The Fifth Avenue Series Boxed Set (149 page)

Tootie, who wore her many diamonds as if they were a suit of armor that braced herself against the poor, formed her mouth in the way the very rich do when they knew they were under the microscope by their peers.
 
Her lips were barely lifted.
 
Her face, either frozen due to plastic surgery or through sheer force of will, was otherwise expressionless.

Alex lowered his head to Carmen’s ear.
 
“You know,” he said, “we might want to reconsider.”

“Reconsider what?”

“Our plan.
 
I wasn’t expecting the crowd to be so dense.
 
It’s almost impossible to move and because of that, the three exits are mostly blocked.”
 

Discretely, he motioned toward them.
 
“One is up those stairs to the right.
 
The second is through that door, which looks as if it leads to the kitchen.
 
The third is how we entered—down the corridor.
 
There, they can either escape through the doors that lead to the front of the building or run down to the stairs where we came in.
 
For them, the trouble is that escape won’t be so easy.
 
Look at it in here—it’s bordering on chaos.
 
If we created some kind of a panic, I could shoot Jean-Georges from here, the crowd around us would scatter and before they even knew what to do, we could cut through the corridor, hit the first set of doors on the right, run out of the building and be on the street before anyone made their move.”

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 47th 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 48th.

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 59th 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.”