Chapter 0010

•SANTINO•

“Haley?”

She chuckled when she saw me. “I knew I had to lie about having a baby to see you. I can’t believe that you’re still a playboy, buddy.”

“What are you doing here?”

“It’s been a long time, Sanny. I had to come over and check up on you. The last time we saw each other, it was during Derrick’s funeral.”

Derrick’s funeral was 2 years ago. He was one of my best friends, and a shootout killed him. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“You know you didn’t have to lie about your name and being pregnant for me if you wanted to see me.” I opened the door in my office and let her in.

“Well, you and I left things hanging the last time you returned to Chicago. So, how was I to know that you still wanted to see me?”

I turned to her and scoffed. “Your brother didn’t want us together, remember? I didn’t want to make you choose between me and your family.”

“Travis just wanted to see if you had balls. I guess you proved him otherwise.”

“Does he know that you’re here?”

She sighed as she walked to the chair before my desk and sat down. Her expression changed, and I sat down in my chair and looked at her with concern.

“What’s going on, Naeve?”

“My brother is in exile. He owed Rio a lot of money and put all his assets and properties as collateral if he couldn’t settle the debt. When the deal he was hoping to close, worth millions of dollars, didn’t go according to plan, Travis sold all his assets and properties and ran away. Rio is after him as we speak, and I’m afraid that he will find my brother and kill him.”

“When did this happen?”

“2 months ago. I’ve tried everything to find him and to talk to Rio, but nothing has worked. You’re the only one who can help me now, Santino. If it were ever true that you ever felt anything for me, please do this one thing for me.”

“What do you want me to do?” I asked.

“My God, what is that? Are you married?” Naeve gasped when she looked at my hand and saw a wedding band.

“Oh no,” I cleared my throat. “This is nothing; don’t worry about it.”

She got up from the chair, clearly disturbed by the ring and the meaning behind it.

My goodness, the situation was complicated, and I didn’t want to explain it to her. Not now.

“You don’t have to help me, Santino. If you’re married, I understand, and I don’t mean to overstep the boundary you already laid.”

“I’m not married, Naeve.” I stopped her as she walked to the door, and then I sighed. “Let me help you.”

She turned around, looked at me, and smiled. “Do you have any idea what I was going to do if it were true that you were married? I was going to bathe myself in your wife’s blood. You’ve always been mine, Sanny. It would drive me mad to find out that another woman owns you.”

“Is that so? I thought you knew I didn’t belong to anyone.”

She leaned closer to me, grabbing my hands. “Well, you were mine before everything that went down. If my brother weren’t so arrogant as to meddle in our business, you and I would still be together by now.”

I slipped my hands from hers as I walked to my chair and sat down. “How much do you think your brother owes Rio?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Something around 20 million or more. He couldn’t settle the amount, so he ran away. Rio would’ve killed him if he didn’t have his money.”

She sat down on the edge of the table, brushing her leg over my thigh, and though I wanted to feel something for her, I felt nothing.

“Alright, I’ll see what I can do. I’ll send one of my guys to talk with Rio and find out if he can name his price and leave your brother alone.”

“Well, what do you say you and I carry on where we left off? There’s no one here to stop us from being together.”

My heart felt heavy at her request. Camilla and I were not together, yet I felt entitled to her.

I got up from my chair, took her hand, and helped her off the table. “Come by my office again tomorrow; I think I’ll have something by then.”

She furrowed her brow. “Wait. Are you sending me away?”

“I have a lot of work to do.”

She sighed as she took her handbag and clutched it under her arm. “That’s okay, Sanny. Thank you for helping me and my brother. I will forever be grateful to you.”

She kissed my cheek and then headed to the door, leaving. When the door closed behind her, I sighed as I sat down in my chair.

“Mr. Banks, Cole is downstairs waiting for you,” Paul informed me as he peeked his head through the door.

“Alright, tell him I’ll be with him shortly.”

Paul closed the door, and I tidied up my desk and got up. I was expecting Cole’s visit for some time, and hopefully, he was going to help with Rio.

“Man, you really turned this motherfucker around. Look at this place,” he said as he looked around the club. “I like it, man. This is what we were talking about, and you made sure that it came out perfectly.”

“Yeah, it’s not bad. I’ve been thinking of extending it and getting a casino section somewhere.”

“Yeah, I like that.”

We walked to the booth in the VIP section after getting a bottle of whiskey from the bar.

“So, I came here about Giovanni. You know that in a few days, people are going to be voting for a mayor, and he’s the first choice as we speak. We can’t let that happen, Santino. The guy will disrupt our business.”

I sighed as I sat down in the booth, facing him. “If we kill him, it’s going to raise suspicions, especially with the voting period at hand.”

“We can make it look like suicide. Think about it,” he poured the whiskey into our glasses. “We will have him write a suicide note, and the police, including his family, will think that the guy killed himself because he couldn’t deal with his demons anymore.”

I looked at him, nodding. I then took my glass of whiskey and sipped.

“Or, we can make it look like someone killed him. We both know that the guy is hated by a lot of people, so that wouldn’t come as a surprise. As a politician, he has been bound to make enemies who are lethal enough to kill him. Titus Ambrose is his opponent, and he hates Giovanni. He’s the prime suspect if Giovanni is found dead,” I suggested.

“So, we agree? We kill Giovanni Crawford?”

“Tomorrow at sunset, everything and everyone will be ready.”