Chapter 11
chapter Eleven
Aftermath
Nico
The group of men around me chuckle at my joke. Takeo Nakamura stays in step with me as we make our way to the door of the private dining section of an upscale restaurant.
“My wife and I will surely enjoy getting to explore Osaka.”
“Yes, indeed.” Nakamura stops at the entrance to the room. He looks from me to Stephanie. “It will be a great honor to do business with you, Mr. Basille.”
“The honor is all mine.” I bend slightly at the waist for a bow. Nakamura follows. He straightens before I do.
Each of his men gives me a bow before walking out. Once the last of the group leaves, Stephanie turns to me with a huge grin.
“Did we just do that? Did we just close one of the biggest deals in Basille Resort history?”
I’d been working on this Osaka deal for a few years. Trying to get one of my resorts in Japan has not been easy. But damn if we didn’t just seal that deal. Not only will I be building a hotel in Osaka, but now I’ll have one in Kyoto and Sapporo.
I grin down at Stephanie. “We sure the fuck did.”
Before she can reply, my name being called draws my attention. I turn to find William Ingram with a gorgeous light-skinned black woman. She looked like she could be a model with her long legs and slim body.
“Was that Takeo Nakamura?”
William looks over his shoulder to where Nakamura and his men had gone.
“I’m going to head back to the office,” Stephanie says, going back to the table and grabbing her tablet before squeezing past us.
“Yeah.” I turn back to William. “That was Nakamura.”
William’s smile turns to a sly grin. “You muthafucker. You got the Japan deal.” He releases his arm from around the girl and starts a slow clap.
I chuckle at his antics. As quiet as I’d kept the deal over the past two years, some things often get whispered about in our circles. It doesn’t hurt that everyone in the business world knows who Takeo Nakamura is. And the moment I was seen with him, they would’ve known what was going on.
“I won’t make the formal announcement until the end of the year.”
William chuckles. “Man, that’s great news. So, what’s the deal? One resort in Osaka?” he scratches his chin.
Shaking my head, I laugh. “You have a beautiful woman on your arm, why don’t you focus on her.”
William was a decent man, but I would not talk about my business with him.
He frowns for a moment before it turns to a grin. “Keep your secrets, Basille. I guess we both are having a successful year. Me with the Hart deal and you with this.”
Before I could respond, Ghost catches my eye. He’s on the phone, but the look on his face tells me something is wrong. When he hangs up, he signals for Roc to follow him over to me.
“Is everything alright?” William questions. I guess he too picked up on Ghost’s mood.
“We have to go,” Ghost demands. “Now.”
I don’t question him. He leads the way out of the private dining room. William calls out to me, but I don’t hear what he says.
As soon as we make it out the door, Roc walks around us and goes to the SUV that’s just been pulled around by valet.
“What the fuck is going on?”
Ghost looks at me as I head toward the open door of the backseat.
“It’s Tiff, Boss. She’s been attacked.”
My hearing goes wonky and my vision blurs. Rage has my blood damn near boiling it heats so fast.
“Take me to my wife.” I climb into the backseat of the SUV. Ghost gets in the passenger seat while Roc goes to the driver’s side.
Stepping out of the back of the SUV, I slam the door. Ghost joins me at my side as I make my way through the parking lot toward the ambulance.
Ghost filled me in on the ride over. The only information he got from Jake was that someone fucking pepper-sprayed my wife.
As I approach the back of the ambulance, I spot a worried-looking Mira cradling my son. Jake is standing off to the side, his hands in his pockets, his head on a swivel as he speaks to the police.
Mira turns to spot me as I approach. Apparently, I’m not doing much to hide my anger because she looks terrified. When I approach, Noah reaches for me. I take him out of her hands, needing to feel him to keep me calm.
“The paramedics say it looks worse than it is,” Mira whispers.
I don’t respond, but I appreciate the heads-up. Turning away, I walk around the side of the open door and spot Tiffany. The pounding in my chest sounds like a bass drum in my ears. Spots flash in my vision. I have to shut my eyes momentarily to tame the fire roaring within me.
1,2,3,4… I count in my head to calm myself.
Tiffany’s eyes are swollen as if she’s been punched in the face. Her lips look bigger, and there are dried tear marks that stain her cheeks. She has a vomit bag sitting on her chest, and her clothes are disheveled.
“How is she?” I ask the male EMS worker without taking my eyes off her.
Her head turns toward my voice.
“Nico?” her soft voice calls out to me. I can hear the fear and pain in her tone.
“I’m right here, Angel.”
I want to go to her, but I won’t get in the way of the health care workers taking care of her.
The male paramedic who’s standing closest to me turns and answers my question. “It seems she’s having some type of allergic reaction to the pepper spray. It isn’t unheard of. Sometimes people put their own concoctions together, and we can’t always tell what they used.”
I nod, thankful for his insight. The roaring in my ears seems to increase. I count in my head once more, trying to slow down my heart rate and the urge I have to shed blood.
“We offered to take her to the hospital, but she says she’s fine,” the paramedic goes on to say.
I cock my head to the side. “Take her to the hospital. Get her checked out.”
“I don’t need to go to the hospital. I’d much rather go home and shower,” she argues futilely.
The paramedic looks to me like he’s unsure who he should obey. If he didn’t want to end up as the first body I collect today, he will listen to me. I guess he could read the warning in my glare. He turns to the other paramedic and nods.
“We will take her to Memorial,” he says to me.
“Nico.”
Turning to my wife, I say simply. “You’re going to the hospital, Tiff. That’s final.”
She slumps back on the stretcher and crosses her arms over her chest like a petulant child. She can be mad all she wants; I wasn’t taking any chances.
I turn to a worried-looking Mira. “Ride with her. I’ll be right behind you.”
Mira nods before climbing up onto the back of the ambulance. The doors shut, and the ambulance quickly pulls away from the curb and out of the parking lot.
Ghost walks up to my side and puts his hand out for my son to play with. Noah wraps his hands around Ghost’s finger and immediately attempts to put it in his mouth. Even though Tiffany did not know Ghost was around, Noah had met him many times. My son loves his godfather.
“I want every fucking camera in this mall pulled for Maseo. Have the guys dust for fingerprints in that bathroom.”
Ghost wrestles his finger from my son and rakes his hand over his curls.
“I’ve already reached out to Maseo. He’s pulling the camera footage as we speak. I’ll call the crew to get the fingerprints.”
Dropping a kiss on Noah’s forehead, I turn to face Ghost. “A motherfucker tried to come after my wife.” I growl the words out.
“We got a lot of enemies, but something about this attack doesn’t sit right with me. I think this is connected to that letter and that fucking Horseman.”
On this, he and I agreed. I won’t lie as if I don’t have a shit ton of enemies lining up to take my head, but this doesn’t seem like something those muthafuckers would do.
I’m used to going up against killers and crime lords.
They have no morals and would snatch up my wife and leave her dead body for me to find without a second thought.
However, pepper spraying a defenseless woman while she’s taking a piss is beneath them.
“This has that fucking Horseman written all over it. This makes the second time he has gotten close to Tiffany.”
“Want us to put more men on her?”
This is why Ghost is my right hand. Not only does he have my back, but he treats my family like his own.
I already assigned her another guard. She doesn’t know about this one.
It was hard enough getting her to keep Jake.
I don’t think Tiffany has quite correlated that I’m Saint.
I mean, she knows I am from the video, but I don’t think she’s grasped that Saint is a real person.
If she did, she would understand why she needs bodyguards.
“I’ll keep Jake by her side. I have Cyrus working in the shadows, but I’ll add someone else with him. One of them should have eyes on my wife at all times.”
“What about little man?” He asks, ruffling Noah’s hair again. My son squeals and tries to bat his hand away.
“Noah has one of the top bodyguards in the world by his side. If anyone tries to come for him, Ms. Rose is more than capable of handling it. It’s only with his mom that he needs extra protection.”
I’ve seen the shit those Daughters of Egypt can do, no one’s fucking with Noah with Rose around.
“I’ll set up another set of eyes for Boss Lady,” Ghost says with a nod.
After talking to the cops and finding out they had nothing, Jake, Ghost and I headed back to my SUV with Noah in tow.
After strapping my now sleeping son in his car seat, I shut the door and turn back to Jake leaning back against the closed door.
I didn’t have to ask anything; he knew to get to talking.
“The woman that went into the bathroom said that the assailant was covered from head to toe in all black with a ski mask and shades on. She couldn’t even tell you the person’s race. All she knows is that they were taller than her.”
I scrub a hand down my face, pissed we had nothing. “And you’re sure no one went back there after Tiffany?”
Jake cocked his head to the side. “I watched that hall the entire time. A lady with brown hair came out not long after Tiffany went back there. But no one other than the chick that walked in went down that hall. Whoever did this had to have been lying in wait, or knew another way in.” He tugs at his beard.
“I should have gone back with her, but I was watching over Noah. She told me whenever she has to step away that I should stay with little man.”
I wave him off. If I thought Jake was lacking in his job or didn’t do his job correctly, he’d be bleeding already.
“Where was Cyrus?” Ghost asks the next question I was going to ask.
“On a side mission. That new client of hers bumped into her at the mall. It seemed like an innocent chance encounter, but you know I can be paranoid. I had Cy trail him to see if he did anything suspicious.”
The heat creeps back in, spreading out over my body.
My first run-in with the client left an unpleasant taste in my mouth, but I chalked it up to just a man flirting.
I’m not insecure. Even with us at odds, I wasn’t worried about Tiffany stepping out.
I know my wife is fucking gorgeous and men are going to flirt.
As long as none of them got disrespectful or forceful, I was good.
This new client wasn’t a threat to me, even though I warned Tiffany about him.
However, I now wasn’t taking anything for granted.
“What’s the verdict?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing. Cy said he went into a jewelry store, bought a diamond bracelet, and then left. He watched him pull out of the parking lot.”
Even though he seemed innocent, I still didn’t like the asshole.
“I want everything you have on the new client, Ezra Blackwell.”
Ghost nods, pulling out his phone. “I’ll have everything for you as soon as I can get it.”
Ghost and I load up in the SUV to head to the hospital as Jake goes for Tiffany’s car.