Jade

Chapter 10

Two weeks later...

Asante tossed his notebook onto the coffee table after a long day of writing, meetings and brainstorming sessions from the comfort of his home. He was always grateful for the rare times where he could just be home and really get in tune with his work.

He was finally getting somewhere with the script after meeting up with Miles a couple days ago, an even better idea falling into his lap.

Three days ago...

Less than a week ago Miles was in a completely different mindset than he was today, just getting off the phone from a meeting that just sparked a new direction for his upcoming film.

Two brothers, he'd originally thought. But it didn't feel right. The script had to evolve as the characters and plot didn't settle into the original molds. He felt
like this movie had to have a bigger impact than that. Heir to the family business. That's what the story had to be about.

The family business wouldn't just be a luxury brand or a chain of high-end hotels. It would have to be rooted in something far darker: the mafia, America's favorite vein to tap into. His idea was simple — a fictional founding family, now cleaned up but carrying the weight of their violent history in the shadows.

In the midst of him jotting down more ideas and doing research, he started to make the connection to a book he had recently been put on to by one of his writers called "Allegiance." He quickly got into contact with his team who sought out the writer, and now the rest was slowly falling into place.

A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts and already knew who it was.

"Asante," he said, not breaking his gaze from the script. "I think I got something."

"What you got?" Asante could always tell when Miles was about to drop something big.

"You remember that book I told you about?" Miles continued. "The one that never took off? The one about the two black families — the ones who started in the drug game and went legit?"

Asante raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, the one that got buried under all the other mob family shit? The market's been saturated with that for years. What's different about it?"

"I finished reading it like a week ago and found a lot of untapped potential," Miles said. "It's not just about two families, it's about legacy. The heir to this business, who ends up having to take over not just a fortune but a criminal empire. But the big conflict? They kill one of their most loyal men. Wrongly accused of stealing from them. And in the end, they find out he was innocent. It's tragic, but it's real."

"So you're thinking that story could work? Even with all the noise in the market? You think people still hungry for that?"

"That's not even the best part," Miles said. "I was doing some research and this whole story got a twist. The book wasn't just written by any author. It was written by the daughter of the man they killed."

"Wait... What?" Asante asked, his eyebrows raised in shock.

"Yeah," Miles said. "We just got off a phone call with her agent. She published Allegiance a couple years ago but it didn't really reach the heights she thought it would. Now she wants to turn the book into a movie to draw more attention to it. She's embedded in this narrative in ways no one can imagine. She's not just telling the world what happened, she's telling her father's story."

Asante shook his head in disbelief, but a grin slowly spread across his face. "Now this some Cannes worthy shit."

"Exactly," Miles said, the excitement in his voice growing. "This isn't just about crime. It's about the truth behind a murder. And we're gonna take this book and turn it into something that people can't ignore. It's not just another mob drama. This is family, betrayal, legacy. It's personal."