Becoming the Mob Queen: An Angel City Mafia Novel (Angel City Mafia Romance)

by Renee Strong

  It was those questions, and the sight of her, that kept me in that bar longer than I ever intended.

  The job that night was supposed to be a quick “in and out” job—thirty minutes to an hour of my time. But she held my attention longer than I could have planned for. When I should have been looking for the man I was there to deal with, I couldn’t stop looking at her instead—laughing and joking with some of her customers or scowling at the ones who didn’t show her the right respect. I watched for a longer than she realized. That’s one of the skills necessary for my job—to watch unnoticed.

  Eventually, I forced myself to do what I was there to do. I went to find my man. I went easier on him than I should have. I guess I was just that grateful to him for bringing me to that bar that night.

  Chapter 2

  Lexi

  By the end of that Saturday night, my feet were aching. It had been a torturously long night—not just because of the crowds who had come to see the band play but because Mike, cheap-ass bastard, refused to hire anyone to help me out.

  It wasn’t enough for him that I had to serve customers who stayed thirsty all night; I also had to clean the place by myself, corral the band, and jump in when it looked like trouble was kicking off— the usual.

  It’s all for Mom, I thought to myself for what must have been the thousandth time. For Mom, I will put up with his shit.

  Sometimes, even that dedication wasn’t enough to sustain me. I’d been working there for two-and-a-bit years. Before the G-String, I’d had a string of shitty retail jobs. That bar was the only place I actually liked working—even when it meant putting up with Mike’s shitty attitude. Sometimes, though, his treatment got too much. I had threatened to quit a few times before but he had laughed in my face. That stung. I’m a girl who takes care of myself so having that lecherous prick mock me openly ate at me.

  That said, he had good reason not to believe me. He knew how much I loved that bar—and that jobs weren’t exactly going to fall into the lap of someone like me…someone without even a high school diploma, in a place like Angel City where jobs weren’t exactly plentiful anyway.

  And he knew that I needed the money. Without it, I couldn’t hope to take care of myself or to pay for the hospital care my mom needed.

  That put me right where he wanted me.

  Because he knew I wouldn’t ever just quit, he had no problem leaving me to run myself ragged any night he just didn’t feel like showing up to actually do some work in his own bar.

  Tonight, though, as I tied a knot into a heaving trash bag to close it, I was really glad he wasn’t there. If he had have been there, he might have noticed how I stared at the guy in the suit. He’d have seen how my cheeks flushed and how I messed up change for the next few customers.

  He was just the sort of dick who would call attention to it—who would roar laughing as he announced to the entire bar that Lexi had got herself a crush.

  God, that man was a special kind of hideous.

  I gave the bar one final safety wipe and a visual scan to see if I’d missed anyone asleep under a table or passed out by the stage. Neither was an irregular occurrence.

  I didn’t exactly look too hard though. My mind was a whirl of thoughts and I just wanted to get the fuck out of there.

  After a deep breath, I heaved the trash bag over my shoulder, praying it wouldn’t rip at the bottom and started to lug it out into the alley. It weighed a good many more pounds than I could comfortable lift; empty bottles that were clanging together mixed with old peanuts and other assembled trash.

  Carrying it was tough; maneuvering it from here in the bar, out into the corridor and then to the alley was tougher. As I tried to open the door from the bar to the corridor, I almost dropped it. Somehow, I kept a hold of the bag and pulled it outside as the door to the bar swung shut behind me.

  Goodnight, any unconscious lushes who are still in there, I thought.

  If there was someone still inside, it’s not like they could make off with any money.

  Mike had been in to collect the night’s taking an hour before and to deposit them into the safe—a heavy, steel one that could not be picked or cracked easily. I curled my lip at the fresh thought of him. He trusted me enough to run his bar but he never allowed me to count out the till or deposit the money into the safe myself, even on those rare nights that we worked a shift together. That pissed me off, that complete lack of trust. How dare an asshole like that cast aspersions about my loyalties?

  Sure, I was desperate to keep earning money—I had to if I wanted the hospital not to turf mom out on the street—but I was no thief. I had been honest my whole life—though where had it ever gotten me?

  At times like this, I replayed the fantasy over and over of robbing a bank. Or maybe I’d become some big-time drug baron. Or maybe I’d become a hitman.

  I thought about what my therapist and school had said about me for a second—about how I ran toward trouble when everyone else was running away. Given that I never fantasized about winning the lottery or inheriting money from a sick old aunt I never knew I had, I was starting to think they were on to something.

  But it wasn’t just about money, I craved power: the power to not be poor anymore, most definitely, but also the power to control my life and to have people respect me.

  The power to live in a different reality than the life I lived now.

  My life wasn’t about to win “most coveted,” that was for damn sure. There I stood in the corridor behind the bar of the G-String, tired, sore, and pissed off. At the age of twenty-six, after working full-time since I was seventeen, I had seven dollars in my checking account until pay day. And, a giant bill that was about to come due for my mom’s care. And somehow I had to make rent.

  I sighed, the sound of it loud enough to echo off the corridor walls. It reminded me just how alone I was here. How alone I was everywhere.

  I stopped for a moment and leaned against the wall letting the trash bag drop to the floor. Maybe how I was feeling lately was making me long for some excitement. Was that why the guy in the suit had so easily turned my head? He was confident, self assured, and obviously not short of money—everything I was not. I couldn’t help but think that had something to do with it.

  Because he represented everything I craved—and everything I didn’t have. Beneath all my bluster and how much of a loudmouth I was behind the bar, every day it felt like I was one step away from crumbling and giving up.

  Life was hard. Being poor was hard. Being alone was hard. Usually I tried my best not to acknowledge that but the handsome guy I’d run into earlier had lifted me out of my shitty life—just for a few minutes. It was like his presence cracked the protective bubble I put around my life and shone a sliver of light on it. Under that light, every flaw in my day-to-day life was illuminated.

  Those flaws were under the surface all the time but usually, I was too busy to pay them much mind. Most of the time, my head was fully preoccupied with who I needed to serve first or what bill I could get away without paying so that another one would get paid.

  But that handsome bastard, he’d distracted me from those thoughts. It occurred to me that his doing so might be the reason I had felt such hatred for him from the jump. Looking at him, I’d allowed myself to think of “what if”? What if he was a dangerous guy? What if I had the kind of money he did? What if I let him kiss me? Those sorts of thoughts were enough to let the dissatisfaction with my life break through the mental walls I had put up.

  Dammit, Lexi, I said to myself. I thought you’d outgrown these childish dreams of a hero riding into your rescue. That shit belongs in junior high.

  You’re right, Lexi, I replied to myself, ignoring the fact that the first sign of madness was not talking to yourself, but actually answering yourself. You need to deal with life the way it is and not how you wish it was.

  With a nod in approval at myself (I really was going a bit crazy from being alone so much), I straightened myself up and willed myself to just
get back to work so I could finish up and go home.

  Despite how loud it had been in the bar just a couple of hours before, now there wasn’t a noise to be heard in the whole place bar my dramatic sighs, the clanking of the water pipes, the clatter of bottles in the trash bag, and the clack of my heels down the corridor.

  Right, time to go, Lexi. Once I’d gotten rid of this trash bag, I could go home. Home to my cheap and not-too-cheerful apartment two blocks away. Where I could continue talking to myself all night.

  I reached up and got to work on the deadbolts on the steel door to the alley behind the club. Angel City wasn’t exactly a safe place to live. Sure, there were some beautiful and rich parts of town, but this whole city had a seedy underbelly that was just barely beneath the surface. It was the sort of place where you had to watch your back; in a neighborhood like the one the G-String was in, you definitely couldn’t be too careful.

  That attitude wasn’t because I was easily scared or weak; it was part of that strategy of dealing with life as it is. In Angel City, you had to look out for number one and always keep your wits about you. So, even though I’d grown up right near the G-String and knew people in this part of town, my heart still quickened when I had to make the quick walk home after work.

  When I’d loosened all the deadbolts, I kicked the trash bag back a few inches and pulled the door open. It released with a shudder. I shoved the bag forward with my foot and slammed the door behind me. I pulled on the handle of the door a few times to be sure it was locked tight and when I was satisfied it was dead closed, I picked the trash bag up again.

  It was dark in the alley. It always surprised me just how dark this alley could get, given that it was in the middle of the city. The way the roof to the next building loomed over it, it blocked a lot of the moonlight and streetlights.

  I never lingered in that alley for long. I hated it. Every time I had to come out here, I felt afraid and then ashamed of how afraid I felt. I looked tough—but alone in the dark, I just felt vulnerable. Especially since I didn’t have a weapon.

  The damn sensor light that should have gone off was broken. It had been for months but Mike didn’t give a crap. He wasn’t the one who had to chuck the trash out at four a.m. without any light to guide him. To him, it wasn’t worth the hassle or the ten bucks it would cause to replace the bulb.

  I cursed him again under my breath and gripped the bag. Bitch at him tomorrow, Lexi, I told myself. For now, just get this done and get the hell out of here. This was the sort of neighborhood where people had been stabbed for the twenty bucks in their wallet—and that was in daylight. At night, with no witnesses around, there was no end to what they might do.

  I sped up my pace and traced my routine in my head, to reassure myself. Just a couple of feet to the dumpster and then I was done. Then a ten-minute brisk walk home and I was safe.

  I had just reached the dumpster a few feet away when I heard a voice. My pulse quickened and my heart dropped like a stone to the pit of my stomach. Where were my keys? I always held them between my fingers when I was heading home so I could blind an attacker. Why hadn’t I done it this time?

  “Stay back. I have pepper spray,” I lied to whoever was in the shadows. My breath caught in the back of my throat, my neck tightening with tension.

  This was it. This was how I died. And all because of Mike and that goddamn sensor light that just needed a ten-dollar bulb and a stepladder to install it.

  “I just wanted to know if you needed some help,” a voice said from the darkness. I stepped back in fear for a half-second, sure I was about to be attacked. But then I started to realize who it was. That voice…that velvet voice. I recognized it then—it was the man in the suit.

  “What are you doing here?” I demanded, hoping the quiver I could feel in my voice wasn’t audible. I couldn’t quite see him in the darkness but I could smell from the musk on the breeze that he was close. I sensed him standing near to me.

  I reeled through my brain, trying to snatch onto any response, trying to decide whether I should be booking it in the opposite direction. I knew there was something off about this guy—something dangerous.

  A flurry of questions ran through my mind, none of which I had the answer to. Was here to rob the bar? To hurt me? To exact some sort of revenge? But what I had done to him that would make him want to do that?

  I blinked a couple of times. My eyes were starting to adjust to the darkness. As he stepped forward, I could make out the shape of his strong frame and the thick strand of hair that stubbornly fell onto his forehead. Moments later, as the moon came out from behind a cloud and filtered through the crack between roofs, I could see his features a little more clearly: the blue of his eyes. A dusting of stubble on his chin. His full, pink lips.

  My breath caught in my throat again, but this time in anticipation of him being closer to me. I wanted him to reach out and touch me.

  God damn it, girl, I reminded myself. You don’t know a damn thing about him. He could be about to murder you and no one would find you until the morning. Or likely even care.

  This was a scenario I had run through in my mind a million times. If I was approached by a stranger in this alley after dark, I would kick him as I hard as I could where it hurt and then run like hell. That was the plan. That was what my brain and I had long agreed. We’d been through this scenario and we had our game plan. So now, my brain was screaming at me to get away from him. But my heart—and other even more persuasive bits of me—had turned my feet into lead weights. I told them to move but they wouldn’t.

  “I had some business to attend to,” the guy said with a smile in his voice, just inches from me now. It took me a second to remember that I had asked him why he was here. That’s why he was answering me.

  He went on, “I wanted to catch you before the bar closed but I got here too late. I wanted to apologize again for my rudeness. I was just deciding whether to leave a note when I heard the side door open.”

  My heart was beating like a drummer who’d finally been allowed a solo. In perfect rhythm, unlike Conspiracy Theory’s drummer, I thought sarcastically.

  I was more scared than I’d ever been at that moment, with him standing in front of me—but I couldn’t tell whether that was because I was petrified that he might grab me and fuck me…or petrified that he mightn’t.

  It had been so long since I had been fucked. Longer still since I’d been fucked well. My loneliness made that painful—but to be honest, it was my sexual frustration that I felt most keenly. With the kinds of hours I kept and the kinds of losers who I seemed to attract, a sub-par screw had become the norm. Actually, that was a lie. Given how long it had been since I had shared my bed with anyone, the new norm was no sex.

  My year-and-some-months-long dry spell had to be clouding my judgment, I surmised. Why else had I not punched this guy and gotten away as fast as my legs would take me?

  Suddenly, he reached his hand out and my whole being froze. Was he going to hurt me? I wondered. You idiot! I told myself. Some poser in a nice suit gets you going and you put yourself in danger because of it. Goddammit, I was not one of those girls. I never let attraction override my good sense. Now that I had, I had doomed myself. I braced myself for whatever would come next.

  That moment felt like it lasted for hours. In reality, it must have been a split second. The suited man took a hold of the trash bag and pulled it gently from my grip. He stepped gently around me and with his free hand, he threw up the heavy, metal lid—a lid that I often struggled to lift with two hands and all my strength. He lifted it like it was nothing.

  With a swing, he chucked the bag in and dropped the lid. The bang pierced the silence of the night.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” I managed to say now that my breath had decided to come back again.

  “Oh?”

  I coughed to cover my embarrassment at what I was about to say. It was the only thought that had worked his way through my befuddlement and before I even said it, I knew
it was a lame statement.

  “Your suit,” I said. “It looks expensive.” I was glad of the dark because my cheeks were burning now. Of all the things to say, this was what I was going with it? Not “Stranger danger. Go away.” or “Goddamn, you are a sexy beast.” I couldn’t stop myself from continuing my lame opening gambit. “You might have got yourself all dirty.”

  I clenched my mouth shut to stop myself from talking more. He chuckled.

  “Oh,” he said again, “I don’t mind getting a little dirty with a woman like you.”

  The low growl of his voice…the lustful edge to it—that did it. The floodgates opened and my horniness and desire for him came gushing forth. I thanked the darkness again. I could feel my panties threatening to soak through again.

  You don’t like him, I told myself. He’s a cocky asshole, remember?

  Myself wasn’t listening.

  Shut up, my heart answered me back. Yeah, be quiet, my horniness agreed.

  My brain and my good sense were losing this battle. My breath hitched in my throat as he stepped toward me again, the details of his face clear and illuminated under the now bright moon.

  How had it gotten so bright here, I wondered abstractedly? Was that really happening or was I imagined the halo of light shining down on him?

  “I’m going to kiss you now,” he told me while I still struggled to get my thoughts together. “And I’m going to make you come.”

  It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. I should have resisted. I should have said no. I wasn’t the kind of woman who had hot, random encounters with pretty but scarred men in public places. Still, before I knew how to even respond, I felt his lips press onto mine, his hand twisting into my hair, and I shook in anticipation as I panted against him.

  His tongue probed mine, searching, frantic, and he gripped the hair on the back of my head tighter as he pushed harder into me.

  My mind was spinning out of all control. I was dizzy and breathless and alive with fire at once and I couldn’t make sense of any of it. The longer he kissed me, the less sense I bothered to try to make of it, until I lost myself in the warmth of his kiss and the slightly painful but incredibly pleasurable tightness of his grip on my hair.