“The man’s name was Sonny Gibbons.”
“The billionaire professor that was substitute teaching?” I gasped.
Everyone had heard about Sonny Gibbons.
Apparently, the man had been grooming students for years and had been finding young eighteen-year-olds with their whole lives ahead of them and turning them into his playthings. When they would get too old—and being old to him meant getting to their twenties—he would pick up a new substitute teaching job and find another one.
The FBI officer on Sonny’s case had been murdered by…
I gasped.
“You’re telling me that Weaver was the one that shot that FBI profiler?” I asked.
“Weaver—who used to go by Winston—was asked to help due to his expertise in hostage negotiation. He probably shouldn’t have been there at all since the FBI profiler, Stanton, was engaged to Weaver’s sister, Pippa. Long story short, Pippa was kidnapped by Sonny—who used to be one of the women that Sonny had groomed but had gotten away—his one regret. When she was kidnapped, Stanton and Weaver went into the building to get her back. What they didn’t know at the time was that Pippa was being tortured. Both men went out of their way to offer themselves, which was how they both ended up being put in a situation.”
“According to all the news and court documents, Weaver shot Stanton and killed him,” I recalled. “He said that he did it because he was trying to save his sister.”
“I was,” Weaver’s voice sounded from behind Apollo.
I whipped my head around and immediately regretted it when pain shot through my torso.
I cried out, which had Weaver moving toward me and depressing the button on my morphine pump.
“I’m sorry.”
“She had to know,” Apollo said.
“I know,” Weaver said. “I was coming to tell her everything. She already guessed a lot. I needed to explain.”
“Well, finish up the rest,” Apollo suggested.
“What the court cases and TV newscasters didn’t tell you was that this was a planned op. There were several other people that were supposed to be there…and they conveniently didn’t show. Something stank from the very beginning, but I couldn’t let my sister get murdered by this nut case. And I couldn’t let Stanton go in there alone or he’d be killed.”
“What happened?” I asked. “I thought this had to do with your daughter.”
“That was why I originally got involved, yes,” he said. “But later on, Pippa shared with both Stanton and I that the only reason Sonny had targeted Bossy at all was because of her. Pippa had walked away from him in high school, and it’d pissed Sonny off. No one else had ever been the one to leave. It was always him. And Sonny didn’t like that.”
“Okay.” I nodded. “So how’d he get your sister?”
“Stanton and I were in a meeting. I was never supposed to go in there. I was only supposed to offer my expertise, share with them how I would infiltrate. But when we arrived, there was no one else to be seen. Not a single FBI agent that was supposed to be there was. I was supposed to wait in the car, only offer support when asked. But when Stanton said ‘fuck it’ in his head and went in, I couldn’t leave him to go in by himself. I had to go in and give him backup.”
“Where did everyone else go?”
“We later learned through Apollo that Stanton was collateral damage. Before they’d arrived, they were called off the op. Sonny has some friends in high places, and that meant they called it all off. Stanton got that message and didn’t share that information with me until we were already inside.”
“So you saved Pippa?”
“Got there and it was a trap. Stanton went in there guns blazing, didn’t hear a single thing I said, and got himself caught. I stayed hidden at first, but Sonny had a bit of a tech background and started playing his torture over the sound system—we were in an old grocery store—and I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to help. Any way I could.”
“You were caught,” I guessed.
“Yeah.” Weaver leaned his backside against the end of my bed. “On purpose. I had a plan.”
“I’m guessing your plan didn’t work out.”
“Not in the least,” he returned. “Between Stanton’s ‘take me and kill me instead’ attitude, and Pippa’s ‘no, kill me’ attitude, it was a losing battle. Pippa tried to attack Sonny. Sonny retaliated by practically pushing a gun into my hand and making me kill Stanton.”
“He made you?”
