by Renee Strong
Becoming the Mob Queen
An Angel City Mafia Novel
Renee Strong
Contents
1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7
8. Chapter 8
9. Chapter 9
10. Chapter 10
11. Chapter 11
12. Chapter 12
13. Chapter 13
Epilogue
About the Author
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
Becoming the Mob Queen
First Edition
By Renee Strong
© March 2017 Strong
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Cover art courtesy of Aria Tan @ Resplendent Media
No part of this e-book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author—contact me at [email protected]—except for the purpose of critical review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Chapter 1
Lexi
It was hot that August night. Too damn hot. Even though I was wearing a tank top and jeans, I was sweating.
It was what I wore most nights: a plenty comfortable uniform of sorts that I wore for running from bar fly to bar fly serving up cheap shots and slapping grabby hands.
But as I ran between customers at ten-fifteen on that hot August night, I could feel a bead of sweat pooling on my upper lip.
By the time I got to the end of the bar to serve him—the gorgeous but seriously out of place man at the end of the bar—gravity had gotten the better of that bead of sweat. It rolled from my face and onto my cleavage with a small splash. I saw him stare at where it had landed. He wasn’t even subtle about it. He stared at my breasts with a look on his face that said he would like to personally lick that bead of sweat off.
I took a deep breath and ignored the fact that he was staring at me like a wolf about to devour a lamb.
I had no time to stop and engage a horny patron—especially not one who looked like him. With his smart suit and too-handsome looks, he stuck out among his scruffy fellow patrons like a sore thumb.
It was too loud to think too clearly—to figure out what he was doing there.
To the front of the bar, a local group, Conspiracy Theory, were playing on stage. The lead singer was howling into the mic as if his balls were caught in a clamp. The lead guitarist was attacking the strings of his guitar like they owed him money. They were, objectively, awful.
At least the singer and the lead guitarist were in rhythm, I thought ruefully. The drummer was keeping time to a different song than the one his bandmates were performing. Conspiracy Theory might have fancied themselves as a Rage Against the Machine-type group but they were succeeding only in raging against my eardrums.
I looked at the faces of the small crowd there to affirm that everyone else was hating the set. The snarls on their gnarly faces confirmed that they shared my opinion.
With a performance that bad, it might only be a matter of time before the crowd turned on them. The customers of the G-String could turn on a dime; they loved nothing more than throwing a punch or ten.
Mr. Suited and Booted was leaning onto the counter like he owned the place. Though I was trying to keep one eye on the crowd, I couldn’t ignore the fact that he was staring at where the sweat had dropped onto my cleavage.
He stood out dramatically. The usual customer who propped up my bar had a kind of uniform: ripped jeans, t-shirts with bands or eagles on them; shaved or multi-colored hair, and skin filled with tatts or bits of metal. But this guy—this guy who had dared to stare at my chest and who was now looking me directly in the eye, with a hungry glint in his own piercing blue eyes—this guy was different.
As I made my way toward him, not breaking his stare, I had to grudgingly admire his confidence. There he stood, dressed in a suit so fancy the rest of these guys couldn’t even dream of being buried in it, and he did it like it was no big deal.
To my left, a bearded customer called out to me. I turned to him, with a nod, and picked up the same whisky bottle he’d been ordering from all night. I shook it at him inquisitively. He inclined his chin down to say “yes” and I grabbed a glass. As I tipped a shot out for him, I should have been watching what I was doing, but I couldn’t keep myself from seeking out the handsome guy at the end of the bar.
I didn’t watch my pour closely enough and it spilled over my fingers.
“Damn it,” I cursed. The customer I was serving paid it no heed. The G-String wasn’t a place for sensitive ears or sensibilities. It was part of the reason I liked working there so much—despite Mike and his asshole ways.
I picked up a rag and wiped under the glass, then took the five-dollar bill the bearded customer was holding out to me.
“Anything else?” I roared over the din of the band behind me. He shook his head, knocked back the shot, and staggered into the small crowd watching, or more like enduring, the band.
The crowd was maybe thirty or forty people deep. That was busy by the G-String’s standards; anyone who valued their safety did not come to a bar like this. Especially not one in a neighborhood like the G-String’s.
This bar was in one of the worst parts of Angel City. If you had any sense or fear for your safety, you stayed away from this neighborhood and the G-String.
Handsome guy was still staring at me intensely, I knew. I could see him from the corner of my eye.
Apprehensively, I continued the walk down to the end of the bar, hoping that someone else would jump in with an order or that the guy in the suit would come to his senses and leave before trouble started.
Neither happened. I took my time getting to the end of the bar, giving myself the opportunity to take a good look at him before I finally reached him.
I couldn’t quite figure him out. From appearance, he looked like he belonged on Wall Street or in a boardroom somewhere—but I sensed something either diabolical or foolhardy about him. The hint of a smile that was playing on his thick, very kissable lips marked him out as someone who thought he was untouchable.
Among all the shouting and the grime and the stench of the G-String, he had a halo of quiet calm about him. He was surrounded by dudes who would stab you for looking at them wrong; the women, too. It didn’t appear to faze him in the slightness.
I didn’t own this club but I ruled this bar. I protected my patrons from interlopers—and this pretty boy was definitely a threat.
“What do you want?” I said with a scowl as I reached him.
He took a beat to answer, running his tongue along his thick bottom lip. I hated him instantly. He was too confident; too self assured. From experience of guys like him—guys who fucked you and then never called in the morning—I pledged to myself that I would stay clear. That I wouldn’t be taken in by his looks and charm. So why couldn’t I stop myself imagining all the things I’d like to do to him?
“What’s on the menu?” he said after a moment, the edges of his lips twisting up into a smirk. He gave me a long once over, poking his tongue out of the corner of his mouth.
I stopped despite how slammed I was right then and gave him a long hard stare. From the flirty tone of his voice, he was actually attempting to impress me with a line like that.
“You had better be asking about what shots we have,” I hissed, just loud enough to be heard over the din of the music. “Because I know you’re not stupid enough to come into my bar and insult me by implying that I must be for sale.”
That reply instantly wiped the smirk off his face.
Good, I thought. I narrowed my eyes to stare at him some more. I’ve got your number, chief, I said to myself. The way I saw it, he was just like the guys who’d been disappointing me forever. They were the guys who thought all they had to do was shoot you a line and pay you a bit of attention and you’d be putty in their hands. Especially when you’re a bigger girl. They think you’ll be grateful for whatever scrap of attention they threw at you.
I waited to see how he would respond, enjoying his silence. For a second, he just looked surprised at my response to him. That passed quickly and then he grinned. It was a nice grin, an easy one, and he wore it well, his eyes twinkling with mischief. Just like he seemed to wear everything well—that suit, that haircut that probably cost him a hundred bucks, and his air of confidence.
Standing, staring at him still, I took in a little more of the sight of him. I told myself I was just making a mental note of him in case I needed to describe him to anyone later. In doing so, I noticed how broad his shoulders were under that jet-black suit; the little scar under his right eye that gave his chiseled, youthful good looks a little edge; and weirdly an unevenness to his knuckles that told me he’d been in a fight or ten before.
I shook myself to knock loose the desire I was starting to feel for him.
Yes, Lexi, he’s handsome, I told myself. But you will not fall for his charms. Remember, guys that confident are always assholes who will break your heart.
I had been down this road more than once. I fell for the cocky patter. I told myself that the guy was just being funny when he was actually just being a dickhead. Not this time.
I mentally put a cage around my heart and locked it tight. It was a trick a discount therapist had taught me. I’d seen her a few times when I’d been getting in trouble in high school.
“Acting out,” the teachers called it. “Impulsive,” according my report cards. They said I was a bit of a bad seed who didn’t know when to shut up.
What I did know was where I was not wanted, so, despite my mom’s protests, I had left school when I was seventeen, never to return.
I tried desperately to remember what that therapist had taught me about controlling my draw to danger. She said she’d never seen anyone who would rush into a dangerous situation as quickly as I would. And this guy felt dangerous.
Be cool, Lexi, I repeated to myself. I did the exercise again in my head, picturing a metal cage being locked around my heart. It did the trick—at least for my mental faculties.
I had my brain on board but my body—man, my body started to betray me. It was like I hadn’t just told it he was off limits. Or maybe that’s why it was responding so strongly to him: because he was now forbidden fruit.
Whatever the reason, I was beginning to get turned on hard, just by the sight of him. The back of my neck, already hot from pure hard work, prickled with heat of a different sort.
Underneath my jeans, I felt my arousal start to pool in my panties. When he leaned in a little closer, and I caught his woody, musky scent, I started to panic that I had soaked right through them.
What the fuck was wrong with me? This never happened to me. It had been a long time—too damn long—since I’d even come close to orgasming with a guy. And I could never remember feeling so instantly attracted to any guy, no matter how hot. Yet now, here I was getting turned on by just his smell, the curve of his lips, and the shape of his strong shoulders under his suit.
Get it together, Lexi! I screamed at myself. Heart in a cage. Heart in a cage!
While my brain was waging war with the rest of me, the guy in the suit spoke again.
“You’re right. I shouldn’t have said that about the menu. I’m sorry,” he said in a lower, deeper tone that tickled already tingling parts of me. “That was rude of me.”
He gave a sweet smile, one that had all the innocence of a cherub’s, and he looked even more handsome than before.
I clamped my thighs closed and thanked my lucky stars the bar covered me from the waist down. Despite my dark jeans and the dim lighting in here, I would die if he saw the damp patch that must be settling there now.
“It was rude,” I said. I was fighting the urge to break into a flirty smile and to lean my elbows on the bar so that he could get a better look at the cleavage he’d so clearly been admiring.
He’s not meant to be in a place like this, Lexi, I reminded myself. There’s something not right here. I made my choice.
“I’m too busy to put manners on you, hot stuff,” I whispered into his ear. I grabbed a glass and slapped in on the counter. “What do you want to drink?”
I was going to have a serious word with myself when I got home, I decided. After I made an appointment with the battery-powered appliance in my bottom drawer. Instant arousal was not something I wanted to make a habit of. Still, I had a feeling that just thinking of him when I was alone in the dark that night with a vibrator for company would bring me to the best orgasm I’d ever had.
He stood back and fiddled with his jacket sleeves. Then, he looked to his left and suddenly the playfulness left his expression. In spite of myself, I was disappointed to see the wall come down and his expression lose its impishness.
“Just a diet coke,” he said when he turned back to me.
I raised an eyebrow.
“Just soda? No liquor in it? Just a coke?”
He nodded and gave a little half smile.
“That’s all.”
From up the opposite end of the bar, a regular whose voice I recognized, started to holler for service. I willed him to go away. I had a mystery to solve.
I desperately wanted to know why a guy like Mr. Suited and Booted was not drinking. No sane person would want to be in a place like The G-String without being absolutely shit-faced. It made me certain this handsome guy was up to nothing good.
From down the bar, the regular shouted louder. “You done for the night or what, darlin’?” Some of his buddies laughed. “Some of us are thirsty down here.”
I whipped round to look at him and shout back.
“Hold your fucking horses, Pete,” I yelled. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
Pete shrank back, all six-feet-six and two-hundred-and-fifty pounds of him, and his buddies quit laughing. My regulars know not to fuck with me.
I turned back to suit guy and shrugged. If a soda was what he wanted, a soda was what he was getting. Once I served it to him, he was out of my hair.
“Whatever you want,” I said as I filled a glass with coke. He picked the drink up, dropped a twenty on the counter and then turned and walked away.
Lexi.
I heard someone in the bar call her that and the name just seemed to suit her. I made sure to commit her name—and her face—to memory.
I didn’t usually let myself get distracted when I’m working but then, I didn’t usually meet women like Lexi. I never would have thought to seek out a woman like her and yet there she was in the last place you’d ever expect her.
I wouldn’t go looking in a dive bar like the G-String for her. It wasn’t the sort of place you go to find pussy. I tended to stick to the wine bars and new clubs in the better neighborhoods for that. Rich girls loved to throw themselves at a guy like me.
And I was always happy to catch them when they did.
I’ve had my pick of those rich, spoiled girls to fuck. When you look like I do, there’s not a lot of challenge to it. You just need to flash your pearly whites and a half-decent opening line and they drop their panties for you immediately.
But I knew right away that Lexi was something special. It wasn’t just that she seemed repelled by my pickup line; it wasn’t about the challenge of changing her mind.
It was be
cause she stood so strong and powerful in that dirt hole of a bar, like she was the queen of all she surveyed.
In a place like Angel City, most people keep their heads down, just trying to stay out of trouble. But Lexi—she looked like she’d ride head first into the fray, just for the hell of it.
Standing in the G-String, I tried to remind myself that I had a job to do, that it needed to be done tonight. But still, I let myself stare at Lexi for far too long.
Everything about her compelled my gaze. I wouldn’t have described her as my type even. Not that I have a “type.” I’ve fucked women of all shapes, sizes, backgrounds, and ethnicities. Thin or curvaceous; short or tall; brunettes, redheads, blondes, or whatever—I don’t discriminate.
But everything about Lexi came together in such a pleasing way that it was like watching a heavenly being—admittedly one who swore worse than some of the guys I ran with—come to earth. Or rather, she hadn’t come to earth. She’d come to the hellhole that was the G-String.
Lexi was a little thick where it counted: rounded hips, big ass and thighs and a curved belly. On top of that, she had a shock of pink, curly hair and a tattoo sleeve of graphic cartoons: she was like a Technicolor version of real-life women.
I wanted to sit and watch her all night. Like I said though, I was supposed to be working. I wasn’t supposed to be at that bar to meet a woman. Least of all the woman who caught my attention like this.
Before that night, I’d counted myself as strictly a one-night stand guy. I never pretended to be anything else. I always made it clear to the women I took home that it was a one-time deal. I’d stay for breakfast in their place and then I’d be gone again.
With Lexi, something sparked in me. I got to thinking about what her favorite song was, whether she had pets, what she liked to eat for dinner—questions you want to know about someone you want to date.
I wondered if she played an instrument and if she’d ever learned the guitar.