Rock Chick 08 Revolution (37 page)

“You done with your questions?” he asked, and I nodded. When I did, he
stated, “Right. Then we got something else we gotta talk about.”

I hoped whatever it was stuck with the easy vibe of our
together
togetherness because I was
still riding the high of Ava and Luke’s wedding, the fact that I introduced Ren
to Mom and Dad (eventually, between Ava and Luke’s dance and cake cutting) and
they’d both acted genuinely nice instead of stiffly polite, and breakfast in
bed with Ren was the bomb. I was digging easy. We hadn’t had a lot of that.
And, with our personalities, this was as easy as I suspected it would get.

“What do we have to talk about?” I asked.

“What I’ve been needin’ to get down to talkin’ to you about since we
got back from the mountains, just haven’t had the time.” He sucked back some
coffee and finished, “Now we have the time.”

Okay.

Good.

I was happy we were getting to this. So much had been going on I hadn’t
thought about it that much. That didn’t mean I wasn’t curious. Then again, I
was always curious.

“Shoot,” I invited, grabbing my mug and leaning over him to deposit my
plate on the bedside table.

Ren followed suit, lifted one knee and twisted partially to me.

“Shit’s goin’ down at work,” he announced.

Oh man.

This was sure to take us out of easy.

Denying what Ren and I were, having my apartment explode and the rest
of all that went down, it didn’t hit me in our together
togetherness
that an official Ren and Ally would not only include
us sharing mundane things like why he parked out front, but also non-mundane
things, like how his day was at the office where he was in charge of the
legitimate side of a crime empire.

Fuck.

“Okay,” I said slowly.

“And you gotta know what it is,” he went on.

“Okay,” I repeated.

“You also gotta know
why
it
is what it is,” he continued.

I didn’t repeat an “okay.” I just nodded.

He looked away and took a sip of coffee, but something changed in his
face that I did not like.

Then he looked back at me and I saw whatever it was I
really
didn’t like.

But it was familiar. I’d seen it before whenever he mentioned his dad.

“My mother wasn’t in the life,” he shared. “She came here from Chicago
after college for a job and met my pop.”

Yep. This was going to be about his dad.

I took in a breath and nodded.

“The way Aunt Angela told it to my sister Jeannie, Ma didn’t know shit.
Not until Pop took over the business from my grandfather and two weeks later
got whacked.”

Holy shit!

“Then she knew,” he said.

“Wow, I, uh… honey,” I stammered, reaching out and curling a hand
around his thigh. “I hadn’t heard about that. That’s terrible. Awful. I don’t
know what to say.”

“Yeah. It was awful and there’s nothin’
to
say. I was three. Jeannie was five. My younger sister Connie was
barely a year old. Ma was fucked. She didn’t have a job. Gave it up to be a
wife and mother. Young. Three kids. Then she sorted it out, why Pop was dead
from a bullet to the head, and it set her reeling. She packed us up and went
back to Chicago to be with her family.”

Now it was becoming clear why he wanted me to be a stay-at-home mom.
That was what he knew, and I knew he loved his mother; she’d done a good job
with him, so that was what he wanted for his kids.

“That’s understandable,” I murmured, squeezing his thigh.

“She made a mistake though. She took family money.”

Uh-oh.

Not good.

“In the meantime,” Ren kept going, “Vito and Angela, they couldn’t have
kids. Dom was around, but he’s a fuckup and he didn’t start fuckin’ up when he
started usin’ his dick for more than jerkin’ off. Vito’s all about family, in
good ways as well as not so good, so he looked after Ma. He also came to visit.
And he had his eye on me. Time came when he had to start to think about who’ll
take over when he’s ready to retire. Me and Dom the only males, Vito old
school, he decided it would be me.”

As much as this sucked, I didn’t blame Vito. I knew Ren’s cousin
Dominic. He
was
a fuckup.

I also knew his wife Sissy. Dom had fucked around on her and treated
her like garbage. Ava’s Rock Chick Ride dragged Sissy along with it and Dom woke
up, saw he was screwing over a good woman and got his head out of his ass. Now
they had a baby and were happy.

I wasn’t Sissy. He didn’t cheat on me, so it wasn’t up to me to judge.

Still, I wasn’t his biggest fan, even if he now seemed a devoted husband
and family man.

Ren brought my attention back to his story.

“Uncle Vito leaned on Ma to come back to Denver. She didn’t like it,
but since she was still mostly a stay-at-home mom with only a part-time job—but
a nice house and nice car all paid for by Zano family money—she was in a tight
place. She couldn’t say no. She also had a lot of misplaced gratitude. So we
came back.”

At this juncture, it must be noted, as whacked as it was, I’d always
liked Vito. He was outspoken and funny, and he’d stepped up for two of the Rock
Chicks.

But I didn’t like this.

“And Vito started grooming you to take over,” I guessed.

“Not right away, but yeah,” Ren confirmed. “So, in one ear, I got Vito.
In the other, I got Ma, who wants me to have nothin’ to do with that shit.”

It was all coming clear.

“That’s why you’re the legitimate side,” I said quietly and his focus
intensified on me.

“Yeah,” he replied just as quietly.

“And now Vito wants to retire?” Again, I was guessing.

“No. Now, I got a mom I love and respect who had to be both parents to
me for as long as I can remember. And I don’t remember my dad, Ally. Not what
he looked like. Not a touch. Not a smell. Not even a feeling. He’s gone. The
only thing I got is pictures, and they mean shit to me. He’s a phantom that
haunts my mother to this day. So we’ll also say, I don’t remember him, but I
don’t like him either.”

With a dad like my dad and thinking everyone should have a dad like my
dad, his words made my heart bleed. I’d hate that. And obviously Ren hated it,
too.

I leaned closer, squeezed his thigh harder, and whispered, “Ren,
honey.”

His jaw got tight before he said, “He lied to her. Brought her into the
life and didn’t say dick. You don’t do that to a woman. Not with that life. Not
with any fuckin’ life. You don’t hold shit back. Ever.”

I sure was glad he thought like that.

I nodded. “I get it.”

“What I also got is hooked to a woman whose father and brother are
cops.”

This surprised me so much I leaned back and took in a sharp breath.

“Yeah,” he stated, still watching me intently. “So Vito’s mutterin’
about me makin’ inroads into the other side of the business, my ma will lose
her mind if I take over and the woman I was fallin’ in love with is tangled up
in blue.”

“Tangled up in blue?” I asked.

“Cop blue,” he answered.

“Right,” I mumbled.

“So what do I do?” he queried.

“I don’t know, honey. What do you do?”

“It’s not what do I do. It’s what I
did
do. And what I did was told Vito we’re movin’ the whole thing to legit. He
eventually bows out, Dom tows my line or he gets another job, and we’re done
with the business.”

Holy shit!

I knew my mouth had dropped open, and I knew Ren didn’t miss it because
he was still watching me closely, but he ignored my reaction and kept going.

“That didn’t go over too well.”

Oh man.

I bet it didn’t.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Vito lost his shit is what happened,” he answered.

I pressed my lips together.

“The good news is, he loves me. I get out of the life, he won’t order a
hit on me.”

Oh my God!

A hit?

“The bad news is, he’s all over me to change my mind, and if I don’t,
I’m excommunicated.”

Okay, that was bad news. But a hit was a whole lot worse.

“I know you’re tight with your family, Ren, but is that really a bad
thing?” I asked hesitantly.

“Yeah, honey, because I’m tight with my family. But it’s better than
dead.”

It totally was.

“But, even with this and all the shit before, bottom line, Vito has
been good to me, my sisters, my ma. He’s the only father I ever had, Ally. He’s
fucked up along the way, like now, bein’ stubborn and tryin’ to bend me to his
will. But mostly, he’s been a good one. I don’t wanna lose him and it looks
like he’s givin’ me no choice.” He paused then finished, “It also means I got
no job.”

Oh
man!

“That isn’t good,” I noted, again cautiously.

“No. We do well, Ally. When I say that, I pull down high six figures,”
he told me.

Yowza!

High six figures?

I made eight hours of a couple bucks above minimum wage and fifty
dollars from the tip jar the day before yesterday.

I couldn’t wrap my mind around high six figures.

No wonder he drove a Jag, had a gardener and a kickass pad in Cheesman
Park.

“So I got some put away, and we’re good in a live-real-good type of way
for a while. We’re good for a live-content type of way for a longer while. I’m
just not the kind of man who golfs.”

Thank God.

Nothing against golf. I was just not the-man-who-golfed-being-my-man
type of woman.

“So what’re you thinking of doing?” I asked.

“I know what I’m doing. I’m settin’ up with Marcus.”

I blinked and my voice squeaked when I asked, “What?”

“This is not popular with Vito either,” Ren noted.

I didn’t understand.

“So, let me get this straight. You’re going out of the family business,
but staying in the business?”

He shook his head. “No. Marcus has been pullin’ back for a while now.
He has one thing on this earth he gives a shit about, and that’s his wife. I
don’t have to tell you she had a tough life. They got together, with his social
set, she had a tough go. She hasn’t had anything solid, anything at all, not
her whole life, except Marcus…” he grabbed my hand, “and the Rock Chicks.”

I knew this.

“Chavez hates him because of what he does,” Ren continued, letting my
hand go and taking a sip of coffee before he went on, “Hank also wouldn’t
hesitate to take him down if given the opportunity. Marcus feels that tension.
The truces made to deal with Rock Chick shit are tentative, baby. And that also
means with my family. You women settle in, focus will shift. And when it does,
it will not be good. So that Marcus can give Daisy what she needs, the family
that comes with the Rock Chicks, without that tension or any shit hangin’ over
their heads, he’s been growin’ the legit side of things, lettin’ go of the
other. He’s almost there. The thing is, his talents lie in the other. But my
talents lie with the legit.”

I had also always liked Marcus.

Now I liked him more.

Suddenly, I smiled huge.

“Perfect fit,” I decreed.

He smiled back. “Yeah.”

Just as suddenly, I was again confused.

“Was this what you were talking with Lee about after my apartment
exploded?”

“Yeah,” he confirmed.

“This isn’t bad, so why were you in each other’s faces?”

“Because I was with you and Lee suspected where that was going, which
is where it is now, and he wasn’t pleased with the pace the other shit was
going.”

Yep, that was Lee.

“You go at whatever pace you wanna go, honey,” I told him.

“I intend to, baby,” he said on a grin.

I took a sip of coffee and asked, “How does Dom feel about all this?”

Ren shook his head, but replied, “He’s calmed his shit since all that
went down with Ava and Sissy, but he’s still a fuckup. It’s just that now, he
knows it.”

“And that means?”

“That means he doesn’t want to be at the helm, because Vito’s gonna
retire but still be up in his face all the time. He also doesn’t want the helm
because he’s got a wife and kid, his wife got roughed up in some bad business,
and he doesn’t want any of that shit ever to touch his family again.”

I didn’t get a good feeling about this.

“So it’s crumbling,” I remarked.

“Yeah, Ally, and I can’t get worked up to give a shit about it,” Ren
said, and his voice had gone harsh. “I gave them an out. Everyone connected to
us does well with what I do. They don’t need that other shit. It’s just
stubbornness and fear of change that’s makin’ him hold on. Vito’s a few years
from retiring, so that makes even less sense. What does he care?’