Chapter 5 #2
She headed around the back of the temporary platform to the other side, where her client from Mexico was getting ready to take her turn onstage.
There weren’t any adjustments needed on the gown, it looked fantastic against her skin and was modest and sexy at the same time.
Brinley was especially proud of the design and thrilled with how it looked on the woman.
Instead of going out into the ballroom to watch from the front, she stayed where she was backstage.
Even though she didn’t especially like to be around so many women who were stressed out and nervous, it was preferable to risking another confrontation with her family, who she knew would head back out to the ballroom to study Callista’s competitors carefully.
She did her best to forget what her sister had said about men only wanting to be with her for sex.
But she’d hit her mark…and Brinley was having second thoughts about Dash.
Yes, he’d asked her out on a date. But she’d also seen the desire in his eyes when he talked about seeing if her freckles went beyond her face.
Did he just see her as an easy lay, since she lived in Fairbanks? Did he think she was desperate for a guy? Would he dump her after he convinced her to sleep with him?
She didn’t want to think so. Wanted to believe the look in his eyes when he was with her was genuine, but a lifetime of being told she was weird-looking, that no one would ever want to be with her, and hearing the insults her own family hurled at her, made her second-guess herself.
If her own mother didn’t love her, couldn’t even stand to look at her, how could anyone else?
Intellectually, she understood that it was her mom’s issue, not hers.
That there were plenty of people who weren’t classically beautiful who got married, had families, and lived happily ever after.
But interactions with her mom and sister rarely failed to make her revert back to the sad, confused child she’d been years earlier.
The longer she stood there and thought about Dash, however, the more she was sure he hadn’t asked her out just to screw her over.
She remembered how pissed he’d looked and sounded when she’d told him about the Homecoming dance incident.
How happy he’d seemed to find her on that beach last night, and how pleased he looked when she’d invited him to sit.
How surprised and thrilled he’d been when he discovered they lived in the same city.
She’d learned to be a good judge of character, to be able to see through people’s lies when they were trying to be polite.
And Dash Carlson wasn’t faking his reactions.
When he’d touched her face so gently, he wasn’t seeing a woman whose features didn’t quite line up, whose nose was too big for her face and whose freckles had always been the bane of her existence.
The honesty in Dash’s eyes had taken away some of the shame she’d always felt about her looks.
Slowly, the excitement she’d felt over being asked out returned, and she pushed the awful interaction with her family to the back of her mind. Deciding she needed to network a little more, she headed into the ballroom to chat with some of the people who’d come to Fiji with the contestants.
After about an hour, when the last of the competitors were finishing up, and after she’d given her card to at least a dozen more interested potential clients, Brinley was lost in her head, thinking about some designs she wanted to get down on paper as soon as she got home, and as a result…
she missed the first indication of trouble brewing in the ballroom.
When she did realize what was happening, it was too late to do anything other than attempt to get as far away as possible from whatever was going on near the doors. The same idea as those who were standing closest to her.
Five masked and armed men had entered the space and were shouting orders for everyone to stand against the wall opposite from where Brinley huddled. Suddenly, one of the men shot off several rounds from his automatic rifle into the air, and panic immediately ensued.
People were screaming and crying and pleading for their lives.
Brinley didn’t think, she simply acted on instinct, moving not with the crowd of people near her, who were now trying to climb onto the stage to get away from the men with the guns, but toward the single door at the back of the room—the same one the gunmen had entered.
She figured, correctly, that the men would focus on where the bulk of the audience and competitors were now contained, and not in the direction they’d come from.
Brinley felt as if she were in a dream. She didn’t really even remember getting to the door—but if she’d thought the danger would be over and she could easily escape, she was wrong. Outside the ballroom were two more armed men, covered from head to toe in black, their faces masked.
She made eye contact with one, and he yelled at her to stop. But that wasn’t happening.
Thankful she’d opted for comfortable shoes today, instead of something less practical to run for her life in, she bolted to the right, hoping like hell the man wouldn’t simply shoot her in the back.
The sound of gunfire made her flinch, but it was coming from inside the ballroom, not from the man who’d yelled at her.
The hallway felt way too long, and she was completely exposed and vulnerable as she ran, but Brinley didn’t slow down. Her only thought was to escape. To get out.
* * *
Shadow, Grinder, Torch, Kodiak, and Atlas were waiting outside the Vice President’s room for him and his wife to finish changing and getting ready for the day.
Ayla was already down in the ballroom, with Echo and Zero watching over her.
The plan was for Nelson and Nazita Roling to watch their daughter compete in the evening gown segment, then all three were going on another private tour of Fiji.
The wife and daughter would return to the hotel, while the VP attended to some political business before returning himself.
Their plane was slated to leave the next morning, and the Deltas would be headed home tomorrow afternoon.
Shadow’s phone vibrated, and he frowned as he read the message from one of the Secret Service members who were stationed around the hotel.
SS1: Suspicious movement SW of the hotel. Keep targets where they are for now.
Shadow: 10-4
The Rolings weren’t going to be happy if they missed Ayla’s turn on the stage. But their safety came first. Everyone understood that this could happen, that the Vice President’s daughter being here could be an opportunity too big for some terrorist groups to pass up.
“What’s up?”
Shadow glanced at Altas. “Not sure yet. But Secret Service has advised us to stay put while they check out some suspicious activity.”
As he spoke, Shadow was multitasking, sending a note to Echo to stay alert.
Grinder knocked on the hotel room door and informed the Rolings of the situation. As they all suspected, Mom and Dad weren’t happy with the thought of missing Ayla’s evening gown segment, but they also didn’t complain.
Torch and Kodiak went inside the hotel room so they could better guard the couple, while the other three team members stayed outside in the hall.
With every minute that passed, Shadow got more and more uneasy. He hadn’t heard back from Echo and Zero, and he couldn’t help but think about Brinley.
It was stupid. There was no reason to suspect she was in danger.
And he was here to make sure nothing happened to the VP and his family.
But he didn’t like feeling so disconnected with whatever might be happening elsewhere in the hotel.
Without knowing where Brinley was and whether she was safe for certain.
Making an abrupt decision, he turned to his teammates. “I’m going to go downstairs. See if I can find out what, if anything, is happening.”
Both Grinder and Atlas nodded, looking relieved. None of them did well with being kept in the dark. They needed intel, and the two of them, along with Torch and Kodiak, had things more than under control here.
If something was happening, the Secret Service might need his team’s specialized assistance.
Shadow headed down the hall toward the stairwell. He nodded at the agents he passed on his way down to the first floor. Things in the lobby seemed fine. People were milling around and barely looked up as he walked quickly by them, heading for the exit.
The conference center, which included the large ballroom, wasn’t connected to the main hotel building, and as soon as he got outside, Shadow began to jog in that direction.
Suddenly, something made him stop in his tracks.
There was a heavy feeling in the air, one he recognized from the many ops he’d been on.
A sense of danger that wouldn’t let up. He abruptly turned and went down a sidewalk that ran along the side of the building instead of heading to the front door of the conference center.
Ahead of him, he saw someone burst out of one of the side doors and run as fast as they could toward the main hotel. Then another woman stumbled outside, barefoot, looking behind her as she ran.
It was the sound of several gunshots that had Shadow’s adrenaline kicking in.
He didn’t have time to shoot a text to any of his teammates to let them know what was happening, but since they’d already gone over all the worst-case scenarios, including something exactly like this, he was secure in the knowledge that they’d be ready for whatever went down the second he made contact.
At the moment, he needed to get inside and see what was going on.
To see what they were dealing with. One tango or more.
Just as he slowed down to enter the building as stealthily as possible, one of the doors flew open again—and just like on the beach last night, the person he was desperate to see appeared, as if by some miracle.