An Offer You Can't Refuse: A Miami Mafia Crime Thriller

by Sal Bianchi

  I pushed the thought aside as I glanced back at the victim. Jase was still patiently speaking with her and trying to help her steady her breathing. What was important was the fact that we had saved the victim. As I watched them, I felt unbelievably grateful that we’d managed to get here in time.

  39

  Bette

  I watched Agent Park and Nick hurry out of the room, dumbstruck at how frankly Nick had just spoken to me. Every interaction we’d had so far had involved him either making some stupid flirty comment or just brushing me off with some annoying quip. It honestly surprised me that he was even capable of being that serious about anything.

  If I was completely honest with myself, I felt a little bad. Not too much, because I still didn’t trust him or like him or want him hanging around the office any more than was strictly necessary, but the more that I thought about it, the more I wondered if maybe I’d been a little too overbearing lately.

  “Hey, Bette,” Theo called as he came into the break room. “The director wants us to speak with someone. Apparently, Jase and Nick got the suspect to talk, and we have the identity of the woman who killed the senator. Flint wants us to go speak with her and maybe bring her in depending on what we find out.”

  “Okay,” I agreed. I’d rather focus on this than spend any more time dwelling on whether or not I was too mean to Nick DiFiore. Besides, Alexis Rothschild’s murder was the whole reason the SDCT started investigating. If we solved this case, Nick wouldn’t have any reason to hang around here anymore.

  I let Theo drive us to Hannah Styles’ home. I didn’t particularly like driving, and even though the lunch hour rush was over by now, traffic in Miami never really died down. Even though I preferred being in control, I trusted Theo, and it was a sacrifice I was willing to make if it meant not having to deal with the stress of doing combat with other motorists.

  Hannah’s house was cute. It was two stories, with an ample front yard and a wooden front porch painted white. There were colorful balloons tied to the mailbox, and a row of tables sat out on the grass in front of the house, laden down with an assortment of food and drinks. As we pulled up the driveway, I could see a group of people gathered on the front porch of the house with drinks in their hands.

  The group on the porch stopped talking and turned to look at us as we got out of the car.

  “Can we help you?” One of the women on the porch called in a pretentious voice.

  “We need to speak with Hannah Styles,” I replied as I moved toward the porch. There were paper plates filled with leftover food and drained cups littered around what was clearly a beer pong set-up on one of the tables. Considering how early it was, they’d either been partying since last night or had no qualms about getting drunk in the middle of the day. “I’m Agent Owens with the SDCT. This is Agent Marshall.”

  “Well, what’s all this about?” the same woman scoffed indignantly.

  “I’m sorry,” I smiled acerbically. “Are you Hannah Styles?”

  “Um, no but--”

  “Then this doesn’t concern you,” I cut her off as I turned to the rest of the group. Stein had sent us a report about Hannah that included her driver’s license. I spotted her easily enough, standing at the back of the crowd. She was slightly hunched over and actively attempting to avoid making eye contact with me.

  I shoved my way through the small crowd until I was standing in front of Hannah. She looked up at me timidly. She looked a little thinner than she did in her driver’s license, but she was clearly the same woman from the photo.

  “Hannah Styles?” I asked, even though I was certain it was her.

  She nodded nervously. Her eyes kept darting back and forth between her friends and me. It took all of my self-restraint not to roll my eyes. To think she’d be worried about appearances in this kind of situation.

  “You know why I’m here, right?” I asked her. Flint had sent us to confirm whether Lorenzo Russo was telling the truth, but judging by her reaction at our arrival, I had a strong suspicion that she was the woman we were looking for.

  She nodded haltingly and looked down at the ground. I scoffed. It was difficult to imagine that such a weak and pathetic woman could have killed Alexis Rothschild as viciously as she had. It was amazing the depths to which human beings could sink.

  “All right,” I replied as I leaned in to mutter in her ear. “Why don’t you just come with us calmly so we won’t have to handcuff you in front of all of your little friends?”

  Honestly, I didn’t care all that much about preserving Hannah’s dignity, but I didn’t really feel like struggling to get her into custody either.

  “Okay,” she replied quietly, as I expected she would. Shame really was a strong manipulator.

  I nodded to Theo and then placed a hand on Hannah’s back to lead her down the porch steps and toward the car.

  “Now, wait just a minute!” The same nag from before squawked as I led Hannah away. “You can just take people away like this! We have rights!”

  “Shut your mouth,” I called back to her coldly. “Unless you want me to arrest you for obstruction.”

  “It’s okay, Tina,” Hannah smiled sadly. “Can you just watch the house until I get back?”

  “Well, of course, honey,” the nag replied. “but--”

  “Nope,” I interrupted her. “Time to go.”

  I turned and continued to lead Hannah toward the car before we could cause any more commotion. I waited until she was settled into the backseat before I put the handcuffs on her and then climbed inside to keep an eye on her while Theo drove.

  “Thank you,” she murmured. “For not handcuffing me in front of my friends.”

  “Don’t thank me,” I replied shortly before turning to glare at her. “I just didn’t feel like having to drag you over here. I have to admit that I’m surprised, though. You’re embarrassed about your friends seeing you get arrested, but now about putting a hit out on your own mother?”

  “I needed the money,” she replied coldly. “That stupid nag just wouldn’t die. I have a mountain of student loans and bills to pay. My deadbeat husband went and ran out on me, but not before gambling away all of our savings. She’s had a stroke and a heart attack in the past two years, and both times I thought this was finally it. I’d get a nice little inheritance, not to mention the insurance settlement. But she just kept on ticking.”

  “So… it was just for money?” I raised an incredulous eyebrow at her. It wasn’t like there was ever really a good reason to want someone murdered, but compared to some of the other people we’d arrested, Hannah’s motivation for wanting her own mother dead made her seem especially cold-blooded.

  “She was squandering away my inheritance!” Hannah sneered. “Every few months, she had another medical issue. By the time the old hag finally died, it would have all been spent on hospital stays and medication.”

  “So your solution was to just kill her off early?” I glared at her. “Well, bravo. You failed. Our agents managed to get to her in time to stop the hitman, so all you’re going to get out of this is a stay in federal prison.”

  Hannah’s face immediately fell at my words, and her eyes started to well up with tears. I rolled my eyes and ignored her as she began to cry pathetically. She didn’t feel bad about what she’d done. She only felt bad that she’d gotten caught.

  She continued to cry all the way to the office, to the point where I was relieved once we’d finally transferred her to a holding cell. I left her there and went back to my desk to take some painkillers.

  “Whoa,” Chloe grinned at me as I started to rummage through my desk for the stash of painkillers I kept there. “Someone’s had a rough day.”

  I stopped and looked up at her. She was leaning against Agent Park’s desk and talking with him about something.

  “Did something bad happen?” Agent Park asked me, a look of genuine concern on his face. I relaxed a bit at his question. Even though we butted heads a lot, Agent Park was actually a really nice and
considerate guy. It was a shame that he spent all of his time hanging out with that idiot, Nick.

  “Just had to listen to a suspect sob for twenty minutes,” I scoffed as I finally found the pills at the very back of a drawer. “It was so obnoxious it was enough to give me a headache.”

  “You’re a real peach, Bette,” Chloe chuckled. “You don’t have to like them, but the suspects are still people too, you know.”

  “She took a hit out on her own mother.” I bit back before downing two of the pills. “Her mom is the one who should be crying.”

  “Okay.” Chloe nodded thoughtfully. “I guess that is pretty bad. But don’t you feel even a little bit bad when you see people crying?”

  “I can’t stand weak people,” I retorted easily.

  Chloe cringed at me and opened her mouth as if she was about to say something, but Jase cut in before she could.

  “Anyway,” he called loudly, “I’ll ask Nick if he’s okay with you coming too. He probably will be, but I don’t know how thrilled he’d be at the idea of being asked a bunch of questions.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked curiously.

  “Oh,” Chloe grinned. “Jase is going out drinking with Nick tonight to celebrate solving the case, and Jase said I could come.”

  “I didn’t--” Jase started to say.

  “You just said he’d be fine with it,” she protested. “And don’t worry, I won’t bombard him with anything invasive or upsetting. I just want to clarify whether some of the things we generally understand about the mafia are rumors or truth.”

  Jase frowned and tried to explain that he probably wouldn’t want to talk about that. I watched them go back and forth for a minute before I was struck with a peculiar idea.

  “I’ll go too,” I announced simply. They both turned to look at me with shocked and confused expressions.

  “He’d probably like that less than answering a bunch of questions,” Jase replied after a beat of silence.

  “All the more reason to go.” I smiled. “Where are you guys going?”

  “Yeah, where?” Chloe grinned, clearly intrigued by the idea.

  “What? Come on, guys,” Jase sighed weakly. He looked upset that we were ganging up on him, but I knew we’d be able to wear him down if he kept prodding. Jase was a nice guy, and nice guys were the easiest to break.

  40

  Nick

  I leaned back in my chair as I ended the call and finished sending over the documents. After we’d located and rescued Hannah Styles’ mother, I’d headed back to my own office since my services weren’t really needed anymore. They had hired me to find out who had killed Senator Rothschild, and now that I’d done that, I would focus on my own cases until the SDCT got back to me with another major case.

  Since it had still been fairly early in the day, I’d spent the rest of the afternoon working on the adoption case. I’d finally managed to find the original records and contact information of the woman my client was looking for. I’d called her to give her the good news and send her the documents, and she’d been overjoyed to hear from me.

  I got up out of my chair and grinned. Even though it could be upsetting to have to deal with liars and cheaters constantly, there were definitely certain kinds of cases that made the job worth it in the end, and this was definitely one of them. She’d started crying as we spoke on the phone, and I’d felt immensely proud that I’d been able to do something good for her.

  I went back into my bedroom to change, so I could go meet Jase at our usual bar. After we wrapped everything else up, we’d decided to go out and have a few rounds to celebrate.

  I changed out of the stuffy button-down and tie I usually wore when I was working with the SDCT and into a regular shirt and a pair of jeans before heading out. It was cold again tonight, and I took a deep breath of crisp air before climbing into my car.

  It was Saturday night, so the bar was packed, and there was no parking available nearby. I wasn’t worried, though. I didn’t mind a stroll along the boardwalk on a night like tonight when it was cool out and I was still riding the high of having solved a big case. I’d always loved the rush of sound and movement that belonged uniquely to Miami.

  Everywhere you looked, there were bright lights, and everywhere you went, you could hear the sounds of people as they gambled or partied or just went about their daily lives. It was a never-ending stream of energy that kept the city alive well into the night.

  I reached the bar just a few minutes later and looked around for Jase as soon as I came inside. Usually, we sat right at the bar counter, so it surprised me to see him sitting at a table near the back. I was even more surprised to see Chloe and Bette sitting with him.

  He looked up at me as I approached and tossed me an apologetic smile.

  “Hey… everyone,” I greeted them awkwardly.

  Bette glared at me in her typical fashion, though there seemed to be less bite in it than usual. Chloe, on the other hand, lit up like a Christmas tree and beamed up at me.

  “Niiick!” she slurred as she thrust her drink up in the air, spilling some of its contents over the table. “What took you so long?”

  “I’m only like five minutes late,” I replied as I calculated how long the walk had taken. “How much did you drink in that amount of time?”

  “Just two,” Jase chuckled. “Though we have been here for a while. They wanted to make sure we got here early enough to grab a table.”

  I looked at Chloe, shocked at how drunk she appeared to be after just two drinks. Though she was pretty skinny, so maybe it wasn’t that unusual after all.

  “I see.” I nodded. “And why did you two come?”

  Honestly, I was a little disappointed at the turn of events. I’d been in a really great mood after solving the case, so the last person I wanted to see was Bette.

  “Oh, don’t be like that, Nick,” Chloe practically yelled. “We just wanted to celebrate with you!”

  “Oh, really?” I scoffed as I turned to look pointedly at Bette. She hadn’t said anything since I’d gotten here, and I couldn’t imagine her wanting to do anything with me willingly.

  She glared at me for a moment before heaving a belabored sigh.

  “I’m sorry I was so rude,” she said robotically, the way a child might do if they were forced to apologize for being mean to a sibling by an adult. She wasn’t looking at me, and she didn’t sound sincere, but it still stunned me to hear those words coming out of her mouth at all.

  “What did you just say?” Jase asked. He sounded as shocked as I felt.

  “I’m not saying it again,” Bette replied curtly. “We’re here to drink, right? So let’s drink.”

  “All right, let’s drink.” I grinned.

  Bette rolled her eyes at me and seemed annoyed, but I decided to ignore it. It was a terrible apology, but it was still impressive coming from Bette. I’d just have to take what I could get for now.

  “Next round is on Jase,” I announced. “For inviting people without telling me about it.”

  “What?” Jase yelped in surprise. He tried to protest, but the two women at the table drowned out his voice as they started to make requests.

  It wasn’t the way I’d expected to end the night, but I decided to just roll with it. I had no doubt that I’d be involved in even more cases in the future now that I was no longer planning to avoid going against Alessandro and the rest of the Family, so I might as well get used to being around more of the agents.

  Epilogue

  The three boys were still staring at me expectantly as I finished the story. Even the girl at the bar, Diane, had come over during her lunch break to listen.

  “Wait.” Julian frowned. “But it sounds like Alessandro was always looking out for you and making sure the mafia didn’t try to kill you. Why did you guys end up fighting?”

  I smiled sadly at his question.

  “That was only the beginning of the deterioration of our relationship as brothers,” I explained. “There was a l
ot that went into it. Even though we were once best friends, by the end, we were at each other’s throats. Literally.”

  “Well, tell us more about what happened,” Tanner prompted. I chuckled at his request. He’d been the most skeptical at first, and now he seemed just as eager as Julian.

  “I’m sorry, boys,” I apologized, “But I agreed to meet up with my wife for lunch. She’ll be expecting me soon.”

  “Bring her here!” Julian exclaimed so loudly that I jumped. “You guys can have lunch here! My mom works in the kitchen, and she makes the best Italian food in all of Miami. Seriously, you won’t find any better.”

  I smiled at how enthusiastically he was making his case. I couldn’t really see a reason why we couldn’t come have lunch here.

  “Yeah.” Tanner nodded. “Come on, the food here is actually super good. You can’t just leave us hanging about what happened after that!”

  “All right, all right,” I chuckled. They seemed so eager that I didn’t have the heart to turn them down. “I’ll go get my wife and see how she feels about having lunch here.”

  I couldn’t imagine it being a problem, but it would be rude to agree without asking her first. I was certain she would say yes, though. After all, she was just as familiar with the mafia as I was, and she might even be able to offer a different perspective than mine. I bet the kids would get a kick out of that.

  “Awesome,” Julian beamed before turning to his friends. “See? I told you this place used to be a mafia den. I can’t believe someone got shanked right here.”

  I shook my head and bade my goodbyes before leaving to meet up with my wife. As I walked back down the streets of Miami, I wondered which story I should tell them next. It might be simpler to just go chronologically, in which case the one about the hijacked airplane might be the best one to tell them.

  I smiled as I thought about the unexpected turn the day had taken. I’d never liked talking about my past, but for some reason, I hadn’t minded this time. In a way, it felt kind of liberating being able to hash it all out and explain how everything really went down. I found myself already looking forward to coming back and continuing to tell the kids my story.