Chapter 20 Quest
Quest
The renovations of the casino were going as planned and we would be reopening soon. Though liquor sales had been down the last two years, we were seeing it bounce back the last month or so, which was great news because I was sick of the underworld. I was ready to move on.
“You really reversing that vasectomy?” Justice asked me as we walked the premises.
“Yeah and I don’t wanna talk about it.”
“Nigga, I never thought I’d see the day. But you ain’t gotta do that. If you want kids, take mine. They are driving me crazy.”
“Not with that mouth Storie has on her.” That little girl had been poppin’ off lately since she started smelling herself.
I felt for my brother because it was only going to get crazier as she made her way through her teens.
If I were in his shoes, I would lock her lil ass downstairs in the basement until she was 18 years old.
Maybe 21. Shit, maybe 33. That’s when Jesus became the Christ. Perhaps 33 is the magical age of maturity.
Yeah, she’d be locked away until then. And then I’d be arranging her marriage to a respectable nerd.
But she ain’t my daughter, so I had to keep my mouth shut and let my brother handle this in his own way. Whenever she starts dating, I’ll be there on standby to chaperone all her dates though.
“I know. I thought she would fix her lil attitude after I took her phone but she’s been worse. Is there a military school for girls?” He joked.
“We can send her to scared straight and traumatize her into actin’ right.”
“Send her in there with yo’ mama. If she don’t get her act together some bitch named Big Ruby gon try to munch,” he laughed.
“Nigga that’s yo mama! That bitch is dead to me.
” I shook my head. I thought about what Rita said the other day about healing and really addressing it.
The truth was, I hadn’t. One thing after another kept popping up and those things needed my attention.
The betrayal I felt would have to wait. For now, it hid in my chest groaning like a volcano on the verge of rupturing.
And when it did, I’d make sure she felt it.
“She’s dead to me too. That bitch calls but I haven’t answered. You still ain’t confronted her about that Rashid shit?” he asked as we moved through the building, making our way to our offices.
“Got other things to focus on. She is the last of my worries but I’m def going to deal with her soon. Her trial is coming up. I’ll keep my ears to the streets.”
“What about Mega? Serenity hear anything back?”
“Nothing. That nigga ain’t called her back and it’s been almost a week. Either he ditched his phone or he’s too paranoid to answer.” I shook my head.
“He’ll surface. They always do. Especially when they’re on coke. He’ll run out of supply and come up for air.”
“Yeah. I just wish it was sooner than later because I got other shit to deal with.”
Justice dapped me up and headed to his office.
I went to mine, sat behind the desk, and started going through three days of emails I’d been neglecting.
Contracts, insurance adjusters, the construction foreman asking me to approve a change order on the VIP lounge.
Normal shit. Business shit. Work that reminded me why I built all of this in the first place. Not for the streets. For the legacy.
My assistant, Krystal, buzzed in about twenty minutes later. “Mr. Banks, a Mr. Rios is here to see you. He doesn’t have an appointment.”
“Send him in.”
Mateo Rios walked through my office door in a tailored navy suit with no tie and his hair slicked back. He sat down without being invited, crossed his legs, and gave me an overconfident look. He looked as if I owed him something and he was going to walk away with it.
“I was hoping you’d had some time to reconsider my proposal,” he said.
I laughed in his face. I couldn’t help it. This was genuinely funny to me. “Mateo, how many times are you gonna come in here and ask me the same question expecting a different answer? That’s literally the definition of insanity.”
“It’s also the definition of persistence. And persistence has made me a very wealthy man.”
“And my answer has made you a very rejected one. Multiple times.” I stopped laughing because the humor had served its purpose and now we needed to get to the business.
“Let me be clear with you since the last few conversations apparently didn’t stick.
Our arrangement is done. I’ve paid what I owed you for the product that was lost. Every dollar, plus the ten percent I promised.
We’re square. And I’ve recovered what I needed to recover from the people who took it. ”
He didn’t need to know the details of that last part. The half of his cocaine sitting in my possession was leverage I was keeping in my back pocket.
“So there’s nothing left to discuss between us,” I continued. “No partnership. No equity. No transport arrangement. We’re done doing business. Effective today.”
Rios uncrossed his legs and leaned forward slightly. Just enough for the energy in the room to shift. His face didn’t change but something behind his eyes did, that patient predator stillness I’d clocked the first time he sat in that chair hardening into something colder.
“My family will be very disappointed to hear that,” he said.
“Disappointment is a fact of life, Mateo. We all deal with it.”
“Some of us deal with it better than others.”
I looked at him across my desk. This man with his tailored suit and his veiled threats and his cartel connections sitting in my chair trying to make me feel something I’d never felt in a boardroom or a basement.
I wasn’t afraid of Mateo Rios. I wasn’t afraid of his family.
I’d been in rooms with men who made Rios look like a middle manager and I’d walked out of every single one of them on my own two feet.
“Be easy,” I said. “And don’t come back to my office.”
He sat there for a second longer than necessary.
Then he stood, buttoned his jacket, and walked out without another word.
No handshake this time. The door clicked shut behind him and I sat there for a minute thinking about whether I’d just made a problem worse or put one to bed.
Decided I didn’t care either way. I wasn’t in the business of bending for men who thought patience and threats were the same thing.
I finished the emails, signed the change order, called the insurance adjuster back, and packed up. It was almost seven and Mehar was at the estate waiting for me and I’d been away from her for too many hours already. I grabbed my keys and headed for the elevator.
The drive to Virginia was quiet and clean and for forty-five minutes I wasn’t a CEO or a killer or a man at war with his best friend. I was just a man driving home to the woman he loved. And that was enough.