Annihilate Them

by Christina Ross

  People screamed.

  “He’s been shot!” I heard a woman bellow. “Somebody help me! It’s my husband!”

  “Don’t shoot!” I heard Alex shout behind me, likely to the security guards at his sides. “You don’t have a clean shot! Her gown is covering most of his body! Don’t you dare shoot unless you are certain that you can take him!”

  “Take me?” Rowe spat at he started to thrash beneath me. His heavy, clotted breath huffed against my face. “No one is taking me tonight but me! But I’m killing you first, Jennifer. You’ll see.”

  The hell I would.

  With his threat imminent, our bodies intertwined as we rolled around on the cement, each of us determined to gain control over the other—and more importantly, the gun.

  But Rowe was stronger than I was. I’d taken him by surprise, and ruined his right eye, but surprise was fleeting, and now the man was gaining ground on me. Fighting harder against me. I felt my embrace on the gun weakening, and I damned myself for it. I had to do something to give me control of the gun and finally snuff out his life forever.

  Cut him, I thought. Cut him with your nails...

  When I did, when the back of my nails raked across his face, my diamond solitaire snagged against the corner of his mouth, set in like a hook, and my momentum tore his mouth wide open.

  I looked down at him in horror.

  I’d cut him so deeply, his back teeth were now completely exposed to me, smeared with blood, saliva, and mucus amid the torn flesh hanging from his yawning, ruined cheek.

  His tongue darted out of his mouth like a lizard, swiping from side to side as he cried out in pain. He kicked beneath me like he never had before, and made a strange sound at the base of his throat. Then, out of nowhere, I saw a man’s shoe come forward and kick the gun so hard that it spun and skidded away from us and onto Park Avenue.

  “Jennifer, take my hand!”

  It was Alex—he’d waited for his moment to act—to save me—and he’d taken it.

  I shoved my hand into his and then felt the front of my dress tear open as Alex pulled me off Rowe, who had been clutching the top of my gown with his free hand.

  Exposed, I wrapped my arms around my bared breasts and staggered backward while Alex leaped onto Rowe, and started to pummel him with his bare fists.

  He was going to kill him—I knew it. The blows he was raining down onto Rowe’s head were so intense, so wildly out of control, that I knew my husband had gone to another place—one that would keep me protected from Rowe forever.

  And for Alex, forever could only come with that man’s death.

  “Get on your feet,” Alex said as he took hold of Rowe’s jacket while traffic on Park slowed as the situation mounted. “Stand up! Move it!”

  When Rowe was up, his face a broken, bleeding wreck that now resembled a monster’s, Alex shoved him against the foundation’s exterior. “You think you can take my wife’s life, you son of a bitch? The woman who means the world to me? You think that you can just come back to this city and fucking murder people at will and without repercussion? You think you can get away with any of that? Here’s the thing, you motherfucker—you can’t.”

  As Alex reared back his fist to slam it into Rowe’s throat, I heard a muffled crack from somewhere behind me and then watched Rowe’s head suddenly explode into nothing as its remains flew up into the air—and back down onto Alex.

  Covered in blood, bone, and brain matter, Alex stumbled back in shock while I did the same. With blood jetting from Rowe’s neck in thick, sickening torrents, his body started to shutter in a series of convulsions before he eventually slumped over onto his side, became very still and just lay there—dead.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  “ARE YOU SATISFIED?” Carlo said as the faint sound of police cruisers called through the city streets and moved in their direction.

  “By not allowing us to kill the Wenns, Rowe cheated us out of millions tonight,” Gia said as she hurried to her feet and stepped away from the open window. “Money that we were promised. Money that we risked our lives for. I sure as hell wasn’t going to let Alexander Wenn have the pleasure of killing him, and so I did it. I shot him. You should be proud of me. I did it for us.”

  “Whatever the reason, the cops are coming—and we need to get the hell out of this building.”

  “Straighten your jacket,” she said as she smoothed her hands down the dress she was wearing. She lifted her long, black hair and allowed it to fall down behind her before she reached for her bag, removed a tube of lipstick, and gave her lips two fresh swipes. Quickly, she put on a full-length black coat and stood back so he could assess her.

  “How do I look?”

  “Fine. Me?”

  “Like you’re about to take your girlfriend back home after having a pleasant meal and cocktails out. Now, let’s go. We leave all of this here.”

  When they left their office, they walked quickly but calmly down the hallway with their heads lowered until they came upon the bank of elevators that was just around the corner. Gia pressed a button, they waited for what seemed like an eternity, and then finally one of the elevators opened so that they could step inside.

  Within a minute, they were upon the lobby.

  “Give me your hand,” she said to him. “Security will be out there—we know that. We also know that he or she will be unarmed. But still—whoever it is needs to believe that we’re a couple. That we’re innocent in all this.”

  He took her hand.

  The elevator doors slid open.

  When they stepped out, they saw the male security guard standing far off to the right of them, watching the chaos unfolding across the street as he said over and over, “Holy mother of God. Holy Mother of God...”

  He was an older man, somewhere in his late fifties, with graying hair and a waist fattened from sloth and too many indulgences. Just to be certain, Gia looked for a gun at his side, and saw with relief that there wasn’t one.

  She looked directly across from them at the set of doors that led to their freedom, but Gia knew that if she didn’t remark on what was happening, it would look suspicious.

  And so she took a breath and then placed a hand on her chest.

  “My God,” she said. “What’s happening outside?”

  Startled, the security guard whirled around, likely so absorbed in the moment that he hadn’t heard them approach.

  “People have been shot,” he said as he walked quickly toward them.

  “Shot?” Carlo said. “Who’s been shot? Where?”

  “At the Stone Foundation. Just across Fifty-Fourth. It looks like two people are down. Maybe more—I can’t be sure.”

  “Is it safe to go outside? It looks like the police have arrived.”

  “Hell no,” the man said. “I’m not letting you go out on that street. Too dangerous. Use these doors—the ones that lead onto Park. Come with me.”

  He removed a set of keys... The doors were locked, Gia thought. Glad I spoke up... and they followed him as he opened the doors for them.

  “Now, be careful,” he said. “Don’t walk. Get a cab as fast as you can, and get away from here. Do it while you can. Go!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  IT HAD BEEN TEN MINUTES since someone blew Stephen Rowe’s head off his shoulders. And despite the presence of the police, who were questioning people, including Ben Cade’s security detail, about who the potential shooter might have been—we still had no answers as to who had done it, how they’d done it, or why they’d done it.

  But it was done. Rowe had been obliterated, and for that, I was grateful.

  The man who had killed so many out of pure spite and hatred was dead. The man who had senselessly slaughtered dozens last weekend in an effort to murder Diana Crane and Mike Fine was dead. The man who had killed his ex-wife, Meredith, and his former lover, Janice Jones, was dead.

  Earlier, just after the shot that took Rowe’s life, one of Ben Cade’s security men had given me his jacket s
o I could cover my breasts. I now held that jacket tightly around my shoulders as Alex held me closer than he ever had.

  “I love you,” he said in my ear.

  “I love you, too. Thank you for what you did. You saved my life.”

  “I’m just sorry that I couldn’t have helped sooner,” he said. “I needed to wait for the right moment before I struck. When you grabbed hold of the gun and started to fight with him, you gave me that moment.”

  “I sure as hell wasn’t going to go down without a fight.”

  “You never do, Jennifer. Just look at how many times you’ve saved my life.”

  “I’d do it again in an instant.”

  “That’s what worries me...”

  I looked down at the bloody remains of the man who had wanted to kill me. I felt nothing but rage for Rowe, because he’d nearly taken me away from Alex, the one person in this world whom I loved more than anyone or anything.

  Somehow, we’d made it through yet another strike against our lives.

  I looked at Alex. When the police had arrived, they’d given him a damp towel to remove as much of Rowe’s blood and body parts from his face, hair, and jacket as he could. And while he still was stained with Rowe’s blood, at least most of Rowe was off him.

  “Where was Ben throughout all this?” I asked. “Where was he?”

  “I doubt that he was sitting idle,” Alex said. “My best guess is that he likely was protecting those who were still inside the foundation, most especially Kate. She would have been his first thought and his last thought, for reasons both of us know and understand too well. Once he was certain that she was in a safe place, he probably worked with his team to seal the foundation down so that nobody could enter or leave. And since he didn’t know that any of this had to do with Rowe, he probably scoured the interior with his staff for anyone who might do harm to those still inside. He knew that he had trained men out here. And because of that, his focus had to turn to Kate and to their guests to make sure that nothing happened to them. That’s my best guess. And if any of that is true, Ben made the right decision.”

  “It sounds probable,” I said. “I just wish that we could see them soon. Not to mention Epifania and Rudman—they were still inside when we left. What’s taking so long to get those doors open?”

  “Protocol,” Alex said. “They won’t open them unless they are certain that it’s safe to do so.”

  “Alex!” a voice called out. “Jennifer!”

  We looked over our shoulders and saw Cutter running toward us.

  “I’m sorry!” he said as he stopped beside us, worry and concern stamped on his face. “I was in traffic a good mile away when I heard the news break over the scanner. I got here as fast as I could.”

  “Of course you did,” I said as I leaned forward and gave him a hug. “We both know that you did.”

  “I’m sorry, Alex,” he said.

  “This isn’t on you, Cutter—and not another word about it. There’s nothing to be sorry about.”

  “But I should have been here,” he said. “I should have planned this better.”

  “We both agreed that you’d come for us when I called you,” Alex said as he put a hand on Cutter’s shoulder. “That was the deal going into the party and upon leaving it. So, stop. You have no blame in this game. Jennifer and I are alive—and that’s what matters. And I think it’s fair for me to say for both of us that we’re very happy to see you.”

  “The same is true for me.”

  But that wasn’t enough for Cutter—I could see the guilt in his eyes. On his face. He truly felt that he’d let us down, and that he hadn’t done his job. But that wasn’t the case at all. Later, when this madness was behind us, I planned on taking him aside myself and making sure that he knew in his heart that he’d done nothing wrong. After all, who besides Tank had had our backs more than Cutter?

  I placed the palm of my hand against his cheek. “Stop,” I said. “OK? You and I will talk about what happened tomorrow. What happened here took place so quickly, you never could have gotten here on time even if you’d wanted to.”

  “All right,” he said.

  I saw him glance over at what was left of Stephen Rowe’s body, and while he didn’t say anything to either of us about him, the expression on his face went cold.

  “He’s gone,” I said to him. “It’s over with—done.”

  When I said that, the doors to the foundation opened and I watched as the remaining partygoers pressed out, including Epifania and Rudman Cross.

  “They’ll want to talk with us,” I said to Alex.

  “Call them over.”

  “Epifania!” I said. “Over here!”

  I saw her turn to look at me, and when she did—when she saw the blood on my face and the blood on Alex’s body—her hand flew to her mouth, tears sprang to her eyes, and she rushed over to us with Cross quick on her heels.

  Without saying a word to me, she just hugged me as she sobbed.

  “It’s OK,” I said. “We’re OK.”

  “Through the windows,” she said. “We saw it happen. We saw what that motherfucker do to you. I never felt so helpless in my life, Yennifer. I thought I was gonna lose you both, and Epifania couldn’t handle the thought. I was so scared, and yet you were so brave. You fought him. Epifania never see such courage.” She turned to Alex. “And you,” she said. “Give me a hug now. Let me feel that you alive. Let me know it in my heart.”

  “I’m alive,” he said into her ear. “Jennifer and I both are, Epifania.”

  “I’m so glad,” she said in a thick voice. “You have no idea. I only have few friends, you know? You are among my closest. And so I couldn’t lose you. I just couldn’t...”

  And now I was going to cry. Hardly anybody understood who Epifania was at the core of her heart and soul. She’d alienated too many people because she refused to be anything less than herself. She refused to conform. To fall in line. And I knew how that felt because people had long judged me for being the same kind of outsider—the one who never should have been allowed in. But like Epifania, I refused to change who I was or where I came from for anyone. That’s where she and I had found our bond. It was the reason we’d become such close friends. And now, with Janice Jones presumably dead, Epifania’s circle of friends had just gotten smaller. Had Alex or I died, it would have shrunk even more.

  “I don’t mean to sound the selfish,” she said. “But you two are very dear to me. You need to know that. Now is good time to tell you so. Now is best time!”

  Rudman came behind her and wrapped his arm around her waist.

  “She’s been very worried about each of you,” he said. “As have I.”

  “Thank you, Rudman,” I said.

  “Know that Epifania and I are here for each of you.”

  Epifania and I...?

  “We appreciate that,” I said.

  “I’m beyond sorry that tonight had to end like this,” he said. “We wanted to help you, but we couldn’t—they locked the damned doors. And so all we could do was watch through the windows. I’ve got to give it to you, Jennifer—you’re one hell of a brave woman. And an even better fighter.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just took his hand in mine and squeezed it.

  Alex’s cell rang in his pants pocket. He removed the phone, checked who was calling, and then held out the screen to me—Blackwell.

  “Want to take it?”

  I did want to take it. I pressed a button on the phone, and answered it.

  “We’re safe,” I said. “Alive. All of us are, including Cutter, Epifania, and Rudman. We’re all standing with each other now.”

  For a moment, Blackwell didn’t speak.

  “Are you there?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said, though her voice was choked.

  “Are you all right?”

  “It’s just that in the past ten minutes, it’s been all over the news, but with no answers. I didn’t know who... or how...”

  Sh
e stopped.

  “We’re here, Barbara,” I said.

  “And thank God for that.”

  The emotion in her voice was as deep as it was profound.

  “We’re OK,” I said.

  “Ever since Tank called, I’ve been out of my mind with worry. I’m not ready to say goodbye to anyone just yet. Especially not to Alex or you. Not so soon. Not this soon. You’ve barely lived your lives. I don’t have a grandchild from either one of you yet, which will come. You’ll see—I know you have your doubts, Jennifer, but it will. But how is it possible that you two continue to be a target. Enough is enough, for God’s sake.”

  “Alex is a billionaire,” I said.

  “You both are,” she corrected me. “Alex refused to even look at that pre-nup his lawyers pushed in front of him before you wed. He threw it away, married you out of love. He knew you were the one. He knew you’d be together forever. And so did you. What’s his is yours—you know that.”

  I let that one slide, because the last thing I’d married Alex for was his money. I knew that many people didn’t think that was the case, but those closest to me did—and that’s what mattered most. I’d married Alex out of love. The only time I even thought about his money was when things like this happened. Sometimes, in my darkest moments, I wished that we were just an anonymous, middle-class couple living far and away from the harsh, calculating eyes that were upon us and wanted to crush us because of Wenn’s power and success.

  “I think we’ll always be targets because of Wenn,” I said as I turned away from Alex and the group. There were some things that should go unheard. “I don’t see any of this ending. In fact, it will happen again, Barbara, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t be better prepared next time, whenever that happens. Because it will happen again. This isn’t the last one—not by far. It’s only a matter of time before someone comes after us again.”

  “Please, don’t say that.”

  I could tell that she was upset, so I didn’t press an issue that I knew was true. This wouldn’t be the last time that my husband and I were marked for death. “Back to Tank,” I said. “You’ve spoken to him?”