Mob Boss 4: Romancing Trina Gabrini (15 page)

Shanell sipped her coffee.
 
She didn’t need Google or any other search
engine to tell her what she already knew.
 
What she needed help with was telling Jimmy.
 
How was she going to tell Jimmy when he’d
been told all his life that Fred Ridgeway was his father?
 
Was there a search engine to help with that?

“I couldn’t believe it when I saw it,” Jannie
went on, pulling out the IPad.

“What did you see?”

“I couldn’t believe it,” she said, pecking
away on the IPad.

Darla rolled her eyes.
 
“Will you stop being the drama queen for two
seconds and tell us what you found out, Jannie?” she asked with exasperation in
her voice.

Jannie ignored her.
 
She and Darla never did get along.
 
Well,” Jannie said, searching now for her
saved information, “his name is Dominic Gabrini.”

“We already know that much,” Darla said.
 
“What else you got?”

Jannie wanted to roll her eyes.
 
“That’s his name, but some articles called
him Reno Gabrini, too.”

Shanell’s heart pounded when she said the main
name she’d known him by.
 
But she knew
she couldn’t fall apart now.
 
She spent
all last night falling apart.
 
She had to
hold it together now.

“So what about this Reno or Dominic or
whatever his name is?”
 
Mondo asked.
 
“What’s got you so fired up?”

“Here it is,” Jannie said, pulling it up on
her IPad.
 
“His name is Dominic “Reno”
Gabrini like I said.
 
He owns the
PaLargio, y’all.”

“The
Pa-Lar-gi-o
?”
both Mondo and Darla asked at nearly the exact same time and with the exact
same emphasis on the syllables.
 
“Are you
telling us,” Mondo continued, “that the new owner of Clauson’s is also the
owner of the PaLargio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada?”

“That’s what I’m telling y’all,” Jannie
said.
 
“And, on top of that, he’s
gorgeous, too.”

“Let me see that,” Mondo said, snatching the
IPad from Jannie’s hand.
 
When he saw
Reno’s picture, his small eyes stretched.
 
“Damn, he
is
good looking,” he
said.
“If I may say so myself.”

“Yeah, right,” Darla said, snatching the IPad
from Mondo.
 
“I’ll bet he looks like a
Chia Pet.”
 
But when she saw Reno’s
picture on the tablet, she, too, smiled.
 
“Daamn!” she said.
 
“He
is
fine.”

Shanell decided to take a peep at that
picture.
 
She wanted to hope against hope
that somehow it was all a mistake and they weren’t talking about the same
person.
 
But when she saw Reno’s smiling
face, looking like the older version of the young man she once knew intimately,
her heart sank.
 
There was no hope now.
 
It was him.

Jannie took the IPad from Darla and continued
reading.
 
“This is the part that got me,
y’all,” she said.
 
“According to all of
these articles, he’s like some kind of a mob boss with all kinds of mob
connections.”

“Shut the front door!” Mondo said,
astounded.
 
“A mob
boss?”

Even Shanell was now intrigued.
 
She’d never heard anything like that before,
although she had long ago assumed Reno’s family had something shady going
on.
 
For some reason she assumed it was
drugs.
 
“A mob boss?” she, too, asked.

“A mob boss,” Jannie said again.
 
“And that ain’t all, either.
 
They say he was involved in some major mob
war where people were killed, y’all.
 
And
some of these articles even say he might have been responsible for some of
those deaths.”
 

“What?” Darla asked with disbelief in her
voice.
 
“And this is the man we’re
supposed to be working for now?”

“And get this,” Jannie said, her enthusiasm
growing with every gloomy discovery about the new boss.
 
She began reading an article.
 
“‘Although a well-respected businessman in
his own right, and a man who has always denied any mob connections, it is worth
noting that violence and retribution seems to follow Dominic Gabrini wherever
he goes.’
 
And that’s a direct quote,
y’all.”

Darla and Mondo, both dumbstruck, looked from
Jannie, to Shanell.

But Shanell was in her own hell to pull them
out of theirs.
 
Imagine a monster like
that as the father of her child?
 
“Don’t
believe everything you read on the internet,” was the best she could offer as
she stood to her shaky feet.
 
“Now let’s get
to work.
 
We open for lunch in an hour.”

But just as they were all standing to get back
to prep for their eleven a.m. opening, Gweneth came hurrying out of the back.

“He’s here!” she yelled to Shanell.

“Who’s here?” Shanell yelled back.
 

“The boss!”
Gweneth replied in her always flustered
style.
 
“That Ga-bri-ni
person.
 
He’s just decided to show
up.
 
No pre-warning, no
pre-planning.
 
He just shows up.
 
Assemble all of the staff so we can greet him
at the door.
 
Hurry now.
 
Chop, chop, people, chop, chop!”
 
She said this and ran to the bathroom, to
quickly spruce her own self up.

Although Shanell nervously hurried to assemble
what remained of her team, Darla, Mondo and Jannie wanted to roll their eyes at
that always unnerving Broom Hilda.
 
But
those eyes were too busy looking out of the window at the parking lot.
 
And sure enough, a Porsche was sitting there,
and Dominic Gabrini was stepping out.

Darla and Jannie wouldn’t have thought it
possible, but that photo on the internet didn’t do the man justice.
 
He looked like a prince when he stepped out of
that car, with eyes so blue their color radiated in the sun, even as they
watched through the smudgy plate-glass window of Clauson’s.
 

And his body, Darla thought, looking down at
the strength in his arms and his chest and his thighs, and between those
thighs.
 
There was a budge there, which
meant he was packing the big dog, and just the thought of having a hunk like
him in their midst excited her.
 
She was
even a little thrilled that he was a bad boy, too.

Reno didn’t realize he was the
subject of her admiration as he grabbed his suit coat from the passenger seat
and put it on.
 
He looked up at the blue
and white building in desperate need of a paint job.
 
Who would want to eat out of a rat hole like
this, he wondered.
 
Was this a restaurant
or a dank, dingy, disease-ridden strip joint, he wondered?

It was hot as hell in Georgia, and he
was feeling the heat to the depths of his armpits.
 
But he put on his suit coat anyway.
 
Because business was
business with Reno.
 
He wasn’t
allowing these yahoos to think for a second that they had a patsy on their
hands.
 
This restaurant was in bad shape,
and that had to change.
 
And they had to
understand, from the moment they met
him, that
it was
going to change.
 
He began walking toward
the entrance.
 
They had to understand
that he wasn’t some new sheriff in town, but he was the new asshole in town as
far as they were concerned.
 
And the buck
stopped with him.

 
By the time he made his way to the restaurant’s side entrance, the glass
of the door so smudged you could barely make out the name of the establishment,
everybody had assembled.
 
Gweneth and
Mondo and all of the waitresses, kitchen staff, and Barkley the bartender were
standing in the foyer ready to greet their new boss.
 
They were all equal parts apprehensive and
excited as they waited.
 
Except for
Shanell, who made a point of standing in the back of the
pack.
 
There was no excitement for her
whatsoever.
 
It was all apprehension.

As soon as Reno entered the
restaurant and saw the assembled staff, he understood why the restaurant looked
so rundown.
 
The staff looked about the
same.
 
A bunch of hillbillies they looked
like, with their over-the-top big hair and too-tight high-watered pants, and
make-up so thick and caked on that many of them looked like creatures from the
black lagoon.
 
It was a scary sight.
 
Especially when the woman standing in front
of all of these bad hair days looked so well put together you’d think she never
worked a day in her life.
 

“Good morning, Mr. Gabrini.
 
My name is Gweneth Plant.
 
I’m the manager here, and the general can-do
person on the scene.
 
These people behind
me are my help.”

Reno immediately noticed how her
“help” didn’t appreciate being referred to as her “help.”
 
But he also noticed how oblivious she
seemed.
 

“On behalf of
myself
and all of them,” Gweneth continued, “we welcome you to Clauson’s.
 
I’m certain you will be very pleased with
this entire operation, from our devoted front of the house staff, to our
renowned executive chef, Armondo Pardeau.” Mondo bowed.
 
“We are the best fine dining in town and it
is mainly because of Mondo and his fantastic cuisine.”

Reno stood in front of his new staff,
his suit coat
buttoned,
his muscular arms folded, and
listened.
 
And Gweneth kept talking,
praising the chef’s long resume and the devotion of her waitresses and the
loyalty of their customers.

“The townspeople simply adore the
food here,” she went on.
 
“They can’t
stop telling us how much they love the cuisine and the atmosphere and our
entire staff, quite frankly, and we think you’re really going to love it here,
too.”

“You think so, do you?” Reno
asked.
 
He hunched one shoulder and
looked around in that way that those who knew him knew was an indication that
he was getting pissed.

Gweneth and her staff, who didn’t
know him at all, were surprised by his brusque response.
  
They expected him to be thrilled with their
upbeat attitude, and with their put-on smiles and fake enthusiasm.
 

“Why, yes,” Gweneth said, still
smiling herself.
 
“We get raves for our
food and service.”

“Bullshit,” Reno said pointblank.

The entire room fell into shock.
 
Gweneth’s smile disappeared as quickly as her
play-nice act had conjured it up.
 
“Excuse me?” she said.

“This restaurant is bleeding cash to
the tune of a grand a day and you’re telling me it’s the best little eatery in
town?
 
That’s bullshit.
 
I didn’t stutter.
 
You know it and I know
it’s
bullshit.
 
Now let’s cut the crap and get
down to basics.
 
What’s wrong with this
place?
 
Why is it a failure?”

Gweneth just stood there.
 
Doug Clauson had warned her about him.
 
He had warned her that this Ga-bri-ni
character could be awfully prickly.
 
But
she never expected anything like
this
.
  
“I don’t understand.”

“You don’t understand?” Reno asked as
if she was dimwitted.
 
“What’s wrong with
this place?
 
Why is this
joint
only a third full every night?
 
Why is there never any need to make a
reservation?
 
Why did the local food
critic say it was one of the worse dining experiences of her life when she
visited here?
 
She praised how great this
place used to be and said it was a hellhole now.
 
So what’s the problem?
 
Is it the food, is it the service,
is
it the prices?
 
Or
is it you?”

Darla and Jannie smiled.
 
It was about time somebody put that
highfalutin Gweneth Plant in her place.