MOB BOSS 3: LOVE AND RETRIBUTION Read online

  MOB BOSS 3

  LOVE AND RETRIBUTION

  MALLORY MONROE

  c2012

  All rights reserved. Any use of the materials contained in this book without the expressed written consent of the author and/or her affiliates, is strictly prohibited.

  AUSTIN BROOK PUBLISHING

  This novel is a work of fiction. All characters are fictitious. Any similarities to anyone living or dead are completely accidental. The specific mention of known places or venues are not meant to be exact replicas of those places, but are purposely embellished or imagined for the story’s sake.

  MORE INTERRACIAL ROMANCE

  FROM BESTSELLING AUTHOR

  MALLORY MONROE:

  DUTCH AND GINA:

  AFTER THE FALL

  DUTCH AND GINA:

  A SCANDAL IS BORN

  THE PRESIDENT’S GIRLFRIEND 2:

  HIS WOMEN AND HIS WIFE

  THE PRESIDENT’S GIRLFRIEND

  MOB BOSS 2:

  THE HEART OF THE MATTER

  ROMANCING THE MOB BOSS

  ROMANCING HER PROTECTOR

  ROMANCING THE BULLDOG

  IF YOU WANTED THE MOON

  AND

  FROM BESTSELLING AUTHOR

  KATHERINE CACHITORIE:

  LOVING THE HEAD MAN

  SOME CAME DESPERATE: A LOVE SAGA

  WHEN WE GET MARRIED

  ADDITIONAL

  BESTSELLING

  INTERRACIAL ROMANCE:

  A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP

  YVONNE THOMAS

  AND

  BACK TO HONOR:

  A REGGIE REYNOLDS

  ROMANTIC MYSTERY

  JT WATSON

  COMING SOON

  MORE INTERRACIAL ROMANCE

  FROM

  MALLORY MONROE

  DUTCH AND GINA

  THE PRESIDENT’S GIRLFRIEND SERIES

  BOOK 5

  ALSO ROMANTIC FICTION

  FROM

  AWARD-WINNING

  AND

  BESTSELLING AUTHOR

  TERESA MCCLAIN-WATSON:

  AFTER WHAT YOU DID

  STAY IN MY CORNER

  DINO AND NIKKI:

  AFTER REDEMPTION

  Visit

  www.austinbrookpublishing.com

  for more information

  on all romance titles

  ONE

  “An education in graciousness,” Reno whispered as he leaned back and watched his wife on the closed-circuit monitor inside his office. She was in the ballroom at the PaLargio Hotel and Casino, entertaining guests at his mother’s seventieth birthday celebration, while he was still stuck in the office.

  “An education in what?” Lee Jones asked. “What are you talking about, Reno? Did you hear what I said?”

  Reno looked at his general manager, embarrassed by his blunder. “Of course I heard you. And the answer is still no. No-more carnival acts, no more magic shows, no more has-been lounge singers with their sorry-ass Sinatra imitation. I want A-list only stars going forward, Lee. We’re the PaLargio, for crying out loud, not some two-bit hooker joint. Not some dumping ground for the acts nobody else wanted.”

  “I understand that, sir,” Lee said, his dark brown hands clasped in front of him, his temper, as always, perfectly in check. “But we had no choice when you were in Seattle and Trina was trying to run this place. We couldn’t get the big names not even for a one-night only. People didn’t think the PaLargio was going to survive after all of that craziness. So Trina signed who she could sign and decided to give some new acts a chance.”

  “I know what Tree did. And I know she did the best she could while I was away, I get that. But now I’m back. And if I see another clown on a tricycle with tops spinning on his head I’m going to barf, you hear me, Lee? This ain’t no Ringling Brothers circus we’re running here, this is the PaLargio Hotel and Casino! How many times I’ve got to tell you that? We’re almost as big as Caesar’s Palace here in Vegas, but we don’t act like it. I want the big names too. I want the Celine Dions and the Tony Bennetts and Beyonce if we can get her. Fuck I’ll take Lady Gaga over some of these acts you’ve been booking lately. But we got nobody, Lee.” He tossed the entertainment list back to his general manager.

  “Cancel all week-to-week contracts,” Reno ordered, “and don’t show your face again until you give me some big names signed, sealed and ready to go.”

  “Yes, sir,” Lee said reluctantly as he took the list and stood to his feet. “But it’s not going to be easy.”

  Reno looked at him, his bright blue eyes blazing. “Easy? What the fuck is that?”

  Lee smiled. Then laughed. That Reno. “Talk to you later, boss,” he said, heading toward the exit. “Welcome back, Reno.”

  “Yeah, yeah, some welcome. Carnival acts and clowns on tricycles. Some welcome, Leonard!”

  Lee laughed, knowing that Reno only used his full first name when he was chiding him, and then he disappeared out of the massive office.

  Reno placed his hands behind his neck and stretched his exhausted body, his muscular chest and ribbed abs straining the fabric of his powder-blue dress shirt. Behind him, outside his floor-to-ceiling window, was a sweeping view of Las Vegas at night: lights, energy, nothing but activity up and down the crowded Strip. And inside of the PaLargio, in the ballroom, everybody were partying and having fun. But instead of sitting back and enjoying himself for a change, he was here, still working, when he should have called it a night hours ago. Trina, who felt he was working himself to death since his return, had already phoned him twice and told him to knock it off and come on down.

  As he thought about Trina, he leaned back, his hand massaging the back of his stiff neck, and watched the monitor again. And there she was again. His eyes were unable to even glance at anybody else in the ballroom. She was walking out onto the dance floor, some big, handsome, blonde-haired joker taking her by the hand. Reno had many women in his day, more women than he ever wanted to claim, but never a woman like Katrina. That was the thing. That lady had him so twisted up in love that he didn’t know how to handle it. She was one of a kind to him; a woman who still made his heart beat faster every time she entered a room. Still had it pounding whenever he so much as looked her way. And he was staring at her now.

  She wasn’t particularly tall or thick, but unlike many of the other females in the room she wasn’t some flat-ass, slip of a girl either. She was all woman, tight and curvy, with that velvety-brown complexion that looked sweet as syrup to Reno, and with the most expressive, big bright hazel eyes he’d ever seen.

  Her eyes told her story. She could claim until she was blue in the face that she was just fine, with no problems whatsoever, but her eyes never lied. If Reno wanted to know how she was really feeling, he looked into her eyes. If she was as fine as she claimed, they would say so. If she wasn’t, if she was telling him she was fine so he wouldn’t worry about her, the truth would be as simple as staring into those two big, almond-shaped beauties beneath those curved, flowing lashes, until the real deal was revealed.

  Her body told a story, too. It told Reno how fortunate he was to have a woman so fine. He was, in fact, thinking about that body as he watched her. And when her dance partner twirled her, and her short, form-fitting satin dress revealed every sensual curve, his penis came alive. That was Tree. It didn’t take much. And when she smiled that bright white smile of hers, tilting her head back so that her big breasts heaved and her long hair draped down in silky waves, he suddenly got a hard-on that he knew wasn’t about to ease up. Not until he had it sliding into her warm, wet, sweet folds.

  But he looked away. The last thing she needed right now was some joker like him pumping on her. Tru
th was they hadn’t made love since his return to Vegas nearly two weeks ago. And it wasn’t just because of his anxiety, either. She also wanted them to take it slow. When he left her, when his enemies forced him into a mob war that caused him to lose his own son, for Trina’s own protection he left her for seven whole months. Although she understood why he had to get away, the fact that he had left at all still had to hurt on a very deep level. He understood that.

  And now he was back. He still believed it was a mistake; he still believed he was nothing but bad news for her; but he loved her too much, and was far too selfish, to let her go. And they were both still careful not to derail this purposely slow-moving train.

  The fact that the PaLargio was bleeding money now and Reno, its owner and CEO, needed to work eighteen hour days just to right this ship also caused their relationship to remain static. Trina was working with him too, as the company’s president, and they barely saw each other during most of the day. They knew this couldn’t last, but they also knew they had to tread carefully. Reno almost lost it all in that mob war. He even almost lost Trina, which, for him, would have been the death of him too. He had to tread carefully.

  He got back to work. He still had tons of paperwork to get through, and he still had to figure out how to make the PaLargio the profit prince it used to be. But he kept glancing back at that monitor. He saw Trina’s dance partner whisper some joke in her ear that caused her to laugh. But when he saw that dance partner slyly move his hand down to the top tip of her ass, with a few of his fingers actually moving down further and then lightly rubbing across that ass, Reno frowned.

  “What the fuck,” he said aloud, as if amazed that anybody would dare disrespect him like that. Trina was laughing at the joke he had whispered to her, and was seemingly completely unaware that she was being mugged in plain sight by that smooth Joe with the smooth hands. But when Mr. Smooth did it again, and his finger escaped once more and lightly rubbed across the ass of Reno Gabrini’s wife yet again, that did it for Reno. Forget the paperwork. Forget the fact that the PaLargio had a long way to go before it was back to where it needed to be. He stood to his feet, grabbed his suit coat, and headed out of the office. Within seconds he was on his private elevator heading downward, to the festive ballroom.

  Trina saw him coming just as her dance partner was about to twirl her again. “There’s my hubby,” she said happily. Reno had made an appearance earlier, when his mother first arrived, but he’d been upstairs, in the office, ever since.

  Her dance partner turned toward the ballroom’s entrance when Trina mentioned the arrival of her husband. He expected to see some good looking black dude ready to reclaim this gorgeous lady. But when he saw that it was Dominic “Reno” Gabrini, the owner of the very PaLargio Hotel and Casino they were dancing in, a man reputed to have ordered the hit on the notorious Frank Partanna himself, he just knew there was some mistake.

  “But that’s Reno Gabrini,” he said. Then he looked at her, shocked. “Reno Gabrini is your husband?”

  Trina looked bemused. She didn’t know if she should be flattered or offended by his shock, but decided it didn’t matter. “That’s right,” she said with pride, but her dance partner, as soon as she said it, quickly removed his hands from anywhere near her body.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked. She thought they were in the middle of a dance. But the young man’s eyes were already focused on Reno. He plastered a big, overly-grand smile on his round face and extended his hand even before Reno arrived.

  “Mr. Gabrini, hi,” he said with such a nervous grin that Reno knew he was right to come and get his wife.

  “Hello,” Reno said coolly, his stark blue eyes staring into the man’s pale brown eyes.

  “This is Mikey, Reno,” Trina said. “He’s a friend of Dirty’s.”

  Reno reluctantly shook the man’s hand, but then pulled him toward him. “If you ever put your hand anywhere near my wife’s ass again,” he whispered into the man’s ear, “I will personally make certain that you never have possession of that particular hand again. Got me, pal?” Reno then leaned back and stared into the young man’s eyes.

  The young man shook his head vigorously. “Oh, no, sir, I did. . . I mean, I didn’t mean to . . . I mean. . .” Then he scrunched up his face. “Excuse me, please,” he finally said as he hurried, practically ran, off of the dance floor.

  Trina frowned. “What did you say to him, Reno?” she asked. “That poor boy looked as if he wanted to piss in his pants.”

  But Reno, she quickly realized, looked as if he wanted to piss in her pussy. That was how lustful those soft blue eyes of his suddenly appeared to her. And just like that, just by looking into those big blues of his, she felt a tight knot of anticipation deep down inside of her.

  Reno’s sex drive, which used to be incredible, had been purposely dormant since his return. In his noble mind, Trina knew, he wanted to give her a chance to change hers. He wanted to give her a chance to decide if she could handle all of the mob baggage that came along with his return. She knew the deal. She knew he never wanted to have anything to do with that mob life. She saw his anguish and pain every time they pulled him in. But somehow, some way, they always managed to drag him in. And he wanted her to be certain she could live with that. Sex, he felt, would have only complicated the issue.

  But as Reno looked down the length of his wife and then back into her wondrously expressive hazel eyes, they both knew he was now willing to allow that complication. It was going to be risky. He still wasn’t at all convinced that his return was a good thing for her. But they both had needs that needed to be met.

  Besides, Reno saw that dance partner copping a feel on his wife. He needed to step up and accept the fact that he was back for good or ill and they needed to get on with it. If he didn’t, some other smooth Joe far cleverer than dance partner was going to come along and meet her needs for him.

  And that, he knew, he could not have.

  It had been two weeks, anyway, and she was nowhere near changing her mind. How much longer, he wondered, did he have to torture himself?

  Trina saw his anxiety deep in his troubled blue eyes. “What’s it about, Reno?” she asked him, her own eyes so sincere that he wanted to grab her into his arms right now.

  “It’s about you and me, Tree,” he finally said, and then leaned toward her without touching her. “It’s about a particular hard-on I’ve been nursing ever since I got back in town and saw your gorgeous mug again,” he added.

  She smiled. And then laughed.

  He reached out his hand to her.

  Trina’s eyes stared into his. She was still apprehensive, still unsure if they would ever be anything like they used to be, but she knew they couldn’t continue the way they were going. They either had to be all-in, or all-out.

  She placed her small hand into his big one.

  They walked deliberately slow off of the dance floor, out of the lively ballroom, and into the quiet corridor. The first hotel room, just outside the ballroom, was occupied. But the second one, reserved for ballroom guests that only Reno or Trina could give authorization to use, was empty.

  Reno used his passkey to let them in, bolting the door behind them.

  Trina smiled as he twirled her into his arms and stared at her. When she realized he was dead serious now, her smile left too.

  “So you think you can dance, hun?” he asked her, drinking up the beauty of her, the exotically sweet fragrance of her.

  “I think I can,” she admitted. “But not as good as you.”

  “Yeah?” he asked, moving closer to her, his hands rubbing softly over her tight ass, his eyes never leaving hers. “What makes you think that?”

  “Because,” she said as she felt his hard-on get harder against her, “you have a certain body part, a certain rod-like body part that always gets me going.”

  Reno’s heart swelled. He really loved this woman. He moved her even closer to him, his eyes now staring at her lips. He rubbed that particular body
part against her, causing those sexy, African lips of hers to quiver.

  “You talking about this?” he asked, rubbing harder against her. “Or this?” he added as his lips moved down and captured hers in a long, circular, passionate kiss.

  Trina closed her eyes and moved with the rhythm of Reno’s kiss. And the feel of his rod against her, hard and stiff, caused her to wrap her arms around his neck and to push her small body even closer still against his muscular, hard frame.

  Reno lifted her into his arms, and she wrapped her legs around him. He carried her to the bed, their lips never parting.

  He sat her down on the bed’s edge and removed his suit coat and shoved his dress shirt over his head. And there it was, that tanned, muscular, sculptured body Trina could never get tired of watching. And she watched him as he unbuckled his belt and unzipped his pants. He was making clear that kissing her passionately, although something he loved doing, wasn’t anywhere near the only thing he planned to do to her. That was as far as they’d gone over the last two weeks. Just kissing. But now, he was making even clearer, he wanted it all. Every inch of her.

  That was why, before he even bothered to drop his pants, he pulled out his penis. Trina felt that same surge of anticipation she felt the first time she saw the size of it, the massiveness of it, and she wanted it all too. Every inch of it.

  He knelt down, his penis dangling in front of him, as he kissed Trina on her neck, nibbled along the edge of her ear, and then kissed her on her lips. When her mouth parted and his tongue slid in, linking with hers, she drew in a sharp, sensual breath. And then he unzipped and slipped down to her waist that beautiful, sleeveless dress she wore, exposing those firm bare breasts he loved so well.