and there’s nothing you can do to stop me, rich boy!” Hall spat.
His gun hand shook. Ben saw it as they stood.
He blinked rapidly, the pain from his broken nose probably kicking in.
A millisecond later the lamp that had been sitting on the nightstand was smacked against the back of Hall’s head.
Victoria lurched forward just as he kept hold of his footing and aimed at her. Ben fired.
Dev fired.
Trent fired.
Officer Timothy Hall hit the floor with a sickening thud, his gun sliding a few feet away.
Behind him Alayna stood shaking from head to toe, the lamp still in her hand.
Ben took a step toward Victoria and while she’d been watching him, her eyes wide with fear, chest heaving, fingers clenching at her sides, she turned away from him and went to hug Alayna instead.
A clap to his back stopped Ben’s movement and he stood still, his gaze falling to the lifeless body of Officer Hall.
“You okay, man?” Trent asked coming to stand beside him.
Ben had lowered the hand holding his gun still a bit stunned that he’d actually fired on a human being.
“You didn’t have to shoot him,” Ben began. “You nor Dev,” he said quietly.
“You’re a suit-wearing justice man,” Dev said after he’d knelt beside Hall to check for a pulse. “No need in you carrying a death on your shoulders.”
“My bullet made contact,” Ben said moreso to confirm with himself than anything else.
Trent nodded. “And so did at least three others. We’ll never know which one killed him.” Trent still had his hand on Ben’s shoulder and he squeezed firmly. “You’ll never know if it was yours or not.”
Ben looked at his cousin seriously, gratefully. “So I’ll never carry the guilt of being a killer.”
Trent nodded once more, then tilted his head in the direction where Victoria was standing. “But you wear that hero thing pretty good. She looks a little shaken up.”
She did and Ben wanted nothing else but to go to her, but she looked like she had other things going on, namely a clearly hysterical Alayna.
Ben
Ben obviously had a conflict of interest but that hadn’t stopped him from trying to help Alayna.
“She should have an attorney before she goes into any type of interrogation,” he spoke up when Noah and Victoria were preparing to enter the room where Alayna had been placed after they arrived at the police station.
Timothy Hall’s body had been picked up by the morgue.
More cops had swarmed the motel, shutting down the parking lot and that whole string of rooms along the corridor of room 608.
Homicide detectives were itching to question Trent, Dev and Ben, but when Noah arrived, he took over.
He’d taken all their statements unofficially on the way to the precinct and then again officially when he was in his office.
Now, it was time to see what Alayna knew for certain.
Ben suspected she knew a lot of things that could possibly incriminate herself. Hence the reason she needed legal protection.
“Come on Donovan, she’s a witness in protective custody,” Noah said with a slight frown.
“Then there’s no need for you to talk to her about anything other than her testimony,” he fired back.
“I can ask about her abduction by Hall and where she’s been all this time,” Noah countered.
Ben nodded. “And nothing else.”
He held Noah’s gaze for endless seconds, wanting to make sure his friend knew what he was trying to implicate without getting himself in anymore ethical hot water.
“He’s right,” Victoria intervened. “She should at the very least be advised that she can have an attorney present. But not you,” she said pointing to Ben.
Ben agreed. “I have a colleague who can be here in fifteen minutes,” he said holding up his cell phone.
Noah cursed under his breath but Ben knew he understood they were all trying to protect both the witness and the successful prosecution of Ramone Vega.
“I’ll go advise her of her rights,” he said heading into the room.
As if he’d actually spoken the words to her, Victoria nodded. “I’ll go make sure her answer is duly recorded.”
Victoria