We pulled into the business park of Aldo’s shell company. Big G Entertainment was Aldo Gioacchino’s legitimate business. He didn’t do much of the work for the company anymore and had other people who ran it for him, but it was a very successful company. They had back lot sets and offered filming studios to music videos, television shows, and movies. His studios had office space people could rent as well as editing rooms. It was the perfect legitimate business to cover up all the illegal activities he had participated in over the years.
Aldo had been the one who gave me a hard money loan to start my escort business almost ten years before. It was Aldo who had urged me to set up legitimate businesses as well to help cover up the money I had coming in. Especially when I purchased my home, it had become too difficult to tell people I was just investing and making that kind of money.
But Aldo Gioacchino was a bad motherfucker, and I knew better than to get on his bad side. Our meeting was simple; I just needed to tell him face to face what had happened with his guy and Kimberly the previous night. I certainly wasn’t going to apologize for kicking his guys ass, but Aldo wouldn’t want that. He just needed me to know my place and understand that he was more powerful than I was. It was a game to him, life in general, and Aldo wanted to make sure everyone knew he was in charge of the game.
“Now, that’s a beautiful woman,” Aldo said as he ignored me and walked right up to Abby and grabbed her hand. “Theo, what on earth are you doing with such a magnificent creature?”
Aldo gently took Abby’s hand and pulled it up to his lips. My stomach sank, and I instantly regretted bringing Abby with me to meet him. Aldo was in his early fifties, but he had a way with the ladies that even I couldn’t compete with. His ability to wow a woman half his age was something I admired normally, but when it came to Abby, I didn’t like it at all.
At first, I had thought if she were there it would be easier for us to have a quick conversation and for him to keep his temper in check. But when I saw the way he looked at Abby, I knew I was in trouble.
Aldo liked that I ran an escort business. It ensured that he had the pick of girls to sleep with when his wife was away on one of her business trips. Or to play with them would be a better word, I didn’t think that Aldo liked to actually sleep with too many of the girls. He preferred some weird form of torture where he denied himself something that he wanted badly. The way he looked at Abby was familiar to me. It was how he looked at my girls when he wanted to keep one for himself.
But no! I hadn’t even had Abby yet. And she wasn’t working for me. She was simply a sweet girl I had met at the club. She wasn’t an escort, so he couldn’t insist on taking her out. Or so I said to myself as I watched him talk to her.
“This is my friend Abby,” I said as I stood off to the side.
“Abigail Tessaro,” she said, looking back at him with her beautiful blue eyes.
Internally I begged her to be mean to him. To stop looking at him or, at least, pull her hand away. But she didn’t. Instead, Abby was sweet and smiled at him. She looked him right in the eyes and showed confidence and power in her stance. She was being herself, and I couldn’t fault her for that, but damn, I wanted to drag her back to the SUV and get her away from Aldo as quickly as possible.
I hated myself for bringing her there.
“Well, Miss Abigail. You aren’t from New York are you? But you look very familiar to me,” Aldo said with a smile. “You served me and my wife breakfast the other day, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir. I work at Henderson’s. Your wife is so beautiful; you are a lucky man,” Abby said as she finally pulled her hand away from him.
Abby had met him already? That was an odd coincidence.
“You impressed my wife. She liked you a lot. So did I,” Aldo said as he continued to look at her.
Aldo was very good with the women. He didn’t need to hire escorts at all; he could easily get any woman he wanted to sleep with him. But he liked the emotional simplicity of having an escort as his side woman. They never got emotionally attached. They never threatened to tell his wife. And he always picked my most beautiful women to hang out with. I thought his wife probably knew about his women, though, and I had even heard rumors that she liked to play with the girls as well.
He was one of the guys I trusted to take out my girls on their first dates. He would wine and dine them and didn’t even require that they sleep with him. He liked his girls young, beautiful and unaware that they were about to become highly paid escorts. One of the things he enjoyed most was seducing a woman into the lifestyle of an escort. He preferred that they were naive to the world so he could play his games with them.
I needed to keep Abby away from him! My stomach clenched tight as the urge to pull Abby away from him almost overcame me. I couldn’t stand to see him flirting with her; I couldn’t stand to see her being nice to him.
At that moment, I decided I was keeping her for myself. I was not bringing her into the business at all. No way! I had never felt so strongly about a woman when she was around Aldo, and it had to mean something. I was in unchartered territory but felt like I needed to try and see what a real relationship would be like with a woman like Abby.
“Thank you, sir. And you are right, I’m not from here. I’m from Wichita, Kansas,” Abby said.
Aldo instantly broke into laughter as both Abby and I looked at each other. We weren’t quite sure why Kansas made him laugh so much. But neither of us wanted to ask him about it. Aldo was the kind of guy who could break out in maniacal laughter and everyone else around would just laugh too because we didn’t want to question him.
“Can we talk for a minute, Aldo?” I asked as I motioned to his office off in the corner.
“Sure,” he said. “Now you don’t go anywhere beautiful lady. I’ve got more things I’d like to talk to you about.”
Abby just smiled and shrugged her shoulders as Aldo and I went to his office. She was sweet to humor the guy. But I wasn’t about to give him any time alone with her. No matter how badly Aldo wanted her, Abby wasn’t going to be his.
“That girl, what’s the story?” Aldo said the second we got into his office.
“She’s just my date from last night. I met her at a dance club.”
“Are you grooming her? I’ll take her out.”
“No. She’s legit, and I’m not grooming her.”
“Now that’s too bad. She could make you a lot of money,” Aldo said as he sat back in his desk.
“Remember, I’m trying to go legit now.”
“It takes a long time to make the transition. You’re not going totally legit, and a girl like that isn’t going to date an escort owner. I’ve been working on it for over ten years and still can’t quite go one hundred percent legitimate. It just doesn’t pay well.”
“Anyways, I’m sorry for kicking your guy’s ass. I really didn’t know he was yours until after the fact.”
“It’s alright. I took care of him when I heard what happened. But you really shouldn’t be letting that kind of scum date your girls. It’s bad business. We’ve talked about this before. What happened to your screening?”
“I’ve been busy with my new businesses, and Jack has taken over. I talked to him about it, though.”
“Theo, you’re like a son to me. But you are putting yourself and everyone around you at risk when shit like this goes down. It can’t happen again. I’m tired of killing guys just because you fucked up.”
I swallowed hard at his words. I hadn’t realized he had murdered Rocco over the events of the previous night. That was the problem when you dealt with a man like Aldo, ‘taking care’ of a guy meant something totally different than to the rest of the world.
“I’m sorry, Aldo. I appreciate your insight. I’ll do better.”
“You better. I made you Theo, and I can take this all away from you just as quickly. You need to be smart. The only reason I worked with you, in the beginning, was because you were smart.
Let’s not lose sight of that.”
“I understand. Thank you,” I said, turning to leave.
Aldo followed me out and went right up to Abby again. I couldn’t take it. I wanted to just leave right then and there, but I also didn’t want to get Aldo any angrier at me. We didn’t see each other too often anymore, but I still gave him a cut of my business each month, and he still ensured that the police weren’t knocking down my door to arrest me. We had a good working relationship that I certainly didn’t want to mess up.
“Do you have family back home in Kansas?” he asked her.
“Yes, two sisters. They are 18 and 21. I send money back to them to help them out when I can,” she added.
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!
“That’s really sweet of you. You know I have a big party I have to go to at the end of the week, and my wife is regretful that she won’t be able to come. Would you consider coming with me? I’d be more than happy to pay you for your time. It would be doing me a big favor.”
Fuck! He was doing it. Aldo Gioacchino was recruiting Abby to be an escort or to be his girl. Fuck!
Abby looked at me and then back at Aldo.
“I don’t know. Only if it’s alright with Theo; I don’t want to be rude.”
Abby looked at me, and I could see in her eyes that she wasn’t going to say yes. All I needed to do was tell her I wanted to spend time with her and she would turn him down right then and there.
There are always moments in your life that you look back on and clearly regret. That was one of those moments for me. I hesitated just long enough, and Aldo took over.
“Oh, Theo won’t mind. Will you friend? And I’ll give you ten thousand dollars for your troubles. My friends can be a real bore, and putting up with them for the evening will be hard on you,” Aldo said.
I fucking hated him. If he didn’t have the ability to get me sent to jail for my entire life, I would have punched him right in the face at that very moment. But Aldo just wasn’t the kind of man you wanted to get on his bad side; so I just stood there silently.
“What?” Abby squealed. “Ten thousand dollars?”
She tried to calm herself down and not look so excited, but there was no stopping her. She smiled and hugged him and no longer looked over toward me for approval to say yes. I could tell the money was important to her, but I had ten thousand dollars I could have loaned her if she needed it so badly. I hated that Aldo was walking all over me and trying to steal her away.
“So is that a yes?” Aldo asked as he eyed me and smiled.
“Yes, I’d love to keep you company with your boring friends.”
“Alright, we better get going. Talk to you later Aldo,” I said as I tried to control my temper.
He was a slimy bastard for sideswiping me like that. I had decided to keep her out of the business, and he went and threw a bunch of money at her and totally undermined any ability I had of keeping her as my girlfriend.
The disappointment was palpable as we got into the SUV. I was disappointed in myself for not speaking up and telling her I didn’t like the idea. I was disappointed that I didn’t offer her the money to help her family. I was utterly disappointed in myself for how I had reacted.
“You don’t mind, do you?” Abby asked as she squeezed my hand. “It’s not a date or anything. He’s married. I’ll just keep him company and that’s it.”
“Sure, it’s fine,” I reluctantly said.
It was clear to me she had no idea that she had just agreed to be Aldo Gioacchino’s escort. Many girls had started their way into the escort business with a single date alongside Aldo; I could only hope that Abby wouldn’t end up wanting in the business.
Chapter 9
ABBY
Aldo, his name was Aldo. I really liked that name.
When we had walked into the building and I saw him, I couldn’t help smiling. Instantly, I remembered trying to avoid his eyes at the table the previous morning. Then there I was, face to face with him and totally unable to look away. He was so handsome, even at his age, which I suspected was twice mine. I had never really been attracted to a man his age before, but I was insanely attracted to Aldo.
“I’m sorry. Is it rude that I said yes?” I asked Theo.
I really liked him, but I liked the idea of being able to send $10,000 to my sisters so much more. My sisters relied on me to help them out, even with their small part-time jobs; there was no way they were ever going to be able to pay the back taxes on the house they were living in.
“No, it’s alright. How are your sisters back in Kansas? I bet they miss you,” Theo said kindly.
“Yes, but I’ve been gone for a long time. I left when I was seventeen. Right now, things are really tough on them. They are trying to save our parents home but owe a lot of back taxes. This money will really help them out a lot. Might even get the foreclosure stopped.”
“Well, then you definitely should go with Aldo. He’s got tons of money to throw around. I’m glad you’ll be able to help your sisters out.”
“Thank you,” I said as I held Theo’s hand and moved closer to him.
It took a really confident man to let a woman he liked go off with another guy for an evening. But then again, maybe I was wrong; maybe Theo didn’t like me at all. That could have been why he didn’t want to sleep with me the previous evening. Maybe he just didn’t feel the same connection as I did.
“Well enough about all of that. I’d like to spend the day with you and have some fun. Do you want to have some fun?”
“Yep, that sounds like perfection.”
“Mario, take us to the airport,” Theo said as he smiled at me.
“Oh, the airport. Where are we going?”
“On an airplane silly,” Theo laughed and wrapped his arm around me.
The way he touched me made me think that he did like me just as much as I liked him. So I couldn’t figure out why he was alright with me going out with Aldo, but on the other hand, I didn’t want to over-analyze it at all. I needed the money really bad, and I was going to go on that date with Aldo.
As we pulled into the airport, Mario drove around back to some private hangars that had fancy private planes parked in them. My heart burst with excitement at the idea that I was about to board one of the planes that I had seen movies stars on. If I hadn’t already been head over heels for Theo, the private plane was certainly making me like him even more.
“Where are we going? Seriously …Where?” I asked.
“I can’t tell you or it wouldn’t be a surprise,” Theo whispered.
“OK, but let me call Isabella first. If you kidnap me, and I’m never heard from again, I want her to know what happened,” I teased.
As Theo and Mario talked with the pilot, I called Isabella to tell her all that had happened since we had left each other the night before. We didn’t usually go very long without keeping in touch with each other, and I didn’t want to be the one who didn’t tell her what had been going on.
“Abby, Oh, my God you won’t believe the night I’ve had,” Isabella said as she answered her phone so full of excitement I had to smile.
I held off on my news so I could let Isabella have her moment.
“What happened?”
“He was so sweet and nice. I think I’m in love with him. He’s lining up a job for me, and I’m going to make a shit-ton of money. I’ll get us an apartment, and we will have a place to stay,” Isabella rambled on and on. “He has an amazing apartment that overlooks the city and was like a dream to fuck. I literally could fuck him every night and be happy for the rest of my life.”
Isabella was so excited, I couldn’t damper her mood by trying to one-up her and tell her about my night with Theo. I certainly wasn’t going to tell her that I was about to get on a private jet to some mystery location.
“That sounds amazing, Isabella, I’m so happy for you.”
“How did your night go? Did you and Theo do the nasty?”
> “Nope, it went well, though. We are going out again today. I’ll let you know if anything comes of it. I’m really excited for you, though. Let me know how the job pans out.”
“I will. Thanks for calling; now I don’t have to worry that you’re dead on the side of the road or something like that.”
“I’m perfectly alive,” I said. “Take care of yourself. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“Bye,” Isabella said as she hung up the phone.
There was no way I could ruin her good mood by telling her I was about to get onto a private jet with Theo. No, we hadn’t had sex the night before; but I felt more connected with Theo than previous guys that I had slept with. He was sweet, handsome and rich; there really wasn’t anything else I could ask for. Theo Stern was the man of my dreams.
“Are you coming?” Theo asked, motioning for me to come toward the plane. “This is Captain Reynolds. He’ll be flying us today.”
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Oh, no. I’m under strict orders not to tell you,” Captain Reynolds said as he shook my hand.
“You are sneaky. I can tell I’m going to have to keep my eye on you,” I said as I walked up the steps to the plane.
We got comfortable, and Theo brought me an orange juice to sip on while we waited for the captain to finish his checklist. The plush leather interior of the plane was just as I imagined it would be, and I couldn’t help thinking how cool it would be to be able to take a plane ride whenever you wanted. I didn’t know how much money Theo had, but if he had enough for a private plane, then he was richer than all the other men I had dated combined.
“I can give you the money you need for your sisters,” Theo offered.
I looked at him in awe with my mouth literally wide open. He didn’t know me. He knew hardly anything about me. How on earth could he be willing to hand over money to me like that? He didn’t even know how much money I needed.
The Deal Page 30