“He’s not such a bad guy,” Casey said as brightly as she could. “I like him.”
“That’s because you are your mother’s daughter, baby girl,” Vee said sarcastically. “I’m just the bitch standing between him and the Miami gateway.” She grew serious. “And your husband is sending him after me.”
“I’m sorry,” Casey whispered.
“I’m about to become deposed, aren’t I?” Vee’s voice broke a little.
Casey didn’t say anything for a moment and then, “Don’t get dead, Vee.”
She laughed bitterly. “No promises.”
Chapter Two
The Gentleman Butcher.
That was what the locals called him. Not to his face, of course. He found the moniker amusing. If he hadn’t then it wouldn’t have stuck around for as long as it did. He supposed it suited him. He did get his hands dirty, when the occasion necessitated his special brand of intervention. And he was particular; in some ways quite fastidious. What was the point in wearing a $10,000 suit if it was going to get covered in gore? So, he’d developed a habit of removing his suit jacket and tie, rolling up his sleeves and then torturing his victims brutally, ruthlessly while spraying as little blood as possible. His methods had become well known and earned him the nickname of Gentleman despite his being anything but.
He certainly did not feel the gentleman when it came to a certain woman he was supposed to be meeting with. He glanced impatiently at his watch. She was eight minutes late. He’d already planned on removing her, but the disrespect she was showing would earn her some time in his dungeon first. He’d intended on making it quick in deference to her gender and the aforementioned nickname. But, apparently, she was not going to play nice.
Too bad. She hadn’t been doing a terrible job of handling Miami. But South America couldn’t lose their foothold to the Mexicans and she didn’t have the strength to hold out. Now it was up to Sotza to act decisively and brutally to make sure this gateway to their international trade on the East Coast wasn’t compromised due to her poor handling of Mexico. She should have asked for help when she had the chance. She hadn’t. Now she would have to go.
Sotza had no interest in taking over Miami for Reyes. He was simply doing the man a favour. And it was time for him to visit this strange and beautiful country again. He’d let it go far too long. Time to take back some territory and re-establish his reputation as The Butcher among the Americans before they forgot who he was.
His gaze flicked to the front door of the club; an establishment Reyes inherited from Hernandez during the Miami takeover. An interesting place to meet. Ladies choice, of course. She wanted to meet in public. Smart but ultimately pointless. He was more than capable of getting to her if and when he wanted. He saw her the moment she stepped foot in the door, flanked by two dark-suited bodyguards.
As she walked into the club, she had to blink away the bright Miami sun before she could take stock of her surroundings. He had the advantage of being able to study her for a moment before she caught sight of him. Stunning was too weak a word to describe the Miami madam. She was utterly breathtaking. She certainly stole his breath. Something no woman had done to him. Ever.
It was an… uncomfortable sensation that had him resisting the urge to lift a palm to his chest and rub. She turned her head, her severely cut shoulder-length white blond hair moving with her. Once her eyes settled on him and his men, she moved through the club with detached ease despite knowing exactly who he was and why he was there. She wasn’t stupid, and neither was Casey Reyes. This woman had to have been warned. She should be in another country by now, running as far and as fast as she could get. Yet, here she was, meeting with the man that intended to take her throne. She was an astonishingly brave woman.
The feeling in his chest intensified as she approached his table, leaving him momentarily speechless and unable to stand for a greeting. She narrowed her darkly-tinted lashes, perceiving an insult in his refusal to stand. She remained silent and refused to sit, putting them in a wordless standoff. So, he sat and studied her while he attempted to regain his equilibrium. Her clothes, face, hair, nails and shoes were all very deliberately chosen. She wore a high-waisted white pencil skirt that stopped just above her knee. She paired it with a sleeveless rose-coloured silk blouse that sat high on her neck. Her jewelry was a basic silver chain, diamond studs and a gold band on the middle finger of her right hand. Everything about her was understated, basic, but expensive and elegant.
Except her shoes. She wore sky-high silver stilettoes with solid steel heels that ended in an unusually sharp point. Sotza could feel the blood begin to pound through his body and, without conscious thought, he stood, towering over his prey. Even though she wore five-inch stilettos he was still a good half foot taller than her.
“Elvira Montana,” he finally said, keeping his voice low and cool. He gave her his hand. He was a little surprised, given his seeming snub when she first walked up to him, that she took it without hesitation, putting her much smaller hand in his and squeezing. He wanted to hold it longer, experience the texture of her skin, press his thumb against her fine bones and feel the beat of her pulse. But she pulled her hand quickly back.
“Vee,” she said in a pleasantly husky voice.
He raised an eyebrow. “Pardon me?”
“Please, call me Vee,” she corrected him. “I despise both the names Elvira and Montana. So please, just call me Vee.”
He nodded, his gaze sliding over her, down and then up until finally their eyes met. Ice. Cold. Incomparable, diamond-hard blue. Her face was smooth, flawless, giving away none of her thoughts. He wanted her on her knees pleading for her life, a life that belonged to him now, those ice chip eyes turned liquid with fear. Yet… he also wanted her in a bed, naked, eyes on fire, begging for the release only he could give her.
He allowed none of his thoughts to touch his face. He’d learned long ago never to allow the enemy to see an emotion until the time was right; usually seconds before death. Elvira clearly had the same training. Her eyes were dead as the grave. Pride swelled in his chest at the way she handled him, alongside the lust and the desire to stamp ownership all over this woman. At his age, he was neither going to question these urges nor go against what instinct was telling him.
His plans had changed. Elvira Montana was no longer going to become a casualty of the upcoming war. The Butcher was about to steal a queen.
Chapter Three
Three weeks later
Sotza was waging war in her city. And he was winning.
Vee paced the floor of her office, steel heels tapping impatiently against the marble as she waited for her second-in-command to make an appearance. The back of her white silk blouse fluttered when she turned sharply, making her way back across the pale hardness of the floor toward the opposite wall. The aura of subdued violence surrounding her was unmistakeable. Like a caged tiger, she was ready to hunt and dismember her prey. Only she had no idea where the fucker was hiding.
After their initial meeting when battle lines had been drawn, they had gone their separate ways and she hadn’t seen hide nor hair of the Gentleman Butcher. Though his presence lingered throughout the city as her contacts fell one by one, whether through clever negotiation, or, when that hadn’t worked, brutal persuasion. Sotza was making a very clear impression in the Miami underground. There was a new commander in town.
She wanted to gut the man, dance on his spilling entrails and laugh like a loon while she did it. She’d never felt this kind of all-consuming rage before. Not even during the years of humiliating abuse she’d suffered at Tony’s hands. And that had really been something. She’d learned cool poise and the ability to conduct herself perfectly in all circumstances while under Tony Montana’s regime. She became the ultimate ice queen, never allowing anything to touch her. And now Sotza walks into her city and takes over, makes the entire East Coast hub roll over, without so much as a by-your-leave.
She wanted the man dead more than she’d even wanted
Tony dead. And that was saying something considering that by the end Tony had been her least favourite person on the planet.
Vee had even tried to enlist Casey’s help, knowing the phone call would prove useless. But desperate time’s… Sure enough, Casey apologized and told her that she’d already tried to get Reyes to call off the Venezuelan, but he was firm. Reyes wanted Miami under new leadership. Vee had been given her chance and she’d fucked it up by letting the Mexicans humiliate her.
Casey had ended the call echoing her previous advice. “Don’t get dead.”
No promises.
The Butcher had no mercy. He was certainly showing her city none as he cut a bloody swathe through it while staking his claim. The increased violence was noticed by everyone, not just the underworld. News channels reported on gang wars throughout the area. Soon Sotza would tire of the battles and come knocking on her door to finish the war. Though she was well-armed with a veritable army at her disposal, she knew the man well enough to know it likely wouldn’t be enough. He was a ghost. If and when he wanted her dead, she would get dead.
The fingers she had crossed over her arms tightened until her long, coral-tinted nails nearly pierced skin, reminding her that, for the time being, she was still alive. She would make the most of her remaining time. She wouldn’t go out like her husband, arrogant on his throne, a weak shadow of his former self. She would die the way she lived, cool and proud to the end, fighting for her place. No regrets.
A loud knock interrupted her grim thoughts. Expecting this particular company, she made her way behind the large, ornate desk and called clearly and sharply, “Come.”
Danny Russo, her second-in-command, entered the room, his face expressionless. Stocky and muscular, loyal to the last bone in his body, Danny was the man behind much of her success in Miami. Accompanying him was another of her men and between them a somewhat roughed up, shaken half-Cuban who looked as though he would prefer to be anywhere but in the Montana mansion, facing the wrath of the Montana widow as she stood to confront him, a letter knife held delicately between her fingers.
She nodded toward a guest chair and then sighed a little. She really didn’t want to have this demonstration in the house, but, as she was going to allow Luis to leave the mansion alive, she didn’t want him seeing anything beyond her spacious office. Perhaps she should have gone down to her dockyards. No, not hers anymore. Sotza’s now. But Danny had deemed the docks too much of a risk. She wanted to show Sotza that she still had power in this city, despite his seeming invincibility. Her people had picked up the head of shipping security himself. The man she’d been bribing for years to help bring her shipments in.
“You’ve disappointed me, Luis,” she said, ice dripping from every word. The man shuddered and shook his head, opening his mouth to lie to her. Vee cut him off. “I’m not interested in listening to your snivelling bullshit. I’m having a bad few weeks and the last thing I wanted to hear today was that the dockyard fell without so much as a single spilled drop of blood.”
“Please, Mrs. Montana!” Luis blubbered as she rounded the desk toward him. He would have stood, but Danny held him with a hand on his shoulder. “It ain’t like that. H-he threatened us. The Butcher, you know? He told us our lives and the lives of our families were as good as dead unless we gave up the shipments and manifests. We didn’t have a choice!”
“And you didn’t think your lives would be just as dead if you did?” Vee asked sharply. Without waiting for an answer, she gripped the sharp letter opener in both hands and plunged it down into his leg, just above the knee.
Luis screamed and tried to clutch the knife, but Danny held his arms from behind. Vee pulled the knife out, ignoring the drops of blood that splattered across the hem of her shirt. She held the tip against his neck and snapped loudly, “Shut the fuck up so I can speak.”
Luis brought himself under control, sweat streaking from his hairline, his wild eyes on hers. Finally, he nodded slightly, though it was clear he was trying not to pass out. She sighed and rolled her eyes. She despised weak men and this one could barely handle a little stabbing. She really should put him out of his misery and try the next dockyard security expert.
“I’m going to do you a favour, Luis,” she told him a cool voice. “I’m going to give you another chance to prove your loyalty to me and mine. Only this time you aren’t going to fuck it up or I’ll be giving you a whole lot more than this little scratch. You understand?”
Luis nodded frantically. “Yes, thank you, Mrs. Montana. You won’t regret it.”
She was already regretting it. Her fingers twitched with the effort not the plunge the blade through his eyeball. But she needed him alive. He was the only one who knew exactly when and where her shipments were coming in. She needed that cargo to prove her value to the Bolivians if she was going to stand any chance at survival.
“You’re going to redirect the ships holding my cargo containers to new pickup locations, yes?” She arched an eyebrow until it met her severely cut bangs. “And then you will only tell my man, Danny here, where those locations are. Are we quite clear?”
He nodded quickly until she was sure there were spots swimming in his vision from blood loss. She’d been careful not to nick an artery, but the letter opener wasn’t small. He now had a quarter-sized hole in his leg. “Quite clear, quite clear!”
“Good,” she snapped, straightening. She held the hand with the knife low at her side. “Because if we have to have this conversation again, Luis, I can assure you, it won’t be under such pleasant circumstances.”
Vee watched as his eyes nearly bugged out of his head. She knew what he saw, what he was thinking. The beautiful madam of Miami, standing in all her glory in front of him, wearing a white, now blood-splattered blouse, black pencil skirt and silver stilettos. The almost matronly pearls she wore at her throat oddly out of place, yet also very much a part of her look.
She crossed to the other side of her desk, set the knife down, then coldly dismissed him. “You may leave.”
The look she shot Danny told him that their guest didn’t need to get back to the dockyards comfortably. She turned her back on the trio and took a few steps to the window while they exited the office. Damn it, now she’d have to get a cleaner in for the floor and chair. She hated doing business indoors.
Chapter Four
Something woke her up. Vee knew better than to question her instincts, they were honed to perfection. She took immediate action, rolling across her bed, one hand reaching for her phone and the other for her revolver. She wasted a few precious seconds to shock when both hands came up empty. Someone had searched the bed while she was asleep in it and had taken both items.
Fuck.
Somehow, someone had managed to bypass her bodyguards and her security to make it into her bedroom. She knew exactly who was capable of such a deed. And she was pretty sure if he was finally here, that he’d decided it was her time to die.
“I won’t go down easy,” she said into the darkness, pleased to note that she managed to keep her voice as coolly steady as always. No point turning into a snivelling coward now. She’d faced worse and kept her shit together. She remained frozen, kneeling on her bed, listening.
His sinister chuckle seemed to echo through the room. She couldn’t tell over her own terror and the pounding of her heart where exactly he was standing. She had no gun, no way to defend herself if he attacked. A click startled her, and lamplight filled the room blinding her for a few precious seconds. Still, she moved her head to the side expecting to see his tall shadowed form standing next to the lamp.
“Wouldn’t be much fun if you didn’t put up a fight,” he said from the end of the bed.
How the fuck had he gotten there so fast?
Vee’s head swiveled toward his voice and she blinked a few times until she could see him properly. That voice never failed to send shivers skittering down her spine. The clipped British accent told her he’d either gone to boarding school in England or been tutored by
a Brit. Not the standard for Spanish speakers below the border unless they came from money.
He stood a few feet from her, his gaze fixed on her. Every dark hair on his head was perfectly in place, silver touching his temples and sideburns. He was dressed impeccably, expensive suit, fitted perfectly to his tall, muscular frame. He’d taken the jacket off though, removed the tie and rolled the sleeves up. Not a good sign when the Gentleman Butcher made himself more comfortable.
She lifted her gaze to meet his. She was shocked by the warmth in his expression. Was he toying with her? Where was his death mask, his impassivity? Who looked so fucking friendly just before they destroyed someone. She expected her executioner’s face to reflect something a little closer to death or emotionlessness at the very least. Instead his dark brown eyes almost glowed from beneath lowered eyebrows as they took in her dishevelled appearance. She’d been so tired from trying and failing to bring the dockyard back under her control that she’d stripped out of her clothes and pulled on her satin pyjama top over a pair of panties and fallen into bed. A few buttons had come undone while she was sleeping and the top now slid down one shoulder.
Damn, she hated being anything less than professional. And her hair must be a complete mess. She hadn’t even washed yesterday’s makeup from her face. Mascara would be smudged beneath her lids, giving her a raccoon-like appearance. She heaved an annoyed sigh and shoved a hand though her hair, upending her bangs. “Can we please get on with this execution? At least then I’ll be able to get a little sleep.”
His lips pressed into a flat line and his nostrils flared a little, clearly unamused by her flippancy. Well score one for the dead girl breathing, she thought, expecting to feel the sharp edge of his blade at any moment.
“I didn’t come here to take your life,” he said, the edge to his voice letting her know that she needed to tread carefully lest he change his mind.
Queen’s Move: Book Two of The Queens Page 2
