Mob Mistress (15 page)

“And you don’t want him to know where you’re staying?”

“Nope.”

“I won’t say a word. Won’t he just go to the salon, though?”

“Probably. So I’m not going back.”

“What? That’s crazy!”

“Well, I got the new job. It starts in two weeks. I have enough money saved, since Bobby paid for everything and gave me a lot of cash on top of it all.”

“What about your medical bills? Did he pay those off, too?”

“No. I didn’t tell him about those. But I can keep chipping away at them. The new job will help a lot.”

Gina leveled her with a look. “So if you’re not afraid of him, why are you hiding?”

She nibbled on her lower lip. Her eyes filled with tears. “I don’t trust myself with him. And I sure as hell don’t want to be made a fool of again.”

Gina sat gazing at her and saying nothing.

“What?”

She shrugged. “I just don’t quite understand. But that’s okay. I don’t have to. You’re my friend and I’m behind you one hundred percent.”

She gave a weak smile. “Thank you.”

She picked up her phone to start calling her clients to cancel appointments, then to contact landlords to see apartments and discuss terms. Bobby Manghini wasn’t going to get her down.

Chapter Ten

He stalked into the club, making a beeline for the bar where Gina stood serving drinks.

“Where is she?” he demanded.

Gina pressed her lips together and shrugged her shoulders.

“I need to see her. I know you know where she is.”

“Sorry,” Gina said, walking away.

He resisted the urge to grab her arm and pull her back. Getting aggressive with Lexi’s best friend would not win him any points.

Instead he took a seat on the bar stool, trying to get a grip on his emotions. He had already been to the salon, only to discover Lexi had not been in all day. In fact, they told him they didn’t expect her back, although he found that hard to believe.

Gina studiously ignored him, letting him go without a drink until another bartender finally came by and served him one. After four more, he left, frustration burning a hole in his gut.

The week only worsened from there: the Feds picked up his secretary and held her all day for questioning. Lexi did not show up at the salon or answer his phone calls or texts and he lost an enormous bid with the city because the mayor pussied out on working with Manghini Construction in light of the investigation.

By the following week, after numerous stops to her salon he realized they were telling the truth: she wasn’t coming back. He wanted to throw his fist through the wall.

“So... did she, like, break up with you?” Janine asked when he sat at home eating cold pizza for the third night in a row.

“I don’t know,” he said, still in denial. “I guess so.”

“Well, it seems to us that she’s worth fighting for. I mean, we’ve never seen you like this before over a girl. Maybe you should propose or something.”

“Yeah,
thanks
,” he snarled, though he knew she didn’t deserve it. “You planning on hosting ‘Love Line’ on the radio now?”

She shrugged. “Well, I’m just saying you should go get her back, if that’s what you want.”

He sat unmoving for a moment. He’d been trying for a solid week to get her back without a lick of luck. “Maybe I can’t change her mind,” he said hollowly.

“Really?” Juliana joined in. “I thought ‘A Manghini never admits defeat.’ Isn’t that what you always told us?”

He closed his eyes, gritting his teeth.
What else could he do?

Another week passed without any contact with Lexi and things continued to fall apart at the office. Desperate for any kind of distraction, he invited the guys to his place for poker night, telling the girls to go out and enjoy themselves and picking up catered food.

Al arrived first, examining him with characteristic shrewdness. “What’s going on? You look terrible. Feds driving you nuts?”

He shrugged. “Nothing I can’t handle. They won’t find anything, but they’re enjoying pissing in my Cheerios while they stir things up. Picked up my secretary, my accountant, who knows who’s next.”

“You need help?”

“No,” he said immediately. To ask for help from the Don would be to show weakness, and he certainly didn’t have a problem he couldn’t handle on his own.

Joey and Dean showed up next, followed by two other Family members, Tony and Pauly. He poured drinks and pressed plates into the men’s hands, after clapping shoulders and greeting them.

They sat down around the table to play cards, Al lighting up a cigar.

“So, how’s the goomah?” Dean asked.

He stiffened, which naturally attracted the attention of every man at the table.

“Not so good,” he admitted. “In the irony of the century, she broke up with me because I
don’t
have a wife.”

A couple men chuckled. Al narrowed his eyes at him. “Explain.”

He shrugged, suddenly wishing he’d never invited the men over. Discussing Lexi had been the last thing he wanted to do, especially with them. “She thought she was my goomah because I had a wife. When she found out I don’t, she felt betrayed, I guess.”

“I guess the question you have to ask yourself is why did you want her as a goomah, and are you willing to give that up to keep her?”

He stared at the Don, taken aback. Did Al understand his quirk?

He played the next few hands, mulling over the question. He’d wanted Lexi as his goomah because he liked having the power over her — liked her beholden to him. Without that power dynamic, would he feel the same about her? No. Not really. He didn’t want a vanilla girlfriend and vanilla sex. He didn’t want another boring wife he never came home to.

Except Lexi would never be that.

Even without the goomah arrangement, Lexi was the yin to his yang. She liked it the way he wanted to give it. She submitted when he dominated — not for his money, not for the apartment, not because she feared him. No, she submitted because it turned her on. Just as much as it drove him crazy to demand her submission.

He blinked into this realization. Maybe if he’d explained things in this light, she would have understood. She’d been right: he
had
lied to her. Not about having a wife, but about why he’d pretended he did.

* * * * *

Lexi got off the morning flight from Las Vegas, heading to baggage without seeing anything around her. She’d just observed her first three-day Stellar workshop put on for a packed hotel conference room in Sin City. As part of her training, she would observe three more — in Denver, Los Angeles and Tucson, then take over as trainer, giving them herself.

“Lexi Tyler?”

Her head snapped up to find a grim-looking woman and blank-faced man dressed in suits blocking her way.

“Yes? What’s going on?”

The woman flashed an ID card at her. “I’m Jessie McGalicaster from the FBI. We’d like to ask you some questions.”

She tried to peer around them, as if the answer lay in the carousel, with her suitcase. “Um... no, thanks,” she fumbled.

“It’s not a choice,” the woman said drily. “Sully will get your bag. Come with me.”

She looked around again, still somehow hoping someone might intervene, or explain they had the wrong person. The woman took hold of her upper arm and began to maneuver her through the airport and out to a waiting sedan.

Her companion arrived ten minutes later with her bag and climbed in beside her.

“What’s going on?” she said.

“We’ll be asking the questions, Miss Tyler.”

“About what?”

Neither agent answered her.

She chewed on her lip. Bobby. She had no doubt they wanted information on Bobby. A cold dread washed through her.

They took her to a small office, with nothing but a few chairs and a table. “Sit,” the woman commanded. Her chair scraped the floor as she pulled it back and the sound echoed against the blank walls.

She licked her dry lips, wishing she had a water bottle.

“Miss Tyler, you have been working as a hair stylist for how many years now?”

“Uh... twelve?”

“Are you asking me or answering me?”

She glared at the woman and said nothing.

The woman opened a file and shuffled some papers. “I have here your tax returns from the past twelve years. I have both state and federal. Never once, in all the twelve years did you claim any tips.”

“So?” She gritted her teeth.

“So, I find that unusual. Are you really that terrible at what you do that no one, in twelve years ever paid you a tip?”

She folded her arms across her chest and glared.

“That seems unlikely. A better answer is that you have been defrauding the government, Lexi.”

“That’s ridiculous!” she sputtered. “How much do you believe I make in tips a year? Not enough to pay taxes on them, I can tell you that. Did you happen to notice how much I earn a year? I’m not exactly in the highest tax bracket.”

“It doesn’t matter. You owe all your back taxes, plus interest and penalties. Then there are the legal ramifications. Tax fraud is tax fraud and this case will be easy to prove.”

She waited. She knew there would be more.

“You’re looking at jail time. And somehow I doubt your new employer is going to keep you on when they find out you have to take a leave of absence.”

Her fingernails dug into her arms where they tangled across her chest.

“Unless, of course, you choose to cooperate.”

She said nothing. She’d watched too many cop shows to not guess exactly where this conversation led.

“We’d like information on Bobby Manghini.”

“Sorry, but we broke up.”

“You can start by telling us everything you know about his contracts with the city.”

“I don’t know anything about his business — he always kept things separate.”

Sully chortled. “I find that hard to believe. All that time sucking his dick and you never heard a thing?”

“That’s right. I never heard a thing.”

Sully leaned over the desk, putting his nose in her face. “Then you’d better figure out how to get us something, or you’ll end up in jail.”

“I want a lawyer.”

“Look,” McGalicaster wheedled, suddenly turning saccharine sweet on her. “We want to help you. We know you have medical bills you haven’t been able to pay off. In addition to clearing your record of all tax fraud and eliminating your tax liability, the government is also willing to pay off your medical bills.”

“Oh really?” she said sarcastically. “And all I have to do is — what? Turn informer on a member of the mafia? Sure, that sounds like a great exchange!”

“So you do know about Bobby’s business?”

She rolled her eyes. “Of course I don’t!”

“Did you know that your boyfriend may have bribed the mayor to receive certain city contracts?”

She stared at them. Was that the worst they had on him? She’d feared revelations of murders, drug rings, prostitution, gambling. But bribing the mayor to get a contract? She could care less. “So?” she demanded.

“So, that’s illegal.”

“For the mayor, maybe. Listen, if this is all you have to say, I’m through. Let me out of here.”

“You’ll leave when we’re through!” McGalicaster snapped.

“I want an attorney,” she repeated. She had watched enough crime television to know that anything she said after demanding a lawyer would be inadmissible in court. She was also pretty sure they couldn’t hold her very long without charges. She folded her arms across her chest and decided to pull her best silent treatment.

* * * * *

He sat at the bar and waited for Gina. He didn’t care if he had to wait all night. His aggressive frustration from the last time he’d stopped by had been replaced with a calm, determination. He needed to find Lexi and Gina knew where she was. He would figure out the right words to say to get her to open up.

She ignored him for an hour and a half, sending her barback over to serve him. Finally she stopped by, sighing. “What do you want?”

“Gina, hear me out. I fucked up with Lexi. I didn’t mean to hurt her, but I did. I would do anything and everything to make it up her. I love her. And I think you know she cares about me, too. I’ll do whatever it takes to get her back — make whatever changes she wants. I know she told you not to tell me how to find her, but I am begging for your help right now. I can make her happy. And I won’t hurt her again. You have my word on that.”

Gina’s green eyes scanned his face, warily. Then she shook her head. “I can’t.” She pushed back from the bar.

“Wait!” He covered her hand with his own. “Please. Just give me a hint. Anything — I have to find her.”

Gina looked around the bar as if searching for the correct answer.

“Please, Gina. Do it for Lexi. I can make her happy. I’ll marry her if she wants. I would never hurt her. And if she hears me out and still wants nothing to do with me, I promise I’ll walk away and never bother either one of you again.”

He could see Gina crumbling.

“I know you want what’s best for her. That’s all I want, too. Even if that means a life without me. I just need to explain myself to her. Will you give me that chance? To try to make amends?”

“She said you’d be persuasive,” Gina said, still gazing past him, into the throng of people.

“If you don’t want to tell me where she’s living, call her and ask her to come down here. You can have your bouncers kick me out if she’s uncomfortable.”

Gina shook her head. “She’s not afraid of you. She just doesn’t want to take you back.”

“I think she does,” he countered softly.

Gina met his eye. She pursed her lips. “Maybe you’re right,” she agreed.

He held his breath.

She sighed. “I’ll be right back,” she said, walking away.

When she returned, she had a piece of mail addressed to Lexi with the address crossed out and a new one written in by hand. “This is her new place. It’s a dump. Bring her back to your place.”

He grinned. “Thanks, I will,” he promised, sliding off the barstool.

He located her apartment without much trouble and jimmied the lock to enter and look around. Gina had been right — claustrophobically small, the apartment lacked any sort of appeal. One futon lay in the middle of the small studio apartment, and a faint smell of mold permeated the place.