Page 65 of Coerced Wife
He leans forward and checks the side mirror. “Is the car on our tail one of ours?”
“Of course.”
“So, what’s the deal?”
“The deal is you let me run the show.”
He shoots me another toothy smile.
“It’s my mess, Giorgio. I’ll handle it my way.”
“All righty,” he sing-songs.
We cross Long Island to North Shore Beach and drive a distance along the coast. My men are already outside, about a mile from the house. I park the car on a small dirt road off the side and fit my gloves before taking my gun from under my seat.
“Where’s your piece?” I ask Giorgio.
He takes a knife from his pocket and shows it to me.
“Let’s go.”
I motion for the men to follow. We spread out over the area, creeping along the bushes. When we reach the bigproperty, I wait for the geek on my team to give the sign. As soon as he’s cut the power and the alarm remotely, he gives me a thumbs-up.
“How long do we have?” I ask.
“As long as you need. I switched off the alarm and looped it through the neighbor’s current, so it won’t send a power down signal to the security company. As far as anyone is concerned, the alarm is working normally.”
“Cameras?”
“All down,” he confirms.
I turn to the footmen I sent to do reconnaissance. “Dogs?”
The team leader shakes his head.
“Neighbors?”
“They don’t have visibility on the house.” The leader’s mouth pulls up in the corner. “These rich people think it’s nice to have big private windows with million-fucking-dollar-views, but those are security nightmares.”
“Street cameras?”
“Nada,” the geek says.
“Is he alone?”
“All by his lonesome self. No wife and no kids. No staff or bodyguards.”
He must have a lot of faith in his alarm system. Or maybe he thinks his position will spare him.
At my signal, my men follow me to the beach-facing side of the property where there’s no wall. The wind rustles the grass polls on the dune, which covers us from the seaside in the unlikely event that a boat cruises past at this hour. We keep on the gravel path that runs around the house, leaving as little tracks as possible.
It doesn’t take us long to get into the house. It’s a modern design with a lot of glass and sliding doors. Thegeek feeds the infrared to my smartwatch. Kearney is in the master suite, presumably sleeping like a baby.
I climb the steps that are suspended on cables, my sneakers quiet on the tiles, and push open the bedroom door. Justice Kearney lies in a huge bed under a black silk sheet, snoring softly. I walk inside and close the curtains, blacking out the advantage we had of the moonlight.
Kearney doesn’t stir as I go over to the bed. It’s only when I switch on the lamp on the nightstand that he snorts like a pig, his mouth going slack, and frowns. By the time he’s blinked himself awake, the blade of my knife is indenting the pasty skin of his neck.
His eyes grow large and then panicked as he takes in the men surrounding his bed.