Page 116 of Breaking the Rules
Time to play a card. “Why don’t you check Celeb Spotting and then decide what I do or don’t have,” she suggested.
For a second she thought he wasn’t going to do it. But curiosity won out in the end.
“What is this?” he hissed.
“It’s a prepared statement from Dante’s publicist refuting the erroneous story about his disappearance.”
“Nobody believes publicists anymore,” Brad spat out.
“Oh, but what about the pictures?” Waverly said, never taking her eyes off of the man pointing the gun at her. “That’s going to be a lot harder for you to spin.”
“How did you get this?”
“Hmm, the one of me and Petra and Grigory Stepanov right now, cruising down Hollywood Boulevard in a convertible? Because that’s not actually me, but itisactually Petra. A pretty convincing alibi, don’t you think?”
Brad was staring at the phone as if it were a live snake. “You have Grigory?”
“I have everyone,” she said coolly. “Did you see the other photo? I imagine that one’s blowing up right now. Xavier, Dante, and Petra and I all had a cozy breakfast together this morning. I believe the caption says something like ‘Looks like these exes are still friendly. Dante Wrede has returned from his extended vacation with rumored girlfriend Petra Stepanov, daughter of Russian mogul, Grigory Stepanov,’” Waverly recited.
“Dante Wrede is dead!”
“I’d check your sources on that,” Dante suggested, sauntering in from stage right, his gun leveled at Brad.
Thank fucking God,Waverly allowed herself a small sigh of relief.Seven against three.Her message had been received. Waverly could see Brad’s hired guns buzz with confusion, and she hoped to God Dante didn’t need to take a shot at anyone. They’d all be ducking for cover then.
“You said he was dead!” Brad waved his gun menacingly at his men.
“Looks like it’s getting harder and harder to find good minions these days,” Dante quipped. “None of them managed to put a bullet in me.”
Brad took a step forward, and Carolina tensed, ordering him to stay put. His henchmen were getting antsy, and Waverly swung her gun from man to man, daring them to step forward. Everyone was yelling, and Waverly knew it was only a matter of time before someone’s trigger finger got itchy. She pressed herself hard against her mother.
“Brad Tomasso, you’re under arrest for conspiracy to commit murder and kidnapping,” Detective Dan Hansen of the LAPD stepped into the light. He was flanked by the wall of Xavier, Micah, and Malachi, all with guns drawn.
“It’s about damn time,” Waverly grinned at Xavier.
He winked at her before going back to frowning fiercely at Brad.
“This is not happening!” Brad shrieked.
She’d seen people lose it before, knew that their reactions were unpredictable after the point of no return. Still, she saw it in her mind’s eye before it happened.
Detective Hansen made a move toward Brad. Brad raised his gun and fired. As Hansen fell, Waverly shoved her mother to the ground and spun low. A second, third, and fourth shot rang out, and the studio went pitch black.
A burst of light off to her left caught her eye. Brad was escaping through a side door on the set. “Take my mom,” Waverly told Carolina. She took off at a jog, lifting her feet high to avoid any cables on the floor. She stumbled twice over God knows what before she found the wall. It took her precious seconds before her fingers found the door in the dark.
She yanked it open and wedged a folding chair in it to keep it open for the others. It was a temporary hallway as wide as a spaghetti noodle that ran between stages. She spotted Brad turning the corner fifty feet down the hallway and took off after him, the cement blurring under her feet. Brad Tomasso was not getting away.
She rounded the corner into an even longer straightaway and barely dodged the shot he squeezed off. She raised her gun and fired a shot in return. He must have decided the odds were in his favor in a foot race because he took off again, yanking open a door on the right and running inside. Waverly heard footsteps pounding down the other hallway and knew exactly whom they belonged to. “Xavier! First door on the right!” she yelled.
She went in low and blind, and the impact of the bullet nearly took her breath away. It fucking hurt like hell. That was going to cost him.
She decided against returning fire and hit the deck as the door closed leaving them in darkness. She added a moan for good measure. The fingers of her left hand closed around the one thing that sat inside the studio door of every sound stage at Target Productions.
She could hear Brad’s breathing, the sharp ragged gasps of the damned. He was close and easing closer. He should have just run. There was a chance he could’ve gotten out of the building, off the lot. But he was beyond thinking about escape. He wanted revenge for his ruined plans. Waverly counted down, holding her breath.Three, two, one…
The door behind her flew open again, this time with enough force to have it slamming into the wall. Waverly turned on the flashlight and fired once. She caught Brad in the face with the beam and the midsection with the bullet as Xavier dove through the door. Brad had already raised his gun blindly and squeezed off a shot just as Waverly swung like a homerun hero connecting the flashlight to skull. “That’s for kidnapping my mother!”
He went down to his knees, dropping the gun to the cement, and she kicked him in the balls. “That’s for shooting at my fiancé!” She backhanded him with the light, and he went down to the floor hard. “And that’s for shooting me!”
