Mob Boss 4: Romancing Trina Gabrini (16 page)

Gweneth swallowed hard, and attempted
to maintain her composure.
 
“Since we
will be opening within the hour,” she said after enough pause to show how
sufficiently offended she was with Reno’s attitude, “I suggest we let the staff
get on with their work, and you and I can go into my office.”

“What the fuck I want to go into your
office for?” he asked to gasps from the staff.
 
Reno knew what he was doing, but Gweneth didn’t have a clue.
 
How could anybody, she reasoned, be this
unprofessional?

“I don’t discuss these matters in
front of the staff,” she said to him.

But Reno balked again.
 
“And why not?
 
They work here, too.
 
Their paychecks are on the line, too.
 
They have a right to know if they’re going to
have a job tomorrow or if you’ll keep bullshitting
them
into believing everything’s hunky dory and all they have to do is whatever
they’re doing now.
 
Which
isn’t working and hasn’t worked for years.
 
I’m not discussing shit in your office.
 
I’m discussing it right here.
 
In front of you, the staff, and anybody else
I care to discuss it in front of.
 
Now
I’m asking you again.
 
What’s wrong with
this place?”

Although Nell was terrified seeing
Reno again, she was nonetheless impressed by him so far.
 
As was Barkley, and Mondo, and all of the
other staff.
 
The problem they always had
with Mr. Clauson
was
that he allowed Gweneth to run
this place anyway she pleased.
 
And he
never wanted to hear input from anybody else, either.
 
But all Gweneth had to do was smile and bat
her pretty eyes and tell Clauson all was well, and he’d smile, too, and drink
more liquor and leave it all up to Gweneth.
 
But this new owner, they saw already, wasn’t about to be that easily
rolled.

“We have some challenges, yes,”
Gweneth admitted, “and some bumps that we need to iron out.
 
But we’re working on those bumps.
 
Things are steadily improving---”

“Again she bullshits me,” Reno said
to no-one in particular, and then looked at his manager.
 
“Am I not getting through to you, lady?
 
Am I speaking some foreign language that you
can’t seem to understand?
 
Losing twenty-one
grand a week isn’t a bump that needs ironing out.
 
It’s a
got
damn
mountain!
 
And I’m amazed that you don’t
understand that.”
 
He looked past
Gweneth.
 
“Is there anybody here who
understands that this place is within days of shutting down if we can’t turn it
around?”

Nobody understood it was that
bad,
and the shock on their faces proved it.
 
Which amazed Reno.
 
They were living in an alternate
universe.
 
They were continuing to do the
very things that were bleeding this place dry, and the manager and Clauson were
apparently telling them that they were doing just fine.
 
Reno was pissed for real now.

“We knew things weren’t going great,”
Barkley decided to step up and
speak
.
 
Reno looked at him.
 
He was a tall black man with a serious face and
a chubby body in need of a few runs around a track.
 
“But nobody would listen to us.
 
Except for our assistant
manager.
 
And Hilda, I mean
Gweneth, and Mr. Clauson, wouldn’t listen to their own assistant.”

“Right,” a few other staffers agreed.

“Who’s the assistant manager?” Reno
asked.
 
“Is he here?”

“It’s a she,” Barkley said and turned
toward Nell.

“All the way back there,” Reno said.
“Come here.”

Nell’s heart began to pound as she
moved from the back of the pack to the front.
 
Next to Gweneth.

“You’re the assistant boss?” Reno
asked her.

“Yes, sir,” she said, her voice
barely steady.

“Well you’re the new manager as of
right now,” he said, and then turned to Gweneth.
 
“You’re fired,” he said, to her horror.
 
“Get your things and get out of my building
now.”

The staffers actually cheered in
delight.
 
Until Reno
looked their way.
 
They were
behaving as if this was some contest, not their livelihoods, and he didn’t like
it.
 
Firing somebody was never easy for
him, and he didn’t want anybody think it was ever something to cheer about.

Although they stopped clapping, they
were inwardly thrilled.
 
This was what
they had been hoping for.
 
A new direction.
 
And
every one of them respected Nell.
 
Gweneth, who never respected any of them, angrily left the room.

“Come with me,” Reno said to
Nell.
 
“I want you to show me around.”

“Yes, sir,” Nell said, nervously
hurrying to him.

“What’s your name?” he asked,
extending his hand to his new manager.

Nell swallowed hard.
 
He didn’t recognize her
face,
maybe he wouldn’t recognize her name.
 
“Shanell,” she said, shaking his hand.
 
“Shanell Ridgeway.”

“Hello, Shanell,” Reno said.
 
“Good knowing you.”

“Thank-you, sir.
 
Where would you like to start?”

“Kitchen.
 
And I want the chef and staff to come, too.”

“Mondo,” Nell said to the chef, and
as she told him to round up the sous-chef also, Reno suddenly caught the
name.
 
Shanell.
 
He remembered that name.
 
Shanell.
 
Ridgeway didn’t ring a bell, but Shanell
did.
 
And then it clicked.
 
Shanell.
 
Shanell.
Nell
???

Reno was floored.
 
She was still here? He tried to track her
down after he left town. He mainly wanted to apologize again and make sure she
was all right.
 
But when he phoned her
apartment, the number had been disconnected.
 
When he phoned her mother’s house looking for her, he was told that she
had moved and no longer lived in Crane.
 

He had assumed she had gone on with
her life, far away from this place, and wouldn’t want to have any more to do
with him or his old man or Clauson’s ever again.
 
But not only was she still in town, but was
still at Clauson’s?
 
She was still right
where they started from?
 
It couldn’t
be.
 
But it was.
 
It was Nell.
 
He saw it now.
 
She was certainly
older, as he was, and had lost some of her remarkable beauty, as he was certain
he had too.
 
But it was her.
 
It was Nell.

“Sir?”
Mondo
said,
when it was obvious Reno hadn’t heard him.

Reno looked at the Chef.
 
“I was asking if you wanted the staff to
come, too, sir, beyond the sous-chef.”

“What?” Reno asked with a frown on
his face, his eyes now bright with shame.

Mondo’s heart pounded in
nervousness.
 
“I said did you want to
also see the entire kitchen staff, beyond me and my assistant chef?”

“What are you, a wise guy?
 
You think I meant just you?
 
I said the kitchen staff.
 
That means everybody.
 
The entire kitchen staff.
 
Everybody.”

“Yes, sir,” Mondo replied nervously.

And then Reno began walking
away.
 

Nell glanced at Mondo, who hunched
his shoulders with
a
what
is his problem
look, and then she
hurried behind Reno.
 

Reno stopped, because he really
couldn’t remember where the kitchen was from the bathroom or any other
room.
 
Nell caught up with him, and then
led the way.
 
She wondered if he knew.
 
She wondered if the way he lashed out at
Mondo meant that he was remembering that night.
 
But the way he looked now made her doubtful.
 
He probably didn’t know a thing.
 

And as she led the delegation of
Reno, Mondo, and the entire kitchen staff into the kitchen, she repeatedly told
herself that Reno didn’t even remember that night, let alone her.
 
And she inwardly repeated it, over and over,
like a mantra.

Sullivan Chambliss felt like a kid in a candy
store when he looked out of the Ponder Community Center’s window and saw the
Porsche stop at the curb.

“Wow, Sully, man,” one of the youngsters
inside Ponder, who stood beside Sully, said.
 
“Look at that car!”

Look at that
woman
, Sully would have preferred to say as
Trina stepped out of the car.
 

She was beauty in motion to him, as she slung
her silky hair behind her, grabbed her purse, and made her way toward the
entrance.
 
Reno was a damned lucky man,
he thought, to have a hottie like that.
 
She wore a pair of stylish designer pants that revealed her perfect
curves and an ass he knew had to be tight to the touch.
 
She also wore a green sleeveless blouse that
revealed a well-endowed chest and a long, thin neck.
 
She was the real deal.
 
How the brothers out in Vegas could have let
her get away from them was the mystery of mysteries to Sully.
 
And she was nice, too?
 
And unassuming?
 
Damn.
 
He had to have her.
 
He realized,
just watching her come to
him, that
he had to have
her.

“And who’s that?” the young man asked
Sully.
 
Sully had forgotten he was even
standing there.

“That’s Trina Gabrini,” Sully replied.

“She new around here?”

“Very.”

“She’s pretty.”

Sully inwardly sighed.
 
“Very,” he said.
 
And then hurried to the
entrance to greet her as she walked in.

“Welcome,” he said cheerfully.
 
The young people in Ponder took notice of his
excitement.
 
They rarely ever saw him
show much emotion, good or bad.
 

“Thanks,” Trina said with a smile of her
own.
 
She removed her shades as she
stepped inside.
 
Sully’s breath caught at
the sight of her gorgeous hazel eyes.

“Had trouble finding the place?” he asked her.

“Not at all,” she said.
 
“Your directions were outstanding.”

“Good to know it,” Sully said.

Trina looked around.
 
“This is bigger than I thought it would be.”

“And still not big enough,” Sully admitted,
looking around, too.
 
“But come on, let
me show you around.”

Sully placed his hand on the small of her back
and began to move her forward.
 

All eyes were on them, Trina immediately
noticed, with many of the young men who were shooting pool or playing table
tennis stopped their activity to watch them.
 
She assumed it was because she was a new face in the place, but Sully
knew better.
 
She was a new,
gorgeous
face in the place and they,
like him, were impressed.

“Guys, since I have your attention, unlike I
can ever get in the classroom,” he said to them, “I want you to meet Miss Trina
Gabrini.
 
She may decide to lend us a
hand around here.”

“That’s your car, Miss Trina?” one of the
young men asked her.

Trina smiled.
 
“My husband’s car,” she said.

“What, you ain’t got
no
car?” the young man asked, prompting his friend to slap him upside his
face.
 
“
What did I do
?” he wanted to know.

“What’s your name?” Trina asked him.

“Jason,” the young man said.