Chapter 07: Closing In

Renee Szymanski was easy. Had Alexa not been in such a rush the first time she crossed his path, she’d have finished him off then. But, there were children’s lives at stake and she didn’t want to waste time on the torture these WET executives deserved.

And now with nothing but time on her hands, Alexa had finished the job. He’d begged, he’d bargained, he’d cried and in the end, he’d soiled himself like so many of them do. Had she the capacity for sympathy she might have stopped to think about her victims but, that would be affording them a kindness they never considered for their own victims; numbers that towered into the thousands. Innocent women, children, and men who were casualties in their war for money and power.

They were the type of people to take and never give. And they’d taken so much from so many. It was time that all came to an end. Charles Spaulding played a pickup basketball game every Thursday night with a few college buddies in the park. After she’d dropped Michael Landry, Alexa turned to watching him out on the courts. Similar to Landry, he had a routine, one that Alexa was using to her advantage.

After the games, he always paid a visit to a certain well-kept blonde in Highland Park. One and a half hours were spent in the company of his mistress and then he’d slip into his late model black Navigator and head home to an unsuspecting wife. Alexa glanced down at her watch. 10:30. It was almost time for him to say his goodbyes. And she knew precisely where to go. 

Thanks to Kasper’s encryption software, he’d decoded a secure email sent to one of his many accounts and she’d followed the trail. And after scouting the vicinity hours ago she relayed all of the necessary information to her partner; everything was in place. Alexa stood outside the upscale townhouse waiting for Spaulding to make his greetings. Twenty minutes after his arrival, the lights go out upstairs and that was when she would make her move.

One sentry was guarding the front door and two others were inside the home with him and his mistress. After the shootout at the boardwalk, WET would not be expecting such a brash attempt and Alexa was salivating at the opportunity to surprise them. Adrenaline rushed through her veins as she walked up the stairs and entered the second floor of the home. 

She spotted a guard as he started towards her, heading for the kitchen for a late night snack no doubt. Counting the number of steps left before he was right on top of her, Alexa ducked behind a wall in the guest bedroom. Quick thinking on her part, she turned on a light in the closet and hid behind the bedroom door. Just as she’d hoped, the man stopped suddenly on his trek downstairs and peered inside the room.

Withdrawing his weapon, he aimed it at the closet as he slowly made his approach. And just as he reached out to pull open the doors, Alexa darted out from her hiding spot and plunged one of three syringes she carried with her into the man’s neck. He gasped and fell back against her as his eyes rolled up into his skull. One down. Three to go.

Turning off the light, Alexa silently crept back into the hallway. Shit. The second guard was nowhere in sight. When she was within thirty feet of the master bedroom she spied the man sitting on a chair next to the door. His legs were spread and his arms were folded across his chest. At first Alexa thought the guard was examining something on his shirt but, as she got closer she realized the man was asleep. His eyes were completely shut and his chest rose and fell with the cadence of a deep sleep. It alleviated the need for Alexa to slit his throat.

Still, to err on the side of caution, she used the second syringe on him and headed into the bedroom. She could hear the two in the midst of coitus. Their intermingled moaning and grunts were loud enough to drown out the sounds of her approach. 

The third syringe, intended for the gate guard, Alexa would use on the blonde. And then she’d have the WET director all to herself. Switching positions, Alexa watched as her target rested against the stack of pillows while his mistress rode him like a prized stallion. Deftly, she leaned forward and depressed the plunger quickly into the woman’s flesh. She moaned and instantly fell headlong onto Spaulding’s chest. “Mena?” he said, shaking the woman to wake her. “Babe? Seriously?”

Pushing her away, the man swung his legs over the side of the bed to stand. As he did, Alexa shifted all of her weight into a spinning heel kick, sending the man crashing to the ground with the wind knocked out of him.

“You’re her?” the question came off more like a statement as the WET director rolled to his back to peer up at his attacker. “Is she dead?”

“No,” Alexa replied. “I have no grievance with her. She’s just sleeping.”

“And I don’t suppose there is anything I could offer you that would make you turn around and walk out that door?”

“Actually,” Alexa said, kneeling so she was eye level with the man. “There is something I want.”

“Name it!” Spaulding shouted excitedly. “Anything and it’s yours.”

“I want the name of the pro you send for your dirty jobs.”

“I don’t…” Alexa’s brow raised and she turned her weapon towards him “Alright, ok. I can get you that information, just relax.” His hand snaked beneath the bed and Alexa kept watch.

With surprising quickness, Spaulding grabbed for her gun with his other hand and launched himself forward, knocking Alexa to the ground. Her gun tumbled some distance away near the door and she immediately felt the thunderous blow of the man’s fist as it met with her left jaw. 

The metallic taste of blood poured into her mouth as he quickly followed up with another fist, sending dizzying bright lights to obscure her vision. Bringing her legs up, she wrapped them around the man’s shoulders and threw him off, just as he was coming down with another shot.

He landed against the bed with a clash and scurried to his feet. “Come on, bitch, let’s see what you got.”

He was a fighter. She’d watched for a week but, hadn’t seen any sign of his skills. Charles Spaulding was slightly more prepared than she’d anticipated. A smile spread her lips as she watched him crouch into position, awaiting her attack. The disappointment she’d felt over the ease of getting inside soon forgotten. Spaulding would make her work for it.

She feigned to his left before driving a hard right into his midsection. He wobbled but, didn’t fall and his open left swiftly found her right cheek with a smirk. “Don’t tell me this is all you got,” he snarled and placed himself out of reach. “My Dad used to say ‘beat your kids every day, if you don’t know the reason, they will.’ Clearly, your parents spared the rod. Mine prepared me for the harsh reality of the world. And not a day has passed where I wasn’t training for a showdown one way or the other.”

He punched at air, trying to taunt her into taking the first step but, Alexa paced herself. Unlike Spaulding, she wasn’t lying around waiting for a fight. She went out and engaged. And as any skilled fighter would know, training and actual combat were two very different creatures and sooner or later he would make a mistake. Another feint and she dipped her head away from his fist. He circled her, finally frustrated by her hesitance to fight and charged.

And there it was. Alexa dove out of the path of his tackle, tucked herself into a ball, rolling to a stop at the door. Retrieving her weapon from the ground, she quickly turned and fired. The shot went into Spaulding’s knee and he quickly toppled to the ground. Spaulding laughed as Alexa approached him “What’s the matter? Afraid of a fair fight?”

“No, I just don’t like wasting my time. Now, before you decided to prove your machismo, or recount sad stories of your childhood, I’d asked you a question. If you get it in your head to try me again, let me just say, I’m not against torture. Pain is a tool and like any tool, it has many useful advantages…”

“His name is Chris Cyrus,” he replied, interrupting her with a grunt. 

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Alexa started for the door and Spaulding reached back against the bed to try and pull himself up but paused when he heard the door lock engage. “What is it now? You got what you came for. You can leave.”

“Not quite.”

“We had a deal! I gave you what you wanted. You said you would walk out the door.”

“I did say that. However, I never said I’d leave you breathing.” She placed her weapon on the dresser across from him and unfolded a small satchel she’d tucked into her boot. “Settle in, Chuck. You and I have a long night ahead of us.”

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