Temptations - The Complete Series

by Annie Jocoby

  “I didn’t.” I was embarrassed to admit how rashly I was acting. In the light of day, this whole thing seemed quixotic. Yet, in the light of day, I was still determined to go through with it. I would do anything, at that point, to see Charlotte hung up by her toes and batted with something hard. Or some other kind of torture. If there was anybody in the world who deserved it, it would be her.

  I sighed, though. I would possibly be willing to be a mule. I wouldn’t be willing to give him sexual favors. I wondered if he would be willing to deal with me on my terms.

  Then I shook my head. My terms? I was going to be dictating the terms? What leverage did I have? I didn’t have Hollywood connections. I….

  I pulled over by the side of the road, realizing one thing – Slade was going to have to help me. I was being an idiot, an absolute idiot, for excluding him from this. He did have some leverage. He was loaded with money, but, more importantly, he had pharmaceutical connections. Miguel could probably use him and his connections. After all, many of the same ingredients that went into Oxytocin and other painkillers were the same ingredients as heroin. Miguel might be able to supply some stuff to Slade legally – opium, for instance. Slade might also be able to give Miguel a foothold in the legalized marijuana game in the states. Drug dealers were always looking for a way into that market, and Slade could maybe provide him with that.

  One thing was for sure – Slade had things to offer that I just couldn’t.

  It was time to swallow my pride and give him a call. As much as I hated it, and as much as I currently hated him, I was going to have to use him.

  I hung up with Santino, after we exchanged pleasantries, and dialed Slade’s number.

  I couldn’t believe how nervous I was.

  Chapter 10

  Slade

  I boarded my private plane, after meeting Alex, and we were prepared for take-off, when my phone rang. My heart stopped as I looked at the number. The number didn’t look familiar, but it looked like it was coming from another country. Hopefully Mexico.

  Hopefully Serena.

  “Hello?” I said, praying that I would hear Serena’s voice on the other end of the line.

  “Slade,” Serena said, and I let out my breath. “I need you.”

  I felt like an enormous weight was taken off my shoulders. She called me, and said that she needed me. That was enough. I couldn’t have felt more relieved. “Serena, where are you?”

  “I’m on my way to a house here in Mexico. I probably shouldn’t go into it too much over the phone, just in case…”

  She didn’t have to finish that sentence. Just in case Charlotte was somehow listening. “Serena, I need to know where you are. Where can I find you?”

  “I’m still in Tijuana,” she said. “I was going to leave this morning, but I talked to Santino, and, well, I need to tell you everything.” She paused. “But Slade, I want you to know one thing. We’re through, you and me. I saw that picture of you and Charlotte, and I know that you lied to me.”

  I sighed. “Serena, you should know better than that.”

  “Better than what? I saw what I saw.”

  “You didn’t see what you see. I know what it looked like. But, trust me…”

  “Don’t say anything more. I’ll see you at what time? I can get to the airport here and meet you if you want to bring your plane down.”

  “I won’t say anything more right now, but I will when I see you. And I’m glad that you mentioned my bringing my plane.” I smiled. She had perfect timing. I was going to go to Palermo, but I much preferred just flying down to Tijuana and getting Serena. I’d explain to her about that picture, because, I had to admit, it did look bad. “I’ll meet you at the Tijuana airport, in the area where the private planes land. I’ll get clearance right now to land.”

  “I’ll see you soon.”

  I got off the phone and immediately let Alex know the change in plans. “We’re not going to Palermo, but right on down to Tijuana. Get clearance and let’s get out of here.”

  Alex nodded and got on the radio to get clearance and he nodded his head. “Tijuana, here we come.”

  It wasn’t even an hour, more like 5 minutes, before I got to the Tijuana airport. Serena was able to find the area where we were to meet, and she was there. I went up to her and wrapped my arms around her. She stiffened up and put her hands on my chest, as if she were pushing me away. “Don’t,” she said, turning her face when I tried to kiss her. “I only called you because I need you to help me. I’m going to take Charlotte down, and I’ve realized that I need you to do that.”

  I drew a breath. “Serena, look at me,” I said to her. I gently brought her face around so that she would be looking me in the eyes. “What you saw was more manipulation on Charlotte’s part. I know about that picture. She set that up. She told the paparazzi to get a long-range photograph and to make it look like it was all spontaneous. She’s a master of the game, I’ll tell you that.”

  I saw in her eyes that she didn’t really believe me, although her face did seem to soften just a little. She swallowed hard and then looked down at the ground.

  “I don’t understand. You mean that picture was staged?” She shook her head. “I mean, if it was a picture of the two of you in public, then, yeah, I’d totally believed it was staged. But it was behind closed doors. I…”

  I stood there looking at her, knowing that she was turning my words around in her mind.

  Then she drew a breath and hung her head. “God, I feel so stupid.” When she looked at me, she had tears in her eyes. “So stupid. I was going to go on a suicide mission yesterday. An absolute suicide mission.” Then she kind of laughed. “And the funny thing was, I didn’t know exactly what the mission was going to be. I didn’t plan a thing. I just went on autopilot, which is so unlike me. My life is so controlled all the time, and yesterday, well, it all went out the window. I finally cracked up, and it wasn’t pretty.”

  I smiled at her. “It’s okay to crack up, as long as you eventually come to your senses. And it sounds like you came to your senses before you did anything too rash and serious.”

  She smiled back. “Santino, of all people, managed to bring me back to reality. I was talking with him on the phone, and, as I spoke with him, I was realizing that my lack of planning wasn’t going to do anything other than get me killed. If I didn’t end up in a federal prison, because I was actually thinking of being a drug mule for a syndicate head down here. That’s how far I was willing to go in order to bring down Charlotte. But Santino was making me realize what kind of dangerous game I was about to play, and how stupid I was being, so I called you. And I’m really glad that I did.”

  “I’m glad you did as well,” I said, putting my hand in her hair. I put my hand on her chin and gave her a long kiss. She seemed to melt into me and I sighed. “Well, let’s get this plane in the air. We can be at this place in…” It was then that I didn’t know where I was going, or who I was seeing. “Where are we going?”

  She smiled. “Ciudad Juarez. It’s on the Texas border. It’s about a ten hour drive, so probably we can be there in less than an hour. But Santino is calling Miguel, the guy that we’re seeing, to give him a head’s-up that I’m coming. The only thing is that Miguel won’t be expecting me until late this evening.”

  “Okay, you’re going to have to tell me who this Miguel is, and what he has to do with anything, and we can go from there.”

  “Miguel apparently is part of this enormous drug syndicate in Ciudad, and, well, he has a large shipment that he’s going to give to one family – either the Garancinos or the Vichellis. He also is going to try to establish a relationship with one of the families, so that he can be the supplier going forward. And, believe it or not, Charlotte is in the middle of it. She’s trying to tip Miguel over to the Vichellis.”

  The Vichellis? Why would she do that? Was I reading Charlotte wrong? I thought that she had a good relationship with her father. But that would explain why she was so weird when I asked h
er about meeting Gianni. “So Charlotte is double-crossing her own father?” That was fascinating to me in a weird way. It seemed so Shakespearean, really.

  Yet, I had to get over my momentary fascination with the whole thing, to try to think more concretely. This was definitely something that I could use against Charlotte. More than that, it could be something that I could use to get the hit taken off of Serena permanently. Just the threat of telling Gianni what she was up to might be enough for her to permanently back off, and, if it wasn’t, I could take what I know to Gianni and let the chips fall where they may. I knew about mob families – disloyalty can, and will, get you killed. It didn’t even matter if you were close family – mob families rely on absolute trust within their ranks. Once that trust was gone, you were too.

  “Okay, what is your plan on getting this information from Miguel? We’re going to have to give proof to Gianni. We can’t just go in there and tell Gianni what Charlotte is doing.”

  “I’ve had some time to think about that, which is why I need you.” She lowered her head and cried. “Well, that’s not true. I need you for other reasons. I need you to give me life and breath.”

  I let her cry for a few minutes before I gently prodded her to ask her exactly what she was thinking. I, too, needed her in my life. I knew how she felt. At the same time, though, there were pragmatic concerns. I needed to know what was going on in her head.

  “Serena, let’s talk about our plans.”

  She finally sighed and seemed to gather herself. “Okay, here’s what I was thinking. We have to give Miguel something. According to Santino, Miguel is on the fence between these two families. Basically six of one, half-dozen of the other, and Charlotte is trying to put her thumb on the scales. That means that maybe we can give him something, too, to not only get Miguel to agree to go with Gianni, but also to give us the evidence that we’re going to need to throw Charlotte under the bus for this.”

  I nodded my head, trying to process the information. “Okay, so, let’s game this out. We give Miguel something, and we make him going to Gianni contingent on what we’re going to give him. So then we have leverage with Gianni in a sense. Call off the hit for good in exchange for Miguel’s business.” That was sounding good. Really good. “Two birds, one stone. We throw Charlotte under the bus, while currying favor with Gianni. The only key is this – what do we give Miguel? What do we give him?”

  I knew the answer to that. Money. Money always talked. The only thing was how much? And, also, how was I going to do business with a drug king-pin without getting in trouble myself? I was a legitimate businessman. If word ever got out about this, my shareholders would be spooked, to say the very least. I’d have to keep this extremely quiet, of course, but that was going to be tricky at best.

  “Well, we could pay him a lot of money,” she said, reading my mind. “But that might be risky. I was thinking of something else.” She narrowed her eyes. “Where do you get your opiates for the drugs you manufacture?”

  I nodded my head, knowing where she was going with this. “From Afghanistan. I buy them from legitimate suppliers over there. They’re accredited and what they’re doing is perfectly legal.” I put my hand on my chin. “This Miguel person is not a legitimate supplier.”

  “No, but he has an opiate supply, ready and waiting to go.” She raised an eyebrow and nodded her head, and I started to get the plan together in my head.

  “My legitimate suppliers in Afghanistan get their opiates sometimes from the black market,” I said, “it’s like laundering, really. Everyone wins.”

  “Right. You get Miguel some contracts with some of your suppliers in Afghanistan…I’m sure that would be very valuable to him. And it’ll be difficult to trace you back to him if you do it that way.”

  I drew a breath. “That could work. That could really work. I wonder if that would be enough incentive for him to go with the Garancinos, and I wonder if this deal that we propose would be enough for Miguel to threaten to withhold a contract with Gianni unless I come along with it.”

  Both of us sat in silence thinking this through. The downside, of course, is that Gianni himself could rat me out. But that was unlikely. He’d have no incentive to do so, and the downside for him would be immense – it would basically mean the loss of this suppliers contract with Miguel. ``

  “Okay,” said Serena. “We have an outline of how we should approach this. Let’s try to get the specifics down.” She smiled. “Who knew that Charlotte was enough of a bitch that she would try to throw her own father under the bus? Santino said that the reason why she hates him is because he apparently ordered the hit on Michael Garancino. She wants her revenge. Now we can use her thirst for vengeance against her. It’s ironic, really.”

  The plane landed and we checked into a local hotel. We had to get all the specifics of our plan down, but, also, I had to admit that I wanted her badly. Needed to feel my skin on hers. Her skin was so soft, and just being close to her was getting my blood pumping.

  But first thing first. We got into our hotel room, and sat down on one of the couches. The hotel wasn’t grand, as there weren’t a lot of choices in Ciudad, but it was clean and comfortable. Serena and I got out a notepad and started to scribble different numbers. I also got in contact with some of my suppliers in Afghanistan, and I found two who were willing to take shipment from Miguel. The shipments from Miguel to these suppliers would be worth in the neighborhood of $50 million to Miguel over the course of five years, so I knew that this would be enough for him to go back on his word to Charlotte.

  At least I hoped that it would. Serena had explained to me that Miguel was working with Charlotte because he wanted his daughter to break into Hollywood.

  “What if Miguel won’t be swayed by money?” I asked Serena. “After all, the man probably had plenty of money. What if all he really wants is something intangible, like the chance for his daughter to make it in Hollywood?”

  Serena and I had to cover all the bases, look at all the contingencies, so we would be more than ready for whatever Miguel decided to throw at us. Serena nodded her head. “I actually thought of that angle, too. Charlotte’s contacts would be invaluable to Miguel’s daughter, and if Charlotte took Miguel’s daughter under her wing, that would really be something that could help the daughter. So, we have to perhaps sweeten the pot for Miguel. We have to give him some kind of reassurance that his daughter would still get her chance in Hollywood, even if he backs out of the deal with Charlotte.”

  “Well, then, okay,” I said. “I do know Charlotte’s publicist, and I also know quite a few movie producers and directors myself. I’ll just tell Miguel that the daughter will be my project, and that I’ll introduce her around to all the people I know. You forget that I’ve always run in the same circles as Charlotte. I know all the same people.”

  “You’ll do that?”

  “Of course. I mean, I’ll have to do that if I tell him that I will. Granted, it won’t be quite as effective as being seen as Charlotte’s new BFF, if that is what Charlotte was promising him, but it’ll be the next best thing. Our combining this offer with the offer to give him a long-term buyer in Afghanistan might be powerful enough for him to jump.”

  Serena took a deep breath. “Yes, but he not only has to jump, but he has to be willing to go on the record on what Charlotte was doing. That’s pretty important. If he won’t go on the record, then we have no evidence, and we’re right back where we started. Which is nowhere, really.”

  I drew a breath. “And we’ll actually make this much worse, really, if we can’t get him on the record. Because it’s going to piss off Charlotte, and her father still won’t know what she was up to. So, we’re gambling here, really, because we have no idea what this guy is going to do. Plus, the mere fact that I’m down here with you is going to piss off Charlotte, too. I’m not naïve enough to think that Charlotte has no clue on where I am right now.”

  “That means that we need to get to Miguel as soon as possible. After all, she might
beat us down there.”

  I knew that Serena was right. But I wasn’t entirely sure if Charlotte had a way to track me. I was smart enough to get a completely new phone before coming down here, and I regularly had my plane and car swept for bugs. Nothing had yet turned up. If Charlotte did track me, she would had to have been much more savvy than I gave her credit for.

  Serena did make a point, though. There really wasn’t a second to waste. Miguel was expecting us by this 8 in the evening, according to what Serena had told me about Santino. It was presently seven, so we were chomping at the bit to get to the compound.

  We took a deep breath, and held hands on the way to Serena’s car.

  Here goes nothing.

  Chapter 11

  Serena

  To say that my heart was pounding as Slade and I sat in my car, going to see Santino, would be a serious, serious understatement. I had no clue on how this whole mission was going to go. I could only go on what Santino told me about this guy, and Slade was absolutely right. If this whole plan went to hell, we would not only not succeed, but we would be making things worse. Charlotte would be furious, and I would imagine that she would double-down on her threats and would probably renege on the whole Slade deal. Slade was demonstrating his disloyalty to her, and she would never again be able to trust him.

  The upshot is that, if this whole thing went south, I probably wouldn’t have long to live. Nor Slade. The stakes couldn’t possibly be higher.

  Oh, but if it worked…it would possibly mean that Slade and I could be together. Charlotte would no longer have the backing of her father, which would mean that the Garancinos wouldn’t be after me. Charlotte still would be, but she was only one woman. I could handle her. Slade could handle her as well. She was psychotic, but it would simply be a matter of hiring a decent bodyguard to protect both of us, and all would probably be okay.