Balotelli-Bale Series Book #6: Regina Mia & The Godfather Part 1

Chapter 41: Favor Paid

Nick's POV
A couple of months ago, while overseeing some  construction work on the upper east side, a foreman came to me and asked me to follow him. He showed me something wrapped in a dirty white sheet. It didn't take me long to know what it was. It was a body.

Knowing it's discovery would cause a stop to our construction and send many construction workers home, the foreman and I agreed to keep it to ourselves. Later that night, as though things were meant to fall perfectly in place, I found a man waiting for me at the office. He told me his name is Brandon Banks and he wanted to pay me off in exchange for the body recovered at the construction site.

I have no use for pay offs. What I like to be owed is a favor because it is open-ended. I accepted an exchange, the body for a favor. Months down the line, here I am to collect.

The sound of the thick glass settling on the marble counter caught my attention. The smell from the glass feels like a toxic irresistible lover holding my neck and pulling me down to an embrace that will cost me.

"Don't tell me you put ice in your whiskey." Banks spoke with slight laughter in his voice.

"It's not that." I pushed it away. "I don't drink."

He stared at me like what I've said is unbelievable.

"Are you serious?"

"I'm a few days shy of being sober for five years."

"Shit man! Don't let me derail you." He took the glass and gulped down the whiskey. "That's good shit. Where's your boy?"

Julio left a few minutes ago. He didn't say where he was going. I had one of Bank's boys follow him.

"Outside."

He took a seat next to me, looking at the screen showing the news. Brian Lance is trending. It's all about him. Cops are vowing justice for him.

"They will crack the whip hard in the coming days." Banks noted. "They won't let the death of their own go like that. I don't envy the bastard who took him out."

I don't envy me either.

"Any news on the men hunting me?"

"Nothing new. They are maintaining positions outside my territory. They are waiting for you."

"Or waiting till the a.m when none of us expects it. You need to find me a way out. I won't be a sitting duck."

"I'm telling you there's no way out. We sit, wait for them to have the balls to come in and then if we have to, we fight."

"Are your men willing to die for me?"

"Not you, a cause I may choose to believe in."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm talking about you. You are the cause. I don't like Mancini. It will be better if he wasn't in the picture anymore. You seem like a sensible man. You could take over."

I'm not going around saying I'm taking over for good reason. I don't need external pressure.

"I just want to survive the night."

"To be scared another night?"

"Aren't you scared too? Of Mancini?"

"You know what I mean. Why run for the rest it your life and you can be king? Think about it. Mancini's is unstable. You don't know how happy I was when I heard Giorgio got popped. He was bat shit crazy. Trigger happy bastard shot two of mine because they gave him a bad feeling."

The young man I sent to follow Julio is back.

"I followed him. He went to a payphone to make a call."