Two: Mind Games and Murder
Her husband wants her locked away in a psychiatric
facility. His business partner wants her dead.
Trust. Who do we place our trust in every day? Family members, friends and
people who we turn to for help, doctors. But what if the doctor you placed your
trust in had secrets? Dark secrets. So many secrets.
Isabella Armond is an ordinary Parisian woman with a comfortable life — until a
shocking discovery shatters her perfect world. As her husband’s behavior
becomes increasingly unstable, Isabella slowly realizes all the signs point to
the fact he is not who he appears to be. Is he a respected Cardio-thoracic
surgeon with a thriving Paris medical practice helping people? Or is he leading
a double life which involves the international trafficking of black market
organs? Greed, blood money, and psychopath are the terms she learns are
associated with a man she thought she knew.
Forced to delve deeper into her husband's secret life, she makes discoveries
that will make her question everything she believed forcing her to face an
impossible decision. She is desperate to uncover the truth, but once you know
something, it can’t be unknown. The more she learns, the more she wishes she
knew nothing at all.
When the sun dims, your second self shall disappear. Consequences not of her
making were nipping at her heels. Tick. Tock.
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Excerpt
“I want her dead.
Make it happen,” Avigad stated. His thick lips enveloped the rim of the fine
china cup. Her death was not a suggestion. It was an order to be carried out
without question. An assassination. I was a surgeon but his chosen assassin for
this death. “I don’t care what method you employ. Get it done.”
I sat back against
the black tufted leather of the booth and studied the man. Olive skin, empty
green eyes, light-brown hair. Avigad was not an imposing man in stature, and he
wasn’t educated in the academic sense. A man of great conviction but with no
conscience. His mother was from Jewish descent, and his father Palestinian.
Avigad spoke with the perfect clipped British accent of a refined landed gentry
from the 18th century. His command of Arabic was rivaled by none. He was as
comfortable in a yarmulke as he was a kufi.
I’d been Avigad’s
surgeon a bit over two years ago when he needed emergency stents placed in his
coronary arteries. He had suffered a heart attack and I was on call duty and
saved his life. Our physician-patient relationship led to a friendship, and
then a business offer. He procured organs and I agreed to transplant them.
Over two years,
Avigad had helped me amass almost half a billion dollars. Illegally earned, but
all mine. He acquired the money to launder. And once laundered, opened the door
to investing it in places I would have never had access. For that, I owed him a
debt.
The only thing he
asked in return was when he needed a surgeon to perform an organ removal
surgery, I would be ready to leave at once. No questions about my assignment
were allowed, and I understood and accepted his stipulations. No questions
about where the surgery would be performed. A fake passport was always provided
to protect my identity. To procure a steady flow of organs he scoured every
hellhole on earth and made promises he could never keep. His share was far
greater than mine, but as he often reminded me, without him I wouldn’t have the
surgeries to perform and money would not magically find its way to my bank.
I was in it solely
for the money. The only mistake I’d ever made was mixing some Albanians’ money
with mine in a questionable investment that went bad. They wanted a two hundred
percent return on their money, I promised twenty percent. We now were in a
dispute and negotiations were not an option, but more importantly, I wanted to
wear my wealth like a coat that no one could misinterpret. As a child, my clothes
were torn and dirty. I was forced to wear them to school because I had nothing
else. My mother was too drunk to care, and the bullies smelled my fear. I
didn’t worry about tattered clothes or bullies any longer.
The organ removals
were becoming a logistical issue. Countries had been scrutinized morally and
ethically, forcing government agencies to develop regulations regarding the
donation or sale of an organ consensually or otherwise. The human rights issues
that had surfaced were bad for business. I thought foolishly that Avigad kept
time, place, and the other people involved secret for my protection, to have
plausible deniability if questioned. In reality, he was compartmentalizing his
cells of people. His demands, at times, proved challenging, but the payment I
received drove me to make it happen. Until now.
My income as a
surgeon was adequate. I worked hard to maintain a practice that kept me in
demand. The money never seemed enough for the luxury I wanted. I lived on the
third floor of a luxury nine-bedroom apartment home, in the heart of Paris. My
building was so close to the Eiffel Tower that we could almost touch the hourly
twinkling lights at night.
My second stream of
business was an art gallery I shared with Isabella, my wife. As Avigad became a
silent business partner over the last two years, the gallery had sold its fair
share of forgeries. I couldn’t complain because it lined our pockets with
millions of dollars. My success was obvious. I had a thriving practice,
beautiful home, and gallery that was by appointment only.
Author Bio –
K. J. McGillick
was born in New York and once she started to walk she never stopped running.
But that's what New Yorker's do. Right? A Registered Nurse, a lawyer now
author.
As she evolved so did her career choices. After completing her graduate degree
in nursing, she spent many years in the university setting sharing the dreams
of the enthusiastic nursing students she taught. After twenty rewarding years
in the medical field she attended law school and has spent the last twenty-four
years as an attorney helping people navigate the turbulent waters of the legal
system. Not an easy feat. And now? Now she is sharing the characters she loves
with readers hoping they are intrigued by her twisting and turning plots and
entertained by her writing
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