Free From Manhattan with Revenge (The Fourth Book in the Fifth Avenue Series) by Christopher Smith Page B

also considered a threat
because a respected third party informed them that, for whatever reason,
Williams had been gathering intelligence on them.
    In Bora Bora, they successfully killed
Williams, but Carmen escaped, which all agreed left them in danger because Alex
likely shared his intelligence with her. And if he had, with enough
investigative work, that knowledge could lead her straight to them, which was a
concern because with her lover dead due to them, all believed she’d seek
revenge soon.
    So, Illarion Katzev, a formidable man not
yet fifty who made his fortune the old-fashioned way—through murder and
with ruthless calculation—read over his notes a final time while the
others prepared themselves for his recommendation on how best to handle the
elusive Gragera now.
    “Colleagues,” he said, glancing up at the
monitors.
    “Katzev,” came a dozen replies.
    “Since last night, I’ve been reading over
our files on Carmen Gragera and our seven-year history with her. There’s no
question that she must go, as many of us agreed upon weeks ago due to the
potential threat she invites via her relationship with Alex Williams. The good
news is that, in researching the information we’ve compiled on her over the
years, I’ve found a possible Achilles heel.”
    He let a beat of silence pass and watched
the impatience on some of their faces turn to interest. “Carmen loves
children,” he said. “I have no idea why, since I can’t stand them myself. But
Carmen loves them in ways that are almost...unnatural.”
    “How do you know this?”
    The question came from Conrad Bates, who
owned more of Las Vegas than he probably should, given the financial straits
that city was in. Still, for balance, his portfolio offered a wealth of other
properties, mostly hotels located in Manhattan, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles,
and throughout Europe, with particular attention paid to London and Paris,
where his businesses thrived.
    He was younger than Katzev, a product of
one of the better Boston families who took his sizable inheritance and actually
did something with it. He was aggressive and unethical, which were fine traits
the syndicate embraced, though Katzev had never liked the man, not that his
feelings for him mattered much. What mattered was the money Bates brought to
the syndicate, which like everyone else here, was substantial. It also was
critical to achieving what each desired as they moved forward not just into
greater wealth, but into what they really wanted—unfathomable power.
    “Hello, Conrad,” he said.
    “Illarion.”
    “How’s Vegas treating you these days?”
    “I’m hoping we can address that at our
next meeting.”
    “I’ll bet.”
    “But if you could answer my question now,
I think we’d all agree that’s more pressing. Or at least it seems to be given
the urgency of this meeting.”
    “In reading over Carmen’s files, one thing
became clear. Each time she was assigned a job that involved killing a child,
she turned it down flat. She gave no reason why. She simply refused to do it.
In her files, there are seventeen instances of her doing so over our time with
her.”
    “Who cares?” Bates said. “So, she likes
kids. Some of us do. What’s your point?”
    Katzev kept his features neutral even
though he wanted to call the man an idiot for not having the imagination to see
something so obvious. “If Carmen loves children so much, then we threaten her
with them.”
    “Does she have children?”
    This time, it was the eighty-year-old
Greek shipping heiress Hera Hallas who asked the question. Katzev looked up at
the elegant woman with the tan skin and the chic, pure white hair pulled away
from her face in a blunt ponytail and knew again that in her youth, she must
have been a great beauty.
    “She doesn’t have children,” he said.
    “If she loves them so much, why not?”
    “Caring for a child while gunning down
adults is probably a lot to handle,” Conrad Bates said.
    “I’d imagine