ROMANCING THE MOB BOSS

by Monroe, Mallory

  She got in his car.

  The drive was quiet for the first few minutes, until Reno looked over at her. She looked drained to him, stressed, and he was sorry that his bad mood wasn’t helping. He wanted to pull her over to him, and wrap his arm around her, but he didn’t touch her. Between thinking about and worrying about her, and the pressure of a grand opening for his new clubs and restaurants within his PaLargio empire, and the unrelated pressure his father was putting on him, he didn’t know half the time if he was going or coming. Sometimes he wanted to just forget it all, everybody and everything, and disappear off the face of this earth. Tonight, he realized, was one of those times.

  “You gonna tell me about it?” he asked her.

  “About what?”

  “About what? About why Ike left Tina Turner. About that guy tonight, the one who put those stains right there.” He placed his hand on her chest where the wine stains still showed on her dress. Her heart hammered when he touched her.

  “He was just a stupid customer,” Trina said.

  “A stupid customer you were having a very intense conversation with.”

  Trina looked at Reno. She had forgotten he had a spy in the place. She leaned her head back. “Yeah, I know him, but it ain’t even worth the effort it takes to talk about, all right?”

  “Is he the guy from Reno?” Trina’s heart stopped. “Is he the dude from Dale?”

  Trina was resuscitated. “No, he’s not the dude from Dale.”

  “Who is he then? What’s his name?” It felt like begging to Reno, something he hated.

  “Nobody, Reno.”

  “What’s Nobody’s last name?”

  Trina almost smiled. But she didn’t. This was too serious. She wasn’t about to give him any more information so that he or his “people” could harm Scotty. Not because she cared about Scotty, she didn’t’ give a shit about that pimp, but because she cared deeply about Reno. And she wasn’t getting him involved. At least not yet, not if Scotty stays away from her.

  “Just forget about it, please,” she said to him.

  “Okay, whatever,” he said, his anger rising, as he began to speed faster than he already was.

  SEVEN

  She didn’t hear from him at for most of that next day. She thought about calling him once or twice, but she nixed the idea. Maybe it was best this way. And if he tried to snatch the job away from her, then fine, let him snatch it. Boyzie would take her back, she was pretty certain of that.

  And when she went to work that afternoon, she searched every face that came in, especially as the night wore on. But everybody was familiar, except for a couple of old guys that she was reasonably certain wouldn’t be on any payroll of Reno’s. Yet, realizing that he had pulled his goons off of her wasn’t a very reassuring thought, but a terrifying one. He was serious. He had apparently left her the hell alone, as he had promised he would.

  But promises were apparently meant to be broken because after work that same night, as soon as she stepped out of Boyzie’s front door, she saw Reno, leaned against his Bentley. And just seeing that he hadn’t given up their budding relationship almost made her giddy with excitement. She ran to him.

  Reno’s heart soared when she started running. And as soon as she arrived he grabbed her up into his arms. He looked at her, smoothed her silky hair out of her face.

  “I thought you were leaving me the hell alone,” she said with a grand smile.

  “I was,” he said. “Until I realized that leaving you would be like leaving my heart, leaving my ability to live. And I wanna live, sweetheart.”

  Trina laughed. Reno had such a way with words. And she got in his car this night and gladly allowed him to drive her home.

  They drove past an old beat up Buick Regal that was parked on the side of the road, an old car that happened to have, although Trina didn’t notice, Scotty Labaray inside, the one who already knew where she worked and lived, and now knew something else.

  “So that’s it,” Scotty said to himself, something he’d been doing a lot lately after his stint in prison, after coming out so broke and friendless he couldn’t even find a bed to lay his head. He stole the Regal and began his search for Trina. For his golden girl. Because with that face and that body, that was exactly what she was to him. Golden. The bitch who was going to make him rich someday.

  Now she, instead, had herself a rich boy. A sugar daddy. That changed everything. She was still going to make him rich. But he wouldn’t have to work for it this time. He wouldn’t have to line up any johns who used to want her so badly they were salivating when she walked in the room. Not because she would be the prettiest girl in his stable, or would have the best body. She wouldn’t on both counts. But because Trina Hathaway had that something special, that “it” factor that couldn’t be seen but could be felt, that unusual something that made every man want to protect her, to baby her, to wish that she was theirs.

  And he saw the way that sugar daddy was holding her tonight. So protective. With that this my bitch ‘tude going big-time. This was going to be so easy, Scotty figured. All he had to do was threaten to tell boyfriend that she once associated with a dude like him. And he’d threaten to add that she not only associated with him, but tricked for him. She never went that far, she never turned any tricks, but rich boyfriend didn’t know that. Scotty laughed. Rich boyfriend didn’t know a damn thing.

  And he wasn’t going to know. Because Trina was a smart girl, and she knew a good thing when she saw it. “That’s why she once hooked up with me,” Scotty said aloud. That was why, when he so much as threatened to tell boyfriend, she would come up with the cash. And he would just sit back, and make it big, get that big score he could finally retire on, by not having to lift one finger. He grinned and then laughed. “Only in America,” he said, as he laughed.

  What he didn’t realize was that “rich boyfriend” had circled the block and was now pulling up behind him.

  “What are you doing, Reno?” Trina asked when she realized they were right back in front of Boyzie’s.

  “That him?” Reno asked her.

  “Is who him?” Trina wanted to know as she looked where Reno was looking, at the parked Buick in front of them. When she saw that Scotty was behind the wheel, she looked at Reno. “I didn’t even see him over here.”

  “That’s him then?”

  The thought of Scotty waiting out here for her spooked her. “Yeah,” she admitted. “That’s him.”

  Reno began unbuckling his seatbelt and moved to get out of his car.

  “Reno, what you gonna do?” Trina asked him.

  “I wanna talk to him.”

  “Talk about what?” But he was already getting out of the car. “Be careful.”

  Reno got out of the car and walked slowly toward Scotty’s Buick. He pulled out a revolver, kept it to his side.

  Scotty didn’t know anyone was even there until his car window was busted in with the butt of the revolver and his door was being slung open.

  Trina nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw the glass crash and Reno grab Scotty by the catch of his collar and sling him out against the car.

  “You know me?” Reno asked Scotty.

  Scotty, who was terrified, could only shake his hand. “No, I don’t know you. Who the hell are you?”

  “But you know my woman, right? You know Tree?”

  Scotty didn’t respond.

  “You know Tree?” Reno said this louder, slung him harder against the car.

  “Yes,” Scotty admitted. “I know Trina.”

  “If you ever,” Reno said, slamming him even harder against the car, “even think about coming anywhere near her again, anywhere within eyeshot again, I’ll kill you.” He put the gun to Scotty’s temple. “Understand that, pal? I don’t want no misunderstanding. I will fucking kill you!”

  “I don’t wanna have nothing to do with her,” Scotty pleaded. “I declare I don’t.”

  “What you doing here then? What you doing here?”

&nb
sp; “I was, nothing man, I was just playing around.”

  “You don’t play with her. Not ever, you understand me? She’s not play material.” Then Reno attempted to calm himself down. He released Scotty and stood back an inch. “I want you out of Vegas as fast as this bucket can take you. Got that, pal?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Scotty said, glad to be let go. “That’s what I was doing. Getting out now.”

  “You get out now or you won’t be able to later.” Then Reno motioned toward a car parked on the opposite side of the street. “You see that automobile over there?’

  Scotty nervously looked.

  “You see that automobile over there?” Reno asked this with a raised voice.

  “Yes, I see it, I see it.”

  “The gentleman in that particular automobile works for me. He will personally see to you leaving Vegas and he and every wise guy this side of the Pacific Ocean will see to you staying away from Vegas and, most importantly of all, Trina Hathaway. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes, loud and clear.”

  Without any warning, Reno rammed his knee into Scotty’s midsection, causing Trina to jump again. Then Reno slapped him across the face with the butt of his gun, creating an immediate gush of blood. Scotty bent over in pain.

  “What you waiting for?” Reno decried. “Get the hell outta here!”

  Scotty couldn’t get in his car fast enough. Even with the glass still on his seat from his scattered window. He cranked up and took off, caring less about the condition of his car, or of his face. Blackmailing Trina to gain money from some rich sugar daddy was one thing. But up close and personal that sugar daddy had mob written all over him. And Scotty was no fool. Blackmailing the mob was something completely different. Like suicide, he thought, as he sped away from Trina and Vegas forever, breaking every speeding record, constantly looking back at the man tailing him.

  “I thought you said you was just gonna talk to him,” Trina said when Reno hid his gun inside his jacket and got back into the car.

  “I did talk to him.”

  “You nearly killed him.”

  “What, you love this guy or something?”

  “Of course I don’t love him, what are you talking about?”

  “Then who is he?” Reno asked her.

  “He’s an ex, all right?”

  “Not the dude from Dale?”

  “No. After him. We stayed together all of one month. When I found out he wanted me to turn tricks for him, I took off. End of story.”

  Reno glanced at her breasts. “You slept with him before?”

  “He was my boyfriend.”

  “Your boyfriend?”

  “Yes,” Trina said, wondering why that seemed surprising to him.

  But Reno only shook his head. “You sure can pick’em,” he said as he cranked up, and then drove off.

  Trina couldn’t believe he had said that. Because it was the same thing Jazz had said. Because her picking skills pertained to him too. And that, more than any rebound relationship she ever had with Scotty Labaray, was what was worrying her.

  +++

  The next morning, when Jazz dropped by and Trina clued her in on what happened with Scotty last night, they both agreed that something wasn’t adding up.

  “You would think the owner of the PaLargio would be a button-down, straight-as-an-arrow dude,” Jazz said. “Not some badass with an attitude.”

  They were in Trina’s living room, drinking coffee and seated on the sofa. Jazz had just taken her old man to work and decided to drop by Trina’s place before heading back across town.

  “I hear ya’, girl,” Trina said, still in her robe, still wet between her legs from Reno’s pounding less than an hour before Jazz dropped by. He was dressed and ready to leave at the time, but he took another look at Trina’s naked body and was on her again.

  “And I mean badass,” Jazz continued. “That man of yours, that Reno, he seems like a badass from way back.”

  “But what’s strange,” Trina said, “is that when you see him at the PaLargio he’s all business. He’s almost a different person. But I’ve seen him lose his cool twice, J, away from the PaLargio, and it was kind of scary.”

  “Especially since both times had to do with men bothering you,” Jazz reminded her. “Maybe it’s not so much that he’s just violent, but that it’s all about defending you in his mind.”

  Trina shook her head. “I don’t know about all that. It just seems like he can’t help himself.” Then she exhaled.

  “Does he,” Jazz started and then stopped. She tried again. “I mean, has he, have y’all, you know?”

  Trina frowned. She knew what Jazz was hinting at but she wasn’t at all sure if she wanted to go down that road with her. “Have we what?”

  “Fucked, okay? Is that clear enough for you?” Trina laughed. “I was trying to be delicate,” Jazz added, laughing too.

  “I’m not about to let you get all up in my business that deep,” Trina said. “But what difference would that make, anyway?”

  “It’ll explain why he beats up on men for you. He done tasted that brown sugar.”

  “I been thinking about researching him,” Trina said, ignoring Jazz’s conclusion. “Maybe Google him or something.”

  “Now we’re talking,” Jazz said, rubbing her hands together like some mad scientist. “Let’s Google his ass!” Then her small eyes began to scan the room. “Where your computer at?” she asked.

  “What computer?” Trina asked.

  “What computer? Girl, don’t tell me you ain’t got no computer! What Negro ain’t got no computer in this day and age? No car, no computer? You sure you black?”

  Trina smiled. “It’s not that serious, Jazz.”

  “It’s criminal is what it is. When are you gonna join the modern world, child?”

  “When the modern world starts paying me a fair wage.”

  “You start working at the PaLargio on Monday. You gonna make the big bucks then.”

  “Child, please. No I’m not. At least not while I’m an apprentice. They starting me off at 12 bucks an hour.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Until I learn the ropes and take on more responsibility, yup. Of course once I’m a manager, my salary will be slammin’. But not before then.”

  “And Reno knows this?”

  “Yeah, he knows. That’s what I mean how he’s all business at the PaLargio. That’s why I told you you gotta let me get my feet in the door first. Reno might care about me and be around me and all that, but when it comes to his business? Reno don’t play that.”

  Jazz laughed. Pulled out her Blackberry smartphone. “Well,” she said, “there’s more than one way to skin a cat.”

  And on Jazz’s Blackberry they did Google Reno. They sat side by side on the sofa, staring at all of the information. At first, it was all about his business interests, all about the PaLargio. But then there were articles insinuating his connection to organized crime types, nothing concrete, but a lot of known to be associated with, or has been rumored to have a friendship with, and on and on. Until they happened upon a reference to his father, describing him as “reputed mob boss Paulo Gabrini.” Jazz looked at Trina when she saw that reference.

  “Mob boss, Tree,” she said. “Dang! This says his father’s a mob boss! You see that, girl?”

  “I see it,” Trina said, her heart pounding.

  “You done got yourself hooked up with the mob, girl. The mob! This shit ain’t funny anymore.”

  “But they ain’t saying Reno involved in the mob. Where do you see anywhere that says Reno is a mob boss?”

  “But they saying his daddy is. His own daddy! Ain’t that enough for you?”

  Trina didn’t respond to that. Because she didn’t know if it was enough or not. It was easy for Jazz to say get out now, quit while you’re ahead, leave his ass in the dust. But she wasn’t the one sleeping with Reno. She wasn’t the one falling hard for a man like him. She wasn’t the one who had a feeling that she had
herself a real man, a good man who wasn’t perfect, but was perfect for her. It was easy for Jazz and anybody else on the outside looking in. But for Trina, who was on the inside, deep down inside, it couldn’t have been any harder.