Page 54 of Lord of Justice

"I have a question," she asks just as the elevator doors open.

Gripping the metal, I force myself to turn. The need to get into my car and drive to another man's execution is almost painful at this point. "What's that?"

She nods at the flower arrangement. This week, it's pale lavender roses and a darker purple for the irises. "You always order this flower arrangement. I just wondered why?"

I tell the truth. "I thought it would feel like part of your sister is here with you."

Seizing my jacket, she pulls me down. "Stop being so sweet. You're making me feel all unsettled."

She's still kissing me between her words, though. So, I choose to ignore her request. "Be good." I run my fingers through her long hair. "Melina and Av are here in the security apartment if you needthem."

"I was about to say, 'you be good, too' until I realized how hilarious that sounds." Iris grins, fastening her sharp little teeth on my earlobe. "Just be safe."

After changing into my "work clothes," dark jeans, boots and a black t-shirt next to the truck I'm using tonight, I throw my head back and breathe in the city. Car exhaust, a neighbor's BBQ dinner. Undernotes of black tar and sticky blood.

Someone's always bleeding in Manhattan.

There's a feeling here, too. Anticipation, like the night is holding its breath, waiting to see what I'll do.

I run through my intel on Marshall again as I drive. I've made two attempts to carve this motherfucker into a rib roast. He's been far too fortunate both times. Once, I was interrupted by a burglary in the building next door to him. We own much of the NYPD police force, but there's no reason to chance an encounter. The second time, one of his wild-eyed cult members threw herself, screaming, between us. She scrabbled at me, nails scratching down my face, and before I could quickly knock her out and finish my work, he was gone.

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Marshall is a coward who’s always happy to let someone else take the hit for him.

The recent spate of teenagers disappearing from his flock has sent even his most devoted members scuttling away. He's never made it a secret that he feels their lives are his to give and take. All Marshall has now are his paid guards.

The full moon looks indifferently down on me as I cruise the street behind Marshall's rotting castle.

I chuckle slightly. Only one week until my nomination.

Mixing nights like this with my new day job as a Justice of the New York Supreme Court will be more challenging. I do enjoy these ironies. Trofim was agitated when I refused to bring him on this excursion, but I've studied this place already.

Most of his guards are circling the building on the ground, two are inside, down in the kitchen. There's one key advantage to this block. The moldering apartment buildings and shaky-looking houses are all built very close to each other. It will take nothing to get to the roof of the apartment building next to his house and take the jump. There's a flat stretch of roof there crowded with noisy HVAC equipment that I'll land on and then a few short steps to the tower, while hisguards mill around beneath us like ants.

This rush of fury is cleansing. Every cell inside me feels bursting with energy, muscles tightening, and a huge grin stretches across my face. I know it's unsettling. I've seen enough terrified responses.

Of course, they could also be from the gigantic fucking knife I'm holding in my left hand. There's always backup: two handguns, a flashbang grenade, sleeping gas and poison gas. But the KA-BAR blade always feels so right in my hand. I run lightly up the fire escape for the other apartment building, passing one open window where the old man inside must see me climbing up the fire escape steps, but he doesn't raise his eyes from his TV.

It's a moment to cross the roof, and five minutes more to check guard rotations and passing traffic. My leap is a little tricky, but I land, staying low to see if there is enough noise to have alerted anyone. No one raises an alarm.

This building is an old brownstone with towers flanking each side. I'm sure it was beautiful once, with tall windows, iron gates and a dream of being something majestic. In the tower, the windows are glowing with blue-white light from the computer screens and a flickering TV monitor.

A toilet flushes and Marshall walks back into theroom, scratching his ass, really digging in deep.

He's not in bad shape, and until you know that he's a rapist and a murderer, he's not unattractive. Marshall has an inexplicable charisma that draws the lonely and desperate to him long enough to suck them into his cult and drain all of their finances. All I can see when I look at him are wet, rubbery lips, spread into a vicious grin. I catch sight of a couple of the computer monitors and what he's looking at makes me want to kill him that much more brutally, and the rage sears through my bloodstream. I'm ready.

Breaking a window means noise, it's easier to cut it out of the rotting wooden frame. He must see my reflection on the TV screen because he spins and he's holding a gun. "You really thought I would let you get the drop on me again?" Marshall grins.

My balaclava is pulled up and I'm wearing a stocking cap. He doesn't know who I am, but he knows he's seen me before.

"What do you think you can do with that little gun?" I ask, moving slowly to his left. He points the gun at me and shakes it warningly. I'm amused to see that he doesn't have his finger on the trigger, the fucking idiot. He's drunk tonight, which feels almost unsportsmanlike, but this is my window of opportunity. "They found three more of the children you slaughtered." I say,continuing my circular stroll. "And yet, someone is still bailing you out." I keep my hands loose and open, and oddly, he seems comforted by this because his hand holding the gun drops just slightly.

"You have no fucking idea." He gives me his grotesque grin. "Someoneimportant.Someone way high up in the government has taken an interest in me." He lifts his head proudly, and it's all I can do to not slash his throat now so I don't have to listen to his whining voice.

"Who would that be?" I have another blade in the sheath under my forearm. It takes just a quick hand motion and it will be flying across the room and into his chest before he can even get his finger in the trigger guard.