With that, the meeting ended, and the women gathered purses and hugs on their way out.
Janeka came over to sit by Michelle. “Hey, Michelle, been a long time.”
“Yeah, a very long time,” Michelle said. “How have you been?”
“Mostly good. There’s something I need you to know about.”
“Okay. What’s that?”
“I want to show you something.” She pulled her phone out of her purse, turned it toward Michelle to show her the background photo. “This here’s a picture of my little king. He’s the best thing ever happened to me. He’s two years old now and a real little man. His name is Michael Jr.” And she scrolled through a slideshow with more pictures of a darling little boy with bright eyes.
“You said his name is Michael Jr.” Michelle hesitated, sadness mixed with joy welling up in her throat. “Is he …?”
“Yeah, he’s your nephew. When Michael was killed, I wasn’t far enough along to know. Later, when I missed my period, I realized I was pregnant with his baby. Ever since the day Michael was killed, I’ve been waiting for you to come home. We’re family now, and I want Michael Jr. to know his aunt, if you want the same.”
Choked up, her throat too tight to speak, tears quietly running down her cheeks, Michelle hugged Janeka. After a long moment, Michelle finally caught her breath and whispered a deep, heartfelt, “Thank you.”
Twenty-Eight: Opportunity Knocks
THE STEWARDESS’ VOICE came through the overhead speakers. “Ladies and gentlemen, the captain has turned off the seat belt sign. You may walk around the cabin.”
Flying in business class, Michelle sat next to possibly the whitest White guy she’d ever seen. Early thirties, blue eyes, perfect business haircut—not long; not too short. Crisp solid-white shirt, silk tie still snugged up tight. His charcoal gray slacks matched the coat hanging in the closet. Beautiful black leather shoes.
She found the hint of cologne sexy and wondered which cost more: his suit or his watch. She decided the watch. All expensive, all conservative, all together strangely attractive.
Time to have a little fun …
Michelle twisted in her seat and put out her hand. “Hi, I’m Michelle, and you are?”
“Charles Chambers.” He had a firm, confident, but not overbearing grip.
“Charles?” she said. “Not Charley or Chuck?”
“No. I think the stick up my ass has kept people from being comfortable using those names.” He winked, smiling a broad, happy smile that danced in his eyes.
“Did you say the stick—”
“Up my ass. Yes, that’s exactly what I said. Thought I’d get past that so we could be more relaxed for the rest of the flight. It’s a few hours to Houston.”
“It is, indeed. Well, Chuck, tell me: are you a member of the mile-high club?” Then Michelle mirrored his wink, smiling her own broad, mischievous smile.
*
The morning before, Michelle had finished her beach run and sat in Scott’s Diner, enjoying a relaxed, slow-paced breakfast, when her phone chirped with an incoming text.
Check your board.
She dropped a ten-dollar bill on the register and waved. “See you later, Scott.”
Back in her apartment, the message on her laptop read: Houston, tomorrow, United flight 1499, driver will pick you up.
*
The flight had been interesting to say the least. Today’s meeting promised to be even more interesting.
“Hello, Ms. Michelle Angelique,” said the well-dressed, middle-aged Italian man who stood behind his expensive desk, offering his hand. He had the toned physique of one active in competitive sports like tennis or handball.
They were on the seventh floor of a downtown Houston business building. Michelle had been there on several prior occasions. A little checking of public records showed he owned the building; snooping told her he occupied the whole top floor. Though she’d only seen the offices that spanned the full width of the building, she knew his apartment was also on that floor.
On previous visits she’d used her own transportation and had come through the lobby. This time, her driver escorted her up from the basement and straight to the door of Ascia’s inner office.
“Hello, Mr. Ascia.” She’d looked up the name. It was Italian for “axe” or “axe man.”
“May I ask you a personal question?” he asked, sitting back down.
“Yes. You might even get an answer.”
Mr. Ascia was the type of man people answered, regardless, even if he asked a personal question.
“How did you come by the name Michelle Angelique?”
“My momma gave it to me. It’s not my real name. She named me Michelle then later added Angelique because I was her little angel. She was the only person to call me that.”
“Interesting. Like most mothers, she probably only considered the beauty of the name. And it is a beautiful name. I’m sure she never meant it as The Angel of Death. Did you know Michael, the Archangel, was God’s assassin who drove Satan out of Heaven? He’s often painted with a sword in his hand. You, Michelle Angelique, are known as The Angel of Death. How fitting. Prophetic, even.”
Normally, if a man told her she had a beautiful name, she would think he was hitting on her. Mr. Ascia wasn’t hitting on her, and he also didn’t engage in idle musings. What did this line of questioning mean? What did he want?
“Well, on to other business,” he said. “I have a job for you out in L.A. It concerns a primary and two subs. We’ll pay twenty-five thousand for the primary and ten thousand each for the subs. The subs are not critical, but it would be better if they’re removed. The primary is a Mr. Jackson, a criminal operating in the Anglewatts area. One of the subs is his right-hand man, Mr. Peters. The other is his number-one muscle man, Mr. Oxford.”
Holy shit! I don’t fucking believe this.
Though Michelle was certain her face hadn’t changed with the news, her pupils were a different story. Nobody could control their eyes. Her pupils must have jumped three sizes when Mr. Ascia mentioned Jackson’s name. Like herself, he gave nothing away voluntarily. Still, she could tell he was aware she had reacted.
He was watching for my reaction. He’s gotta know something about what’s between me and Jackson. Be careful!
“I know who he is by name and reputation,” Michelle said. “We’ve never met. I couldn’t pick him out of a crowd.”
“Will there be a problem with the assignment?”
“None at all. Is there anything special about the method or the timeline?”
“Since he’s involved in a lot of gang-related violence, his death won’t be a surprise. The people he deals with tend to be rather straightforward with little tact. To remain in the style of his business, I prefer you not use poison. Other than that, I don’t have any instructions on the method. The timing is not connected to any specific event: therefore, it’s open to your discretion. Sooner, however, is much better than later.”
“It’s a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Ascia.”
“The pleasure is mine, Ms. Michelle Angelique.”
Ascia stood and again offered his hand.
“Vince will take you back to the airport.”
Standing inside the terminal, Michelle checked her watch. Two hours before my flight. Good. Plenty of time to find a phone.
After searching the ticket and lounge areas, she finally found a single pay phone in the baggage claim area located way at the end of a bank of empty brackets where people used to line up to make calls. These days, everybody had a cell phone, and conversations could be picked out of the air. She didn’t imagine she was important enough for Ascia to eavesdrop on her calls, but safety was always the best policy. Public pay phones were about as safe as reasonably possible.
Michelle placed her call.
“G‑Baby’s B-Shop. This G.”
“Uncle G, you’re not going to believe this shit. I have such good news it can’t wait for me to get back. I’m callin
g from the Houston airport. My man here just handed me an assignment to remove Jackson.”
“Do you mean our Jackson? Lewis’s boss? The Jackson at the top of our list?”
“That’s right. I’m on contract to do what we already need to do. They hired me to do him and his two top guys at the same time. I can use some help with this one. This isn’t what you do, but given who it is, I thought you might be interested. What do you think?”
“Wild horses, Michelle, wild fucking horses. I’ve been waiting for three long years for this chance. Nothing, not even wild horses, could keep me from being a part of this.”
Michelle walked away from the phone smiling to herself. Part of her smile was for what had happened, part was because she knew G‑Baby would give everyone extra attention on their haircuts for the rest of the day.
Twenty-Nine: Roof with a View
SITTING ON THE rooftop, Michelle relaxed while G‑Baby watched the offices across the street. Jackson, Peters, and Oxford had been more active this time than on previous days, and after two hours, all three men were still not in their right places. Jackson sat alone at his desk; Oxford had stepped out a few minutes earlier; and Peters paced around in his office talking on the phone. Not a problem. Michelle had learned these things need to happen on their own time. And they always did.
Having a spotter made things much easier. With two people, one always had eyes on the targets.
“I need to stretch my legs.” Michelle scooted back from the roof’s edge, stood, stretched, rolled her shoulders, and to relax her eyes, let them wander across the roof tops.
What was that?
She dropped to a crouch, focused on the area.
The movements were all wrong; they were stealthy, starting and stopping in the shadows. This was no innocent person who’d picked a bad time to be up on the roof.
“Uncle G!” she whispered. She grabbed his arm and, spinning him around, pointed toward the next rooftop, where a man moved past a light in plain sight.
“What the hell?” G-Baby whispered back. “That’s Oxford and someone else with him.”
Michelle opened the briefcase, snatched up one of the Glocks and shoved the other at G‑Baby. “Grab the briefcase, leave everything else.” In a low crouch, she headed toward the service stairs.
They hit them at a full run.
After flying down two levels, they stopped on the landing and listened. “They didn’t see us move or they would have come after us. I don’t hear anybody above us, so I don’t think they’re coming.”
“What now?” G‑Baby asked.
“We surprise him. We go to his office.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Yes, it’s the smart move. They won’t expect it. They’ll think we’re on the run. Surprise is our best shot. We’ll go out the service door on the street level. It’s directly across the street from the parking garage of their building. We can hit the service elevator through the parking lot to get to Jackson’s office. Forget the stairs.” G‑Baby wouldn’t make it all the way running up the stairs, and she’d need a second shooter when they got to Jackson’s office. They had to take the elevator.
“Hold up!” G-Baby said. “Damn, the parking lot’s full of people.”
Across the street, a line of cars inched along out of the building’s underground parking. Each driver had to give the attendant a ticket and pay. No way could they enter without being seen.
“Okay,” Michelle said, “we’ll have to go around back and see if we can get in through breezeway to the service elevator without the kitchen staff seeing us.”
Michelle stepped back into the stairwell, listened for a moment, then called to G‑Baby. “Come here, give me your gun.” She put the two Glocks back in the briefcase.
G‑Baby started to take off his hoodie.
“No, leave it on until we’re in the back,” she said. “We have to walk down the whole block and up the side street to the alley. We’ll be remembered if we’re dressed as staff. Also, people will notice us if we’re moving too fast. We go regular-like, walk and talk like normal people. Timing will be real tight upstairs in Jackson’s office if Oxford comes straight down, but we can’t do anything about that now.”
Walking down the block, G-Baby asked, “What do we do when we get to the back of the building?”
“Depends on what we find,” Michelle said in a casual tone. “Those guys didn’t come out yet. We should have enough time.”
They walked around the corner. Going down the side street, they headed toward the alley, and Michelle spotted a pickup truck coming to a stop. The driver jumped out and ran across the street.
“Unc, quick, take off your hoodie.” He did, and she dropped their hoodies in the back of the pickup as they walked by. “Good luck for us. Better they’re not stashed in the alley where they can be found if someone’s looking real hard. Now the police will never connect them, and our DNA, with Jackson.”
With their hoodies off, they were dressed in long-sleeved light gray shirts, black slacks, and black soft-leather rubber-soled shoes—clothes that matched the uniforms of the restaurant workers in the building they’d just come from. Now, they were headed into a different restaurant that had different uniforms. The pants and shoes were good, but the shirts were wrong so they couldn’t be seen; they’d stand out.
“Not good,” G‑Baby said, watching two women in waitress uniforms smoking by the back door.
“Don’t look directly at them,” Michelle said. “Keep walking and we’ll see what happens.” Before they took three more steps, the women crushed their cigarette butts and returned inside.
G-Baby nodded. “Okay, that’s better.”
A vehicle drove up behind them in the alley. “Don’t look back,” Michelle whispered. “I’ll check it.” G‑Baby’s wound-up emotions would show on his face, and she didn’t need the driver remembering someone who looked agitated.
“Turn in here like we’re going in this door,” she said. They stepped into a small, dark alcove to find a stinky trash can and a big rat. The stink stayed; the rat ran off.
A van with a restaurant name on its side passed and stopped at the doors she and G‑Baby needed to go in.
“Okay,” she said, “we keep going and see what happens.” Then, “Wait!” She grabbed G‑Baby’s arm, yanked him back into the dark alcove as the van driver came out with two kitchen workers.
“This will be the last run tonight,” the driver said. “Put those full trays on the rack and take these empties to the kitchen.” The whole thing took less than a minute. The driver hopped in and drove off.
“We’re good to go now.” Michelle said.
In the preceding weeks, Michelle had studied the blueprints of the two primary buildings and, to a lesser degree, reviewed the prints of the buildings on either side. Plus, dressed in various street disguises—secretary, waitress, deliveryman, taxi driver, and businessman and businesswoman in suits—Michelle and G‑Baby had physically entered and checked that the buildings’ structures matched the drawings.
Having been there before, they knew what to expect. Through the double doors into a short breezeway where some mops in wheeled buckets usually lined one wall. On the left, the service elevator doors were next to the metal door to a large walk-in freezer. In some of their previous visits, a couple of service carts had been pushed up against the wall by the elevator door. To the right, two swinging doors led to the back kitchen, where the workers with the dirty pans from the van would have gone. Two more swinging doors stood at the other end of the breezeway.
Nerves jumping, Michelle pushed the call button for the service elevator. If anyone came in the breezeway, they’d be seen and would have to abort.
Where’s that damned elevator?
A male voice with a heavy Mexican accent drifted through the partly open kitchen door. “Hey, Pete, where’s the box of detergent?”
Michelle and G‑Baby looked back to where a man’s fingers curled around the edge of the dou
ble door to kitchen. He couldn’t see them … yet. One more step and they’d be screwed.
“Goddammit, Jose!” the man called back into the kitchen. “You couldn’t find your ass with both hands!”
“Maybe chew come here and help me fin’ my ass with both chew hands, chew faggot. But I still can’t fin’ the soap. No soap, no clean pans.”
“Stupid wetback. If you weren’t married to my sister, I’d call INS in a heartbeat.”
Sounded like good-natured joking between friends. The man stepped back into the kitchen. The door closed behind him.
Ding!
“Thank you, Jesus.” Michelle let out the breath she’d been holding and jumped through the opening elevator doors. G-Baby followed close behind.
Michelle hit the button, then crouched, flipped open the briefcase, and pulled out a Glock and a silencer. “Here, put this on.” She picked up the remaining Glock and threaded its silencer on the end of the barrel as the elevator ascended.
“How do you think we’re doing on time?” G‑Baby asked.
“They might already be there. We won’t know for sure until we get inside the office. I don’t think they’ll beat us. It feels longer than it has been. A lot has happened since we saw Oxford up on the roof, but at most, it was only six or seven minutes from then to stepping into this elevator.”
G‑Baby nodded. He didn’t visibly relax.
Michelle continued. “I expect they took some time to be careful coming up to our spot on the roof. When they found out we’d left, they probably figured we saw them. They wouldn’t know if we were still there behind cover or had left. At first, they’d duck for cover themselves. They’d take a few minutes to make sure we weren’t waiting to ambush them. Once they cleared the area, they’d most likely look over the rifle and examine our spot. Does that sound about right to you?” She needed him to say a few words to start breathing and begin to calm down just a little.
“Yeah,” he finally said, “that makes sense. It’s what I’d do.”
“What do you think?” she asked. “Would they leave the rifle or bring it down?”
“Anybody’s guess, I suppose.”
Sister's Revenge: Action Adventure Assassin Pulp Thriller Book #1 (Michelle Angelique Avenging Angel Assassin) Page 18