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