This story is dedicated to pokey—for always being there when I'm freaking-out. lol ;) I love you my dear!
The jig was up.
The minute the shot was fired, the business men couldn't contain themselves anymore.
They knew that there was a possibility that one of them was partners with Vince, but no one knew for sure. And at the sound of the shot, they didn't care.
Paul looked around at his fellow co-workers and said, "Screw this."
They all looked at him.
"Ben, I know you said that one of us was working with Vince, but no one knows who and I'm not just going to sit here and do nothing when he could have just said that to make us think that," Paul continued.
He reached for his cell phone. Vince had neglected to take theirs from them, but no body had dared go for theirs because they didn't know who the "mole" was, and they didn't think it would matter in the grand scheme of things to try to contact the authorities.
"And who are you going to call?" Ben said, glancing at the rest of the men who all seemed on edge after the gun shot.
"The police? My family? Bart Bass?" Paul said. "I don't know, but a gunshot is not good. And I have to do something."
"Paul, think about this," Ben tried to make the man see reason.
"I am!" Paul said in a harsh whisper as his fingers started fumbling over the numbers.
"No, you're not," a deep voice said as the cold metal of a barrel was pressed to the back of Paul's head.
Paul flinched and dropped his phone.
"Tim?" Ben said, incredulous. Of all the men on the flight, he would think Tim would be the least likely candidate for the partner.
"What can I say?" Tim said, finally standing up with the gun firmly in place against Paul's head. "Money is a powerful motivator. And Bart Bass has a lot of it."
"You do realize that this girl is not Bart Bass, right?" Ben said. "I don't know what you have against the man, he's a great employer, but wouldn't it make more sense to hold him for ransom?"
"Ben, Ben, Ben," Tim said, shaking his head of graying balding hair. "You're new. You just don't understand."
"Then help me to," Ben insisted. He wanted to keep the guy talking, but he also wanted him to take that gun away from Paul's head because Paul was starting to look a little too pale, and the man was actually shaking.
"I don't have time for this," Tim said, shaking his head. "Vince made a slight error when he didn't take everyone's phones. I'm rectifying."
He grabbed a bag off the over head storage area and opened it before dropping it to the floor. "Everyone, cell phone's out." He went down the line, aiming a gun at each of the men until they handed over their phones. He made sure to check each of them before putting them in the bag. He checked outgoing calls and messages to make sure no one else had tried to be a hero. He still couldn't believe Vince had been stupid enough to forget to grab them all from the men. Of course, he hadn't been able to point that out without revealing his identity to the men, so he'd just kept a close eye on them all and made sure no one tried anything.
He'd been pleasantly surprised when Ben realized Vince had been giving a veiled clue about another partner. Vince was supposed to be more suggestive when he said that so everyone realized, but Vince fudged it badly. He hoped Vince hadn't fudged anything else too badly.
For instance, had he shot the hostage? The other men weren't the only ones on edge waiting for Vince to return. All of Tim's plans were going to be messed up if that girl was dead.
He'd been surprised at how much Serena looked like Charles. They really could pass for siblings. Tim had known of Charles since he was a little boy, including what he looked like. But Bart Bass had just married a week ago and nobody on the marketing team had the… pleasure?... of meeting the rest of the family just yet.
The change in plans—a daughter instead of a son—was a little nerve wracking, but Tim figured that going ahead with the plan was the best thing to do. Bart Bass might not be close to his new daughter yet, but he wouldn't want to upset his new wife so soon after the honeymoon. He was going to pay anything to get this girl back, and Tim wanted that money.
"What's going on?" Vince said as he came back into the seating area and noticed Tim standing. He continued pushing Blair forward as he held a gun on her.
"The men were getting ideas," Tim shrugged. "Had to nip that in the bud." His eyes followed the girls' movements. "She okay?"
"Doesn't she look it?" Vince said as he pushed Blair into her seat.
"Hey!" Blair exclaimed. "No need to be so mean. I was going to sit," she finished sarcastically. She adjusted her skirt and leaned back with a huff, crossing her legs at the ankles.
"What happened back there?" Tim said, gesturing his head.
"He shot the door," Blair said, rolling her eyes.
"Didn't I tell you to shut up?" Vince said, jabbing the gun into her side.
"Ow," Blair said mockingly, dismissing him as she looked across to this other guy with a gun.
Blair wanted to size up this new guy. She knew he was one of the other businessmen, but she hadn't paid much attention to any of them before. Vince was proving to be quite the idiot. Shooting a door when she might have been behind it? He hadn't even said "stand back" or anything!
But this new guy… he was older than Vince and had a very different demeanor. He could be a problem. Something about him made her think he was smart. And that might not be good for her…
She just had to be smarter than him.
"Why haven't they called again?" Eleanor asked, her nerves beyond fried.
"They will in their own time, Eleanor," Bart said, his eyes drilling into hers. "Stay calm. Everything will be just fine."
"You keep saying that, but it didn't help the first time, second time, or third time I asked, what makes you think it will help this time?" Eleanor said, snottily.
"Honestly? It doesn't matter if it helps. I'm not a shrink and I'm not going to pretend to be. So either sit down and be quiet, or just leave and let me handle this," Bart said simply. He wasn't losing his cool, but listening to her endless prattle was interrupting him as he went over some business reports.
"Bart…" Lily said, a little amazed that he was speaking that way to a woman whose daughter was kidnapped.
"No, he's right," Eleanor said. She sat down. "I'm like the kid asking Are we there yet? every five minutes. I apologize, Bart." She closed her mouth and shifted nervously. She really wanted to hit Bart for speaking to her that way, but his words were making her find some backbone, so she couldn't hate him too much for it.
Bart just nodded, eyes still on his paperwork.
"I'm so sorry, Eleanor," Lily said.
"We'll get her back soon," Eleanor said, closing her eyes. "We'll get her back."
Lily reached across and took hold of Eleanor's hand. "We will."
Ben had no idea what Blair was doing, but it was making him nervous.
Tim and Vince were conversing to the side, but keeping an eye on everyone while they did so. No one could hear what was being said. But it looked like Tim was doing all the talking.
Blair had made eye contact with Ben as soon as the conference started and seemed to be widening her eyes and jerking her head to the side as if she wanted to tell him something.
Ben had shaken his head very briefly to indicate that he not only had no idea what she was doing, he also wanted her to stop.
She didn't.
Instead, her eyes found Tim and Vince and when they weren't looking at her, she used one hand to press her middle three fingers into her palm, spread her thumb and pinkie away from the other fingers and held it up quickly to her ear.
She was acting out using a phone. He shook his head and nodded toward the bag on the floor which clearly showed all the cell phones sticking out of the top.
She saw it and shook her head.
He raised his eyebrows and tried to mime confusion.
She started jerking her head to the side and slowly moving her eyes in the same direction as before.
Ben looked toward where she was trying to direct him, but he didn't get it. Did she want him to distract Vince and Tim so she could grab a phone? But why did she need a phone? It was just like with Paul earlier. A phone would be no help at all.
Blair sighed and rolled her eyes heavenward as she tried to think.
Ben saw her hold her hand hesitantly over her skirt but then she seemed to think better of it. She shook her hands to show that he was supposed to ignore that.
Blair had been about to mime going to the bathroom. That probably wouldn't have been the best way to do so.
She tried to figure a better way to tell him what she wanted him to do. She felt like she was playing charades and she hadn't played that since she was in middle school.
Charades!
She hoped he'd played the game before, because who hadn't played it before? She reached up to her ear and tugged on the lobe. Her eyes were on the men as she mouthed, "sounds like," enunciating her lips as much as possible.
He winced for a minute in concentration but finally nodded when he realized she had decided to make this like a game of charades.
She kept her eyes on the men as she used her pointer fingers and rested one on the top of the other, forming a 'T'.
His eyebrows wrinkled again. Something that sounded like 'T'?
He shifted in his seat, glancing over at the men before raising a hand up to his eye and mouthing 'See'?
She sighed and shook her head.
He tried to think. He started going through every letter of the alphabet. Could she mean 'Bee'? But somehow he didn't think there was a bee on the plane. If so, she would have been freaking out, right? That's what girls do.
Oh! Maybe she wanted him to act like there was bee. A bee attacking him. To serve as a distraction so she could get a phone?
He didn't like the sound of that. He still didn't think that there was any good use for a phone. He looked over to the men with guns. No way was he going to stand up and start shouting about a bee and smacking himself like a crazy person. He might just end up with a sting—one from a bullet.
He shook his head like she was crazy.
She nodded encouragingly.
He quirked an eyebrow and tapped his arm with a finger, pretending to lurch and clench his teeth together like his was getting stung.
She brought her hand up to her forehead and rested her elbow on her other hand as she contemplated the stupidity of this man.
She had to breathe for a minute to let out her frustration before she tried again.
She noticed the guys had finished their talk and were on their way back to their seats. She quickly held up her pointer finger on one hand and met her thumb and pointer finger of her other hand on the side of the pointing finger. She prayed he figured out that she was spelling a 'P' before the men noticed anything amiss.
She held her fingers like that for as long as she dared. The second she clasped her hands together as if she was behaving innocently was the second that Vince reached out for her arm and grabbed her, jerking her roughly to her feet.
"Hey! Careful," Blair exclaimed. "You could just ask me to follow you."
"Now where would be the fun in that?" Vince said, not giving a damn if he hurt her or not. He'd just gotten reamed out by his 'boss' for failing to get the cell phones of everyone together—which he had to do when he blew his cover—and for firing a shot at the girl. He'd had to listen to their entire plan again even though he knew it backwards and forwards, but since he'd messed up once, Tim was worried he'd mess up again.
What was Tim's problem? It wasn't like Vince had done this before. It wasn't his chosen profession after all. And hearing this bitch talk down to him the same way Tim did? It was riling him up even more. So, screw her. If he wanted to grab her arm and yank her around, he would.
"Is the money ready?" came the weirdly distorted voice through the ear piece.
"Yes," Bart muttered. It'd been ready for quite some time, but Bart decided not to include that mention.
"The account number is," the voice began.
"Just a second," Bart interrupted.
"Do you want your daughter back or not?"
"How do I even know she's still alive?" Bart said. His eyes flickered to meet Serena's across the desk. She looked deathly pale, and even though Chuck had insisted that Serena couldn't have possibly heard a gunshot, he knew that she still believed it.
"You talked to her," the voice said.
"Earlier, yes," Bart said. "I want to speak to her again, now."
Chuck was standing near the door, leaning against the wall, resting his chin on his hand. To the casual observer he looked like he was lounging and didn't have a care in the world. Of course that was the furthest from the truth.
He'd stayed in the other room after Nate left and he hadn't moved until he heard the phone ring.
As much as he was glad he didn't have to deal with Serena's bitching or Nate's prodding, being left to his own thoughts was probably worse.
He couldn't have screwed things up worse if he tried. He didn't usually feel guilt or normally care when he messed things up. Like the thing with Lily when his father was being interviewed by that Asian chick. Sure, he'd screwed up, and he had to admit it to his dad, but he didn't have any feelings in the matter. He only told his father the truth because he knew that sooner or later Bart would talk to Lily and find out anyway. Telling his father the problem immediately would be better for Chuck than waiting later.
This was different. Chuck Bass wasn't supposed to have a conscience.
And he knew.
He'd already started changing no matter how much he tried to deny it.
All those things his father was talking about… sacrifice, responsibility, putting someone else before himself… taking into consideration someone else's feelings… it was actually reality.
If he hadn't been living in it before, he was now.
Serena was going to tell Blair. She was going to tell Blair that he was going to cheat on her. And no matter what he did, no matter how many times he told Serena to keep silent about it, she wasn't going to. She'd made that clear.
If only he could get the chance to talk to Blair first. If only he could explain everything and admit it himself. Because this time he very much had feelings in the matter. He felt bad for what he'd, well, almost done.
And he knew that even though Blair knew he'd never change, there were certain things that she wouldn't accept. Did he really think that Blair wouldn't mind not being exclusive? He remembered how she was when she found out the truth about Nate and Serena. He'd never seen her be a bigger bitch. He thought it was hot actually. He still wished he'd gotten a video of Serena and Blair's field hockey throw down. He knew now that the only reason Blair and Serena had finally made up after the Ivy Mixer debacle was because Eric had revealed the truth to Blair.
Of course, he hadn't found that out until many months later when he started hanging with Eric himself. Sometime before spring break, word leaked about Eric's time in Ostroff. Chuck had put two and two together and knew that Serena wasn't the patient, she was the visitor. He felt a little disgruntled that Blair hadn't told him at the time, but he knew he probably would have ran with it just to get back at the little slut, meaning Serena, for rejecting him when she first came back. Which, now that he was getting to know his little bro, wouldn't have been a good thing.
That wasn't the point. The point was… he was an idiot. Blair wouldn't forgive this easily. She didn't even know the worst part yet and she was probably well on her way to being pissed at him for not bothering to follow her.
He was actually worried that he was going to lose her again over this. And, more than that, he was beginning to understand that if she really cared about him… as he'd figured out by the fact that she risked calling Serena to make sure he was safe… then she was going to be hurt. Her feelings were going to be hurt… and he was starting to realize that he didn't want that for her.
He didn't know if she loved him, but he did know what if felt like to be hurt by someone he loved.
He didn't want to do that to her. He'd already done enough. She'd already done enough.
And, right now, she was going through enough.
If she was still alive, that is. He had no doubts. He didn't think the hijacker would be stupid enough to shoot the hostage that he was using to get the money. That didn't stop him from being on edge while his father convinced the guy on the phone to let him speak to Blair.
"You're in no position to make demands," the voice said.
Bart didn't know whether to start getting worried or not. He'd asked to speak to Blair twice now, and both times it had been refuted. He didn't want to admit it, but he was beginning to wonder if what Serena had said was right. He hoped that girl wasn't hurt. Chuck was finally starting to stop his life of debauchery. He didn't need his son losing someone who was clearly turning his life around.
Serena couldn't stand it anymore. She knew she was supposed to be quiet, but she couldn't resist. "What? Is she talking? Is she alright?"
Bart held up a hand. Serena shut up, but she started tapping her foot. Nate was standing next to her chair. He put a hand on her shoulder and whispered, "Shh, it'll be okay." Her foot slowed down.
"Yes, I do believe I am," Bart said firmly. "I'm about to transfer ten million dollars into an untraceable account. I have no assurance that you will, in fact, turn her over once the money has been transferred. I haven't even been told how this exchange will take place. What I do know is that I am not transferring a penny to that account until I hear her voice in this phone assuring me that she is okay, and that not a hair on her head has been touched! Do you understand?"
Okay, so he lost his cool a tad bit. He hated being inconvenienced. He was about to be out ten million dollars. And he hated taking orders from a stupid little man who he was going to fire soon anyway.
Eleanor and Lily were staring at him in abject horror, unable to believe that he would speak so rudely. What if the hijacker took it out on Blair?
Chuck and Nate looked at each other. They were both thinking about the 'touching' part. Apparently Serena had told Bart what Blair said. This, at least, was one thing that there was no difference in opinion on. They were the only two males who had ever laid a hand on Blair Waldorf and they would be damned to hunting down the bastard if he dared lay a hand on their Blair.
It was an odd best friend bonding moment, but it couldn't be helped.
"Your wife must be pleased," the voice said.
"What?" Bart said, confused and incredulous and not in the mood for this guy to keep playing with him.
"You and your step daughter are a lot alike," the voice said.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Bart grunted.
"I am the one in control here. You both seem to have forgotten that," the voice said.
Bart opened his mouth to respond but was greeted by a sound that he really didn't want to explain to the other people in the room.
"What? What happened?" Serena squeaked out when she saw Bart hold the phone away from his ear and look at it.
"He hung up," Bart finally muttered before he flipped his phone shut and tossed it on his desk.
"What!" Serena almost shrieked as she shot out of her seat. "What did you do! What did you do!"
"Calm down," Bart said firmly. "Everything will be just fine."
"Calm down? Calm down?" Serena yelled. "Who the hell do you think you are? What would make you speak to him like that? I don't believe this!"
"I suggest you sit down, young lady," Bart said, eyes sparking.
"Don't tell me what to do! You're not my father!" Serena yelled before turning and storming from the room.
Chuck was too busy trying to not let the bottom drop out from his stomach to deal with Serena. He didn't want to if he could. She'd probably just ream him out for everything once again anyway.
Nate looked from Chuck to Lily, the latter who was about to go after Serena. He hurried forward and gestured to Lily quickly, "I got her."
Lily nodded and went to clasp hands with Eleanor again.
Eleanor was really starting to lose it, but instead of the anger at Bart that Serena displayed, she was scared. She was so scared.
"Does… does this mean my little girl isn't okay?" Eleanor finally managed to say.
Chuck looked to his father for an answer to that question. He knew his father was a smart man who never bullshitted. He would speak the truth bluntly and you could either accept it or not, either way, Bart gave the only response that mattered.
"Eleanor, I don't think she's been hurt," Bart finally said. "Though making demands doesn't seem to be a good idea. That should have caught him off guard and gotten me what I wanted easier."
"Why didn't it work then?" Chuck asked, a little amazed that his father had been wrong.
"Because, it seems, Blair had already used that approach first," Bart said.
Eleanor looked at Bart, clearly confused. "I don't understand."
"Blair must have created some sort of power struggle on board. She tried to put him in his place and call his bluff. Maybe he threatened her with the gun and she told him that she knew he wouldn't shoot her. This play for control might have worked for her, but it wasn't going to happen for me because he'd already had too much time to rectify that first mistake," Bart explained.
"How do you know all this?" Lily asked.
"Because he compared her to me, and that's what I would have done," Bart said simply, slightly impressed that Blair wasn't weak and whiney like most teenage girls would be. He shouldn't be surprised though. His son wasn't a big fan of weakness.
"So, what now?" Eleanor asked, holding on to the slim hope that what Bart said about Blair being okay was true.
"He'll call back. He hasn't given me the account number yet," Bart shrugged.
"You better be right," Eleanor said, not bothering to look at Bart. "You better be right."
To be continued…
