Mob Boss Eleven- The Wrong One (The Mob Boss Series Book 11) (2 page)

CHAPTER ONE

Four Days Earlier

Maurice
Pender looked at the Porsche as it drove into the parking lot.
 
“Is that him?” he asked.

“How
should I know?” Gennifer Goff, standing beside him, responded.
 
“Does he drive a car like that?”

Then
she and Maurice looked behind them, at the one woman who would know.
 
Trina Gabrini, leaned against the building’s
front door with her small arms folded, smiled.
 
“It’s him,” she said.
 
“I was
wondering when you two would stop guessing and ask.”

They
laughed.
 
They were standing in front of
a huge abandoned building on a breezy day in Vegas.
 
And although all three of them were cheerful,
none of them were relaxed.
 
They knew the
job they had in front of them.
 
They knew
this was going to be an all-important meeting that would propel their goals
forward, or set those goals significantly back.
 

Especially
for Tree.
 
Convincing Reno of this
investment was going to be a tough sell.
 
He was going to find every reason in the book not to let her do it.
 
But this wasn’t about some selfish,
money-making venture she was wading into.
 
This was about a non-profit, a place that would help many women who
truly needed the help.
 
She was
determined on this one.
 

She
pushed her small body from the wall she was leaned against, brushed off the
back of her dark-blue Versace pantsuit, and was about to go and meet her
husband at his car.
 
But when she looked
at her two potential partners, who seemed almost smug in their confidence, she
felt a need to make herself clear.
 
“I
know you’re accustomed to making that hard sell,” she said to them, “and I know
it often requires a lot of sweet talk and flattery.
 
I understand that.
 
But don’t try it with him. Word of
warning.
  
Don’t even think about trying
that shit on him.”

Maurice
dismissed her concerns with a smile and a wave of his hand.
 
“Oh, Katrina, you are worrying for no reason
whatsoever, darling,” he said in that effeminate way of his.
 
“I’ve been a salesman all my life.
 
I know how to convince all kinds of people
from all walks of life.
 
I know how to
handle people.
 
Trust.”

“But
you aren’t going to handle my husband,” Trina said firmly.
 
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you.
 
And I need you to understand that, Mo.
 
I’m on board.
 
I think this is a worthy undertaking and I believe it can help so many
women.
 
I know it can.
 
But if my husband says no, then that will be
the final word on this.
 
I won’t participate
at all if he says no.”

Maurice
Pender was a short man with pale white skin and enormous pop eyes.
 
But he was also a narcissist who could not
imagine anyone better looking than himself, nor smarter than himself, nor, as
in this case, more astute at knowing the difference between the truth and a
lie.
 
“Perhaps I’m out of line here,” he
said to Trina, “but you will have to explain that to me.”

Trina
stared her big hazel eyes at him.
 
She
was astute too.
 
“Explain what?”

“You’re
an accomplished businesswoman in your own right.
 
You own Champagne’s clothing store, a
high-end store I might add, and you’re second-in-command at the PaLargio
 
Hotel and Casino on the Vegas Strip of all
places.
 
So please explain to me why you
would have to have his permission, or anyone else’s permission for that matter,
to do anything!
 
It seems to me that a
woman of your stature should be able to just do it.”

Trina
couldn’t believe his nerve.
 
“That’s the
way it seems to you, hun?” she asked.

But
Maurice did not back down.
 
“That’s the
way I see it exactly, yes,” he said.

“Then
you’re blind,” Trina responded bluntly.
 
“You’re blind as a bat.
 
You’re
asking me to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in this enterprise.
 
Where do you think that money is coming from,
Mo?
 
Out of my ass?
 
That’s my husband’s money!”

“And
you’re telling us,” Maurice asked doubtfully, “that you, the strong woman that
you are, have no access to his money?”

Trina
had total access to it.
 
“That’s none of
your business,” she said to Maurice.
 
“Just
understand that I’m not going down any new avenues without my husband going
with me.
 
Now if you don’t like it, then
find another partner.
 
But if you want
this partnership to proceed, I would strongly advise you to heed my warning,
check your arrogance, and keep it real and keep it honest when you’re dealing
with the man in that car over there.”

Maurice
glanced at the white man in the Porsche, who was still sitting in his car and
appeared to be talking on the phone, and then he looked back at Trina.
 
With her hazel eyes against her velvety black
skin, she was a strikingly beautiful woman, he had no doubt about it.
 
He easily saw how any man would want her.

But
what Maurice didn’t understand was how she could have nabbed a top dog like
Reno Gabrini.
 
He had Googled that
man.
 
He was rich, gorgeous, and had a
seriously bad boy reputation.
 
How did
Trina get him, he wondered.
 
What did she
have that all of these equally beautiful white women around here didn’t
have?
 
And with all of that obvious power
within her grasp, why would she claim that she couldn’t make any move unless
her husband said she could make that move?
 
He wasn’t buying it.
 
“You still
will need to explain that to me,” he said.

But
Trina wasn’t giving any more explanations.
 
Because she could tell he was on his arrogant kick and his mind was
already made up.
 
She glanced at
Gennifer.
 
Her mind was made up too.
 
They figured all they had to do was smile
their smiles and talk a good game and Reno would automatically bend to their
will.
 
A warning from her was not going
to be sufficient for them.
 
She left
their side and began walking toward her husband’s car.
 
They would have to find out for themselves.

Maurice
watched her leave.
 
“Who does she think
we are?” he asked Gennifer.
 
“She must
take us for fools!
 
She has no access to
her husband’s money.
 
Give me a freaking
break!
 
And what about this husband of
hers anyway?
 
I went on the Internet
checking him out and I was concerned with what I saw.
 
You ever met him before?”

“Only
once,” Gennifer replied, as she raked her long red hair out of her face.
 
“During an art exhibit at Liz Mertan’s
house.”

Maurice
looked at her.
 
“And the verdict is?”

“I
would say guilty,” she said.
 
“He has one
sick reputation, and he didn’t disprove it when I met him.
 
He was very rude.”

Maurice
nodded.
 
“Just like his wife,” he
said.
 
“Did you get a load of that
heifer?
 
Telling me to check my
arrogance, and to keep it real and honest when she’s sleeping with a
got
damn mob boss.
 
Give me a freaking break!”

Gennifer
laughed.
 
“He’s not in any mob,” she
said.
 
“At least he claims he’s not.
 
He’s a legitimate businessman.
 
Don’t believe everything you see on the
Internet.”

“And
I saw an eyeful, girl,” Maurice responded.
 
“They say he’s no businessman at all.
 
They say he’s a mob boss pretending to be a legitimate businessman.”

“Just
rumors,” Gennifer said dismissively.
 
“I’ve heard far more than that about him.
 
But so what?
 
They’re only rumors.”

Maurice
looked at her with a smile on his face.
 
“What have you heard?” he asked her.

Gennifer
looked across the parking lot as Reno Gabrini stepped out of his car.
 
He wore an olive-green dress shirt that was
half out of his pants, and he wore dark shades over his eyes.
 
As he shoved his shirt back into his pants,
Gennifer could see the sexiness of his muscular form and, despite the shades,
the allure of his attractive face.
 
She
smiled and gave him a very positive, assessing look.
 
“They say he’s an animal in bed,” she
said.
 
“They say he knows how to do a
woman in that oh-so-special way.
 
They
say he puts it on her so good that the bitch try to scale a wall to get away
from his ass.
 
But then he pulls her
right back down, and keeps doing her harder and harder.”

Maurice
shook his head.
 
“All about sex,” he
said.
 
“How disgusting!”

Gennifer
laughed.
 
“Stop worrying, Mo.
 
We aren’t dealing with any Mafia boss,
okay?
 
Reno Gabrini is a lover first and
last.
 
That’s my point.
 
He may have that wife fooled, but I know too
many women who have gotten a taste of his big, powerful
instrument
for him to have time for anything else.
 
He’s a lover, not a fighter.
 
At least that’s what I’ve heard.”

“And
have any of those women had a taste of that
powerful
instrument since he’s been married to Mrs. Gabrini?”

“I
haven’t spoken to anyone who’s had him since he’s been married to her, but come
on now, Mo.
 
He’s more discreet now. He
only fools around with women who will not talk and tell his business.
 
Because how many men with that kind of sexual
prowess is going to give all of that variety up for just one woman?
 
There is just no way.
 
I don’t care what Trina thinks.”

“And
this clueless female is our only hope?”

 
“Our only hope, Mo.
 
There’s nobody else.
 
We need her money and connections, and she’s
going to need our know-how if she ever expects to be the successful do-gooder
she strives to be.
 
And he’s her money
man, she just told us so.
 
Every dime has
to go through him.”

“I
sure hope we can get a final yes from her,” Maurice made clear.
 
“Because I agree with you.
 
It’ll be a win-win situation.
 
We get to reopen and earn a decent living
again, and she gets to go to sleep at night feeling a little less dirty from
marrying a man like that.
 
Women like her
have to do good deeds, or that guilt will eat them alive.”

Gennifer
smiled mockingly.
 
“And we wouldn’t want
that, now would we?”

Maurice
smiled too.
 
“Perish the thought,” he
said.
 

In
the parking lot, Reno reached back into his car and grabbed his suit coat off
the passenger seat.
 
He was busy as hell,
and didn’t have any time to kill, but Trina asked him to meet her over
here.
 
So he came.
 
And when he saw her coming toward him,
looking sexy in her pantsuit and heels, he smiled and lifted his shades,
revealing deep blue eyes, and then slid them on top of his thick brown
hair.
 
“Here comes my bag of bones,” he
said affectionately.

“I’ve
got your bag of bones right here,” Trina responded, using his favorite
phrase.
 

Reno
laughed.
 
And pulled her into his arms as
soon as she arrived.
 

“Thanks
for coming, babe,” she said as he held her.
 
“I know how busy you are.”

He
had not seen her since this morning.
 
He
soaked in her sweet smell as he wrapped his arms around her tighter, and then
kissed her on the lips.
 
But when they
stopped embracing, he continued to hold her close to him as he looked around.
  
It was not the best area, and it concerned
him that it wasn’t.
 
“You realize they’re
selling drugs on that corner down there?”