CSI:NY The Saints Aren't Coming

I Can Tell

Chapter 45: Glad to be alive

Gus choked on her champagne, the glass falling from her hand and shattering on the marble tile. Terror swept over her body. This was the absolute worst case scenario and she didn't have a plan for how to handle it. She scanned the room for anything to use as a weapon as Navid grabbed her throat, his fingers biting into her flesh.

"I am sure you are wondering how I found out. I never would have but one of my special guests recognized you from a little mishap at the French Embassy a couple of years ago."

"Evie Pierpont," Gus choked out, trying to get in enough air, her head swimming. Navid pulled her along, her vision going blurry as her heels crunched over the broken glass.

Her heart swelled as she heard the commotion occurring below them, the SWAT team swarming the mansion, but her hope waned as her consciousness slipped away just as she realized the champagne had been drugged and Navid was currently chaining her to a wall.

She wasn't out long, Navid backhanding her back to reality. "You will stay awake, Savannah, or whatever your name really is."

Gus strained against the restraints encircling her wrists, attached by chains to a tiled wall. They appeared to be in some sort of shower room. Gus' struggles only served to amuse the man standing before her. Her kicks didn't meet their mark, as he danced out of the way, unbuttoning his tux shirt before landing a series of blows to her torso that would have left her in the fetal position if she hadn't been chained upright.

Gus could barely make out the sounds of the sweep going on around them, her reflexive cries drowning everything else out as they echoed off the tile before she mercifully passed out again.

Gus came to again. Her vision was blurry, but she was immediately aware of the relief in her arms, she had been unchained. She quickly realized Navid was holding her from behind, a knife blade against her throat as a string of Farsi escaped his lips.

Gus realized they were not alone, Jimmy Doyle standing in front of a team of heavily armed SWAT officers, guns trained on the pair in the middle of the room.

"Don't make this worse, Shirazi, no one has been seriously hurt, we can still make a deal," Doyle's voice was eerily calm, his eyes catching Gus', her silently pleading coming across clear.

"I don't make deals with filthy pigs!" Navid spit at them. "It is a shame, really, sweet belle, I could have given you everything," he whispered in Gus' ear, moving her hair back with the knife.

Doyle took this as his opening, lunging toward them with amazing speed, but not fast enough for the formidable Navid. He had the knife back up in a flash, slicing into Gus' flesh before she knew what was happening.

Doyle had already knocked him off-kilter though, so the blade missed its intended target of her carotid artery but was still deep enough to cut into her jugular veins, causing blood to pour from the gash.

Gus fell to the ground, grasping at her neck, fighting for air, Doyle going down with her, fighting her to put pressure on the wound. Bullets flew through the air, at Navid's escaping form, shattering the tiles behind them as Gus slipped once again into the sweet embrace of the darkness.

Flack walked home, feeling more confused than he thought he would after finally taking the plunge and kissing Jess. They had been flirting on and off for weeks and there was a definite spark between them. Not to mention she had been more than accommodating with his latest Samantha Flack fiasco.

But he couldn't help but think of Gus as he walked through the chilly night air. They had been engaged, for Christ's sake, he had been ready to spend the rest of his life with one woman, something his family thought would never happen. Then she had left him and New York, wounding him more than he would ever admit. He had loved her, maybe still loved her, but life with Gus was too complicated, something he had enough of with his job and his family.