I’ve imagined this meeting for so long, steeled myself for the moment when I would face my brother’s killer, Cuba’s scourge, and now he’s here, the villain of my days and nights slouched in a chair, his omnipresent green fatigues wrinkled and grimy, his beard scraggly, a cloud of cigar smoke surrounding him, and the shocking thing isn’t the flash of hate I expected to feel or the wave of grief I imagined would carry me away, but rather the sheer banality of it all.

I don’t feel anything. He could be a stranger on the street. And the truth of it hits me, the realization that somewhere along the way I have built him up in my mind until he has become a caricature of himself, likely more cunning, more intelligent, more formidable than he is in real life. He was the villain lurking under my bed, the ghoul in the closet, the proverbial monster used to scare children into good behavior, and the reality doesn’t live up to the machinations of my imagination.

He is, after all, just a man. A flawed one, a dangerous one at that, but a man all the same. Confident, arrogant, easily led astray by a pair of fine eyes and a set of curves.

Fidel holds court seated at a long table against the wall, flanked by two of his cronies, plates of food in front of them. The audience is overwhelmingly male save for a few women wearing similar dresses to mine. The one closest to Fidel—a pretty brunette with chin-length brown hair—sizes me up as thoroughly as any debutante.

Fidel is in the middle of telling a story—his exodus from the Shelburne, I presume, based on the words drifting my way. He gestures excitedly, a cocky smile on his face, a cigar dangling from his fingers before he stubs it out on a cheap ceramic ashtray.

I square my shoulders, my body relaxing, my hips going languid, my eyes sharp.

Tonight, I am confident.

Tonight, he is mine.

chapter ten

Fidel’s gaze flicks to me as I approach the table.

He pauses mid-sentence.

I don’t allow myself to blink; I hold his stare and return his lazy perusal with one of my own. There’s a glimmer of interest in Fidel’s eyes that’s not altogether unsurprising—a gleam, if you will.

He looks every inch of his thirty-four years, surprisingly young for a man who has wrought such havoc. Measured against men like the American president Eisenhower and the Soviet premier, Fidel is a marked change, as is his casual attire. The irony, of course, is that for all his pretense of being one of the people, a soldier in fatigues, he comes from a family similar to mine.

A smile curls on Fidel’s lips.

Any greeting I might offer him sticks in my throat. I break eye contact, scanning the crowd for a familiar face. Thanks to my brother’s protectiveness, my ties to the rebel groups in Havana have been more tenuous. I’ve met Che once or twice, but thankfully, he hasn’t joined Fidel on this trip.

Fidel murmurs something under his breath to the man next to him, and they both chuckle, their gazes running over my dress, my curves, the hints of skin exposed by the daring cut of the fabric.

“Miss—”

Fidel leaves it hanging between us like a lord dangling a treat before a peasant.

I allow the moment to draw out a bit, steadying my nerves and showing Fidel I have no problem keeping him waiting.

“Beatriz Perez.”

I say the name proudly. My family is far from perfect, but I come from a long line of people who fought for what they believed in, and at the moment, I’m holding on to that.

It isn’t instant recognition, but I see the attempt to place me in his expression, the last name familiar to him. It’s strange to realize someone is your nemesis, and yet to them, you are little more than a faint murmur in the background of their life.

While I am likely insignificant to him, my last name conjures images of my father, his influence, his wealth. Does Fidel remember my brother, or was Alejandro insignificant, too?

“And what are you doing in New York?” Fidel asks.

If I am to be comforted by anything, it is the fact that I am wearing a new gown, that the seamstress I discovered in Miami has a gift with her sewing machine, that I look every inch the queen I was in Havana. Let him see us thriving despite his attempts to destroy us.

“Visiting friends. Shopping.” I affect mannerisms that would have felt natural to me a few years ago when I was little more than a carefree socialite. “Why else would one come to New York?”

He quirks a brow at me, that taunting note in his voice slightly louder this time.

“And your quest for new gowns”—his gaze lingers on the low neckline of my dress—“brought you to Harlem? I had heard things were not going so well for Emilio Perez.” He chuckles softly, pleased with his joke. The men beside him parrot the move.

“I came to Harlem because I was curious,” I answer, forcing myself to keep my voice light, to push the tremor from my throat.

“And why were you curious?”

“Because you are Cuban,” I answer. “And because once our interests likely aligned.”

My involvement with the university groups organizing against the former Cuban president were not as flagrant as my brother’s, but such views were certainly not uncommon among the children of the wealthy in Cuba.

“Did they? And now? Do our interests still align?”

“I don’t know,” I lie.

“I very much doubt your father feels this way.”

“My father and I have different goals for Cuba’s future. He wishes to live in the past, and I understand we cannot, that we must move forward, past our relationship with the Americans, past the hold sugar and its ilk have had over the country for so long.”

Fidel’s eyes widen with interest; no one listening could doubt the sincerity of my words. The truth is, on this we share a common bond, as much as it pains me to admit it. It’s simply his methods I find truly abhorrent, even while I privately agree with him that Cuba needs to change.

Just not like this.

“My brother fought for Cuba’s freedom,” I add. “He died for it.”

The passion blazing through my words has silenced the room. Let him think I am a foolish girl motivated by my quest for revenge, my ire at Batista and his loyal men; let Fidel think I am caught up in a world I don’t understand.

“I am sorry to hear that. We lost many good men in the revolution.”

He lifts his glass in a toast to the men who died, and something burns inside me, bright and sharp. One day in the not-too-distant future, I will toast his death with the finest champagne money can buy, and I will revel in it.

Someone hands me a glass at Fidel’s command, and I swallow the cheap drink with an inelegant gulp, hoping the alcohol’s bite will remove the bitter taste of death from my mouth.

“Join us.” Fidel gestures toward a seat immediately vacated by one of his lackeys.

The brunette at the table is several seats away from Fidel, but her eyes narrow as I sit in the empty chair. Is she one of his lovers? Dwyer didn’t mention anything about competition for Fidel’s affections.

Fidel returns to the story he originally was telling before I interrupted him, his belly jutting out as he guffaws at his own joke, his hand stroking his beard, his gaze intermittently flicking to me.

My back is ramrod straight, my mother’s voice in my head now. When I laugh, it is not too loud; when I smile, I keep a hint of reserve in my expression, as though I am attempting to gain his measure even as he does the same to me. Fawning over Fidel will do me no favors; if I want to be memorable, to pique his interest, I must treat him as though he is any other man, need to prick his vanity until his ego deflates, make him wonder what it is about me that keeps me from being in his thrall.

Men always want that which they cannot, or should not, have.

I speak to my neighbors at the table, engaging in small talk about world events, listening while Fidel decries the ongoing war in the Congo. He rails against the imperialist Belgians, the conversation becoming increasingly more difficult to follow. I confess my interest in world affairs is typically limited to Cuba and her concerns; my knowledge of the conflicts of which they speak is far more limited. Does Fidel consider the conflict in Cuba resolved, and is he now turning his gaze to other countries, hoping to replicate his revolution throughout the world?

I contribute little to the conversation, but then again, it’s evident I’m not meant to. I’m here to look pretty and hang on Fidel’s every word.

The seat I’ve taken comes complete with a full place setting of silverware, and the cutlery tempts me, the steak knife inches away from my fingers. If I grabbed it now, if I lunged across the table and stabbed Fidel with it, would I be fast enough before his security personnel could stop me? Would I have a chance?

I reach for the knife.

The brunette stares at me again, her gaze narrowed once more as though she is attempting to work something out in her mind.

I force my hand back to my lap.

As the evening progresses, the crowd thins, the conversation changing as the men and women group together. Fidel’s gaze grows bolder with each glass of Chivas Regal.

Does he want the conquest of sleeping with one of Emilio Perez’s daughters?

I—

I consider it.