From Manhattan With Revenge Boxed Set (30 page)

“About Spocatti,” Katzev said.
 
“He probably has that same contact at
the NYPD.
 
Or I’m sure he can find
out who it is and offer him more money to just walk away from this and leave it
alone when you die.
 
When it comes
to the man who you’ve hired to kill my family, I’m also fairly sure that
Spocatti knows who it is and can make a phone call that will stop him.
 
We’ll pay him handsomely to do so.”
 

He started to walk toward her.
 
“You’re so ignorant, Carmen.
 
So assuming.
 
Because what you don’t know is
this.
 
Spocatti here?
 
Your good friend, Spocatti.
 
He has no conscience.
 
It’s what I love about him.
 
It’s why I will continue to work with
him for as long as I’m alive.
 
Without you or the love of your life, Alex, here to hire, it appears
that he’ll be terribly busy for many years.”

He paused as Spocatti turned and drew his gun on her.
 
She looked at him in bewilderment.
 
She took a step back as the laser
attached to his Glock 19 flashed out and wavered just beneath her right eye.

“What are you doing?” she said to him.
 
Her voiced was laced with
confusion.
 
Was this a joke?

“What does it look like, Carmen?”
 
Spocatti said.
 
“I’ve been hired to kill you
tonight.
 
Nothing personal, so stop
looking as if it is.
 
It’s what
people like us do.
 
Well, at least
it’s what people like I do.
 
I take
the job, I take the money, I follow through.
 
I don’t have your conscience.
 
I kill children.
 
I’m not interested in doing good.
 
I’m only interested in me.
 
Now turn around.
 
Drop your gun.
 
It’s not ending the way you wanted it
to.”

CHAPTER THI
RTY-ONE

“Clear your men out,”
 
Spocatti said to Katzev when Carmen’s gun hit the cement floor.
 
“Nothing happens in front of this many
people.
 
It’s not how I work,
especially when all of your men are armed.
 
If you plan on saving your mother, we’re running out of time,
Katzev.
 
So, get them out.”

“Why?
 
They work for
me.
 
They’re not going to say
anything about this.”

“You thought the same thing about Alex and Carmen before you
murdered him and targeted her.
 
Somebody in this room will be the next Alex and Carmen.
 
Do you all hear that?
 
I hope so.
 
I hope you take it to heart, because it
will happen.
 
I also know that you
know that, Katzev.
 
If you want this
done, get them out.”

Facing death and deceit, Carmen tried to keep herself calm, but
she couldn’t.
 
She felt betrayed by
Spocatti.
 
Used by him.
 
She was angry and afraid, especially for
Chloe, who had yet to reveal herself.
 
“Why are you doing this, Vincent?” she said.

“Shut up, Carmen.”

“Tell me why you’re doing this.”

“For the same reason you’d do it if you were offered twenty
million dollars.
 
You’re nothing but
a mark to me.
 
If you thought
differently about our relationship, you should have known better.
 
There are no friends in this
business.
 
You of all people should
know better.
 
There’s only the mark
and the money.”

“Bullshit.
 
I’d
never sell you out.”

“Then you’re an idiot.”
 
He pressed the barrel of his gun so hard against the back of her head
that he scraped her scalp to the point that he drew blood.
 
“I can make this quick and painless for
you, or I can make it so you bleed out on the floor.
 
Your choice.
 
Run your mouth again and you’ll get the
latter.”
 
Then, to Katzev, he said,
“I won’t ask again.
 
Get them out.”

“One guard stays,” Katzev said.
 
“That’s what we agreed upon.
 
Myself and another guard.”

“Fine.
 
The rest
move.
 
Thanks for your confidence in
me, Katzev.”
 
Spocatti’s voice
reeked with sarcasm.

Katzev knew he had no choice and Carmen saw him wave his hand
in the air.
 
“Put your guns and
rifles beneath your cars.
 
When you
leave, I expect you to get out of here.
 
We’ll finish this alone tonight.”

All around her, she could hear the sounds of his men doing as
they were told.
 
Did she know any of
them?
 
Of course, she did.
 
She’d probably worked with several of
them, which deepened the betrayal.
 

What could she do to stall this?
 
The answer was obvious, even though she
knew Spocatti had the resources to crush it.
 
Still, she had to try.
 
“I told you that if anything happened to
me, my contact will investigate the syndicate, Iver.
 
Chloe and I walk out of here now.
 
If we don’t, the consequences will be
swift.
 
You’ll regret it.”

“He won’t regret anything,” Spocatti said.
 
“Do you seriously believe I don’t know
who your contact is at the NYPD?
 
Probably the same as mine.
 
If it isn’t, I can find out in ten minutes.
 
Sorry it has to be this way, Carmen, but
business is business.
 
Katzev here
has been generous.
 
Looks like I’ll
be getting that villa in Capri sooner than I thought.”

She was about to speak again, but this time he took his gun and
whacked it so hard against the back of her head, the blow sent her to the gray
edges of unconsciousness.
 
She
doubled over in pain.
 
She felt faint
and dizzy.
 
The floor started to
spin.
 
Her knees buckled and she
began to fall.
 

Spocatti stopped it from happening.
 
He put his arm around her waist and
lifted her up, holding her still until she was aware of one of the garage doors
opening, men leaving, the door closing shut with a clatter and a bang, the
sound of her own breathing, the world coming back into focus.
 
She blinked hard.
 
Her mind was a haze of fog and
confusion.
 
How had it come to this?

What was more painful to her is that she wouldn’t have her
revenge.
 
She was being cheated out
of taking out Katzev for what he’d done to Alex and to Chloe.
 
The idea of failing as spectacularly as
she had was like death itself.
 
She’d let both down.
 
She
always knew she would die because of her work, but she never thought it would
be at the hands of one of the few people she considered a friend.
 

Her head pounded.
 
A
wave of dizziness overcame her and she felt as if she was going to be
sick.
 
Her knees went again.
 
Spocatti hoisted her up with a brutal
jerk and she struggled to focus.
 
Had to focus.
 
Did she have a
concussion?
 
What a fool she’d been.
 
How naive she’d been.
 
Her thoughts turned to Chloe, who had
listened to all this and who now knew things about her that she never should
have known.
 
Carmen knew they were
going to kill her, but whatever part of her that believed she could still save
Chloe came to the forefront.
 
If she
played her hand right, perhaps she could save Chloe, wherever she was.

“Iver,” she said.
 

“What, Carmen?”

He was off to her right.
 
She could hear him start to walk toward her.
 
And then he stopped.

“Iver.
 
Listen to
me.”

“You have her fully restrained?” he asked Spocatti.

“She’s not going anywhere.
 
Except maybe to hell in five minutes.”

“What do you want, Carmen?”

“I want to see you before I die.
 
I’ve never laid eyes you.
 
I want to see what a monster looks
like.”

“You see one everyday, Carmen.
 
You see yourself.
 
I’ll never give you the pleasure of
seeing me.”

“The pleasure?
 
Please.
 
You don’t have the
balls to look me in the eye, Iver.
 
It’s that pussy Scot you have in you.
 
If you were a real Russian, you’d come
over here and probably slap me across the face.
 
Or kill me yourself.
 
But you don’t have that big set of
Russian balls you think you have, do you?
 
From what I’ve heard, you actually have pebbles down there.
 
And a little cock.
 
It’s why you hire people like me and
Spocatti to do your dirty work.
 
You’ve got a small one.
 
I’ve
heard all about it.
 
I was told it
was like a berry resting in a nest.”

At the far end of the warehouse, the remaining guard stifled a
laugh.
 
It wasn’t loud, but if she
heard it, they all heard it and she could only imagine the fallout that person
would endure because of it.

“Who said that?” Katzev said.

“I’ll never give you the pleasure of knowing, Iver.”

She heard him start to walk toward her.
 
He was moving fast, determined to save
face in front of his guard, who likely would mention this moment to the
others.
 
She knew he was
carrying.
 
She knew this was it for
her.
 
Loudly, to the room, she said,
“Chloe, I’m sorry.
 
I never meant
for any of this to happen.
 
Please
forgive me.”
 

Spocatti tightened his grip on her waist.
 
He was strong and held her arms firmly
at her sides.
 
She struggled against
him, tried to get to her phone to hit a button that would alert Liam to take
out Katzev’s family, but it was no use.
 
She reached back to kick Spocatti, but he side-stepped her.
 
“You can go to hell, Vincent.”

“I’ll let you check it out for me, first.”

And then Iver Kester, whom she’d known for years only as the
faceless, mysterious Katzev, stood in front of her.
 
He was somewhere in his late forties,
not yet fifty, which surprised her because in her mind’s eye, she always
expected him to be older than that, probably due to the power and money he had
amassed.
 

His hair was dark and cut stylishly short.
 
His eyes were blue, his complexion
pale.
 
He was fit.
 
Probably just under six feet.
 
He wore a black suit with a red tie and,
if she was to be fair to him, she understood why Babe McAdoo was physically
drawn to him all those years ago.
 
In his youth, Iver Kester must have been something to behold.

“Iver,” she said.
 
“So, here you are.
 
The last
thing I’ll see.
 
What a vision you
are.”

He pulled back his hand and slapped her hard across the face.
 
The force was so great and the slap so
loud that Carmen rocked back against Spocatti, who held her firm.
 
She used the distraction of the violence
to press down and to the left on her right shoe, which silently released a
blade that was two-inches long.
 
The
blade was tainted with tetrodotoxin, the poison of the pufferfish, which
essentially was a sodium channel blocker that paralyzed its victim’s muscles
while they remained fully conscious as they went through the death throes.
 
With the poison in their system, the
victim would quickly be rendered unable to breathe.
 
Death from asphyxiation would ensue
within twelve seconds.

She lifted her eyes to Katzev.
 

“You’re going to kill me now.
 
We both know that, so understand that
what I’m going to tell you isn’t a lie because there’s no reason for me to
lie.
 
I’m finished.
 
I’m off to check out hell for both of
you and the rest of the syndicate.
 
But here’s what you need to know, Iver.
 
Alex never betrayed you.
 
Whatever you thought he knew about you
or the syndicate died with him—if he knew anything at all.
 
And I doubt that he did because he would
have told me.
 
The tragedy of his
death comes down to why he really died—your own paranoia.”

“There was a breach—” Katzev began.

“I don’t give a damn what you thought there was.
 
Alex knew nothing and you killed
him.
 
That’s what matters to
me.
 
I came back to New York to have
my revenge.
 
And now look at
me.
 
Held back by a man I thought
was my friend.
 
Beaten.
 
Facing death.”
 
She paused for a millisecond.
 
“And still having my revenge.”

In a flash, she kicked Iver Kester in the leg, buried the knife
in the side of his calf, where the meat was, and left it there so the poison
could leach into him.

Stunned by the act, Kester fell to the ground, his eyes already
wide open and freezing into place as he stared up at her, struggling for
breath, while she pulled out the blade.

Spocatti was swift.
 
He released Carmen, swung his arm around and shot the guard Kester left
behind before he had time to process what was happening.

Carmen got down on one knee and put her mouth next to Kester’s
ear while his face started to turn pale blue from lack of oxygen.
 
“You’re dying, Iver,” she whispered to
him.
 
“Soon, you’ll leave your body
and face Alex.
 
I wonder what kind
of meeting that will be?”
 
She
cocked her head at him while his eyes remained transfixed on hers.
 
They were filled with tears.
 
The beauty of the poison is that he
could see her and hear everything she said.