From Manhattan With Revenge Boxed Set (5 page)

It was
risky, but she knew how gifted he was as a marksman.
 
He rarely missed.
 
She was intrigued.
 
“What about his photo?”

“You
don’t think the press will take care of that?
 
They’ll do our jobs for us.
 
If you want me to, I also could take out
the Redman girl and you could send the coverage of her death to your
friend.
 
A gift of sorts.”

“You
mean to Spocatti?”

He
nodded.

And in
the moments before Addison Miller spoke, Carmen decided she didn’t mind the
idea.
 
In fact, she rather liked
it.
 
She hadn’t heard from Spocatti
since they were last here in Manhattan.

It would
be good to send him a gift.
 
It
would be good to stay in touch because she knew she could learn more from him.

“I like
it,” she said.
 
“But we need to
position ourselves in a better spot.
 
Something that will best facilitate our exit.
 
They won’t be standing there much
longer.
 
We need to find that
spot--maybe just inside the corridor--and we need to monitor security before we
act.
 
Tonight, we’re also going to
murder Leana Redman.
 
I once learned
a lot from Vincent.
 
He can be a
miserable son of a bitch when he wants to be, but he still taught me
plenty.
 
In the end, I think we
became friends.”
 

She
looked through the crowd at Leana, who now was waiting for Addison Miller to
address those in attendance.
 
And
then she reached for her phone and pressed a button.
 
“Let’s do this for him.”

BOOK TWO

CHAPTER
NINE

Two
Hours Earlier

Leana
Redman left the building on Forty-Seventh and Park Avenue and was about to step
into the limousine waiting for her at the street corner when she turned to
admire the building behind her before leaving.
 

It was
beaten up a bit, not unlike she was a year ago and probably still was
emotionally.
 
But there was
something solid and steadfast about it that made her feel connected to it.
 
Its brick and terra cotta facade had
weathered its share of neglect, but here it stood, having survived its wars and
ready for a new opportunity to allow it to shine in the face of all the other
buildings that surrounded it.

The
parallels they shared were not lost on her.
 
In fact, they were among the reasons she
chose to buy the building.

She
still couldn’t believe it was hers.
 
What had once been one of the city’s great Art Deco hotels now was in
her hands thanks to the money left to her by Harold Baines, her great friend
who took his life but not before leaving her half of his considerable
fortune.
 

At first
glance, the hotel was a sorry wreck, but Leana and her investors saw something
beneath the grime, the moldy ceilings and the cracked walls, and they were
committed to returning it back to its former glory.
 
A complete restoration effort would
begin next week.
 
It would take a
year before the hotel re-opened, but when it did, she was convinced it would
rival any hotel in the city.

Especially,
anything owned by her father, George Redman, who happened to have an office
building across the esplanade on Forty-Eighth.

She
looked at it.
 
It was just one of
the many skyscrapers he called his own in the city.
 
Unlike some of his more prominent
landmark buildings, some of which she admitted were beautiful, this one failed
to be remarkable or even memorable.
 
It was pure glass and steel, a relic from the seventies that lacked
beauty and imagination.
 
It was as
boxy as a refrigerator and it looked just as cold, which she thought was
fitting considering he owned it.
 

What it
did have going for it was its location, which was a key reason companies fought
to claim space on those rare occasions when space became available.
 
It was another of his many successes, a
red dot he could place on a map amid all the other red dots that marked the
vast amount of property he owned in the city.

She
glanced at her watch and reluctantly stepped into the car.
 
She needed to get home and prepare for
tonight’s party at the Four Seasons, which she wished she could skip, but
couldn’t.
 

Only a
month ago, she and Mario returned from their year in Europe and moved into
their new apartment on Park.
 
While
they had help, the apartment still had a ways to go before it was finished.
 
There was painting to be done, furniture
to be bought and a kitchen that needed to be gutted.

Not that
any of that mattered now.
 
Tonight,
it was all about the party, which she had to attend for two reasons.
 

First,
she was being honored for giving fifty million dollars to suicide prevention
programs around the country.
 
It was
her way of honoring Harold’s life, which ended in ways she still couldn’t
fathom or absorb.
 
Second, she was a
businesswoman now and if she had learned anything over the years by observing
her father and her sister, Celina, when her father’s conglomerate, Redman
International, was at its peak, it was that it was never too early to start
creating a buzz.
 

The
people at this party were the very sort of people she needed to spread the word
when her hotel opened.
 
Through
them, she’d find her clientele because they themselves lived on Park and on
Fifth.
 
When friends came to visit,
Leana wanted them recommending her hotel first, not somebody else’s.

The car
pulled alongside her apartment building on Fifty-Ninth Street.
 
She thanked the driver, hopped out onto
the sidewalk, nodded at the doorman when he held the door open for her and
hurried across the lobby to the bank of elevators.
 

She and
her fiancé, Mario De Cicco, had one of the penthouses.
 
When she arrived, she dropped her keys
onto a side table in the foyer and eventually found him in the kitchen.
 
He was leaning against the island, a
towel wrapped around his waist, an apple in his hand, his curly dark hair still
wet from the shower.
 

She
dropped her bag and smiled at him.
 
From his lightly hairy pecs to his thick abs and thicker, muscular
thighs and arms, he was the embodiment of everything that turned her on and
made her weak.
 
She swept his body
with her eyes and noted that every part of him that should be bulging was
happily obliging.
 

“Why do
you do this to me?” she asked.

He bit
into the apple.
 
“I don’t know what
you’re talking about.”

“You
can’t just walk around like that.”

“Why
not?”

“You
know why.”

“This is
exactly how I walked around in Europe.”

“Europe
is Europe.
 
It’s designed for
partial nudity.
 
Here, it might as
well be a felony.”

“Explain
how this is a crime.”

“Because
I’m not myself when you’re like that.
 
I get...distracted.”

With a
flick of his wrist, the towel hit the floor.

“I can’t
believe you’re doing this.”

“Have a
look.
 
Become a believer.”

She
couldn’t help a laugh.
 
“Come
on.
 
We’ve got less than two hours
to get there.
 
I need you to
behave.”

“And you
need to relax.
 
You look tense.
 
The press is going to be there.
 
You don’t want to look uptight when
they’re photographing you, do you?
 
You should be glowing.
 
I can
help.”

“I have
been a little tense lately....”

He came
behind her, lifted her hair and kissed the back of her neck.
 
She closed her eyes.
 
No one excited her more than Mario.
 
He had a way with her that laid waste to
any other man she’d been with.
 
Her
connection with him was so intense, it was palpable.
 
She couldn’t wait to be married to him.

He
started to massage her shoulders, which felt just as good as she knew it
would.
 
He smoothed his hands up the
length of her body and stopped to cup her breasts.
 
She could feel him against her.

And that
was it.

She
turned to him and put her arms around his neck.

“Okay,
you big lug.
 
You win.
 
Sweep me off my feet.”

He
hoisted her over his shoulder.
 

“So,
what?
 
Now I’m a cavewoman?”

“Actually,
now you’re being sensible.”

“Ask me
that same question in five minutes.”

*
 
*
 
*

Later,
when they were showering in the master bath’s double shower, Mario decided he
had to break the news to her at some point.
 
The best time to do it was before they
arrived at the event.

“Your
father called while you were gone,” he said.

She had
soap in her eyes and couldn’t see.
 
“My father what?”

“He
called.”

“How
does he even know our number?
 
It’s
unlisted.”

“He’s
George Redman.”

“Oh,
right.
 
Sorry.
 
Forgot.”
 
She moved under one of the two shower
heads and rinsed her hair.
 
Her
issues with her father and how coldly he treated her when she was growing up
still cut deep.
 
“What did he want?
 
I haven’t heard from him in a year.”

“He
knows about the hotel.”

She
shrugged.
 
“I figured he’d hear
about it at some point, especially with his building directly across the street
from it.
 
What did he say?”

“You’re
not going to like this.”

“It’s my
father.
 
You know, the one who has
won Father of the Year twenty-seven years in a row because of his excellent
parenting skills.
 
Anything that has
to do with him I’m not going to like.”
 
She stopped for a moment.
 
“So long as it doesn’t have to do with my mother.
 
We may not be on the best terms, but I
don’t want anything happening to her.”

“It has
nothing to do with your mother, but he did mention that she hasn’t heard from
you.”

“We’ve
been busy,” she said.
 
“What am I
supposed to say to her?
 
‘Hi,
Mom.
 
I hope everything is going
well in prison.
 
Hang in there.
 
We’re all hoping for good
behavior.’
 
It’s too much.”

“You
should call her.”

“I
actually plan on driving out to see her.”

“Right,”
Mario said.
 
“Anyway, your father is
going to be there tonight.
 
He’s
been asked to give you the award.”
 
He held up his hand before she could launch into a rant.
 
“The Millers know nothing about your
beef with your father.
 
They
probably thought they were doing a kind gesture, especially Addy.
 
He likes you.
 
He always has.”

“I have
that effect on gay men.”

“Addison
Miller is gay?”

“Of
course, he is.”

“How do
you know?”

“You
hear things.
 
You see things.
 
You sense things.
 
But it doesn’t matter.
 
Addy is Addy and I love him.
 
I just feel bad that he feels he can’t
be who he is.
 
He’s a nice man who
deserves something better than living out the rest of his years with that hag
Tootie.”

“I don’t
know her.”

“You
don’t want to.
 
And you’re probably
right about him suggesting that my father give me the award.
 
Addy doesn’t know what our relationship
is.”
 
She twisted the water from her
hair and reached for a towel.
 
“But
he’s about to find out.”
 

She
walked past Mario and stepped out of the shower.
 

“What
are you going to do?” he said.

“I’m
going to talk to Addy.
 
If anyone will
understand, he will.
 
He can choose
any number of people to give me that award, but it’s not going to be my
father.
 
I won’t take anything from
him.
 
Besides, he probably called
here because he knew I’d react this way.
 
He probably wanted me to let him off the hook.”
 
She went into their bedroom and reached
for the phone on one of the side tables.
 
“In this case, I’m more than happy to help him out.”

*
 
*
 
*

When
they were dressing, Leana stood in front of the mirror in her dressing room and
appraised herself.
 
She was going
for a kind of retro thirties look and, as she turned and twinkled in the light,
she decided she kind of dug it, even though some would probably say that the
dress was too short and too gaudy for such an event.

Not that
that would be a surprise.
 
Throughout her life, there always were those who found some reason to
tear her down.
 
She didn’t
care.
 
She liked the look.

She was
adjusting the two diamond necklaces that plunged between her breasts when Mario
stepped inside.