The Queen of Miami

by Heidi Lowe

  She looked at the page.

  What followed was an hour and a half of “What the hell?” “How is anyone supposed to do that with their tongue?” “Is that even a thing?” “Where is that located?” “No way!” and words to that effect. Then it became clear to her why she'd never looked forward to sex with Dustin – because he hadn't done any of the things on that list.

  As crazy as everything first seemed to her, the more she read, the more inspired she became. And by the time she closed her laptop, her body tingling all over, the throbbing between her legs, which had been constant throughout her salacious research session, had reached fever pitch. All she could think about as she lay in bed processing all of the information she had just read, was what it would be like to do everything on that list... to do it with Willa. From the kiss alone she imagined the sex would be glorious; Willa di Blasio knew how to use her tongue.

  The throbbing sensation didn't fade before she drifted to sleep. It was this, she reasoned, once she woke up the next morning, that had caused her to have yet another sexual dream about Willa, one in which she played a more hands on role, thanks to her new-found knowledge. And it was this, this treacherous territory she had stepped into of making her fantasies into a reality, why she decided that her tailing of Willa was over. No good could ever come of it, she surmised. If she was being honest with herself, one of her main reasons for pursuing Willa was intrigue more than anything else.

  She had to drop it before she crossed the line even further, a line her body desperately wanted to cross, if she ever allowed herself to listen to it.

  Mrs. Corman was a tall, slender woman, with a squeaky, fine voice and a friendly, ingratiating face. As soon as Layke and Dustin arrived she practically pounced on them, taking Layke by the hand, showing them around the Corman house and talking at a million miles per hour about everything under the sun. She did everything with gusto and haste; and when they finally sat down to dinner, even then she couldn't stop herself from going back and forth to the kitchen to add extra things to the dinner table.

  “Honey, would you just sit still for a minute,” Corman said, placing a hand over hers just as she was about to run off to get some sour cream she'd forgotten. “We've got plenty here already.”

  She giggled, her cheeks filling with color. “Sorry, it's just been such a long time since we had anyone over for dinner,” she explained to her guests. “Leonard doesn't like having people here. If I don't make a fuss about it, he'll never invite anyone.”

  Corman grumbled, sipped his wine. “I just don't get this need that people have to entertain all the time. Home isn't for entertaining people, it's for escaping from them!”

  Layke laughed. “It's nice to know how you feel about me.”

  Several minutes later, when the conversation was flowing nicely, Layke finally relaxed herself completely. Whatever reservations she'd had about meeting her partner's wife, after the picture he'd painted of her, had gone pretty much early on. Pleasantly surprised didn't begin to describe Layke's reaction. There was a possibility that this welcoming, amicable air was all an act, though Layke doubted that very much.

  When she looked over at Dustin, she was pleased to see that he and Corman were getting on like a house on fire, surprisingly. Dustin, though kindhearted and approachable, wasn't most people's cup of tea. Awkward was the word she used to describe him, like he didn't quite fit in anywhere, but insisted on trying. He told stupid jokes when he was nervous, which tended to embarrass Layke more than it did him. Thankfully, no such jokes had yet made their way to the Corman house.

  And then, as customarily happened when having dinner with friends and family, the dreaded topic of the wedding came up. Layke sighed loudly inside.

  “Have you set a date yet? Leonard tells me you two kids have been engaged for quite some time.” Mrs. Corman's eyes were huge and expectant as she waited for the response.

  Dustin gave a nervous little laugh. “Well I wanted to make an honest woman out of this one five years ago, would elope tomorrow if she wanted, but you know women and weddings.”

  “So what are you guys waiting for? Surely it doesn't take that long to arrange a wedding,” Mrs. Corman continued.

  Layke fidgeted. “We've just had a lot going on, you know, what with my job, Dustin's... There hasn't been time to plan anything.” Her expression said mind your own goddamn business and stay out of mine. This was the topic she reviled most, because she could never provide a suitable answer.

  “Don't do it. Buy a dog instead!” Corman said. And although everyone laughed, and his wife hit him on the hand playfully, Layke had to wonder, knowing him, if he wasn't being serious.

  “All young girls dream about their wedding day. Aren't you excited to see the fantasy come to life?” Mrs. Corman spoke with sparkling eyes, over-enthusiastic, as though it was her job to sell the idea. Layke could scarcely believe that women like her, with such old-fashioned views, still existed.

  “To tell the truth, I never really thought much about getting married when I was a kid. I was too busy playing cops and robbers with the neighborhood kids, using my dad's handcuffs to catch the bad guys.”

  The table laughed.

  “I didn't think female cops got married, so naturally the thought never crossed my mind,” she added.

  “But you know better now,” Mrs. Corman said. “Weddings are such wonderful affairs. They cost a pretty penny, but it's totally worth it.”

  Layke wasn't so sure. Hence the five-year wait, and counting. After the wedding you were left with the marriage; and strip that away, what you really had left was a promise to be with this one person – Dustin – for the rest of forever. Dustin was a nice enough guy, but did she really want to spend the rest of forever with him? Someone once told her that if the right person came along, even waiting one day to be their wife would be too long, too agonizing. That wasn't the case with Dustin; if anything, the longer she stayed not being his wife, the happier she became.

  “Owen's too busy saving the world from gangsters to be getting hitched,” Corman said. He read the room, read Layke's face, and concluded that the current topic was making her uncomfortable. Like every partner should, he had her back. “She's been getting intel on the di Blasios. Doing a good job of it, too. It was her gut that put us on to the daughter.”

  Dustin smiled at her proudly. “She's always had a good instinct for that sort of thing.”

  “Yup, sergeant now wants her on this kid constantly. If she's hiding anything, Owen's the one to find it, he says.”

  Layke's face and heart fell. “What? But I wanted off. I'm no good at tailing, and I haven't really found anything we could use for a conviction.”

  Corman shrugged. “You're doing something right.”

  This was bad. Very bad. As bad as it got. She wanted out, not to spend more time following Willa around, being in her presence. Was this some kind of cruel joke her colleagues were playing on her, throwing her into the lion's den and waiting to see how badly she got torn apart? Didn't they know that only temptation lay in that den, and that the proverbial lion was a seductive beauty who made her weak at the knees when she should have been frozen with fear? How she wished she'd told her gut to go to hell instead of listening to it about Willa – she wouldn't be in her current predicament.

  “I'm just not sure I'm the right person for the job,” she mumbled, fiddling with the food on her plate. “Honestly, she scares me.” But not just for the reasons you all think, she added to herself. She makes me feel things I shouldn't, want things I know I can't have. In many ways that was more dangerous to her than flying bullets.

  Corman gave a throaty laugh. “Di Blasios aren't exactly known for their friendly nature. A little bit of fear never hurt anyone.”

  “It's all right for you to say, you don't have to follow her around,” Layke grumbled.

  “It could have been a lot worse, Owen. Count yourself lucky she's at least nice to look at.” When Dustin and Mrs. Corman's gaze landed on him, questioning
ly, he added, “Quite a looker, Willa di Blasio. Could have been a model if she wasn't helping her family break the law.”

  This was a joke, it had to be, Layke concluded. Corman was playing with her. Why would he say such a thing? Even the mention of Willa's looks made her cheeks flush.

  Corman's cell phone rang from the other room. A miraculous interruption to what was fast becoming an unpleasant evening.

  “Oh, love, don't get that,” his wife whined.

  “I'm just gonna see who it is.” He left the room, everyone heard mumbled conversation, then a minute later he returned, his usual smile lighting up his round face. “Owen, we gotta go. Sergeant just called. You remember those Cubans the di Blasios met with a few days ago? They just turned up dead on the beach.”

  NINE

  Guy and Noah di Blasio knew that their family's notoriety was a product of their father's reign of tyranny across Miami, his ability to instil fear into the hearts of the people, and their own ability to follow in his footsteps. But they also knew what most didn't: real fear. And nothing was more fearsome than a female di Blasio having a bad day. It was their mother who had frightened them the most, not Maurice. Ruling the house with a fist made of resilient Cuban iron. She was the true dictator where it mattered, in raising them. They were thankful that they had only one sister... Unfortunately, she took after their mother.

  And she was having a really bad day.

  They flinched in unison when the scotch glass hit the wall and shattered to a thousand glistening pieces all over her kitchen floor.

  “How did this happen?” she screamed at them, causing them to flinch again. They wore identical expressions of utter terror, spineless when facing their sister in this mood. This was the angriest they had ever seen her.

  “W–we don't know,” Guy said in a small voice.

  “Why don't you know?”

  “Well, the cops aren't being very forthcoming with the information.”

  Willa could still taste the scotch on her bottom lip. Now she felt furious about throwing it against the wall, because she wasn't done with it. It was only ten in the morning, and she'd poured it as soon as she'd heard the news. Drinking this early, what would her father say?

  “So we know nothing? Four tourists are killed in cold blood on a Miami beach and we don't know a goddamn thing?”

  Noah wanted to point out that their Cuban friends were not exactly tourists, not in the technical sense, but kept his mouth shut, figuring astutely that it wouldn't have been received well.

  “It doesn't look as though they were killed on the beach, sis,” Guy said. “The belief is that the deed was done elsewhere and their bodies were moved.”

  “Why would someone do that?” She poured herself another scotch, feeling her brothers' eyes upon her, wondering when she would stop pouring. “It can't be a coincidence that on the evening they're due back in Cuba, to make all the arrangements for the container, someone wastes them.”

  “Doesn't look like a coincidence,” Noah echoed. Having nothing useful to say or add, he thought it best just to agree with everything his sister said. It made life easier in the long run.

  “Three days. Three agonizingly long days catering to their every whim, wining and dining them, listening to their misogynistic comments while biting my tongue, throwing money at them in order to get them to agree to take that junk off our hands.” She spoke through gritted teeth, took a swig from her glass then slammed it down on the counter. “And now they're dead! And I'm still left holding that shit that I warned Dad not to take in the first place.” She took another mouthful of scotch and swallowed it down like it was water, sticking up the proverbial middle finger at her father – wherever he was – just because she knew it would piss him off to see her drinking. Well he'd pissed her off by going against her advice and getting the guys to steal the container from the lockup. Even now, as he lay rotting in the earth, no longer facing the burden of his transgressions, having left them to his children to deal with, she remembered precisely how the conversation had gone:

  “Dad, it's not a smart move. The cops will be all over this one. And the gear is far too specialized to sell on the regular black market.”

  “Honey, what have I always told you about living in peacetime? It's just a matter of time before everyone wakes up and realizes that they hate each other all over again. And when that time comes, it's best to be the man who's prepared. Everyone wants to be prepared.”

  She'd rolled her eyes at him for the first time ever – that was how against the plan she was. Maybe she should have been more firm, more insistent. Or maybe he shouldn't have been such a greedy, stubborn fool who took the stupidest risks and relied a lot more on luck than strategy.

  When her buzzer rang, Noah went to check who was at the door, only too happy for his short reprieve from the kitchen. He shouted back, “Trent's downstairs. I'm letting him in.”

  Willa groaned and took another sip of her rapidly depleting drink. She didn't want to see him, for him to tell her that he told her so. His face would be smug, in his smile an assertion of his suitability for the position she currently held. If it had been up to her she would have left him downstairs.

  “As if this day wasn't bad enough,” she mumbled. Guy hid his smile.

  “I just heard about the Cubans,” was the first thing he said when he entered the kitchen. His eyes were sympathetic, so too was his voice. Not surprisingly, Willa didn't believe any of it. Feigned, disingenuous – these were the words she commonly associated with her brother Trent. He'd been pulling this sort of crap since they were kids, in order to get out of trouble. As his mother's first child, it usually worked on her, though Maurice saw through it. Just as Willa herself did now.

  “I'm sure you did,” she said, giving him a nasty look. But she let it go. He wasn't to blame here, it was the bastards who killed their buyers.

  “Do we know who did it?” Trent asked, looking around the room at his siblings.

  “No,” Guy said with a sigh.

  “Well it's obvious, isn't it? It must have been Ambrisi.”

  Willa frowned, giving Trent a skeptical look. “Two things wrong with that theory: How would Ambrisi have known about our agreement with the Cubans? And why would he kill them? If it's revenge-driven, shouldn't we have been the targets?”

  “We are the targets. He's just going a different route to get to us. Hitting us where it really hurts,” Trent insisted. “And if the cops knew that the Cubans were in town, it's not difficult to imagine word got out to the Italians, too.”

  Willa considered this. It would have made some sense, though admittedly not much. From her chat with Ambrisi, he didn't seem poised to make a move. He was more interested in finding out what had happened to his money, which she didn't have the answers for. Wouldn't he have just attacked her family – the family he claimed robbed him – instead of killing four men relatively unconnected to them?

  “Do you think we should hit back at Ambrisi?” Noah asked.

  At the same time that Willa answered no, Trent answered in the affirmative. She looked at him, then said more firmly, “No, we're not doing anything until I find out exactly what happened.”

  Trent rolled his eyes. “You know what happened. The spaghetti-eating bastards are stepping out of line. They think we're weak now that our king's down. We need to put them back in their place.”

  She turned a seething look on him. “What part of no don't you understand? Is it the n, or the o? I thought I made myself pretty clear: we don't move until we know more.”

  Trent's mouth twisted as if he had something sour in it. He was biting his tongue and they all knew it.

  “If that's the message you want to send to the rest of the world then fine, we don't move.”

  “Saving face is the least of my problems. We still have a stockroom filled with guns and no buyers.”

  Even before he said it Willa knew what was coming next.

  “You're making this harder than it has to be. Just say the word an
d we can get that container sold by the end of the day.”

  She pressed her fingers to her forehead, closed her eyes tiredly. How many times would they have this conversation? “I don't want to do business with the Armenians–”

  “This is bullshit, Willa!” Trent blew up, rabid look in his eyes, face red. “They're now offering double what we would have made from the Italian deal. Double. And you want to reject an offer like that over what? Some illogical, personal grudge Dad had against them? Are you insane?” Spit flew from his mouth as he screamed at her.

  But Willa matched him in his anger, as she always did. She wasn't prepared to let his scare tactics of trying to scream louder than she could frighten her. “Call it whatever you want, asshole, but there's a reason Dad rejected their business for over two decades. All you see is that carrot they're dangling in front of you. That's all you ever see – dollar signs. You have no integrity. That's why I'm sitting on the throne and you're not.”

  She saw his fists tensing, saw that little twitch in his right eye that started whenever he was furious. She almost wanted him to try. She hadn't had cause to use her black belt in Tae Kwon Do in years. Even though she knew he would eventually get the better of her, the animal, she could certainly put up a good fight. Which was something that she needed. Either that or a good lay. It had been weeks since she'd been laid; and since Olivia wasn't talking to her, she didn't see much chance of that happening any time soon. She was more sexually frustrated than she'd ever been, since that night at the club.

  Trent gradually eased his hands, and his breathing. It was as though a thought had come to him, or some voice had told him to back off, because when he spoke to her again, his voice had lost most of its chill.

  “I've accepted that you're running the show, Willa. And despite what you think of me, of my motivations, I only want what's best for this family, what's best for all of us.” His eyes were sincere.