“Now can you let me go?” Drake asked. “You got your video. You know the backstory. Let’s just end this now.”
“My sentiments exactly,” Nico said.
“I have a better idea,” said Kay.
Both men looked at her. “What?” asked Nico.
“He wanted to harm my campaign,” Kay said. “Now he’s going to help it.”
“Help it how?” Nico asked.
“I don’t know if you know this, Nico, but I’m not exactly considered a soft shoe in the press.”
“Oh, I know,” said Nico. “They call you everything from a tough broad to a tougher broad.”
“Right. But Eddie is going to soften my image. He’s going to make me a sympathetic figure.”
“And how is he going to do that?”
“He’s going to hold a press conference where he admits he tried to blackmail me with a doctored video. He’s not going to say what was on the video. But that will be enough.”
But Drake was alarmed. “A press conference saying I tried to blackmail you? Are you serious? I’ll go to prison!”
“Prison or the grave,” Nico said. “Pick your poison.”
Drake didn’t know what to say. He leaned his head back. “This can’t be happening!”
Then Nico pulled Kay aside, away from earshot of Drake. “I don’t like the idea, babe.”
Kay was surprised. “Why not?”
“Because it’s too damn risky. What if he gets up there and changes his story?”
“Oh, no. It won’t be a live recording,” Kay said confidently. “We’ll make a video of him confessing to the truth. If he lies, we’ll have that video to show.”
But Nico still wasn’t convinced.
“That’s all we’ve got, Nico,” Kay said. “He’s saying there are no other copies. But how do we know there aren’t any more out there? What if he sent them around?”
“I’ll have my guys turn his cell phone over to my forensics lab. If there are any other copies out there, my lab guys will find them.”
“He may know how to cover his tracks too,” Kay said. “If we get him on record, it’ll be insurance. That’s all I’m saying. So that if that video suddenly appear a few days before the election, I’ll at least be able to show his confession and have a counternarrative. I’ll at least have a fighting chance.”
Nico exhaled. “You know politics,” he said, “but I know human behavior. And when I finish with Drake, he’ll let me in on all his secrets.”
But Kay was shaking her head. “We can’t have that on my watch, Nico. Not on my watch. Let’s get me elected.”
“And then?” Nico asked.
“And then do whatever the hell you need to do to him,” Kay said.
Nico smiled. “I always pegged you as a lady who can handle herself. But I never pegged you as ruthless too.”
Kay seemed surprised. “Ruthless?”
“Oh, yes ma’am. You’re right up there with the best of us. May even surpass us. Don’t look shocked.” Then his look turned serious. “Stay that way,” he said. “If we’re going to try and make our relationship work again, we’ll need to be on the same page, working together, every step of the way.”
“But how, Nico?” Kay asked, with a doubtful look in her eyes. “Especially if I win.”
“I protect you. And you protect me,” he said. “Fifty-fifty.” Then he added: “I’ll look out for you, Kay. I won’t ever desert you again.”
Kay’s heart swelled with emotion, good and bad. She didn’t know if she was ready to commit completely to him again. Not ever the way he broke her heart. She just didn’t know! “You’ll have to show me this time, Nico,” she said.
Nico nodded. He understood.
But Kay had Eddie Drake on her mind. And then they both walked over to him. “You’re going to make that confession, Eddie,” Kay said to him.
“But why do I need to expose myself like that?” Drake asked as if the sting of Nico’s punches, a sting he was still feeling, didn’t bother him at all. “I’m the only person who has that video. I didn’t let anybody else in on it. You know I don’t rob banks with a group. I rob alone. I’ve always told you that.”
“You told me a lot of things,” Kay said bitterly. “Like how you rewarded loyalty, for instance, but you turned around and fired me, and then supported my opponent. I don’t put any credence in what you told me.”
“You have a point, Kay,” said Nico, understanding her ultimate goal. “Because if that video does surface prior to election day, we’ll whip out Eddie’s confession. Everybody will know it’s fake. Everybody will know it’s Asshole’s attempt to destroy you.”
Kay nodded. “That’s how I see it too.”
“But I don’t see it that way!” Drake insisted.
Nico grabbed him up again. “Let’s get one thing straight, Asshole,” he said. “You don’t have a vote! Understand?”
Drake was too proud to beg, but he was no fool either. “Yes,” he said.
And Nico released him. And looked at his crew chief. “Contact Kofi. Tell him I want a clean script. Straight forward. A confession with no wiggle room. And I want it all on video.”
“Yes, sir,” the crew chief said.
And Nico took Kay, and they left the building.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
They were at Nico’s Chicago mansion, naked in bed, snuggled together spoon-style. Kay knew she had to get back to business. This was her second day off the campaign trail. But she didn’t want to leave Nico’s side. And he didn’t want to part with her either.
“This can’t go on forever you know,” she said to him.
“I know,” said Nico. “But I want you with me until we’re certain that ambush wasn’t meant for you.”
Kay was surprised to hear him say that. She turned around, on her opposite side, to face him. “But you said it wasn’t meant for me,” she said. “You said that back in France.”
“And it probably wasn’t. But I have to be certain, babe.”
But Kay sensed more. “What made you change your tune?” she asked him.
“Eddie Drake. I’ve got a feeling he didn’t try that shit on his own. He’s a vengeful man, but that kind of elaborate revenge isn’t his style. I’ve got a feeling he has a backer. Until I find out who that backer is, I need you with me.”
“But what if you can’t find out today?” Kay asked. “I’ve got to get back on the trail. There are no ands, ifs, or buts about it. Rog cleared my schedule for two days already. We have eight days to go. I’ve got to get back.”
She sat up on the side of the bed, and began putting back on her clothes.
Nico reluctantly got out of bed too. “Where do you live now?” he asked, as he began putting on clothes too.
“Where I always lived.”
Nico looked at her. “I would have thought Rog and your campaign would have put you in fancier digs by now.”
“Oh, they tried to,” Kay replied. “My mega donors had a mansion and a lake house ready for me to move into. They thought it would improve my image as a woman of means.”
Nico smiled. “That’s not your image at all,” he said.
“I told those fools. I’m a regular person defending the little guy. That’s my image. That’s the only image I ever want to have. And I don’t live in mansions or own lake houses. If anything, what they were suggesting would do more harm than good to my image,” she said, as her cell phone rang.
“I agree,” said Nico as she grabbed her cell phone off of the nightstand and looked at the Caller ID.
She answered it. “Hey, Rog.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m in town.”
“Oh, good! I was worried when the plane returned without you. How did you pull that off?”
“Nico gave me a lift,” Kay said.
“I figured as much. Need me to send the van?”
“No. Not yet. I’ll get there.”
“Not here. Go home. Don’t come to the office yet. Hord
es of reporters are out front. They still think you’re here at headquarters anyway. As if you sleep here, can you imagine? But you’ll need to come in soon so your Secret Service detail can eyeball you.”
“Understood.”
“Did he help?” Rog asked.
Kay smiled. “Yes. Yes, he did.”
“Meaning?”
“We’ve got the video and the man who was going to circulate it.”
“Praise God!” Rog said with great relief. Then he asked who the perp was.
Kay exhaled. She still couldn’t believe it. “Eddie Drake,” she said.
Rog was stunned. “Eddie? Are you serious?”
“Dead serious,” said Kay. “He seems to think the presidency was his for the taking, and because you and I left his reelection campaign ten years ago, it’s our fault that his political ambitions were never fully realized.”
“It was all his fault, and he knows it,” Rog said.
“My point exactly.”
“Thank Nico for me,” Rog said.
Kay looked at Nico. “I will,” she said.
“Does that mean you two are on speaking terms again?”
Kay smiled. “I would say so, yes.”
“Good! But no more than hello and goodbye, Kay. You can’t have any affiliation with a guy like that. Not now. Not ever. You understand that, right?”
A sadness came over Kay. How in the world would she and Nico pull this off?
“Are you still there, Kay?” Rog asked.
“Yes, I’m still here.”
“Where are you?”
Kay didn’t respond.
“You’re at his place, aren’t you?”
Still no response.
“So it’s on again? Kay, that’s not a good idea. Not now. Not ever.”
“I’ll talk to you later, Rog.”
“Did you hear me?”
“I heard you.”
“And?”
“And on matters concerning my personal life? That’s not for you to say. I’ll talk to you later, Rog,” she said again, and ended the call.
Nico saw that sadness in her eyes. “What’s wrong?” he asked her.
“How are we going to do this, Nico? If we’re going to be together --”
“No if,” Nico corrected her. “We are going to be together.”
“But how?” Kay asked with distress in her voice. “If I win this election, how can I keep you a secret when I’ll be on the biggest stage in the world? You left because I was running for Congress. Now I may have the presidency? What kind of relationship is that going to look like?”
“It won’t be easy,” Nico said. “We’ll both have to bear some risk. But we’ll make it work,” he added, as his own cell phone began to ring. “Just like we’re doing now.” He looked at his Caller ID. And he answered his phone. “Yes?”
“You’re home?”
Nico hesitated. “Yes.”
“I’m headed your way. Don’t shoot me.”
“Where are you?”
“Five minutes out. We need to meet.” And then the call ended.
Nico stood there, contemplating his options.
Kay, still dressing, looked at him. “Who was that?” she asked him.
“The one man who may be able to tell me who was behind that ambush.”
Kay’s movements stopped. “Maybe he was behind it,” she said.
But Nico shook his head. “He wasn’t. I know him.”
“How do you know him?”
“He and my father once went to war many years ago. I negotiated the peace.”
Kay realized she knew precious little about Nico’s family. “You’re going to meet with him?” she asked him.
Nico nodded. “Yes.”
“Where?”
“Here. He’s coming here. But I want you to stay out of sight.”
“Why can’t I just leave?”
“Because he’ll be here any minute now. Because I’m going to be the one to take you where you need to go.” Nico finished dressing. “Wait here,” he said, and was about to head out. But then he stopped. And paused. And then he made up his mind.
“Come here,” he said to her.
She followed him to a room in the back of his bedroom. He opened a slot on the door and showed her a lock. “The code is 791,” he said to her. “If shots are fired, you press that code and go into this safe room. And check out the monitors there to find out what happened.”
Now Kay was worried. “You expect violence?”
“No. But you never know.”
Kay stared at him. Nico could tell she was still worried. “You have to trust my ability to handle sticky situations, Kay. No matter what.”
Kay understood that too. “791. Okay, Nico,” she said.
Nico stared at her, and then he lifted her chin with his hand, and leaned down and kissed her. A simple kiss that turned passionate, as it always did. Then he headed up front.
Not ten minutes later and Sal Gabrini, the head of the Gabrini Crime Family, along with Matty Mapp, the underboss in the Peltrone Crime Family, were walking through Nico’s front door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
She pressed the combination and was inside that safe room faster than Nico could walk out of his bedroom. And she didn’t immediately go into the safe room because she feared for her life. She decided to go in because she needed to see just what kind of life Nico led when she wasn’t around. The people coming were apparently Nico’s kind of people, and she needed to see what kind they were.
It took her several minutes to figure out the configurations on the dashboard of the security monitors in the safe room. When she finally figured it out, and segments of his Chicago home popped up on a group of monitor screens that weren’t nearly as numerous as the ones in his home in France, but still impressive, she zoomed in on the monitor displaying his living room just as Nico was opening his front door.
As soon as the two men walked in, Nico spoke to one, calling him Sal, and then he looked at the other one. And he didn’t hold back. “What the fuck’s he doing here?” he asked, as he stared down the younger man.
“Why the fuck you think?” the one Nico called Sal responded. “Your men iced his boss, and you don’t think he should be here?”
“His boss took out three of my men before he was iced. And then this cart roach took out three more,” Nico added, motioning toward the younger man.
“Well damn,” Sal said. “Can we at least sit down first?”
Kay stared at the man called Sal as they made their way toward the sofa. If the word mob boss was in a dictionary, Sal’s picture, she thought, would be the example. Everything about him screened Mob. From the double-breasted suit he wore, to his swagger, to the way he wore his hair like those old style Italian gangsters. It was seeing that guy that made Nico’s other world real for Kay.
After Nico allowed Sal and the other guy to take seats on the sofa, Nico sat down too.
“Nice place,” Sal said, looking around. “You letting that businessman shit go to your head, I see.”
But Nico still had the other guy on his mind. “I still don’t appreciate you bringing Matty to my home, Sal,” he said.
“Objection noted,” said Sal.
“I don’t know what your ass upset about,” the guy Nico called Matty said. Kay thought he had Mob written all over him, too, like some guy straight out of The Sopranos, but even he wasn’t as obvious as Sal.
“What, Nico,” Matty continued, “you forget what you did to my men? You took out twenty-five of my men, what are you crazy sitting over there? You took out nearly my entire crew!”
“You’d better be glad I didn’t take your ass out along with them,” Nico fired back.
“Okay, that’s enough!” said Sal. It there was a hierarchy in the mob, Kay thought, that guy apparently was higher up the chain than even Nico. And he looked at Nico. “Stop your bitching,” he said. “You got your payback.” Then he looked at Matty. “You got what you deserved hitting Nico’s
men twice, so stop bitching too. Only a fool would have ordered either one of those hits.”
“It wasn’t me, Sal, I told you that,” said Matty. “Peltrone ordered that first hit.”
Who was Peltrone, Kay wondered.
“But why did he order it?” Nico asked. “I had no beef with Pelly.”
“It wasn’t about beefing,” Matty said. “It was about power. And he figured he’d take some since you were never in Chicago anymore. He took your absence for weakness. He figured there was territory we could sneak in and grab.”
“Like I said,” Sal said, “a damn fool. That’s why his ass ain’t here. Not that I’m a fan of Nico’s ass. I’m not. He negotiated the worse peace deal in history, where his old man got to ice ten of my men and walk away scot-free. My Uncle Mick told me to take the deal because he didn’t want the bloodshed. Nico wanted me to take the deal because he didn’t want the bloodshed. I agreed to it, because I didn’t want bloodshed either.” Then he looked at Nico again. “But it was a bad deal.”
“Time to let that shit go, Sal,” said Nico.
“Your ass don’t tell me what to let go,” Sal fired back.
“It was too damn long ago,” Nico replied.
Sal exhaled. “The point is,” he said, “I don’t want the bloodshed now either. Not over Peltrone. That’s one reason why I wanted Matty at this meeting with me. Matty’s depleted now. He’s barely got a skeleton crew. He’s not coming after your men anymore and I don’t want you coming after him or what’s left of his men either.”
“I didn’t start the shit to begin with,” Nico said.
“A truce?” Sal asked.
“Not so fast,” said Nico. “There’s that French Connection. I’ll bet you know a little something about that, don’t you, Matty? Who was behind that ambush?” Nico asked Matty directly.
“Yeah, I heard about that,” Sal said. Then he looked at Matty. “You heard about that?”
But Matty was shaking his head. Too vigorously, Kay thought. “No, not me,” said Matty. “I didn’t hear nothing!”
Sal suddenly jumped up, grabbed Matty by his collar and placed a gun at his throat. “That’s not what I heard, motherfucker,” he said. “Now you want to answer my question? What happened in France?”
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