“I appreciate you coming,” he said.
“I’m here because I’m curious. That’s it. Don’t confuse curiosity with commitment.”
“Fair enough.” He took a sip of his wine. “I’ll be direct. Quest cut me off from his distribution network. I need a new way to move product. You have the logistics infrastructure, the contacts, and the experience. I also understand that Quest’s casino is reopening soon and that you were instrumental in building its financial architecture.”
“I was.”
“Then you understand its value better than anyone. And you understand how vulnerable it is without your involvement.”
I looked at him across the table. This man had done his homework. He knew about the split, knew about the casino, knew about my logistics operation. He’d studied the situation and found the fracture and was sliding a blade into it with theprecision of a surgeon. I respected the approach even if I didn’t trust the man behind it.
“What exactly are you proposing?” I asked.
“A partnership. I supply the product and the capital. You supply the infrastructure and the knowledge. We build a competing operation that makes Quest’s refusal to work with me irrelevant. And eventually, when the time is right, we take the casino.”
“Take it how?”
“Financially. Legally. Through leverage and pressure, not bullets. I’m not interested in violence when money works better.” He set his wine down and looked at me with those patient eyes. “But I’m not opposed to it either. If it becomes necessary.”
I sat with that for a minute. The whiskey was good and the room was quiet and Mateo Rios was sitting across from me offering me everything Quest had just taken away. Revenue, infrastructure, a path forward. All I had to do was bet against the man I’d spent twenty years building with.
“I need something from you first,” I said.
“Name it.”
“Quest and I have unfinished business. There’s a man named Mega who’s responsible for the attack on my brother. Quest is hunting him too. I need Quest to find Mega and handle that situation before I make any moves against him. Zephyr comes first. Once my brother has his justice, I’m all in.”
Rios studied me for a long moment. Then he nodded. “I can be patient. I’ve been patient with Quest for five years. A few more weeks won’t change anything.”
“And I want your word that when we move on the casino, it stays clean. No bodies in the building. That’s a legitimate business and I helped build it from the ground up. I’m not letting anybody burn it down.”
“You have my word. The casino is worth more intact than destroyed. I’m a businessman, Mr. Black. I prefer acquisitions over demolitions.”
We shook hands across the table. His grip was firm and dry and held a second longer than it needed to. I met his eyes and he met mine and we both understood what this handshake meant. We weren’t friends. We weren’t partners yet. We were two men who’d been wronged by the same person and were aligning our interests until those wrongs were corrected.
“One more thing,” Rios said as I stood to leave. “I understand Quest has a woman. Mehar Ali.”
I stopped. “What about her?”
“Nothing. Just making sure I have the full picture.” He smiled and it didn’t reach his eyes. “It’s important to know what a man values. It tells you where he’s vulnerable.”
I looked at him for a second too long. Something about the way he said her name made my skin itch. Like he already knew more about Mehar than he should and was testing whether I’d react to it.
“Leave her out of this,” I said. “Whatever beef you got with Quest, his girl ain’t part of it.”
“Of course.” He raised his glass. “Enjoy your evening, Mr. Black.”
I walked out of that steakhouse and sat in my truck and gripped the steering wheel until my knuckles ached. I’d just shook hands with a man who was going to help me take everything from my best friend of twenty years. My former best friend. The man who taught me the business side while I taught him the streets. The man whose family I’d protected like they were my own blood.
But my actual blood was in a hospital bed learning how to brush his teeth from a wheelchair. And Quest had chosen awoman he’d known for months over the brother I’d known for a lifetime.
I started the truck and pulled out onto M Street and drove home in silence. The part of me that still had love for Quest was screaming. The part of me that loved Zephyr more was already planning.
24
Serenity
The hotel room had brown carpet and a water stain on the ceiling shaped like a fist and curtains that didn’t close all the way, letting a strip of afternoon light fall across the bed where I was tied by both wrists to the metal headboard with zip ties that were cutting into my skin every time I moved.
