From Manhattan with Revenge (The Fourth Book in the Fifth Avenue Series) (23 page)

“So, they are.”

“Why was it so dark? What do you think
will happen?”

“Who knows?”

Given his tone, he might as well have
said, “Who cares?” She decided to ignore it and stay on task. “So, we wait for
Chloe.”

“Babe,” he said, as if he hadn’t heard
her. “Why do you suppose Spocatti didn’t want me in there with them? We’ve
worked together several times over the years. He knows I’m more than competent.
He also knows the syndicate wants me dead. Why would he cheat me of having my
moment to join Carmen in taking out Katzev?”

“Those are a lot of questions, Jake. And
I’m not Vincent. I can’t answer for him. But I know he supports you fully. He
knows you’ve joined us in helping to bring down the syndicate.”

“He’s always been an arrogant son of a
bitch,” Jake said, ignoring her. “Comes in on his white horse and takes over.
How did that happen?”

“It just happened.”

“But how?”

“People respect Vincent. You know as well
as I do that he’s the best. Nobody is as good as he is.”

“According to who? Where did he get that
reputation?”

He was starting to make her anxious. “You
know how good he is. Everyone does. He earned it.”

“Who decided he earned it? Have I earned
anything? Why do you put him on a pedestal like that?”

She turned to him. “Why are you doing
this?”

“I’m just looking for answers.”

“I’m giving you what I can, but I don’t
have all of them.”

“Then, what good are you to me?”

Her right hand dropped to her side, where
in her pocket was the gun he gave her earlier. But Babe McAdoo was too late.
Jake pulled his gun on her and pointed it at her face. There was a silencer at
the end of it. He pressed the trigger just slightly and a tiny red laser beam
pierced the narrow distance between them. It found its place in the center of
her forehead. She stared openly at him in shock.

“You’re in my way,” he said.

“I’m not—”

“You should be supporting me.”

“I do support you.”

“I should be in there. They sent two men
to kill me. Katzev sent them. One probably would have killed me if he wasn’t
run over by a truck. Why should I be denied the right to see him die? Why
shouldn’t I have a hand in his death? Why am I considered so inferior that I
can’t be part of this? That wasn’t the deal. I came in to be part of this. I
never expected to be some fucking bystander.”

“You’re taking this too personally.”

“No, I’m not.”

Regardless of her quickening heart, she
managed to keep her voice steady. “Here’s what’s personal,” she said. “You have
a gun held to my face. A laser shining on my forehead. That’s as personal as it
gets. Would you please put that away? I’m not against you, Jake. I told you. I
support you.”

“How do I know that? You know what I look
like, Babe. On a whim, if you wanted to, you could identify me and turn me in.”

At that moment, she realized how little
she knew about him since she brought him in to surprise Carmen and assist her.
During their time together, he’d given away practically nothing about himself,
with the exception that Katzev had used his men to try and kill him. She’d been
so caught up in trying to help Carmen that she hadn’t paid much attention to
him or to his behavior.

“I know what many of you look like,” she
said. “I opened my home to you and offered you a safe haven from Katzev and the
syndicate. I agreed with you that Spocatti shut you out of this, which is why
we’re here now. We’re doing something. We’re waiting for Chloe. We’re going to
save her. I’ve been trying to help all of you.”

“You sound desperate, Babe.”

“You haven’t lowered the gun. I have good
reason.”

“I think I’ll take care of this myself.
Starting with Spocatti. I never liked him. It’s time he knows that he’s not
King Shit around here.”

Her eyes filled with sorrow. She knew what
was coming and she knew well enough that she was powerless to stop it.

“Jake,” she said.

“Shut up, Babe.”

“I would never betray you.”

“I don’t know you. I don’t believe you.”

“I’m here for you,” she said. “Please
rethink this. I’ve devoted twenty years of my life to helping your people.”

“
My
people. What does that mean?
That I’m not a McAdoo? That I’m not one of
your
people?”

“That’s not what I meant at all.”

“I think it is what you meant.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Survival.”

Before she could lift her hands to protect
herself, he fired two shots into her face, her head slammed against the
passenger-side window in a bloody yellow smear, and Babe McAdoo of the famed
McAdoo family, which was long known and celebrated for its variety of
seasonings, particularly during the holiday season when everyone seemed to use
them, mostly for turkey or roasted chicken, and which were improved by them,
was dead.

CHAP
TER
THIRTY

Carmen and Vincent had their guns drawn
and poised in front of them the moment they saw that the warehouse was in
darkness.

The door was opened manually. Whoever
opened and closed it hurried away. The room smelled of smoke and something else
Carmen couldn’t define. A fire extinguisher? Made sense, only the reason it had
been used was unknown. She scanned the darkness for Chloe—for
anyone—but she couldn’t see anything.

“We’ve been set up,” she said to Spocatti.
“They could be wearing goggles. Infrared.”

“Let me deal with this.” He took a step
forward. “Turn on the lights, Katzev. Don’t fuck with me. You’ll lose. Turn
them on now.”

At the rear of the room came a flicking
sound followed by a tiny flame igniting in the gloom. Carmen squinted and could
see the faint outline of Katzev’s face. He held the lighter out in front of
him, which cast unflattering shadows upon his face. She’d never seen him
before, but this is how she’d come to view him in her mind. With the shadows
curling around his jaw and beneath his eyes, he looked demonic to her. Evil.

“Settle down,” he said. “We don’t have
lights because Carmen’s girl shot the breaker box after killing one of my men.
Nothing I can do about it. You’re lucky there’s a manual override on that
garage door so we could let you inside.”

“You’re telling me you have no emergency
lighting in this joint? Bullshit,” Spocatti said. “I don’t believe it.”

“Believe it. The building is old, Vincent.
When she set fire to one of my cars, even the sprinkler system didn’t work.
Otherwise, we’d be doused and the fire and police departments would be here.”

Carmen processed the information quickly.
Somehow, Chloe got hold of a gun. She killed one of Katzev’s men. Probably shot
several cars, which would explain the sirens she heard earlier. One or more of
the bullets must’ve created a fire. For a period of time, she had them all
scrambling while she likely found a place to hide.
Smart girl
, she
thought.
Reckless, but smart. Now, where are you?

“Where is Chloe?” Spocatti asked.

“No idea,” Katzev said. He stepped forward
and as he did, Carmen saw in the aura of light around him that a man with a
rifle was leaning over the hood of one of the cars. The rifle was braced
against his shoulder and pointed at them. “The murdering little bitch
disappeared. She’s in here, somewhere. And don’t worry about the lack of light.
I’ve got that covered. It’s coming.”

“With more of your men?” Carmen asked.

“That’s how the light is getting here,
Carmen.”

“Why do I feel that’s awfully convenient,
Iver?”

He paused at the mention of his real name.
She could almost sense him bristling at the sound of it. That she’d even dare
to use it in his presence and in front of his men. “Think what you want,” he
said. “But it’s your girl who created this. Now, it’s up to me to fix it. Otherwise,
we’re all in the dark.”

“Which is how I feel right now,” she said
to Spocatti in a low voice.

“Not that the lighting situation is
difficult to fix,” Katzev said, flicking off the cigarette lighter. “Turn on
the lights.”

In rapid succession, headlights from every
car that hadn’t been damaged by Chloe started to turn on in such a way that
they raced from where Spocatti and Carmen stood down to the very end of the
warehouse, where Katzev stood.

For a moment, Carmen couldn’t see
anything—the headlights were on high, which in the wake of the absolute
darkness she was just in, blinded her. She held up her hand to shield her eyes,
and noticed that Spocatti simply stood there, squinting into the light as he
stared forward.

“What happened to just him and another
guard?” she said to him. “We’re surrounded.”

Car doors opened and slammed shut.
Footsteps sounded on concrete. Armed men walked around to the front of each car
in which they were sitting, guns and rifles now trained on her and Spocatti.

They were being ambushed. Why wasn’t
Spocatti saying anything? And where was Chloe? Beneath one of the cars?
Probably. Hopefully somewhere more discrete. But regardless of where she was,
in this light, Carmen feared it wouldn’t be long before they found her and
possibly killed her given that she killed one of their men.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Katzev
said. “So many men. But when your Chloe broke our deal, I had no choice but to
bring in all of my men to get things back on track.”

“She knew nothing about our deal. How
could she? If she killed one of your men, it was only because she was trying to
save herself.”

“Murdering one of my men will only end
with her own death.”

“No, it won’t, for reasons you and I have
already discussed,” Spocatti said.
 
“With the exception of you and your guard, which we agreed upon, I
recommend that each of your men put down their guns, shove them under the car
they’re standing in front of and leave immediately. That was our agreement.
Stick to it or there will be consequences.”

But Katzev ignored him. He started to walk
forward, galvanized by the fact that he had at least twenty of his own men
guarding his back. “Do you know why you’re here, Carmen?”

Due to the way the lights were shining,
she could only see a shadowy figure walking toward her. She couldn’t see
Katzev’s face. He still was an enigma to her.

“I assume it has to do with Alex?” she
said. “Whom you murdered.”

“And for good reason,” Katzev said. “Alex
was a rogue agent. He learned things about the syndicate that we’re certain he
shared with you, which is why you also were targeted for elimination.”

“What things?”

“You tell me,” he said.

“Alex shared nothing with me, Iver. I
don’t know what you’re talking about. All I can tell you is what I’ve learned
about you and the syndicate on my own. And it’s a lot. If you don’t stand down
and let Chloe go free, the world will know everything about all of you.”

“You don’t intimidate me, Carmen.”

“Then let me be clearer. I wonder if my
knowledge of Hera Hallas would intimidate Ms. Hallas enough to suffocate your
ties to the syndicate? Or Conrad Bates, who hates you? Or Marius Albert, who
lives in Paris and feels the same way about you? Or any other member of the
syndicate? I’ve done my homework, Iver, and I know who all of you are. This has
nothing to do with Alex, who kept your secrets, even though he wrongfully died
because you thought he was a rogue agent. I’m here to tell you that he took
your secrets to his death. He died for nothing. You stole him away from me. So
here I am, cashing in on my revenge, which I’ll have—one way or another.”

“You better back off, girl,” Katzev said.
But as tough as he made his fake Russian accent sound, a slight note of concern
was wedded to it. Carmen heard it and seized upon it.

“What I’ve learned about you and the
others has everything to do with me and my contacts. Or, should I say, one very
special contact who died this evening, but whose employee reached out to me
moments ago because he decided his employer would want me to have the information
he worked so hard to compile for me. You’ll never know who he is. But because
of him, I have intelligence on you and every other member of the syndicate.
Detailed intelligence, such as where you live, what you own, where you’re
invested, in which buildings you keep your corporate offices. Also, who you’ve
targeted for death throughout the years. I’ve already set things in motion with
my contact at the NYPD that if anything should happen to me tonight, the
information I sent him earlier will be fully investigated, exposed, and made
world news for all the wrongs you’ve done, which I think we’d both agree are
plenty. Would you like me to run through the rest of the names, Iver? Yes? No?
Because I can, just as I can stop your own family’s deaths, which are about to
happen in minutes, starting with your mother.”