Page 52 of Tainted Princess
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Enzo
I fuckin’ hated schmoozing.
There was nothing worse than kissing the ass of a man who didn’t deserve it.
And Jerry Lebowitz didn’t deserve shit from me.
Unfortunately, his position as a member of the Nevada Gaming Commission meant that, deserving or not, I had to spend time each month trying to convince him that he was the shit, and that I couldn’t possibly run my businesses without his generosity and willingness to overlook some of the more particular aspects of my clubs.
The bitch of it all was he was right. But that didn’t mean I had to like having to kowtow to the fat bastard.
And I fuckin’ didn’t like it, but that shit didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. Because, regardless of how boring and unbearable and irritating and absolutely insufferable he was, Jerry had one quality that made him perfect for my needs: greed.
Yes, Jerry may be a greasy sleazeball who thought he was still living in the 1960s and that slapping the ass of every waitress who walked by was perfectly acceptable—spoiler alert: it fuckin’ wasn’t—but he was also a greasy sleazeball who accepted a moderate bribe every month to continue to approve a gaming license forGreedwhen he was more than aware that my club should never have passed muster.
For one thing, it was located outside the approved ‘Las Vegas Boulevard Gaming Corridor’, which is a bullshit rule, if you ask me, but whatever. I had to apply for a special permit just to even open the doors, but that’s not the only thing that should get me shut down.
Apparently, they don’t like it when you host illegal no-limits table games that are outside the scope of your original license or some shit. As far as I was concerned, my tables were just a close group of my richest friends who get together when they can for some exciting and expensive fun.
What’s the harm, right?
But, regardless of how tight-knit my friend group was, if I wanted to keep the doors open, I had to at least pretend like I was running a legitimate business with the right paperwork.
And that’s where Jerry came in.
Unfortunately for Jerry, he was getting too big for his fuckin’ JCPenny polyester britches.
Sitting on one of the booths inLust, I glared across the table at him, his thin mustache holding more gray than anything lately as the drained yet another glass of my top shelf whiskey. If the burst capillaries on his nose were any indication, he drank way more often than his monthly visits to pry more hush money out of me.
“I am still not seeing why we’re having this conversation, Jerry,” I said, doing my best to not punch him in his sweaty face. “I have been paying you the same amount for years, and there have never been any problems.” It was a disgusting amount, too, which he always took in cash. What the fat fuck did with it, I had no idea. But it certainly wasn’t buying new clothes. I was pretty sure I had seen him in that same stained polo shirt at least a half a dozen times before, and each time it got tighter and tighter.
“Times are changing, Enzo,” Jerry replied, running one of his stubby fingers around the rim of the rocks glass in front of him and sniffing like he had a cold or some shit. “It’s getting more and more difficult to cover up an operation like yours. I have to work some serious magic just to keep your place under the radar. But, I’m not sure how much longer I can manage it.”
Sniff
I watched, trying to keep the disdain off my face, as he held the glass up, rattling the ice cubes as he flagged down Trinity, our waitress for the evening. When she arrived, she reached for his glass, but Jerry drew it back across the table, which forced Trinity to lean over the table, conveniently giving Jerry a peek down her shirt.
Dirt bag.
Once Trinity was allowed to take the glass, Jerry stared at her as she headed back to the bar, his eyes on her ass the whole time. I expected him to return to our conversation, but his eyes widened as he caught sight of something over my shoulder.
“Damn. Now that is a fine-looking ass.”Sniff“Those jeans must have been painted on, because, holy shit.”
I followed his gaze, and it didn’t take me long to discover who it was that had caught his attention.
She was standing near the bar, her dark hair long and sleek and shining under the lights of the club. I let my eyes trail down, following the wavy waterfall of her hair to where the ass in question was indeed looking fine. Whoever she was, she was thick in all the right places, with her narrow waist highlighting the delicious curve of her hips. She had on some sort of jacket preventing me from getting a good look at the rest of her, but those tight jeans were enough to make a man sit up and pay attention. I wasn’t disappointed to see she had on some sexy heeled boots either.
One thing about Las Vegas, the eye candy was never hard to come by.
I had a moment of guilt, thinking of Francesca. I hadn’t heard from her all day, but that didn’t surprise me. I was an ass to her this morning.
Not like that was different from any other day, really. So far almost all our interactions had been some version of pissed off. Either she was snarking at me, or I was bitchin’ at her. I don’t know why, but I just couldn’t seem to find a middle of the road with Francesca. She seemed to heighten all my emotions.
I was still thinking about Francesca when the hottie at the bar turned around, so I was seriously fuckin’ confused when I got a look at her face. At first, I thought it was my mind playing tricks on me, making me see things that weren’t really there. But no, a second look confirmed it.
My wife was standing in my fuckin’ club.
