by LR Potter
Alex stared at him for a moment before replying, “What will you do with the girl if…” he allowed the sentence to hang in the air.
Rush slammed his palm down on the doorframe. “I’m not a monster. Now, get the girl here now.”
From behind Alex, Devon Montanez appeared wrapped in a hotel robe. “I’ll have her here,” she said quietly. “You need to try and get some sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day,” she said gently.
Rush stared at her for long time as he struggled to hold it together. “Please don’t let my girl die,” he begged her.
Devon met his gaze steadily. “I’ll do my best,” she promised quietly.
Rush gave a shaky nod of his head and walked back to his room to wait for morning. Moving woodenly back to his seat in front of the television, Rush sat down and sighed heavily. He didn’t like not being in control, he didn’t like it at all. He leaned back and closed his eyes trying to stem his frantic need to do something… anything. Not just sit here.
Visions of Trinity filled his mind’s eye: the first time he’d met her at the gallery with her hair clipped back; the night at the nightclub, with her hair all wild and flowing about her beautiful face; the way she’d clung to him the first time they’d made love, so trusting – she’d made him feel tenfeet tall; the night of the charity ball in her red dress – she’d blown his mind; the night he’d finally found her again at the French restaurant; the night she gave birth to their amazing son – even with her hair slicked back with sweat, he’d never seen anyone more beautiful; and the last time they’d made love in the hot tub, their fingers intertwined. Would he ever have that with her again? Be able to touch her, hold her, love her…
A sharp knock at the door jarred him from sleep. He sat up quickly. How could he possibly have fallen asleep? Guilt ate at him as he contemplated how Trinity had slept. What if she’d died while he sat here sleeping… no! He couldn’t think like that. He jumped up from the chair and moved quickly to the door, wiping the sleep from his eyes as he went.
Alex strode past him when the door was opened. With grim lips, he said, “It’s done.”
Rush blinked rapidly. “You have her?”
“Yes,” Alex answered simply.
“Where is she?”
“Devon has her in my room,” Alex replied, looking at his watch.
It was then Rush noticed the blood leaking through at the top of Alex’s shirt sleeve. “What happened?”
Alex gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “We’ll discuss it later. What do you want to do now?”
“Was the girl hurt?” Rush asked, rubbing a hand over his eyes.
“No, Angelina is fine… scared, but fine.”
“How old is she?” Rush asked.
“Fourteen… fifteen.”
Rush sighed heavily and with a shake of his head, said, “What a freaking nightmare. There’s nothing we can do until Tiko contacts me again. I need to get a picture of Angelina on my phone so I can send it to him when he calls. Is Devon okay?”
“Minor injuries, nothing important,” Alex replied.
“So, I guess we wait,” Rush said. “God, I hope Trinity makes it through this alive.”
Alex nodded but didn’t respond.
Chapter Fifteen
Nine o’clock found Rush and Alex sitting facing each other across the table in Rush’s suite. Time seemed to stop. Rush glanced repeatedly at his watch. As the second hand moved further and further away from the designated time, his nerves began to reach a breaking point. At two minutes past the hour, Rush stood abruptly and walked to face the windows. He found it odd that the sun was shining and people were milling about as if it was a normal day and someone’s life didn’t hang in the balance.
When he didn’t think he could stand it any longer, his phone vibrated on the table. Rush glanced at Alex, who pursed his lips but said nothing. Exhaling deeply, Rush picked up the phone. It was now do or die.
Without any preamble, Tiko said sharply, “Where the hell is my money?”
“How’s Trinity?”
“She’s not doin’ so well and it appears she’ll be doing worse. Where is the money, Drayton? We had a deal!” Tiko snapped.
With his stomach muscles tied up in knots, Rush licked his lips, glanced at Alex and stared at him for a long minute. With his jaw muscles clenching, he dove in. “I’m altering our deal,” he said with deadly calm.
“There will be no altering if you ever want to see that bitch and your brat again!” Tiko spat.
Rush gave a mirthful laugh, “Oh, Tiko. My son happens to be asleep in the next room… as is your daughter, Angelina.”
Silence filled the line. “What the hell do you mean?” Tiko asked quietly.
“I. Have. Your. Daughter!”
Silence again. “No, you don’t,” Tiko said on a laugh. “Good try. But there’s no way. She’s heavily guarded.”
“I can send you a picture, if you’d like,” Rush said smoothly. “As you said, it is a great motivator.”
“You better not freakin’…” Tiko paused before continuing. “You better not hurt my little girl.”
“I won’t. But I want back what’s mine. I want her back unharmed,” Rush said stonily.
“She’s sick, man. But I didn’t do it, I swear… it’s a bug or something,” Tiko began to ramble.
“Then we need to make this quick. An even trade, Trinity for your daughter.”
Silence filled the line again. “And if I refuse?”
“I’ll turn your daughter over to the Vato Locos,” Rush said calmly.
“They’ll kill her,” Tiko said frantically.
“I know,” Rush responded icily.
“I can’t turn your bitch over, they’ll kill me,” Tiko said.
With deadly precision, Rush replied, “I don’t care.”
“I’ll call you back.”
“You have fifteen minutes,” Rush said before the line went dead.
Rush fell back in his chair and threw his cellphone on the table. He scrubbed his hands over his face. He sighed heavily and looked at Alex.
“The ball is in his court,” Alex said.
Rush nodded and closed his eyes.
“The Los Rojas will probably kill Tiko,” Alex said without inflection.
“We can only hope,” was Rush’s only response.
After twelve mind-splitting minutes, Tiko called back. “You better not hurt my girl. I want her returned!” he demanded.
“I’ll return her in the same condition in which I find Trinity,” Rush responded.
“They will kill me, man,” Tiko said almost pleadingly.
“You should have thought about that.”
After several minutes of silence, Tiko said, “What do you want?”
“Trinity.”
After several long, agonizing moments, Tiko said, “Okay.”
Rush exhaled silently. “Bring Trinity to my hotel. Just you, Trinity, me, and your daughter. We’ll meet in the lobby where there are lots of people milling around. Any deviation and your daughter will be given to the Vato Locos. Do we understand each other?”
Silence met his words. Anxiousness curled around Rush’s spine the longer the silence lingered. Finally Tiko said, “One hour.”
“No! You’ve wasted enough of my time. You have until ten o’clock. Ten o’clock and not a minute longer. Do you understand?” Rush said abruptly.
Tiko paused before muttering, “Ten o’clock, your lobby. Just you and me.” Then the line went dead.
Rush let out an unsteady breath before rising, pouring a stiff drink, and tossing it back before pouring another. “I need an ambulance on standby in front of the hotel,” he told Alex.
Alex nodded and exited to make the necessary calls.
~*~
At nine forty-five, Rush stood alone in the lobby. From where he stood, he could see the men Alex had situated in the parking lot. One man was leaned against a car as if talking on his cellphone, the other sat on a bench reading a newsp
aper, and both were heavily armed. Kneeling behind the reservation’s desk were two additional armed men. Glancing behind him, he met Devon’s steady gaze as she stood behind the concierge desk in the hotel’s signature jacket. The huge cut over her eye from her scuffle with Angelina’s guards was barely visible from where he stood. The ambulance was parked in the back of the hotel waiting for Trinity. And while he couldn’t see him, Rush knew Alex was positioned up in the tree adjacent to the lobby doors with a rifle trained on those doors.
In case things went awry, Angelina Mars was being kept in a hotel room on the second floor with a guard posted at the door. The young girl had been understandably frightened. Rush hated having to put her in the middle of this situation. He was sure Tiko wasn’t going to like this small change, but Rush didn’t care. He just prayed Tiko didn’t show up with an army.
With his nerves stretched tight, Rush stood with his hands buried in his pants pockets, willing the time to pass. How he wished this was already over and Trinity was safely ensconced in a hospital room. His heart began to pound when a white van pulled into the hotel’s circular drive. It pulled in and stopped for an instant before continuing back onto the highway.
In his earpiece, Rush heard Alex say, “It’s him and he’s not alone.”
“Shit,” Rush said softly.
Slowly, the white van pulled back into the circular drive and stopped just past the entrance. A Hispanic man, not Tiko, exited the driver’s door and went to the back of the van and opened the double doors.
Rush heard Alex say softly, “Everyone on alert.”
The driver pulled a wheelchair out of the van and set it on the driveway. A second man, still not Tiko, carried a limp body wrapped in a sheet out of the van and placed it in the wheelchair. Rush’s stomach roiled when he saw Trinity’s head loll back.
“Steady, Rush,” he heard Alex say in his ear. It took everything in his being to remain still and not run to the wheelchair.
In his earpiece, Rush heard their man on the bench say softly, “There’s no one else in the back of the van.”
“Copy,” Alex replied.
The man, who’d placed Trinity into the wheelchair, rolled it onto the sidewalk and stopped. Tiko Mars climbed out of the passenger’s side of the van and stepped up next to the wheelchair. As they approached the entrance of the hotel, a black pickup truck with massive tires came squealing into the parking lot. In the back of the truck were half a dozen heavily armed men. Before the truck had come to a full stop, the men were jumping out of the truck and the sounds of gunfire became nearly overwhelming.
Rush heard Alex’s voice, while still calm and level, become louder and more demanding as he directed his men. The two men behind the counter came out and pulled their weapons. Rush started forward, intently focused on reaching and retrieving Trinity from the wheelchair, when the glass windows housing the lobby exploded. Rush threw his arms up to fend off the flying debris.
Tiko and the man pushing the wheelchair began rushing towards the hotel’s entrance. When they reached the door, the man behind the wheelchair was spun around after being hit by a flying bullet. The man yelled and fell to the ground. Tiko got behind the wheelchair and began running. He was approaching the entrance when the glass exploded. Without stopping, Tiko kept running through the falling glass.
With gunshots being traded back and forth between the men from the truck and Alex and his crew, Rush stepped forward to intercept Trinity from Tiko. He was within five feet of Tiko and the wheelchair, when suddenly Tiko’s head seemed to explode. Blood and brain matter went flying in every direction just as the shattered glass had flown a minute previously. Rush leaped the final feet, landing on his knees in front of Trinity’s limp body. Wrapping his arms around her middle, he flipped her forward until she was slung over his massive shoulder. While remaining on his knees, he scurried behind a marble pillar in the middle of the lobby.
When he sat down and pulled Trinity against his body, the sound of sirens could be heard. Rush brushed his trembling hands against her pale, still face, which was scorching hot. As he pulled her into his fierce embrace, the sound of shouts and then the squealing of the truck’s tires echoed throughout the hotel. Then there was extreme silence until the sirens pulled into the hotel’s entrance.
In his earpiece, Alex said calmly, but firmly, “Rush, move to the rear of the hotel and load Trinity into the ambulance. Do it now.”
Gathering her up, Rush stood and moved quickly and was out the back before the first policemen entered the hotel’s lobby. Rush banged on the ambulance’s back door and the EMT cautiously opened the door.
“Man, what the heck was that?” the EMT asked as he stepped out to assist with Trinity.
“It doesn’t matter right now. Help her. Help her now!” Rush demanded.
The EMT strapped Trinity onto the backboard and ordered the ambulance to head toward the hospital. He began checking her vitals and opened her eyelids, flashing a beam of light into her pupils. He shook his head as he immediately began issuing orders to his partner. His partner tried to insert an IV, but her severe dehydration made the task nearly impossible.
Rush sat at her feet with one hand wrapped around her ankle. He looked at her unresponsive face and fear settled over him. He’d thought that getting her back was going to be the hard part. But he’d been wrong. This was the hard part, waiting to see if she would survive.
Once the second EMT got the IV in her arm, he moved to the front seat to call the hospital.
Rush slid up next to her head and began whispering into her ear. “Oh, baby, just hang on. Please hang on. Me and Blake need you so much… we love you so much. Please, baby.”
Her hand lay limply within his. He kissed her face over and over as he continued to speak soothingly to her, willing her to live… for all their sakes.
Chapter Sixteen
Rush sat alone in the waiting room of the emergency room. He was leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, and his face buried in his hands. The waiting was agonizing. They’d immediately taken her back, pumping antibiotics into her as quickly as they could. He’d supplied all the information he could to the medical staff and filled out as much of the necessary forms as he could. Now, all he could picture was how her limp hand had fallen from his grasp.
“How is she?” Alex asked as he walked into the waiting area.
“I don’t know. Not good,” Rush said tiredly. “How’d things work out at the hotel?”
Alex exhaled deeply. “We were able to contain it. Nothing will be pointed at you. The police were told by hotel staff it was a random gang-related killing. There were three dead, one being Tiko. There was extensive damage to the hotel.”
“And his daughter?”
“Devon is taking her back now. She is shaken, but that’s to be expected,” Alex said without inflection.
“Thanks, Alex.”
Alex gave a brief nod of acknowledgement. “I need to take care of some… personal business before I head back to Savannah. I’ll probably be gone a couple weeks. I’ll leave Jorge and Nathan with you. If you have any problems, just call.”
Rush nodded. “Okay.”
Alex sat back and closed his eyes as they waited to hear news about Trinity.
Rush fidgeted as the pressure of not knowing became almost too much. Needing to think of other things he said, “I want to set up a trust for Angelina Mars.”
Without opening his eyes, Alex replied, “I’ll set it up before I leave Mexico.”
Rush stood abruptly when a doctor entered the waiting room.
“Are you the family of Trinity Grace?” the doctor asked.
Rush nodded before asking anxiously, “How is she?”
The doctor’s lips pursed. “She’ll make it, but she is one sick woman. She has so much infection in her body and we are doing everything we can to combat it. She has abscesses in both breasts from being engorged, due to lack of breastfeeding or expressing. This was the initial cause of the infection. She has double
pneumonia and is severely dehydrated and undernourished. We’re taking her up to surgery now to relieve the abscesses. She’ll recover, but it’ll probably take a month or two for her to recuperate fully. I’ll be back down once the surgery is done and she is moved to recovery.”
“Thanks, Doctor,” Rush said as he blew a breath passed his lips. Sitting down heavily, Rush rubbed a hand over his face. “God, what a mess.”
“She is one stubborn woman,” Alex said mirthfully.
“That she is,” Rush agreed.
~*~
Swirls of sensations flitted their way past Trinity’s consciousness as she became aware of several different things all at once. She’d finally gotten rid of the bone-deep coldness she’d had for what seemed like days. She could hear sounds around her, but couldn’t quite place what they were. There were smells around her, that while familiar, she couldn’t quite place either. There was a weight over her middle, which, while she was aware of it, was comforting. Her body was so languid, she was practically boneless. She wanted to open her eyes but her eyelids were so heavy, she just couldn’t. Slowly, unable to hold onto consciousness, she drifted back to sleep.
Slowly, memories began to make their way through her drug-fogged mind. Flashes of being naked and chained like a dog; flashes of lying on the hard, cold cement floor; and flashes of Tiko Mars’s white head caused her to flinch, whimper, and try to curl up, but the weight over her middle stopped her. Through the curtain of her consciousness, she felt a soft brush against her face and the soothing tones of a deep voice. She turned her head towards the comforting touch and inhaled deeply. Slowly, the words of the deep voice began to penetrate the thick veil between her and reality.
“Hey, it’s okay. You’re safe. I’m here,” the voice said.
Once again she felt the soft brush against her face. With extreme effort, she forced her eyes open, and once she could focus, stared into Rush Drayton’s stunning face. Tears sprang into her eyes and slid down her cheeks.
“Hey, baby,” he whispered raggedly.