“But that’s impossible,” Vaughn thought out loud. “I have that ruby.”
A few days afterward, Vaughn was at the auction sale to prove that she was the owner of the real Duval ruby. She was a hundred percent certain of it. The man who’d sold the gem to her had provided a result sheet of the tests proving the ruby was real. The paper was signed by Douglas Bright, famous for being the best at authenticating art. Vaughn waited patiently until the ruby was displayed. The animator had just finished introducing the ruby when Vaughn got up.
“That ruby is a fucking fake,” she yelled. Every head turned toward her, but she didn’t care. She was there only to humiliate the seller, a young woman with long black hair, by exposing her fraud.
“It is not,” the woman said angrily. “I stole it myself from the art gallery hosting it a year ago.”
“It’s a fake. I bought the real one about eight months ago,” Vaughn continued.
“Now please, miss Vaughn, miss Farrell, calm down,” the animator asked, but Vaughn hardly even listened to him, her deadly gaze being fixed on Farrell. “We have a specialist with us,” he added, “who will authenticate this piece.”
After a loud fuss in the crowd, Bright was called to give his opinion about the ruby’s authenticity. He started looking at every angle of the jewel through his magnifying glass. Vaughn was watching closely while Farrell had moved to talk to someone. Bright soon proved that the ruby was real. Vaughn’s temper got instantly hotter.
“Are you telling me my ruby is fake?” she yelled.
“This one is certainly real, and I don’t know of another ruby by Duval. So, yes, yours must be a forgery,” Bright answered with incredible composure.
“Then could you explain this to me?” she said, handing him the certificate signed by his own hand.
Bright adjusted his glasses to have a better look at the paper. “I did not sign this,” he said. “I am left-handed, and I always brush ink over the first letters while writing. This signature was made by a right-handed person. I am sorry, miss Vaughn,” he added after a pause, “but that certificate is also a forgery.”
Vaughn couldn’t hold a furious shout which attracted Farrell’s attention. Her interest came back from the man she was conversing with to the ruby.
“Are you still doubting my word, or can we get on with this sale?” she asked, full of arrogance.
Vaughn gave her a most deadly gaze and went back to her seat. She promised herself to get revenge on that insolent bitch. A moment later, the last items were being sold. Vaughn was so caught up in her vengeful thoughts that she didn’t notice the sale had gone so fast.
All of a sudden, the police stormed into the hall, yelling orders. Almost all the criminals brandished a gun and a few started shooting at the officers. And soon at each other. That was exactly what Vaughn wanted: a distraction to enable her to kill Farrell quickly.
She noticed her rival crouching behind the counter. She shot, but missed by an inch. When she took her aim again, Farrell was running toward the end of the hall. Vaughn was prevented from killing her by a man shooting in her direction. She instantly recognized the man’s blue eyes.
“No way,” she said to herself. She tried to shoot again, but had to take cover just like before. “He’s helping her?” Vaughn yelled in surprise and anger. An anger that soon made her forget about Farrell. That man was the one who had to pay for playing with her. “Get him!” she roared at her minions.
“But, ma’am, the police are closing on us,” one of them whined.
“Get him, or I’ll use you as a shield,” she threatened.
They were getting closer. But the man suddenly ran away to stupidly surrender to the cops. Vaughn swore. Now she’d have to free him before she could kill him. She went to the door herself and observed. The man was taken to a car, but when he was about to be forced into it, he hit the cop and escaped. “I’ll get him,” Vaughn thought.
**
After the failure of the auction sale, Vaughn, who had of course managed to escape the police, went home in a state of relative fury. Nothing had gone as planned. Not only did she now have the proof that her ruby was a fake, but everyone had ran away from her vengeful shots.
Vaughn threw her bag and her gun on the table. Pacing back and forth, she tried to calm her nerves. She felt like shooting someone. How could you lose so much in such a little time? Vaughn stopped her pacing and let out a roar of exasperation.
“Is everything alright, ma’am?” someone asked.
“Obviously not, you idiot,” Vaughn shouted.
The man went white with fear. Everyone knew how much it cost to displease miss Vaughn. She was violent and unpredictable. The only thing they could foresee was her brutality. Someone had once asked for her first name. He hadn’t survived long enough to hear the answer. She’d argued that they didn’t need to know her forename as long as they knew her power.
The people she despised the most were the police, or any representative of the law. Those men usually thought that wearing a uniform gave them power over other people. But Vaughn didn’t believe in those stupid patriarchal rules. She didn’t believe in any rule at all for that matter. If you wanted the power, you had to get it. She’d learned that when she was only a kid.
Her father, Mister Vaughn, was a powerful gangster involved in all sorts of illegal traffic. He was the most respected man in New York. But it wasn’t a reverential respect; it was fueled with fear and hatred. Mister Vaughn had been killed by a cop. His daughter was only nineteen at the time. She was already a strong young woman who knew what she wanted. And that was revenge.
From that day on, Vaughn had never stopped training to be stronger and more powerful. Most of her father’s men had transfered their loyalty from their boss to his daughter. And she had either killed the others or made them yield to her power through blackmail and threats.
Vaughn thought that power could buy her anything. She commanded her minions with an iron hand. They treated her as a queen. And she loved it. She used them to get information about this and that, but when the crucial moment of her vengeance came, she handled it herself. Once that tall blue-eyed man found, she would kill him herself, just to make sure no one double-crossed her.
“Don’t leave,” she yelled at the man who was discretely walking back to where he’d come from.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said instantly.
“I want to know everything there is to know about that tall man with blue eyes. Do you know who I’m talking about?” Vaughn asked in a cold and factual tone.
“Yes, ma’am,” he nodded.
“I don’t care by what means you get the information. Just get me what ask.” On these concluding remark, she waved her hand at him and he ran to the door.
Eager to please their boss, a group of Vaughn’s men soon found the organizers of the auction sale. After some muscled conversation, they convinced Atwood to give them the list of the participants. They then tried to make him spit out the tall man’s name, but Atwood apparently didn’t know.
“Most of these names are just aliases anyway,” he said to defend himself.
“Then what alias is his?” asked Vaughn’s subordinate.
“I don’t know,” Atwood repeated. “I wasn’t the only one who invited people to the auction sale,” he continued.
“Who else?”
“Douglas Bright, the guy who authenticated the art.”
“Where can we find him?”
“Police station,” Atwood said with a bitter laugh. “Well, what did you expect? Not everyone was lucky enough to run away.”
“Yeah, why were there even cops there?” the other yelled angrily.
“I don’t know,” Atwood kept whining. “Don’t blame everything on me just because I was holding the mic.”
The other let go of his collar. Atwood fell heavily on the ground. He tried to complain when they snatched the list from his hands, but a gun pointed at his head made him change his mind.
“Don’t follow u
s,” Vaughn’s guy warned. And they left.
Atwood took his phone out. He quickly dialed the number with shaking hands.
“Reese, is that you?” he asked with a trembling voice. “Listen, there’s someone looking for you… I don’t know… I think it’s that blondie, you know, the girl with a hundred dudes escorting her everywhere she goes… Yeah, Vaughn, that’s right.” Atwood stopped to cough. “Yes, don’t worry, I’ll be okay.”
“Or will you?” Vaughn’s subordinate said behind him. “I don’t like it when people lie to me.” He seized the phone and brought it to his ear. “Hello, this is Pete,” he announced. “Who do I have the pleasure to be talking to?” He listened for a minute with a bad smile. “That’s all very well, sir, but you still haven’t told me your name. What does RC mean?”
Instead of an answer, Pete heard a crashing sound. He looked at the list he still had in his hand. There were four RCs. He dismissed Renee Caldwell, and Ruth Clark, which left Randy Crowe and Reese Carter.
“Help me out here,” he told Atwood. “Was that guy Randy Crowe or Reese Carter?” Atwood didn’t say anything but a light sparkled in his eyes at the mention of Carter’s name. “Thank you very much, mister Atwood,” Pete said ironically. He left Atwood bleeding on the ground, and started his way back to Vaughn’s place.
As soon as she had his name, Vaughn took profit of her contacts to know more about Carter. But few people seemed to know him at all. He was something like a ghost; everyone knew he existed, but no one really knew him. However, she did find out that he used to go to a pub in Lower Manhattan. Carter apparently had a friend there by the name of Rafael López.
**
Vaughn was driven to Lower Manhattan in the middle of the afternoon. Finding Carter would soon get from impossible to successfully accomplished. One way or another, Vaughn would make López talk. She walked into the bar like she owned the place. She took wide steps, moving with her chin high and her eyes fixed on her objective. She approached the counter and started tapping on the smooth surface with her fingertips. When the bartender came to her, she was the first to speak.
“Are you Rafael López?” she asked without any preliminary salute.
“Depends on who’s asking,” López said. “Who are you? I don’t think I ever saw you here before,” he noticed, while twisting his watch and fidgeting with it until it was replaced on the right spot on his wrist, where his skin was a little lighter than the rest of his forearm.
“You never saw me indeed,” Vaughn said coldly. “I need information about someone by the name of Reese Carter,” she added with a slight impatience in her tone.
López played with his watch again. “Tell me your name,” he replied, “and I’ll send him a note saying that you’re looking for him.”
“So you do know him,” Vaughn smiled. “Good. Tell me what I want to know and no one gets hurt.” She let the silence linger to show López that she wasn’t bluffing.
López felt his chest tightening, as if it was being crushed in a vice. Vaughn’s voice was incredibly cold, but her tone was somewhat sweet and almost friendly, which made her even creepier. Time seemed to slow down and the bar felt oddly hot all of a sudden. López tried to swallow the anxious nod forming in his throat. “Why are you looking for Reese?” he finally managed to ask.
“That’s none of your business,” she said. “Where can I find him?”
“I…” López hesitated. “I don’t know where he lives. And he doesn’t come here anymore.” His mouth went dry with his lie. He hoped Vaughn wouldn’t see his left eyebrow twitching.
“You’re lying,” she answered, making his hope crumble. “But, because I’m a nice person, I’ll give you another chance. Where can I find him?” she asked once more. López held her look but didn’t say anything. “Fine. You asked for it,” Vaughn threatened. “I will come back in three hours. If you don’t give me an address at that moment, this bar, along with all the people in it,” she emphasized, “will go down. Am I understood?” López nodded. “Good. And remember, mister López, this is your last chance,” she said on her way out.
Three hours later, as promised, Vaughn was back. She held out her hand to López, but he didn’t give her what she wanted. She gave him a look that froze his blood and, for about a second, made him regret his choice.
All of a sudden, Vaughn started up. Something had caught her attention in the corner of her eye. She looked around the place. There he was, the same policeman she’d already seen at the storage building. When he got up, she didn’t give him time to reach for his weapon. She held out her gun and took her aim.
“No!” López shouted. He clung to her arm, making the shot go into the furniture instead of Williams’ head.
“You really are a fucking nuisance, mister López,” Vaughn said. She hit him with the back of her gun and he fell behind the counter.
People were screaming and fighting their way out of the pub. Outside, Vaughn’s minions were waiting for her signal. She shot López randomly to prevent him from running away. The bartender yelled in pain. He tried in vain to crawl away, but he was injured and there was nothing he could do to stop the catastrophe about to happen.
Vaughn heard the cop shout at her. Instead of paying him any attention, she ran to the door and fired three times. That was the signal. A rocket was fired into the pub. López closed his eyes, but it was pointless. The noise of the explosion was deafening. People screamed for help. Blood splashed on the bottles. Soon the whole place was on fire.
López tried to move. That only caused him more pain. He groaned. He coughed. He threw up a mixture of bile and blood. There was too much light, too much noise, too much heat. López felt like his body was melting away. He screamed but didn’t hear himself.
Suddenly and out of nowhere, a hand seized him. He was pulled out of the fire with such brutality that he thought his body would be dismantled. He gasped under the pain. And all went black.
Him
Williams got home after yet another tiresome day. Once more, he had arrived just too late to retrieve the ruby from all those filthy thieves. He was getting sick of that damned ruby. More than once had he wished to forget about it, but he’d given his word to Duval himself that he would get it back. And although the Frenchman must have lost any hope by now, Williams was a man of his word.
Besides, it was because of him that the ruby had disappeared in the first place. Someone—either Farrell or Carter—had broken into his flat and stolen the jewel right under his nose. A year later, Williams still wondered how on Earth it could have happened. But it had.
And there he was now, unable to sleep despite the triple lock on his door. Yet, the insomnia didn’t come because he feared someone would break in. No, it was because Williams blamed himself for the loss of such a precious gem.
Williams left his jacket by the door. He walked to the living room, putting his gun in a drawer on the way. He gazed at himself in the little mirror. He looked terrible. His ginger hair, getting lighter on the temples, was a mess. Those beautiful green eyes of his wore a gray veil betraying exhaustion. Williams ran his fingers on his face. He noticed that even his hands looked older tonight.
“Hello,” a voice said in his back.
Williams didn’t have to turn around to recognize his boyfriend. “Hey, love,” he said, looking at him in the mirror.
His lover leaned against Williams’ back and wrapped his arms around his chest. He held him for a long time. The embrace made Williams forget his problems. He closed his eyes, savoring the warm fluttering in his stomach. The feeling of his boyfriend’s body against his back made his knees tremble.
“Kyle?” he said.
“Hm?” His voice vibrated in Williams’ ear, making his heart beat a little louder.
“I am so in love with you,” Williams whispered.
“Aw,” Kyle said. He gently forced Williams to turn and face him. “I love you too, honey.”
Williams let himself be kissed with passion. The closeness and war
mth of Kyle’s body, the soft caresses of his hands, and their tongues dancing an amorous waltz made Williams feel whole. The problems usually invading his mind were blurred by the only thought of Kyle and the awareness of his presence.
Kyle pushed Williams away from him and looked into his eyes. Williams was hardly blinking at all. His eyes were slightly watered and his pupils were widened into two tiny black mirrors. Kyle ran his fingers through his lover’s curly hair. He took a steady posture and cleared his voice.
“How can I live without thee, how forgo
Thy sweet converse and love so dearly joined
To live again in these wild woods forlorn?” Kyle made a pause and breathed before continuing.
“Should God create another Eve… Uh, no wait,” he said, frowning.
“Should God create another Josh, and I
Another rib afford, yet loss of thee
Would never from my heart; no no, I feel
Bone of my bone thou art, and from thy state
Mine shall never be parted, bliss or woe.”
“Wow,” Williams said. “You actually learned Milton by heart, that’s… wow.”
“Because I know you like it,” Kyle winked. “Happy anniversary, Josh.”
“Thanks. I feel bad now, because I have nothing for you,” Williams sighed.
“Josh, holding you in my arms right now is the most beautiful gift I could wish for.”
Williams was led by the hand into the kitchen where the table was set. A nice perfume emanated from the oven. There were three candles in the middle of the table.
“One for each year,” Kyle explained. “Sit down.”
“Don’t you need a hand?” Williams offered.
“No, you look exhausted. Let me take care of you.”
Williams smiled and obeyed. After all, his lover was so good at cooking and serving the most delicious meals with the most precious wine that he needn’t worry. He allowed himself to sit back and enjoy dinner.
**
“Hey, you look good,” Cowley exclaimed when she saw Williams come into the office.
“Thanks,” he said with a smile.
Red-Hot Vengeance Page 3
