Chapter 12

Vee was not happy. And when she wasn't happy she paced. Back and forth, side to side, crosswise. Paced and thought. Tried to think of ways to make herself happier.

"His head in a box would be great," she muttered to herself. "Hell, I'd even take his severed hands in a box. With a ribbon wrapped around. Have to admit, it's a nice touch. Adds an element of gruesome suspense. A decent bath and a hot cup of tea would also be great. But no need to go overboard, the dead Butcher in a box will do just fine."

Danny raised an eyebrow but said nothing. He was used to her nervous, irritable pacing. She tended to think better when she walked, but her life as an East Coast mafia boss had curtailed her ability to take regular walks outdoors. A shame, she loved to go down to the boardwalk and enjoy the fresh salty sea air, the humid heat of the Florida sun seeping through her clothes and warming her skin.

Vee wasn't happy when she wasn't active. She wasn't happy when she wasn't working. And she especially wasn't happy when she'd been driven into hiding, cooped up in a dilapidated industrial apartment on the wrong side of the tracks. Danny had convinced her to lay low in the city if she wouldn't actually leave it. It was killing her to keep a low profile, sit back while Sotza took out her contacts and replaced them with his own people. She'd warned some of her people that they needed to leave town and lay low, others she hadn't been able to get hold of.

She badly wanted to take action, but she listened to Danny, decided to play things smart. To give Sotza time. He would be distracted by her disappearance if he was indeed as infatuated with her as he professed. It might slow him down, confuse him. Give her time to come up with a plan.

"What if we went to Bertrand for help?" she asked, louder, so Danny knew she was actually talking to him this time. She turned on her heel as she reached the far wall. She was wearing a pair of comfortable running shoes instead of her usual steel-spiked stilettos.

"Not a good idea," Danny said shaking his head. "Bertrand's loyal to no one but himself and his MC. He'll turn you over to Sotza in a heartbeat in he thinks he can profit."

"I'll offer him more," she countered with a frown.

"You had enough trouble with the Mexicans, now you think you can take on the most vicious biker gang on the East Coast? Bertrand doesn't like a woman's authority any more than Domingo had. Only difference is, Bertrand was able to separate business from personal politics when it came to border trade." Danny crossed his arms over his chest and scowled at her. "How do you think you can outmaneuver both a perpetually angry biker and The Butcher at the same time? Bad idea sweetheart."

Danny was right. Calling on the Quebec boys would only land her in even more trouble. Bertrand was one of a kind: big, mean, cold-hearted and indiscriminate about his kills. True to club life, the wild leader rarely recognized any kind of authority. There was a reason she tried never to see him face to face. With a whole MC filled with men similar to him he had a stranglehold on the entire East Coast of Canada.

She sighed and continued pacing. "What about the Italians? Some of them might remember Tony from his heyday, might talk to me, give me a chance."

Danny actually laughed out loud, incredulous. "You've been encroaching on their territory this entire past year. You think they don't know exactly who took over when you killed Tony? They were front of the line for that show. Only reason they haven't come for you is you had more people at your back than them, you had Reyes."

She flinched when he mentioned Reyes. The man that had effectively targeted her for death by sending Sotza to clean up her operations. No one wanted to be on Reyes' bad side.

Danny continued, "If the Italians find out that your hold on Miami is in question, they'll slit your throat faster than you can say spaghetti."

"I have to do something!" She threw her hands up in the air. She turned to glare at her second. He wasn't being even remotely helpful.

"What you have to do is stay low, keep your head down. Don't do something stupid, Vee. Not worth your life."

"I can't do this indefinitely. I hate hiding, it's not my style. I didn't even lay low when Tony was coming after me, screaming at me," she seethed. "If I could take a beating from him and hold my own, then I certainly won't hide from Sotza."

Danny didn't say anything, just watched silently as she continued to pace and mutter, trying to come up with a solution. It didn't matter what he said anyway, she would go her own way. She was reasonable enough to listen to his advice, but she was headstrong and stubborn. She'd follow her own path in the end, do what she thought was the right thing to solve her problem.

Finally she stopped, her distracted gaze on the floor. "Sotza's trying to smoke me out, corner me, kill my business. He expects fury and retaliation." She looked at Danny, her heart beating harder in anticipation. "What if I surprise him, give him the opposite of what he expects?"

Instead of intrigued or even remotely like he would agree to her plan, Danny looked suspiciously disagreeable. "And what exactly is that?" he demanded. A little disrespectfully, she thought. But she'd forgive him since she'd essentially painted a target on his back by going up against the Venezuelan.

"Me," she said with a smile as the plan formed in her mind. "I'm going to give him me."