Park Avenue (Book Six in the Fifth Avenue Series) (58 page)

Only her mother could
offer that kind of perspective, likely because during her years with George,
she had dealt with her share of scandal, which had nothing to do with the
reason she was in prison today.

“My time is up,”
Elizabeth said.
 
“They want me off
the phone.
 
I need to go.”

“I’m so grateful that you
called, Mom.
 
You don’t even know.”

“Take care of
yourself.
 
And I meant what I said
earlier, Leana.
 
Use the money
Harold gave you wisely.
 
There is no
reason why you can’t be as successful as Celina was, or as successful as your
father is now, for that matter.
 
Let
nothing hold you back—not what’s happening to you now and not what might
come in the future.”

“I won’t.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

“I love you, Leana.”

“I love you, too, Mom.”

The line went dead.
 
Leana put the phone down on the island,
and felt her throat grow thick with grief, loss, and a dozen other emotions she
couldn’t define.
 
The pressure was
too much.
 
She’d been put through
too much.
 
And her mother was
right.
 
Tonight, people would come
not to celebrate her achievement, but to watch her and Mario.
 
It was all so wrong.
 
Why had Antonio called her a murderer on
that tarp?
 

The answer came to her in
a rush.
 

Lucia,
she thought.
 
He holds me responsible for her
death.
 
Of course.
 
To him, I’m a murderer.

She put her face in her
hands, leaned into Mario when he quickly came up behind her and held her, and
for too many reasons, she let herself go and allowed herself to cry.

CHAPTER
EIGHTY-ONE

The morning passed in a
blur.
 

Her father called,
Michael called, Zack called, Marty Spellman called to request an immediate
meeting, Anastassios called, the police called to set up a meeting with her for
the following morning to debrief, and then Anastassios came by to apologize and
to explain everything.
 
Once she
understood the situation Mario’s father had put him in, Leana forgave him,
especially when he played for her and Mario the brutal, threatening phone calls
Antonio had left for him.

“I’m sorry,” Mario
said.
 
“I wish you had come to
me.
 
We could have handled this.”

“I don’t think we could
have, Mario.
 
I knew that if your
father or one of his men found out, he would have killed you.
 
Nothing was going to stop him from killing
Leana, not even his son.
 
I needed
to figure it out on my own, while making sure Leana had protection, which Sean
provided.”
 
He turned to her.
 
“There’s something you need to
know.
 
Your father did call Sean to
hire one of his men.
 
I was the one
who asked him not to say anything about it.”

“Why?”

“Because De Cicco ordered
me not to.
 
He controlled
everything.
 
He wanted no good to
come to you, not even the fact that George was thinking of you and trying to
help you.
 
Sean finally convinced me
that we could put an end to this.
 
He said we could win this, and told me how.
 
We collaborated on a plan while I
figured out how to get my family onto one of my planes and safely out of the
country.”

“What was the plan?”
Mario asked.

Anastassios hesitated,
but then he told him what Sean had been prepared to do.

“They would have deserved
it,” Mario said.
 
“I wish you had
gone through with it.
 
I wish they
were dead now.
 
All of them.”

“Mario,” Leana said.

“It’s true.
 
How dare they do this to you.
 
How dare he put any of you through
this.
 
He’s dead to me.
 
My family is dead to me.
 
We could have taken him out,
Anastassios.”

“I’m not one for murder,
Mario.”

“Right now, I am.”

“I understand that.
 
But right now I feel lucky that I was
able to get to Sean in time.
 
Once I
knew my family was safe, I went to the police, told them everything, and they
responded immediately.
 
You know the
rest.”

“Where is Sean now?”

“At the hotel making sure
everything is secure for tonight.”
 
He shook his head.
 
“Sean’s
had a tough go of it.
 
There was a
misunderstanding last night.
 
I told
him that a detective would escort him away from the scene, but the detective
didn’t show in time.
 
Police were
patrolling the area looking for more of Mario’s family who might have been
guarding the compound from a distance.
 
When Sean tried to leave the building with that weapon in his hand, they
were there and they took him down.
 
There was a moment when he thought he was going to be arrested.
 
But when the detective who knew the
situation did show, Sean’s weapon was taken from him, and he was released.”

“I need to talk to him,”
Leana said.

“You do.
 
And not for the reasons you think.”

“What does that mean?”

“Your cousin, Pepper?”

“What about her?”

“You remember the
photographs Sean had taken of her?”

Leana felt a chill.
 
She’d been waiting for information about
them.
 
“What about them?”

“She walked into that
building with a briefcase, and came out of it without one.
 
Looked odd, didn’t it?”

“Unless she just made a
mistake and left it behind, which is possible.
 
She told me she had a doctor’s
appointment that morning.”

“There are doctors who
have offices in that building.
 
She
could be telling the truth, but Sean and I think there is another possibility
we need to consider.
 
It’s extreme.
 
I don’t know your cousin and I don’t
know whether she has it in her to go this far, but in that building are the
offices of Gordon Elling.”

“Who is Gordon Elling?”
Mario asked.
 
He looked at
Leana.
 
“And what’s this about?
  
You haven’t mentioned any of this
to me.”

“Sean was looking into
it,” she said.
 
“I had no real
information to share.
 
As far as I
was concerned, there was nothing to tell you.”

“She’s right,”
Anastassios said.
 
“At this point,
all of it is just supposition on our part.
 
But to answer your question, in his public life, Elling is a successful
businessman.
 
He has his hand in
just about everything.
 
On the side,
for those in the know—like Sean, whom Elling once approached to offer him
a job—he’s also the person someone goes to if they want to hire an assassin.
 
That’s where he makes his real
money.
 
A fortune, in fact.”

“How could that little
wart from Wharton, of all people, even know about someone like Elling?”

“Pepper has money,”
Anastassios said.
 
“In the right
hands, money can help anyone find someone like Elling.”

“But she has to have the
right hands to put that money into.
 
Look, I’m no fan of my cousin—I can’t stand the bitch—but I
don’t see her hiring someone to murder me.
 
What’s the point?
 
I’ve left
my father’s business.
 
I have no
intention of going back.
 
She knows
that.”

“But does she believe
it?
 
Look, Leana, this is just
something else I needed to share with you.
 
Sean is looking into the situation.
 
He’ll let us know if he learns anything.”

“Between now and the
party?
 
There’s no time.”

“Sean is faster than you
think.”

“Let me go and talk to
him.
 
I need to go to the hotel,
anyway, to make sure we’re good to go for tonight.”

“We’ll go in my car,”
Anastassios said.
 
“You’ll be safe
there.”

“Fine.”
 
She grabbed her cell and the keys to
their penthouse.
 
“Let’s go,” she
said.
 

“Should we call for Sam?”
Mario asked.

“We’re just going to the
car, and there’s no time, anyway.”

“Be ready for the press,”
Anastassios said.
 
“They are about
to mob both of you.”

“Let them take our
photographs.
 
We’ve done nothing
wrong.
 
The city is on our side
right now.
 
I don’t plan on talking
to the media, but I’m sure as hell not going to lower my head because of this.
 
I might even offer them a smile and a
wave.
 
That’ll throw them off.”

“Your wife always has had
spunk,” Anastassios said to Mario as they left the penthouse.

“It can be scary,” Mario
said.

CHAPTER
EIGHTY-TWO

In their Tribeca
apartment, Spocatti looked up from the black dress shoes he was shining when
Carmen stepped through the door and moved into the kitchen.
 
From his seat in the living room, he
watched her walk toward him.
 
The
light from the windows behind him played across her face until she fully came
into view.
 
Then, the light
illumined her.

“Well, well,” he
said.
 
“Look at you.
 
A blonde, at last.”

“Miracles happen.”

“Apparently, they
do.
 
It looks natural.
 
Your hair was black.
 
Achieving that couldn’t have been easy.”

“I didn’t pay for
easy.
 
And let’s just say that my
scalp feels scorched.
 
Not that I’m
complaining.
 
I look hot.”

“Always so humble.”

“You should have seen the
admiring gazes on my walk back to the apartment.”

“From men or women?”

“Does it matter?”

“I’m surprised you didn’t
step into an alleyway and do something about it.”

“Who’s to say that I
didn’t?”

“We both know better.”

She sighed and stepped
into the room.
 
“Yes, we do.
 
I’ll forever be the good Catholic
schoolgirl.”

“One with a gun.”

“And one with one hell of
a shot.”

“When was the last time
you got laid, Carmen.
 
Since Alex?”

When she turned to look
at him, the flash of anger in her eyes was just enough to shield her
grief.
 
Only once in her life had
Carmen Gragera allowed any man in.
 
Vincent knew that.
 
He wasn’t
thinking.
 
He crossed a line, and he
knew it.
 

“Don’t bring him up,
Vincent.
 
Ever.”

It was as if the air had
been sucked out of the room, and any trace of humor between them went with it.

“I’m sorry,” he
said.
 
“Seriously.
 
I got caught up in the moment, and my
mouth got the best of me.
 
You know
I thought a great deal of Alex.”

She didn’t reply.

“I apologize,” he said.

She took a breath, and
looked over at him.
 
“I still miss
him.”

“You probably always
will.”

“I thought I finally
found the one.”

“You did, but he was
stolen from you.
 
I’m sorry,
Carmen.
 
I regret that you lost
him.”

The coldness returned to
her face, which he knew was her way of protecting herself.
 
“Whatever.
 
We chose to be in this business, didn’t
we?”