AN: Another day, another chapter. This is the last one before the epilogue. As always, thanks to all you readers, and thanks to my wonderful friend and beta, Kerry Blue.
Warning: There is some more swearing in this chapter, though not as much as the last chapter.
Quick Announcement: We have a winner for the "Guess the Mystery Song" game! As everyone can see in the reviews, three people actually gave me the correct answer, but aussietasha was the only one to give the full name of the song by Looking Glass, Brandy (You're a Fine Girl). backstagespotlight and bichonmom also gave the correct answer, but they left out the stuff in the parentheses and I made a point of saying in the rules that I wanted the FULL title. However, because I like a challenge, I will let those other two suggest names of songs as well if they wish to and if I can get around to it, I'll try to write stories, or at least chapters, for them. But aussietasha is the official winner and gets to pick an oldie song that I will definitely write a story for. aussietasha, feel free to PM me or something and we'll get it all worked out. :) And to everyone out there, if you've never heard the song, I highly recommend looking it up somewhere, it's a great song, and it really is perfect for the Devon/Brandy relationship.
On with the show!
Gun drawn, Don waited against the wall of the hallway for his niece to give the signal for everyone to go forward. The response had been huge when the call went out that a member of their family had been kidnapped. Authorities had already managed to confirm that Devon and Brandy were not at Milton's boat and had obtained a warrant that would allow the police to enter the Milton estate without announcing themselves first. Not that Don or anyone in his family would have remained outside the gates even if they hadn't been granted the warrant.
They had finally caught a little luck when they approached the estate. Just as they had been pulling up they had encountered a vehicle that was turning into the drive and their group quickly surrounded it with multiple law enforcement vehicles. They then pulled the driver and passenger out of the car and separated them for questioning. Clearly motivated more by money than loyalty and eager to save their own skins, both men had been quick to give up all the information they had on the estate's security system and the people that were inside the mansion. It probably didn't hurt that Don and Mac had made it clear to the suspect they talked to that they had no qualms about going beyond the ethical boundaries of their profession to obtain the information they needed. It was likely that Danny and Ella had done the same with the other suspect.
After getting through the gate and entering the house using the security codes that they had been so helpfully provided with, they headed downstairs to the underground firing range that the idiots from the car had indicated Devon and Brandy had been taken to. Pushing down his instinct to be at the front, Don had held back somewhat to allow Ella and the rest of the kids to take the lead along with the other younger officers and agents. But Don and Mac and Danny and Lindsay weren't about to wait outside. Even Sheldon had followed them inside, though he was hanging back in the stairwell with Deb and the other law enforcement personnel that couldn't fit in the hallway. Hawkes hadn't managed to borrow a bulletproof vest to protect himself like the rest of them had, and besides, he was here more for moral and medical support than to provide additional firepower.
Not that Don was really needed for additional firepower either. Even without any of their family members, they had enough weaponry in this hallway to take on a small army let alone one psycho and his handful of thugs, and all of that collected power was currently coiled tight waiting for the order to spring. Ella was the one poised to give that order, listening through the crack in the not-quite-closed door. Don could hear the voices coming from the other side of the door to the gun range, but he couldn't make out the words. However, while Ella's face never changed, everyone else near enough to the door to clearly hear what was being said had tensed up considerably, which was an amazing feat considering how tense they had all been already. But Don couldn't worry about what was being said. For now all he could worry about was what could happen in the next few minutes, no, few seconds. He watched Ella's raised fist, ready to enter a tactical situation like he hadn't done in longer than he cared to admit. What kind of fool was he to be doing this, family or no family?
And then he didn't have any more time to think about how much of a fool he was because Ella had started a silent count with her raised hand.
Three. Two. One. Fist. Go.
CSINYCSINYCSINYCSINYCSINYCSINYCSINYCSINYCSINYCSINY
Brandy's brain was spinning with how much had happened in the last few seconds, which had stretched into what felt like several lifetimes. Devon and the psycho were yelling at each other, and then all of a sudden Devon was launching himself at the other man. Brandy didn't even take the time to think. She just took Devon's actions as a cue and turned to put a knee into the nearest thug. The man fell to the floor writhing in pain, but Brandy didn't have time to enjoy her victory because the other thug hit her across the face with the back of his hand and she fell hard to the floor. She was still seeing stars when the room suddenly filled with sound and activity as what seemed like hundreds of people streamed in shouting things like "Drop the weapon!" and "Freeze!" and "Police!" Before Brandy could blink all the stars away, a familiar face was leaning over her. She tried to put a name with the face and made her best guess. "Ron?"
The man smiled. "It's Don. You okay, Charles?" he asked as he used a pocket knife to slice the tape around her wrists.
Brandy started to nod her head but that made it hurt. Well, hurt more than it already did. She was about to ask where Devon was, but as Don helped her sit up she saw for herself how Devon was doing and it wasn't good.
Outside of her and Don and those that were handcuffing the thugs, everyone else was frozen in a horrible tableau. Evidently the unloaded gun the psycho had held to Devon's head hadn't been the only one he had within easy reach because now he held a different weapon. Like the first one, he had this one pointed at Devon and Brandy wouldn't bet that this one too was unloaded. Every law enforcement person in the room that wasn't dealing with the thugs had their weapons drawn and pointed at the psycho and nobody was yelling anything now since they were in the proverbial Mexican standoff.
Ell Messer was the first to break the silence. "Put the gun down, Milton. Your little game is over."
"I will admit that things didn't play out as I had planned, but we are far from done here, Daniella." Brandy felt a shiver go down her spine at the way he said the agent's name and she didn't know how Ell Messer managed to not show even a sliver of discomfort.
"I don't know what you think can happen here. You may think me incompetent, but I can guarantee you this. I hit what I shoot at, and if I so much as see your trigger finger twitch a millimeter, I will put a hole in your forehead and blow what little brains you have out the back of your skull."
Brandy sucked in a breath. Ell Messer seemed to have lost the calm, cool demeanor she was known for in the Bureau. She could be as intimidating as hell, but she usually did that by her mere presence rather than harsh words. If even half the stories that Brandy had heard about her were true, she had faced multiple situations like this and calmly talked her way out of them without breaking a sweat. And yet, no one seemed willing to break in and take the lead from Ell who was obviously not in control of the situation. Seeing the look that was in the eyes of the psycho, Brandy couldn't stay quiet. He looked like he was ready to die if he could kill Devon and make this family suffer more pain than it already had, and Brandy could not just sit there and let it happen.
"Wait!" Some turned to look at Brandy as she struggled to stand up, only able to do so after Don gave her a hand up. Most didn't move a muscle. Like Ell had said, even an involuntary muscle twitch at this point could send bullets flying.
"Brandy, back off!" Devon ordered, never taking his eyes from the gun pointed at his head.
"No, listen, Milton, right? Milton, before you do anything rash, listen to me."
"It's Palmer. Carter Palmer," the psycho said, momentarily flicking his gaze in Brandy's direction before returning his eyes to Ell's relentless stare. "Milton was my stepfather's name. I only took it for legal purposes so that bitches like this one wouldn't connect me to my father and keep me from doing what I needed to do."
"Okay, Carter Palmer it is." Brandy wasn't about to debate a psycho on what name he wanted to be called. "Look, I don't think I know everything going on here, but I do know this. You don't really want to shoot Devon."
"Don't I? He's her brother, and while I had planned on living to see this bitch suffer from the choices she has made, the consequences of putting an innocent man on death row, I can resign myself to dying if it means knowing that I will be leaving chaos in my wake, if I know that she will be dealing with some of the same pain that I have lived with all these years without my father."
Brandy rushed back in before Ell could scoff at the idea that she had put an innocent man on death row. "I'm not saying you don't want to kill him for your revenge. No, I'm saying that you don't want to kill him because in doing that you will also be killing your father."
"What?" She had his full attention now. The psycho still had his gun trained on Devon, his trigger finger mere millimeters away from sending a bullet straight into the brain of the man Brandy had come to care so much about in such a short period of time, but now he was looking at her instead of Devon or Ell. She would take her victories where they came and continued to talk, just letting the words roll off her tongue before her brain had really even consciously processed them.
"Your father is on death row, right? And I think you said that he is slated to die soon." She took a deep breath. "But if you were to surrender your weapon right now, if you were to allow yourself to be taken alive today which won't happen if you pull that trigger, you would be around to claim that your father has been in on your plans. A part of your whole conspiracy to collect these guns and eventually kidnap me and Devon and to kill members of the Messer family."
"What the hell do you think you're doing, Charles?" When he said this, Devon's Uncle Don had turned to Brandy in a way such that only she could see his face, and in contrast to his words and tone, his eyes told her she was on the right track and should keep going.
"I'm saving everyone's life," she said indignantly, using Don's words as he had probably intended, to give her a way to seemingly separate herself from the Messer family and align herself with Carter Palmer/Milton and his plight. She took a few steps forward, ignoring the fierce pounding behind her temples. "I don't know the details of your family's situation Carter, but all the work you've put into this whole plan says how much you love and care about your father. That alone makes me think that maybe you're right, that maybe your father was innocent and he was railroaded into a death row conviction. I promise you that I will do everything in my power to help you rectify any injustices that might have been done. But first you have to do your part. You see, if you surrender right now and tell everyone that your father was part of your plan, then he will be indicted in your trial as a co-conspirator. Which means that they will have to postpone his execution so that he can be prosecuted for these new charges. And even if he is found guilty of these new charges along with you, the appeals stemming from the new trial could probably keep him alive for the rest of his natural life."
She took a breath as she added the cherry on top. "And if you're telling the truth, if your father was improperly convicted, maybe we can get his initial conviction overturned. Then he could apply for time served against the new charges and there is a chance, a small chance, that he could become a free man. But that is only even remotely possible if you put the gun down now without firing a shot, because otherwise you will probably be killed ten times over, and then your father will have no way to postpone his execution and give himself enough time to turn things around. My voice alone won't be enough. I can't do this without you. So please, for the justice you so obviously crave, please put the gun down."
Carter Milton looked back and forth between Brandy and Ell, back and forth, back and forth. Something in Ell's eyes changed the look in his and he seemed to come to a decision. "I think you may have a point. Now that I think about it, this bitch probably doesn't have enough human feelings in her to care whether or not I shoot her brother. She just wants the excuse to kill me and therefore also kill my father. But you know what? I won't let her get away with it." And just like that he took his finger off of the trigger, put his free hand up in the air and slowly leaned over to lay the weapon on the ground. As soon as the weapon was out of his hand, a SWAT team member came forward to grab the psycho's hands and force them behind his back before handcuffing them. "Remember! You promised! You will help me free my father!"
As soon as the psycho was restrained, Brandy rushed forward to help Ell bring Devon to his feet. She glanced down at the psycho, as she would always refer to him, where he was now facedown on the concrete floor with a police officer's knee in his back. "The only promise I made was to rectify any injustices that might have occurred. And as far as I'm concerned, there was no injustice in your father's death sentence, and I think he deserves to die for the crimes that he has committed." She then turned away, tuning out the psycho's enraged rantings as she and Ell helped Devon limp out of the gun range. Her head was pounding, her wrists hurt from being bound and Devon was obviously in a lot more pain than she was. But none of that really mattered because they were alive. She didn't care if she had sounded like a fool in there, because they were alive and the psycho was handcuffed and in police custody which meant that everything was okay. Or at least, they now had the opportunity to make everything okay. And that was all that mattered she kept telling herself, that they were alive and had the opportunity to make everything okay.