“You serious about just handing these territories back over to us?” Ferraro asks. He looks up with narrowed eyes from their generous offering list. “I thought you guys and the 24K were basically married.”
“Not anymore,” Phantom answers, leaving it at that.
Han would have painted a picture for Ferraro. Let him know just how lucrative and sweet being in business with The Silent Triad could be for their partners. But Victor supposes he should be grateful Phantom hasn’t dropped any insults or swears yet. Five whole minutes. That’s a record for him.
However, Ferraro isn’t nearly as circumspect.
“Damn. I was hoping that whatever you offered me would be bullshit. This makes it way harder to say no.”
Victor does not sign in meetings with potential partners. Ever. But the stakes are so high. He breaks his long-held rule.
He signs, and Phantom translates, “Then don’t say no. I promise not to hurt her. But I must have her back. Our parting is a fight that went too far.”
Ferraro levels Victor with a considering look then seems to decide out loud, “Okay, I believe you…”
But before Victor’s heart has a chance to lift, Ferraro adds, “My wife, though? There’s no way she’s going for this deal. And there’s no amount of money in the world that would make me betray her trust. I did that once, and it didn’t work out too hot for me. I was exactly where you’re at right now for years. So, I’ve gotta say no to this deal.”
Ferraro grimaces. “But you know, if you ever want to do something together without Dawn being brought into it, I’d be more than happy to ally with you guys. I respect your game, and I think we could make for good business partners. Just not in exchange for Dawn Kingston. I’m truly sorry about that. For myself most of all.”
No, no…he has to take this deal. Victor raises his hands for further negotiations.
But before he can get more words out, the door crashes open with a bang. “Aha! I thought I’d find you here when you were all mumbly-mouthed about your plans this morning.”
A woman comes barging through the door, tapping a mobility stick for the visually impaired to guide her into the room. She’s an exquisite beauty with delicate features arranged in perfectly symmetrical order under golden brown skin. This must be Ferraro’s wife, Amber. She’s even more beautiful than in the rather old pictures of her on the internet. If not for the mobility stick, Victor would have thought some otherworldly being had decided to grace their meeting.
Well, the mobility stick and the fact that her entire face is furrowed with irritation.
Ferraro shakes his head at his wife, but he doesn’t look at all surprised to see her, even as he asks, “What are you doing here, Amber?”
“What are you doing here?” she shoots back. “With the enemy?”
“I invited him here. To talk business,” Ferraro answers.
“Then you should have invited me too.” She taps over to confront him as if they’re two contenders in a prizefight. “Especially if this business involved one of my clients.”
Ferraro glares down at his wife. “As I was just explaining to my guests, I’m not willing to do any business with them if it involves your client. So there, wife, who obviously doesn’t trust me.”
Several charged beats pass between Mr. and Mrs. Ferraro. To Victor, it looks like they’re on the verge of a physical fight. But then, Amber grins and says, “Well, I appreciate it, husband.”
To Victor’s surprise, she gives Ferraro a smacking kiss on the lips, then turns to face him and Phantom.
“Which one of you is this asshole, Victor?” she demands.
Victor’s not sure how she realized there were two of them, but she’s put Phantom in the very awkward situation of saying. “I’m his cousin, Phantom. I guess you’re dealing with me since he doesn’t talk and you don’t see.”
“Got it. Victor’s the one on the left,” she says. “Victor. Do you know who da fuck I am?”
Victor glares back at her. Yes, of course, he knows who she is.
He’d spent the last few weeks hate reading through all the divorce cases she’d brought against powerful men. Crime lords, titans of industries, even formidable politicians who could make her husband’s life very hard—she was willing to stand up to anyone on behalf of her clients. And from all reports, she was extremely good at her job until she married the Ferraro don and became his mafia family’s head lawyer. But apparently, she decided to come out of retirement just for this case.
Victor grinds his teeth. So, yes, he knows who she is. But this time, he doesn’t sign, choosing instead to fall back on his favorite weapon. Silence.
However, Amber doesn’t seem to need his acknowledgment before steaming ahead. “Let me tell you, I was looking very forward to eviscerating you in court for what you put my client through. But after six weeks of searching, my assistant was able to confirm beyond a shadow of a doubt, you and Dawn weren’t ever legally married.”
She retracts her mobility stick and slams it down on Ferraro’s desk. “So now I’m here to ask you on her behalf, what the hell?”
3
10 Years Ago
RHONDA
“I love myself,” the voice on the screen said.
“I love myself,” Rhonda repeated, leaning against the diner’s counter where she had her dad’s laptop propped up before opening hours.
“I love everything about myself,” the voice on the screen said.
“I love everything about myself,” Rhonda repeated, trying to ignore the inner squirm those words brought up inside of her after the disbandment of her girl group, Enjenue.
This was the point of affirmations, one of the much younger student stylists at the Providence Beauty Academy had told her. To break up old thought patterns and forge new ones. She’d also said that this YouTube website that everybody was talking about was a good place to start.
“I love who I am,” the voice on the screen insisted from behind a still picture of a tropical sunrise.
Rhonda let out a breath of relief. This one was a little easier to say out loud. Not a lot. Because, real talk, if you asked a group of kindergarteners what they wanted to be when they grew up, how many of them would say, “A washed-up forty-year-old singer-turned-waitress, trying to figure out what to do with the rest of her life”?
Zero kindergarteners. That’s how many. But Rhonda repeated after the voice dutifully, “I love who—”
She broke off with a shriek when a man appeared out of the blue and took a seat at her counter.
But then, her heart rate calmed when she saw who it was. “Goddammit, Wayne, you scared me half to death!”
Wayne just dead-eyed her from the other side of the counter.
Meanwhile, her father yelled out from the kitchen, “No cussing!”
Rhonda rolled her eyes. But before she could remind her father that she wasn’t an eighteen-year-old he could boss around anymore, he called out, “I left the Chinaman’s envelope behind the business license.”
Rhonda gritted her teeth, not liking any of this, including that her father still referred to Wayne as “the Chinaman”—apparently, you could take the black guy out of Kansas, but you couldn’t take the offensive Kansas vocabulary out of the black guy.