suite. I bought it and I’ll be taking it home with me to Miami. It was painted by a local artist here in Logan’s Beach. A very talented young woman the artist is, don’t you agree?”
A very beautiful woman with a clear complexion and perfectly tanned skin steps beside me. She, herself, is a work of art. Perfectly pressed white suit, French manicure, and waves of shiny black hair.
“Yes, it’s beautiful,” I agree, turning back to the painting. The more I look at it, the more detail I discover. “Although, I admit, I don’t know much about art. I’m more of a facts and science kind of person, but my sister, Mindy, she’s the artist in my family. All I know about art I learned from her. She would love it though. That I know for sure.”
“Ah, I see,” she tilts her head toward the painting. “Do you know who she is? This woman in the painting?”
“An angel of some sort?” I ask, referring to her wings.
“Do you know any of the stories of Nemesis, the Greek goddess of revenge?” She folds her hands together behind her back.
“I don’t believe I do. The stories I read as a kid were mostly real stories. Case studies. Scientific papers.”
“Ah, well, there are many stories about Nemesis. She liked to point out the arrogance of men. One such story is when she took a young man, Narcissus, to a fountain and showed him his reflection. He fell in love with his own image and couldn’t leave the fountain. Eventually, he died there, alone.” She looks at me.
“Sounds like my father,” I mutter.
She laughs. “Mine, too.”
I look at the mask covering Nemesis’s eyes. “Why does she wear a blindfold?”
“Because, revenge is selfish and blind. She knows this as the truth even though it’s the reason behind her very existence, but also, because men often see what they want to see, even if that means being blind to the truth. Revenge itself is selfish. Revenge for the sake of others? That’s—”
“Love,” I finish for her.
“Very good.” She nods. “I knew that I would like you, Michaela Lovejoy.”
The praise from this complete stranger makes me smile.
She flashes me a bright white smile encased in perfect red lips.
I’m the last person alive that anyone could ever consider a sexist. I’m a feminist, for fuck’s sake, but I admit that I’m guilty of making my own assumptions about the person whose been supplying The Reich’s drugs. I pictured a man a lot like Darius, but this woman is nothing like Darius. Her long eyelashes flutter as she walks over to an iPad on the table, swiping and tapping on it several times before looking back up. Her face is slightly rounded, giving the impression of youth while the intelligence and wisdom in her eyes and her perfect posture tells me she’s probably more around her late thirties.
“Come here. I’ve been waiting for you,” she says with a Spanish accent. “There is much more you want to discuss with me than art, no?” She pushes the iPad away just as a little boy runs into the room and throws himself against her.
“Mami, Didi hit me again!” he cries into her shoulder, wrapping his arms around her neck like a little, chubby-armed python.
She unlatches him and clasps his hands in hers. “You tell your sister that I said not to hit you, and I’ll have words with her when I’m done with the lady, okay, Papi?”
The little boy looks over his shoulder at me and gives me a dismissive, bored look before turning back to his mother. “What does the gringa want?”
“That’s what I need to find out, and the sooner you leave us to conduct our business, the sooner I can join you and tell your sister not to hit you anymore.” She releases him, extracting him from her body, and taps a manicured finger to the tip of his nose. “Okay?”
The little boy can’t be more than four or five, but when he jumps from her lap to leave, he pauses long enough to say, “I thought you weren’t doing business with dirty, lying gringos anymore?”
“Go!” she says, shooing him with her hand.
I cover my mouth with my hand to hide my laughter.
She laughs and claps her hands together. “Kids,” she says to me before refocusing on her son. “Yes, but I never said anything about gringas.”
He shrugs and runs to a set of double doors. For a second, it looks as if he’s about to collide with