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Authors: Christopher Smith

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“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.

She spit in his face. “I wonder if that meeting
will be as pleasant as what’s happening to you now?”

He started to make an odd gurgling noise.
His tongue began to swell. She knew she had only seconds to act before she lost
her chance. She reached into her pocket, removed her cell phone, and recorded
the last few moments of Iver Kester’s miserable life before it left him in one
clotted, rattling last breath.

She clicked off her phone and lowered her
head to her raised knee. She was exhausted and in pain. She breathed deeply
and, looking down at Kester, whose face now was purple and without life, she
realized how thankful she was that she could still breathe.

“What do you plan to do with that?”
Spocatti said.

She planned to send the video to the
syndicate with a warning that included all their information, but even though
she knew now that Spocatti treated her roughly for show because he knew about
her shoe, she didn’t want to talk to him. She felt he took things too far. She
messaged Liam in Aberdeen and told him to stand down. Now, all she wanted to do
was to find Chloe. That was her focus.

She walked away from Spocatti and into the
center of the warehouse, where she started to call out Chloe’s name, telling
her it was safe to come out, until she finally did. The girl had crawled
beneath one of the cars. Since so many of the cars sat low to the ground, it
was an effort for her to release herself from it, but because she was so
slight, she managed to do so. When she was free, she stood shakily to her feet
and Carmen noticed that her left shoulder was drooping. It was dislocated. She
saw the pain on Chloe’s face as she ran toward Carmen with her gun still held
in her hand.

“You’re hurt,” Carmen said.

Chloe slipped her right arm around
Carmen’s waist, put the side of her face against her chest, and they embraced.
“It’s just my shoulder,” she said. “I’ll be all right.”

“I’m sorry,” Carmen said. She held her
face in her hands, saw the bruises and the split lip, and felt sickened by it.
She looked down at Chloe’s gun and took it away from her. “What did they do to
you?”

“They hit me, but I can take it. It’s not
as if it hasn’t happened before. I also killed a man, but he deserved it.” She
paused and looked Carmen in the eye. “They said you’re an assassin. Is that
true?”

Carmen wasn’t sure how to proceed. For years,
she had tried to be a positive influence on Chloe’s life. But what was she to
her now? An assassin. A murderer. She never wanted her to know that this life
existed anywhere but in the movies, but now Chloe knew better. She had blood on
her own hands. She may have acted in self-defense, but tonight she nevertheless
had killed a man. Carmen knew that moment would be with her for the rest of her
life.

“This all happened to you because of me,
and I am sorry for all of it,” she said. “We’ll talk later about who I am.
There are things about me that you need to know, but they can wait. Right now,
we need to get out of here. I can fix your shoulder myself, but it will hurt.”

“So, you’re also a doctor?”

“I’m not a doctor, Chloe,” Carmen said
with a smile. “But I can fix your shoulder.”

Spocatti was at the garage door, waiting
for them.

“Ready?” he asked.

Carmen, angry with him, nodded.

He lifted the door and when he did, Jake,
whose real name was Fred but who wisely went by Jake, was standing just outside
the door, obviously distressed, hatred in his eyes, blood spattered on his
face, his gun poised at Spocatti, which he quickly lifted to the man’s head.

CHAPTER THI
RTY-TWO

“Get back,” Jake said. “Drop your guns.”

Carmen dropped her gun and took a step
back with Chloe, holding the girl behind her for protection while noting that
the blade on her shoe was still extended. Her eyes flicked up to meet Jake’s.
Was there still poison on the blade? Certainly there was some, but how much did
she need to kill him?

Spocatti started to move, but in an
unexpected flash, his gun tipped upward and the bullet he put through Jake’s
jaw also nicked his brain and sent him into another world.

Carmen watched, unbelieving. It was so
swift. Effortless. Jake fell to the floor and started to twitch and convulse as
life left him. Vincent kicked his gun away and watched him for a moment before
he took a step forward and leaned over him.

“Came to make a big scene, did you?
Probably had it all planned, too. Sorry about that, buddy.”

Blood bubbled up and started to seep out
of the man’s ears and nose. His brain was hemorrhaging. Carmen looked beyond
him. They were exposed to the outside. Dozens of cars were behind them with
their headlights on. If anyone saw them, they’d also see what was happening.

She quickly stepped forward, grabbed Jake
by the back of his collar, and pulled him in so she could shut the garage door.
It closed with a bang. Finished, she looked up at Chloe and saw the horror on
her face.

“I wonder what your speech would have
been, Fred,” Spocatti said. “I’m sure you had one ready to deliver to me and to
Carmen. Must suck that you can’t say anything. Or, for that matter, that you’ll
never be saying anything again.”

Jake, or Fred, whose last name was unknown
to them, struggled in his last moments of life to look at Spocatti. It was an
unfocused look. There was no longer hatred in his eyes. Instead, there was only
the fight to stay alive, which he was losing.

Spocatti moved toward the garage door. He
looked at Carmen, who was retracting the blade in her shoe. “I didn’t come all
the way from Capri for his bullshit,” he said. “Let’s go.”

He opened the door and, before closing it,
he turned back to look at the man who had come to kill them. “I’ll make sure
they put
Jake
on your tombstone, Fred.” Then, to Carmen, he said, “I
know I was rough. I apologize, but I had to make it look real if he was going
to come around and face you. I knew you planned to use the shoe. You did well
by Alex. And by Babe, whom I fear is dead given the blood on Jake’s face. I
think both would be proud of you right now.”

Carmen reached into her pants pocket and
removed her cell. Since she was alive, there was no need to wait. To her
contact at the NYPD, she sent him everything she knew about the syndicate,
which was enough to shut it down forever, and added a note that he should come
here now if he wanted to receive the promotion both knew he wanted and
deserved.

“We’ll take our own cab,” she said to
Spocatti.

“Are we good?”

“We’re in limbo.”

“We should talk.”

“Maybe in a year. I don’t have time for
you now.”

Without another word, Carmen put her arm
around Chloe’s waist, pulled her close to her, and walked away, leaving
Spocatti to close the garage door behind them and to escape into the night,
just as he had done so many times before.

###

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Books
by Christopher Smith

In the United States

Fifth
Avenue
Series

Fifth Avenue:
Book One

Running
of the Bulls: Book Two

From Manhattan with Love:
Novella Three

The
Fifth Avenue Series (Box Set)

A Rush to Violence

From Manhattan with Revenge