Mischief in Miami by Nicole Williams Page A

being short for The Godmother.
    She watches over all of us, making sure our needs are met, but don’t piss her off unless you want to find a horse head between your sheets. I’ve followed that rule from day one, and it hasn’t yet steered me wrong.
    G found me five years ago. Alone. Scared. Close to rock bottom. She picked me up, made me dust myself off, and trained me to be one of the most successful Eves in her little black book.
    She’d never admit it, but I knew I was one of her favorites. She reluctantly dotes on me—that’s why I got the Miami case when it came up. She knows I’m a sucker for warm weather and white-sand beaches. After my four-week stint in Lansing during a particularly harsh winter, I needed a trip south. I felt the heat and humidity soothing my skin even inside of the car. I’d never taken longer than a month to finish a job, but I wouldn’t have minded if this one ran longer.
    When I pulled up to the spa where I was meeting the Client, the only parking option was valet. A super posh spa was to be expected when the Client’s an Eight. After a string of Sevens, it was about goddamned time I got an Eight.
    Errands were named after the number of digits in the bank account involved in the Errand, or in laymen’s terms, job. If you were to look up the definition of errand—a short journey undertaken in order to deliver or collect something, often on someone else's behalf—that’s pretty much the exact definition of what we do.
    A Seven Errand is basically a dime a dozen, Eights crop up a few times a year, and a Nine is practically unheard of. The last Nine one of the Eves worked was over three years earlier.
    And Tens . . . well, they’re completely unheard of. Tens are the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that’s always just out of reach. If I landed myself a Ten job, I’d be set. My retirement fund would be fully funded, and I’d be out. I’d be free.
    A Ten would mean a fifty million payout. A twenty-five million take-home for the Eve and the other twenty-five to G and the “business.”
    After working so many Sevens with a five-hundred-K fifty-fifty split, I was ready for something big. However, one doesn’t simply stumble upon a Ten. Tens don’t fall into your lap. Plus, I never knew what my next job would be. Maybe after wrapping up the Eight up for a one million fifty-fifty split, G would have a nice, fat Nine she’d be willing to send my way.
    But it wasn’t time to dream of Nines and Tens. It was time to kick-start an Eight. Game time.
    The valet who loped up to my car when I stopped in front of the spa doors flashed me a smile. I moved my sunglasses back onto my head, grabbed my purse, and slid out of my seat when he opened the door.
    His smile shifted higher on one side. “Hello, ma’am.”
    “Good morning.” I returned his smile with a small one of my own. He had a case of the ogly eyes, a PG way of saying something about me made his dick twitch. I was trained to notice those kinds of things—it was what made me good at my job—but this cute young man wasn’t the one whose dick I needed to get to do anything.
    I handed him a twenty, grabbed my briefcase, and started for the spa entrance.
    “I get off at three,” he said after me, confidence oozing from his tone.
    When I glanced back at him, his expression was as confident as his voice . . . and I got it. I got where that confidence came from. He was good-looking, built, and had a killer smile. Women rarely turned him down. He was confident and obviously unused to rejection. Basically, he was the young, poor, valet version of what I deal with every day. He couldn’t be much younger than I was, but when I looked in his eyes, I felt old.
    Old enough to be his great-great grandmother. So I looked away.
    “And I get off on something else entirely,” I replied before whisking through the revolving doors.
    I didn’t look back; I never did. Even if I had wanted to let that boy bend me over the hood of my car,