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“Y-y-yes,” Carrie stuttered.
“You know nothing of inspiring loyalty. Money is not the only motivator a person has. Do you think those men are more afraid of you than they are of me?” he whispered, running the blade of the knife down the side of her cheek.
Carrie’s eyes were wide with fear and with the knowledge she’d gone too far.
“P-p-please,” she begged. “I didn’t mean it.”
“I’d enjoy torturing you, but I just can’t waste the time,” Angelo said. He jerked back hard on her hair and sliced the knife across her throat. A spray of blood arced through the air and Angelo stepped back to avoid the sticky substance from getting on his clothes. He let Carrie fall to the ground and stepped over her body. He held the knife up in front of Rachel—the knife still coated with the blood of a woman she’d promised would die.
Rachel felt no sorrow in the death of Carrie. But she felt fear as her own death stared her in the face.
* * *
There was a pool on the roof of the Hancock Hotel. The way it glowed an eerie bluish green would be one of the things that would stay in his mind forever.
Shane didn’t have a problem gaining access to the roof in the middle of the night. It had actually been rather simple. He’d showered the dust and blood from his face and body and changed into clothes that Cutter had tossed his way. And they’d brought his rifle. It was concealed inside a black suitcase.
He’d checked into the hotel using Cutter’s identification, since they looked the most alike physically. Not to mention checking in under Shane’s own name would get him arrested as soon as they entered his information into the computer. He paid cash for the room and requested one of the upper floors. The bored desk clerk barely gave him a second glance as he signed Cutter’s name to the receipt and she handed him the key card.
Shane rode the elevator up to seventeen. When the doors opened, he got off on his floor but walked past his room to the stairs at the end of the long hallway. He climbed the remaining three stories up and used his key card to access the roof level.
The wind and rain was frigid and pelted his face when he opened the door. The door shut behind him, and he took the cell phone Dixon had given him out of his pocket. Dixon had the phone rigged so that one swipe across the electronic key slot would make the door unusable to anyone else. He’d have the whole rooftop to himself, not that anyone else would be crazy enough to be on the roof in the miserable weather besides him.
In the hotter months of the year, swimming or relaxing on the roof with the cool breeze would probably bring much-needed relief to the body, but right now it was pure misery. The wind and other elements were always a factor when setting up for a shot, and he’d have to be careful not to overcompensate. He’d only have one chance.
Shane dropped the suitcase he was carrying onto the ground near the edge of the roof and unzipped it. He pulled a pair of night goggles over his eyes but then immediately tossed them aside. The lights from the hotel were too bright for them to do him any good. He’d have to rely on a pair of high-powered binoculars and his scope. It was still a good ways off till dawn, so he didn’t have to worry about that factor.
Shane set up the tripod for his rifle with quick, easy movements. The motions were as familiar to him as putting on his clothes every morning. Maybe more. He hunkered down on the cold roof and ignored the wet seeping into his clothes. His only concern was the job at hand.
His friends were twenty stories below, waiting on his signal before they infiltrated the building. He knew the four of them would do exactly what they’d set out to and get rid of all the threats that lurked in the building, but Rachel’s safety would rely solely on him.
He used the binoculars and started on the lower floors of the building across the street. Angelo’s goons were scattered around the entrances on the lower levels of the building and near the elevators. These guys were lower level security at best. None of them were very alert at this time of night. He saw a couple of them dozing in straight-back chairs or on the floor against the walls. That would just make their job that much easier.
Rachel hadn’t come into his sights yet, but he hadn’t expected her to. According to Dixon’s research, she’d be on one of the top floors. And Dixon was never wrong. Shane moved the binoculars up floor by floor until he came to the top level. If it weren’t for the binoculars he never would have been able to see inside. The glass had already been tinted dark in preparation for the apartment that was being constructed.
And what he saw inside the room sickened him. Rachel was bound to a chair and her face was swollen and bloody. He could only see her in profile, but she was looking Angelo straight in the eyes as he talked to her, never backing down. There were two men at Angelo’s back, and Shane could tell by the way they stood that they were much more dangerous than the men positioned on the bottom floors. There was a body on the floor that looked like Carrie, but he couldn’t be a hundred percent sure. At least Angelo had taken that task out of his hands.
Shane used the cell phone Dixon had given him to signal that he’d found Rachel, and that the rest of the team could enter the building when ready. He couldn’t worry about what they were doing or if they were walking into a trap. He could only focus on Rachel and the man who wanted her dead.
Shane breathed slowly through his mouth and slowed his heartbeat before looking through the scope on his rifle and placing his finger on the trigger. Thoughts of what had happened two years ago flooded his brain with the images of horror he saw in his dreams every night, and he cursed as he pulled away from the scope and lay flat on his back on the ground.
He had to get it together. This was a completely different circumstance, and Rachel wasn’t Maggie. The cold rain beat down on his face, but his body temperature was hot. His pulse jumped in his neck and his thoughts were scattered. He closed his eyes and did a few breathing exercises, and then he crawled back into position and looked through the scope once again.
From what he could see, it looked like Angelo’s rage was escalating, and Shane knew he could wait no longer.
For the first time in his life Shane’s finger shook as he placed it on the trigger.
* * *
“Do you know why I wanted you brought here to me?” Angelo asked Rachel.
“Because you’re insane,” she said. She would have smiled just to piss him off, but the movement would have hurt too much.
“You always did have a smart mouth. Your father didn’t discipline you nearly enough in my opinion.”
“Leave my father out of this. In your wildest dreams you’ll never come close to being half the man he is.”
“Don’t you mean was?” Angelo asked with a Cheshire cat smile. He pulled the handkerchief out of his jacket pocket and wiped down the blade in his hand.
