“Seriously. Where is Renzo? I know you don’t like work that involves staying up all night.”
Gino shrugs. “I need the money. Renzo can’t come until the baby arrives.”
“Baby?” I mutter. “What baby?”
I knew everything over there was a dramatic mess, but I keep myself away from gossip like the plague. In a family like mine, you end up playing a confusing game of telephone that could end up getting you killed. But Iamsurprised nobody mentioned a baby. I can’t imagine Renzo being a father.
“Doesn’t matter,” Gino says, even if it definitely matters. “Do you think that bartender has an Instagram?”
I don’t think she’s interested in the kid, but I give him whatever encouragement he needs to go over and ask her, giving him a strong verbal reminder about the beer. Gino returns, crestfallen but armed with three pints.
“She has a boyfriend.”
“That’s fucked up.”
“Am I the only single motherfucker in this city?”
“Keep hitting the gym and hanging out with me, and all your problems will be solved.”
“Youdon’t have a girl tonight,” Gino mutters, staring into his beer like he’s looking at a mug of warm piss and not delicious nectar of tranquility.
“Watch your mouth,” I grunt. “We’re here to drink and enjoy each other’s company. You don’t need pussy every day of the week to feel something. Grow up.”
I’m happy to be the role model Gino needs. He sullenly shrugs and starts drinking, forgetting all about girls when I ask him about baseball betting and our plans for the summer. See? You can get along just fine in life without women…
My night with my cousin ends after midnight when most of the bars close thanks to our authoritarian governor’s laws for the “good of the people”. Our people are all connected, so I don’t have to worry about operating underground after hours or running an illegal casino.
You can’t own casinos out here outside of Indian territory, but I have a friend out in Texas by the name of Deacon Hollingsworth who runs a few underground poker tables that net him somewhere in the ballpark of $370,000 amonth.
That’s big money and we certainly have the means to defend and protect that kind of money out here in Buffalo. Following Deacon’s model, I started a similar business. There’s a front-end portion of the business that’s a basic upstate New York dive bar except for the door at the back coated in black velvet with a security guard.
We send our big spenders the passcode, security validates their identity, and then our customers enter our speakeasy casino with a full service bar with top shelf liquor, topless waitstaff and a required initial buy-in of $20,000.
I was right to take Deacon’s advice, it’s good business, even if I hate how quickly I have to turn around the staff. My current arrangement involves Danny and Paulie as bouncers with three chicks working the tables. I manage everything, but it’s a huge pain and eventually, I’ll need someone to take over the small details. Deacon warned this would happen if I grew too fast.
If I don’t handle the big stuff, our little operation could make mistakes and that could end up getting the law involved. The last thing I need is a goddamn racketeering charge or anythingof that nature. Not only would that screw up my life, but Luigi would cut my balls off himself with a butter knife.
No thanks… I like staying out of trouble and out of the limelight. It’s the best way to stay rich, which is the most important thing to me as an almost middle-aged man. I’ve done well for myself and I have no interest in doing anything to screw that up.
Even Renzo is having a baby… What has this world come to? I can guarantee, I won’t screw up my life or some kid’s life by making that type of mistake. I’d rather live for my work – exciting, stimulating, lucrative work. That doesn’t fuck with my head the way a woman does.
Chapter One
Aricia Plant
Ifinally have proof that he’s cheating on me. I can’t believe it. The worst part of all of it is the first thing that comes to my mind when the private investigator sends her proof over is: The tarot reader was right. Like that fucking matters. I gave up everything to move to Buffalo, New York for this man. When we graduated from Fort Valley State University together, I turned down a full ride from UNC Chapel Hill to attend the school that Kennard thought was best for his career.
My hand shakes as I transfer the photos from my phone to the laptop and get a complete high definition view of the proof I asked for of my husband’s infidelity. I can see everything in 4K. The white woman in his arms has her legs spread on my desk while my husband kneels between her legs. My eyes swim with tears as I gaze at the shiny reflection of the camera lens off his bald ass head, a familiar sight in every photo we took together over the past twenty years.
The throbbing in my chest turns deadly. Twenty years. I spent twenty years convinced this man who put his tongue in a twenty five year old white girl’s coochie was my soulmate. I can’t breathe, but I also can’t tear myself away from the soul-wreckingscene unfolding before me from my private investigator’s evidence folder.
What the hell was I thinking giving my life away to Kennard Plant?
I believed for decades that I met my “help-meet” who would guide me spiritually throughout all the trials and tribulations of life. I loved him. I loved him more than I loved anyone and in the next picture on the drive, I see what feels like definitive proof that he never loved me.
He brought that white girl into my bed and gave her the first Cartier bracelet I ever bought myself when I got my first partner bonus early in my career. He pushed me to the point of tears calling me a materialistic woman for caring so much about a missing bracelet and he had me convinced that it fell out of my purse.
Tears well in my eyes as I gaze at the pictures which definitively prove that our entire marriage was a lie. Each one cuts differently and deeper than the first.
