The Stars Trilogy (82 page)

“Why? Because you will miss me if I get blown to pieces?”

“Nah. I just don’t wanna lose my fat, monthly paycheck.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll be taken care of when I keel over.”

“Like how much, pray tell?”

“Why do you wanna know?”

“So I can plot to kill you, too.”

He chuckled. “Sorry, it’s not as fat as 5 B-cups.”

“Shame.”

The Feds conceded to stay off of this meeting as it was a very personal matter and didn’t involve Uly or any of his businesses. They however insisted that he wear a special bullet-proof vest underneath his suit.

Gabby called him while he was on his way to the Sky View Tower on Wilshire Boulevard. She gave him the security access numbers of her suite’s private elevator. Her voice was a bit shrill. He hoped he won’t have to deal with her drama again because this would be the last time he would cater to her whims.

Cruz was forced to stay at the ground floor lobby while Carlos and some of his men waited in his bullet-proof standard size Hummer truck somewhere near the building for easy access.

He rode the private elevator going to Gabby’s penthouse suite. He bought this unit for her when they got married and she had been staying here since. He’d visited her here twice or thrice a week in the early days of their marriage, but as the months passed, his visits became scarce until he altogether stopped coming over. The place was one of the most expensive high-rise addresses in Beverly Hills and he was giving it to her as part of their divorce settlement.

There was an eerie silence when the doors opened to the foyer of Gabby’s suite. He stepped out and approached the oak double-paneled door.

He pushed the doorbell. Somebody opened the door.

He stepped in and saw Gabby as she closed the door but her head was bowed and her long hair partially obscured her face.

She didn’t say a word to him. Her silence was indicative of her mood. He should be calm, as well.

She walked toward the living room and sat on a sectional sofa near the panoramic sliding glass doors. Only then did he get a good look at her face. A wound on her forehead was bleeding and her lower lip was bleeding, too.

“Gabby! What happened to you?!”

“N-nothing. I just bumped my head on something.”

“That’s not a bump! That’s a gash! Come on, let’s take you to a hospital!”

“No, I’m fine. Please, sit down, Dare.”

“Can you at least call a doctor? You’re bleeding!” he said as he walked closer to her.

“I said sit down! Do you want to settle this or not?!” she suddenly shouted.

Shit. He knew what was coming. Her battered face was fucking high drama if he ever saw one.

He noticed other injuries on her body. Her bare arms bore several marks as well, as if she’d been brutally manhandled. Despite his frustration that this meeting was fuss-free as he was led to believe by Boyd, he was worried for her.

He sat beside her. “Okay... here I am now,” he said softly, so as not to agitate her further.

She stared at him and her tears fell.

“Aw shit...Gabby...”

“Why do you do it, Dare? Why?”

Fuck. He should have known. This meeting was a mistake. “Gabby, please, can we just stop this? Can we just both move on?”

She suddenly lashed at him with her hand. He was caught unaware and her nails grazed his cheek. She lunged at him like a madwoman then, pounding him with her fists, scratching him in the face, pulling his hair. He managed to stand up but she won’t let go. Gabby was tall with a toned physique and she was strong! They struggled in the living room, dislodging objects until he was forced to push her hard away from him.

She landed on her butt on the carpeted floor.

“Dammit, Gabby, why can’t you just let it go?! There are things that just don’t work anymore!” he shouted at her, totally shocked at her behavior. What in hell was happening to her? This was crazy shit!

She was suddenly holding a gun.

He went cold.

She stood up and leveled the gun at him.

There was a maniacal look in her eyes now. Of all the bad things he had expected from this meeting, this was definitely not one of them.

“Gabby...Drop the gun,” he managed to say.

“Don’t move!”

He stood still.

“Give me your phone.”

“Gabby...”

“Give me your fucking phone! Slowly. No unnecessary movements!”

He slowly dipped his hand in his jeans pocket. He deftly pushed a key before pulling the phone out.
Fuck, Cruz, I need you to do your fucking job right NOW.

“Throw it there!” She pointed to the other side of the room. He silently obeyed her.

“I could kill you now, you bastard!” she snarled. She wiped her bleeding lips. “In fact, that’s  exactly what I will do.”

He had the feeling he had walked into a trap. But he couldn’t connect the dots. He was caught totally off guard.

“Oh, there’s that puzzled look in your eyes,” she said tauntingly. “Okay, it’s your turn to ask me why. Why Gabby? Why would you wanna kill me? I say...Why not, you filthy bastard?! You’re a monster of the first kind! You used me for your own selfish gains and then left me to rot by myself!”

“That’s not true, Gabby...”

“It is true! But you were so caught up in your own egomania to even notice how you were ruining my life, you rotten son of a bitch! I loved you! I gave up my career for you! I was at the height of my career and then you came and changed everything! I let you own me! I turned away from it all because of you!”

“That’s not...Gabby...you knew what you were getting into. You signed the pre-nup.”

“I signed it because it was the only way I can be with you, you cold, unfeeling bastard! I was so in love with you! I loved you, do you even hear me?! But you never wanted to hear me say that! Because you’re incapable of love. You’re stone-cold, Dare!”

“Gabby...”

“Shut up! I endured watching you with other women till my heart was unrecognizable, Dare, and you didn’t care. You never did! And now I see you with a new bitch again, proudly parading her at the Cannes! You know how that makes me feel? Nothing. You make me feel irrelevant. Insignificant! Nothing!”

He looked away, unable to stare at her naked grief.

God! What have I done? What have I done?

“But maybe, I thought, I could be something. Morg made me see that. That I could be something again.”

He looked at her again.
“Morg?”

“Yes. Morgan. He was the only man who treated me right. He truly cared for me, unlike you, my cheating, good-for-nothing husband. You took everything from me. But Morg, he gave me a reason to go on, to move on. But you killed him! Now, I’m gonna kill you!”

Two dots connected. Shit!

Dare now regretted not being wired by the Feds. But he hoped Cruz was on his way up now. “You’ll not get away with this, Gabby,” he said softly, trying to buy time. He could lunge at her. But the gun could blow up in his face. He could dive behind the sofa. She would chase him of course and might shoot but that was better than standing helplessly in her line of fire.

“I will get away, of course. No jury will convict a woman who killed her husband in self-defense, no matter how famous and powerful he is.”

“This is not self-defense. This is murder.”

“Oh? Look at me. Boyd did a good job rearranging my famous face, didn’t he? When the media sees me like this, all the women’s rights groups will be after your ass, Dare. They will hail me as a survivor. I survived a monster like you. Oh, but then you won’t be here to witness all of that.”

“And why would they believe you?”

“They will believe me, alright. This will be the official plot of our tragic love story. Once upon a time, a famous supermodel met a megastar. She fell in love at first sex. But he was an incurable womanizer. Pretty soon, the marriage turned into a wasteland, mostly the supermodel’s because the megastar was wasting his energy most of the time at The Playboy mansion. One day, he wanted to get rid of the wifey so he can marry some Asian slut. That would be wifey number four. A battle-royale ensued. The supermodel was bitter and was not cooperative in the divorce. One day, things got really, really ugly. Are you following me, husband?”

He just inhaled deeply. It felt surreal. She was talking there while holding the gun, her face ravaged but her voice was calm now, knowing she had the upper hand.

“Now this would be my official statement to the police. You man-handled me and beat me here in my own place because I won’t cooperate in our divorce settlement. In your rage, you lost it and tried to kill me. You’re with another woman now whom you wish to marry and that’s a huge motive, isn’t it? The world saw you brandishing your new whore at the Cannes, Dare. You wanted me out as you succinctly put it in your conversation with Boyd. You wished to destroy me so you will be free to be with her. I fought back and I shot you in self-defense. So Hollywood, isn’t it? I’m gonna sell the movie rights, too. And maybe write a tell-all book. Mostly about your shit, of course.”

He was shocked anew.
Boyd?! You gotta be kidding me! That son of a bitch!
Now he knew why he was still not divorced.
Fuck, Cruz, where are you!

She smiled, a triumphant leer on her ravaged face. “Speechless now, aren’t we? Isn’t it brilliant? A perfect crime.”

“If I go down, you will, too. You’ll be dragged into this. You think my lawyers will just stand by and let you get off the hook that easy? Even in the off chance that you get away with this, you’ll be destroyed, Gabby. No agency will hire you after that. You’ll be forever remembered as the woman who killed Dare Montgomery. People will hate you,” he bluffed.

She laughed. “You arrogant ass. You think I care for Hollywood? This place is a pigsty! That’s not my plan, darling. You’re right, I’ll be tried and our case will be the talk of the decade. I’ll be as famous as you, or rather infamous. But they will find me innocent eventually. Why? I’m the victim of a cold, emotionally abusive man who drove me to commit violence. Proof? He’d been divorced twice and was about to divorce me. Your own reputation will condemn you, Dare. I will walk. And I’ll walk away with your money.”

Okay now, he was convinced. She had a brilliant plan and it might just pan out.

Money. The root of all this. God, he should have known. She must have been meticulously planning everything since he asked her for a divorce, the bitch! Everything was covered.

“My money?” he scoffed, trying to stall her timetable, make her talk some more. “You’re dreaming, Gabby. You won’t get a cent.”

“Am I? I’m still your wife, as we speak, and you have no heirs. Your will states that the bulk of your estate goes to charity when you die, but I’ll contest that. I’m your next of kin and I’d get your share in Sphinx, too. Now, that would be easy because that company is not included in your will yet, Dare. You’ve named nobody to inherit your shares from it yet. That shall be mine.”

All dots connected, at last. She was after the mother lode of his wealth. How did she know all this? Morg, of course. If she succeeded in eliminating him, this cold bitch would be a billionaire. Yup, she had to give it to her. Brilliant plan, indeed.

But fuck if he’d let her get hold of his fortune with a single bullet. Not even two. “What about Uly? You think he’ll not contest it? Look out!!”

Instinctively, Gabby looked behind her.

He dove behind the sofa. Years of doing his own stunts finally came in handy. Shit, where to take cover?! There were no sturdy furniture that could take bullets. The whole place was designed by a fucking Zen minimalist. He was wearing a Kevlar, but if she hit him in the head, he was finished.

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

“Come on, Dare, you know this is the end,” came her taunting voice.

He had envisioned several ways to die– aboard one of his planes or his sports cars, even from drug complications as he’d occasionally abused pain-killers and anti-depressants– but this? There was no way in hell he’d let himself die in this manner!

“You think Uly will let you take his money? Fat chance, Gabby,” He grabbed a small brass sculpture that fell to the carpeted floor.
Cruz, dammit! I’m paying you fifty grand a month to cover my ass, damn you! Where the fuck are you?!

“What can he do?  You see, the law is on my side. Come on, get up. I will shoot you.”

“Why don’t you do that now?”

The last thing he wanted was for her to prematurely shoot him, of course. That would fucking hurt!

“That’s not a good location for you to die.”

The sadistic bitch! Indeed, she may be right. She might actually get away with this. Cornered and left with no choice, he crawled toward the panoramic doors leading to the wrap-around terrace. Maybe, getting shot was his only chance to survive this. She was holding the gun, a .45 caliber, no less and he knew Gabby can shoot. She had a license.

“What are you doing, Dare?”

He slowly stood up and faced her.

“You want to die here?” she asked with amazing composure. She was standing by the glass panel doors, holding the gun so casually now, her tears, gone. Only the glint of a cold-blooded intent was left in her eyes.

Right that minute, he was going for broke. “Sure. This is a good place to die.”

“Get inside.”

“Make me.”

“Get inside, damn you!”

“Oh Gabby, did I mention that I’m wired by the Feds?”

She sneered. “You’re bluffing.”

“No. They’ve been on this case since the crash. They found out about Morgan’s involvement when he was traced in Thailand. He went there to sabotage my plane. You knew about that, didn’t you?”

She blinked rapidly, an indication of fear.

“They’ve been following Morgan and they raided his house in Texas a few days ago. He fought and was killed in the shoot-out. Now, they’re on you, as we speak. Satellites are focused on us, getting all this drama on tape.”

He saw her composure crack at his careful fabrication. She registered panic now as her eyes scanned the horizon.
That’s right, believe it, bitch.

He pounced on her weakness. “Kill me here and you can’t ever prove self-defense. No jury will believe you shot a man in self-defense while he was standing in a corner railing between a loaded gun and a 29-floor drop to his death. You’re not defenseless, Gabby. I am.”