MICHAEL
I lose track of time, it’s so easy in a place like this. With nothing but the jungles to go off of, I can’t tell how far we’ve traveled, or how long it will take for us to arrive at our destination. Lana is tense beside me, her whole body on full alert.
“We are here,” Paolo’s driver says in thickly accented English, the headlights of the car sweeping over an iron wrought security fence, where a gate is creaking open as the driver stops and gives a wave to a camera off to the side.
Lana leans forward, her eyes darting from one side to the other, and behind her, Joseph looks at me, his eyebrows knitted together. I know exactly what he’s thinking. This is the last place we want Lana to be.
Once we pull up the long drive to the front of an expensively crafted modern-looking home, both the driver and the other man get out of the car, the driver opening my side door first.
“You know what? I think it would be best if you stay here with Joseph,” I say to Lana who is getting ready to slide out behind me.
She frowns. “No! I want to go inside and talk to this guy, too.”
Joseph gently places his hand on her shoulder, his eyes still on me. “Michael’s right, as much as I hate to admit it. There’s probably a bunch of trigger-happy armed men crawling all over this place. It would just be safer if someone stayed out here with you while Michael goes inside and handles business. Besides, Paulo likes Michael best, I think.”
Lana studies my face for a moment before slumping back against the seat. “I don’t like this. Not one bit. I hate having to stay in here like some child, waiting. Olivia is my baby. Mine.”
I know she’s just cranky, and only riding on fumes, so I reach out and tuck a stray curl behind her ear, Lana leaning against my hand, her eyes fluttering shut. “I know she is. So let me take care of this so we can get her, okay?”
She nods as Joseph pulls her against his chest, and I shut the door without another backward glance. I hate seeing her so torn up like this.
Paolo’s men gesture for me to follow behind them quickly, and I’m led up the few long steps to the entrance of his place, where just as I had imagined, two armed guards stand, having a full-on conversation with both men I’m with in fluent Spanish. Deep down I’m pissed off at myself for not having kept up with my Spanish lessons from Wellington-Meade, only catching clips of what they are saying here and there.
“Paolo is inside. Waiting for you, come,” they say.
His place is tastefully decorated, not as extravagant as one would expect from a drug cartel overlord, funny enough. As I walk into a large formal dining room, Paolo is seated at one end of a long table, a plate of something that smells absolutely delicious steaming in front of him.
“Ah, Michael Wright. Please, have a seat by me,” he says gesturing to the open seat next to him, across from the same man I had met before, Ramone.
“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice,” I say to him, nodding my head in his direction as I take a seat. Hopefully, no one can hear how loud my stomach is rumbling since I haven’t eaten anything in at least twelve hours or so.
“But of course. Now, let’s get down to this nasty business with the Escobars. I know them well enough, Julio Escobar is my rival, yet we’ve been able to keep it more so civilized than some of the other smaller groups. I believe we can help you get the little girl back, but…” He folds his hands out in front of him, something glinting in his eyes. “I will need something in return.”
I fully expect this, of course, because nothing is ever free. “What is it that you would like in return?”
Settling back into his chair, he levels his gaze at me, studying me perhaps. Finally, he shrugs his shoulders. “I want an interest in your business. You see, I am in a certain business that profits well enough, but I believe in keeping up with changing times. It would help my efforts considerably to have your company invested in me, and have American money pouring into my accounts, now that everything within my empire has changed so drastically. I need to stake a claim, to legitimize everything, so to speak.”
As much as it pains me, I understand where he’s coming from. And even after all the hard work my mother did to ensure that the business was handled with care, and turned into something booming and thriving, I was going to have to get that all up for Lana. “We can offer you 20% of the company.”
A slow smile spreads across Paulo’s face, but he simply shrugs again. “Hmm. At your business’s valuation, I’m going to need at least 40%. Not so much that I will have a controlling stake in it, but substantial enough. With such resources, I could make sure that the Escobar cartel will soon cease to be an issue here. No one will speak of them again once I’m through.”
I fight the sick feeling in my stomach, reminding myself why we’re here in the first place. “Let me make the call, first,” I say to him, pulling out my cell phone.
Joseph picks up on the first ring. “What did he say?”
I keep my voice level. “Paolo says he can help us. He is going to need 40% of the business, however.”
“Give him whatever the hell he wants,” Joseph practically growls. “Tell him we have a deal.”
Pocketing my phone, I give Paulo my best business smile. He’s a shark, there’s no doubt about it, and it might lead to trouble down the road, but Olivia’s worth it. Her sweet smile is all I can think about. “We have a deal. But first,” I say, watching the way Paolo’s eyes light up, “I will need you to trust me to sort out all of the business arrangements once this whole thing blows over. Can you do that?”
He simply waves me off, looking as though he considers me an old friend all of a sudden. “But of course. I believe that you are a man of your word, Michael Wright. We can certainly set up a meeting once the little girl is taken care of. I will have my people call your people, as they say.”
We both stand up, and I stick my hand out for him to shake first, thanking him for his time and help.
--
“But I don’t understand. Who is he?” Lana asks as she sits down on the hotel bed. “Is this a man we should really be trusting?”
“I understand your apprehension, believe me. But we’ve been working with Paolo for some time now, we have a good understanding of how he works, anyway. He inherited his father’s cartel, but they’re not like the Escobars. For one thing, Paulo has been trying to turn his father’s so-called empire around… He’s wanting to legitimize it I guess. He’s investing in his country, he claims, and we’ve been helping him. As far as we know, everything seems to be checking out.”
Joseph nods, leaning up against the wall. “I wouldn’t say that Paolo is good people necessarily, but he will help us.”
Lana’s eyes narrow at me before she looks over at him. “And why do you think he would help us? What is he getting out of this?”
“Oh you know, the usual. He just wants what everybody else once. Money. Nothing we can handle,” Joseph says, playing it off.
She doesn’t seem to buy it though. “Nothing you can’t handle? How much money are we talking, here?” She turns to face me as if I’m going to contradict what Joseph saying.
“It doesn’t matter. Even if Paulo would’ve asked for everything we own, I think Dave and I can both agree we would’ve given it to him, no questions asked.”