And Banks Reserve. My ex-husband’s company that my sons turned into a criminal enterprise while hiding behind premium bourbon and a family name. I know how the money moves. I know which trucks carry product that doesn’t appear on any manifest. I know the shell companies, the offshore accounts, the distribution routes. I know because I was the mayor who approved the permits and the wife who watched it being built from the dining room table.
One phone call. That’s all it would take.
“Vivica.” Gerald’s voice cut through my thoughts. “Did you hear what I said?”
I blinked and refocused. Gerald was sitting across from me with his notepad and his pen and his cautious optimism. We were in the consultation room going over trial preparation. He’d been talking for several minutes and I hadn’t heard a word because I was somewhere else. Somewhere darker.
“Yes,” I said. “You want to put me on the stand and we need to prepare for cross-examination.”
“Correct. The prosecution is going to come at you hard. They’re going to bring up the text messages with India, the affair, the political fallout. They’ll try to paint you as a woman scorned who killed her lover to protect her career. We need to reframe the narrative. You’re a public servant who was targeted by political enemies. India is alive somewhere and the prosecution can’t prove otherwise.”
“I can handle cross-examination, Gerald. I’ve handled worse.”
“I believe you can. But I need you focused. The trial is in two weeks and your freedom depends on the next fourteen days of preparation. Are you with me?”
I looked at him. This expensive, competent man who thought he was preparing me for a trial. He had no idea what I was actually preparing for. The trial was the beginning, not the end.If I walked out of here a free woman, and I was going to walk out of here a free woman, the first thing I would do is not open a consulting firm or run for city council or rebuild my reputation.
The first thing I would do is burn down everything my children built and rebuild it with myself at the center. The way it should have been from the start.
“I’m with you, Gerald,” I said. And I smiled at him. A warm, composed, mayoral smile that I’d perfected over two decades of public life.
He smiled back. But I noticed him shift in his chair, just slightly, the way people do when something about a smile doesn’t reach the eyes and their body registers the disconnect before their brain does.
Smart man. He should be uncomfortable.
40
Quest
Krystal buzzed my office around 2 PM. “Mr. Banks, there’s a Kacey Williams here to see you. She doesn’t have an appointment but she says it’s important.”
Kacey. I hadn’t spoken to her in weeks, since I last sent money. I knew this visit was coming eventually but I wasn’t expecting it today. “Send her in.”
She walked through my office door with red eyes and a tissue balled up in her fist and I knew before she opened her mouth that Prime’s staging had finally surfaced. She sat in the chair across from my desk and took a breath that shook on its way out.
“They found Thad,” she said.
“What?”
“I got a call from the morgue this morning. They found his body in an abandoned building that used to belong to someone named Rashid Muhammad.” She wiped her nose with the tissue. “I did some research on the man. His compound was raided over a year ago. He was involved in some pretty dark stuff. But he’s dead now. So who was working with him? Who could’ve done this to Thad?”
I sat back in my chair and let myself look like a man processing information he was hearing for the first time. I’d had months to prepare for this conversation. Prime and I had discussed exactly what the story would be if Thad’s body ever turned up. The narrative was clean and it led in one direction.
“We just killed Rashid’s last soldier,” I said. “A nigga named Mega. He was behind the warehouse fire, the robbery, the casino shooting. He was at war with us for months. If Thad got caught up in that, Mega probably took him as collateral.”
“But he was tortured, Quest.” Her voice cracked. “The coroner said he’d been held for months. Months. Whoever did this kept him alive and hurt him over and over again. His body was…” She couldn’t finish the sentence. She pressed the tissue against her mouth and closed her eyes and her shoulders shook.
“Mega was a sick individual,” I said. “He kidnapped my sister and held her in a motel for days. He forced drugs on her. Tortured her. The man was capable of anything and now he’s dead. He can’t hurt anybody else.”
“But why Thad? What did Thad have to do with any of your business?”
“I don’t know, Kacey. Mega targeted people connected to our family. Thad was around. He may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.” I looked at her across my desk and felt the weight of every lie I was telling settling into the space between us. This woman had no idea that the love of her life had killed Mehar’s sister. Had no idea that Mehar had kept him in a cage for months. Had no idea that Prime had staged the body to look like BCC work. She was grieving a monster and I was helping her do it because the alternative was worse.
“I’m going to cover the funeral,” I said. “Whatever you need. The service, the burial, flowers, all of it. And I’m going to make sure you and the kids are taken care of. Financially. For as long as you need.”
She broke. Full sobbing, face in her hands, body folding forward in the chair. I stood up and walked around the desk and put my hand on her shoulder and let her cry because that’s what the moment required. Comfort for a woman who deserved it even if the man she was mourning didn’t.
“Thank you, Quest,” she said between sobs. “Thank you. You didn’t have to do any of this.”
