ROMANCING THE MOB BOSS

by Monroe, Mallory

  LA: Frank’s smile is still plastered on his face, he knows danger is lurking or he wouldn’t be running out through this back hall specifically built for getaways like this, but he also knows it’s going to be all right. It always is. That’s why, when the back door is busted open, and he and all of his men come crashing out, certain they had escaped any looming disaster, and saw the guns drawn as soon as they saw the light of day, he still didn’t get the message.

  Dale: Reno squeezes Trina’s hand tighter, when she says I do.

  “And do you,” Cecil says, turning now to Reno, “take this woman, Katrina Hathaway, to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, to love and to obey, in sickness and in health, till death do you part?”

  In LA: Not until the bullets begin ripping through his chest, not until his lieutenants don’t even have a chance to point their weapons, not until he sees his men dropping like flies, not until he sees the blood gushing out of his own body like a faucet leak, does he finally see the danger. But he sees it too late.

  Frank Partanna, the mighty man, falls. Not with a bang, but with a thump. With blood spewing from his mouth as his face, his once smiling face, hits the ground hard.

  “I do,” Reno says in Dale, Mississippi, and they, he and Trina, are pronounced husband and wife.

  “You may kiss the bride,” Cecil says proudly, but they’re already doing that.

  Once the kissing stops, they lean their foreheads against each other, staring at each other.

  “You sure you wanna take on this adventure,” he asks her.

  She smiles. “I need this adventure like I need a hole in the head,” she says, causing him to laugh. “For real, though. But I need you like I need air to breathe.”

  This stops him short. He stares at her.

  “Yes, Dominic Gabrini,” she says. “I’m ready to take it on.” Then she adds, with a grin, “Bring it on, baby,” and he laughs.

  “I love this girl!” he proclaims to her father and mother, and proudly walks her out of the church and into the quiet darkness of a breezy, but hopeful Mississippi night.