He wasn’t squirming as much as she thought, Gloria realized. “You invited yourself to a party you were told you couldn’t attend?” she asked him.
Oz smiled again. “Damn, you’re deep. But yes, that’s what I did, yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you interest me.”
“I interest you? All these women in this club, and I’m the one who interest you?”
“There you go.”
“Those three ladies you were dancing with doesn’t interest you?”
“They interest me, yes.”
“But?” Gloria asked.
Her and her questions were making Oz uncomfortable. “Hell, I don’t know!” he decided to say, and then he leaned back. He looked her dead in her eyes. Her sweet and sad, he thought, expressive eyes. “I haven’t a clue,” he said.
Gloria stared back at him. Because it was the most honest thing she felt he had said since he sat down. She sipped from her wine.
“What’s your name?” Oz asked her.
“Gloria. What’s yours?”
“Odysseus.”
Gloria smiled. “O what see-us?”
Oz laughed. “It’s pronounced O-Des-see-us. But everybody calls me Oz. That better?”
Gloria nodded. “Much.”
“You’re from around here?”
“From Vegas? No. My girlfriends and I decided to treat ourselves to a weekend getaway. It’s back to business as usual on Monday.”
“Where?”
“Philly.”
“Ah. The city of brotherly love.”
“That’s right. Where are you from?”
“Greece, originally,” said Oz. “Florida at the moment.”
Florida, Gloria thought. One of her two business location options.
“Would you care to dance?” Oz asked her.
“With your little harem over there? No thank you.”
“Alone,” said Oz. “With me.”
Gloria smiled.
“What?”
“You make it sound as if dancing with the great Oz is some kind of grand prize.”
“Well isn’t it?” Oz asked with a grin even Gloria had to admit was charming.
Although he looked to be a man who was late into his thirties, when he grinned, he looked so boyish and innocent to Gloria. But then she had to catch herself. Was she calling a man like him innocent? Her eyes were playing tricks on her! “I’ll pass,” she said.
“But, really, you’ll enjoy yourself. I’ll see to it.”
“No.” Gloria was firm. No way was she fooling around with a guy like him. Not even for a one-night stand. “Thank you, but no.”
Oz wasn’t accustomed to any rejection of any kind. He was usually the one telling females yea or nay, not them telling him. And for some strange reason, her turn down hurt him. He even felt a little embarrassed. She was a beautiful girl in her twenties. In the prime of her life. Did he repulse her? Did she see him as some perverted old man or something? He realized he couldn’t handle rejection. He realized a taste of his own medicine tasted bad.
He stood up. “Sorry to have bothered you,” he said suddenly, and then promptly walked away.
Gloria, surprised by how easily he gave up on her, watched him head back to the comfort of his three female sycophants. And if she were to be honest with herself, she’d admit she was a tad disappointed. No man had ever fought for her. Not ever. It was as if, in her mind, she wasn’t worth the effort. Why would he see it any differently?
But as she watched him go back to having fun, without even bothering to glance her way again, she grabbed her clutch and made her way to the ladies’ room. When she realized nobody was in there, she placed both hands on the vanity and leaned forward. And she thought about her life and all the failures and mistakes she’d made, and how she always ended up alone. In love. Heartbroken. And then alone. That was the story of her life.
And now she was about to go out there in this cruel, mean world on her own, without the protection of her father’s nearness, something she’d come to rely on. And she was scared to death. She couldn’t lie to herself. She was scared. So scared that tears wanted to come. But she wouldn’t let them.
She, instead, stood up straight, exhaled, and forced herself to smile at that round, brown face staring back at her in that mirror. She was going to put her own self on that pedestal. She was going to make her own self happy.
But then she thought about her father, and how angry and disappointed he was going to be with her when he heard the news, and all of that courage tried to dissipate again.
“You’re a mess, Gloria Sinatra. You’re a mess!” she said out loud. And then she stood up straight again, exhaled again, and left the ladies room.
She left that club altogether.
CHAPTER THREE
Seven Weeks Later
The high-revved, bright red Porsche Taycan 4S flung into the parking space in front of Fotia, a Greek restaurant in downtown Apple Valley, and Oz stepped out. Dressed in Valentino head to toe with an open collar, tennis shoes, and sunglasses covering his partying-too-hard bloodshot eyes, he buttoned his suit coat and made his way across the sidewalk and into the restaurant.
“Odysseus!” Dody, the owner, said cheerfully from behind the bar. He raised his glass in a toast to the new arrival.
“I thought they said you had died and gone to Greek heaven, my man,” Oz said with a grin without breaking his stride.
“They said the same thing about you,” Dody replied. “Only they said it was Greek hell where you went.”
Oz and Dody, and a few bar customers laughed. “They’re back there?” Oz asked.
“They’re back there,” Dody said, and Oz disappeared behind a pair of hanging curtains.
He walked down the narrow hall and entered a back room where their meetings usually took place. Six of the ten heads of families were represented. All hailed from Greece. All, at one time or another when they were still in Greece, worked for Oz.
And as soon as Oz walked into that room, his entire demeanor changed. Gone was the happy-go-lucky lover laughing it up with Dody. He was now stern and hard: the boss in a room of bosses.
He leaned against the front of the desk and folded his arms and his legs at the ankles. “What was so important that it couldn’t wait?” he asked them. “I told each one of you that I wasn‘t to be contacted, unless it was life or death. Nothing less. Didn’t I say that?”
“That’s why we contacted you,” said Andreas, one of the bosses. “We had to meet. And yes, it is life or death.”
It was what Oz didn’t want to hear. “What’s happened?” he asked.
Andreas spoke for the group. “They took out Madinis,” he said.
Oz was shocked. “When?”
“Last night.”
“Who took him out?”
“We don’t know who’s leading it. They call themselves the Ghost Mafia. Shadowy as hell.”
“But why would they take out Madinis?”
“Because they want his territory,” said Morpheus, the head of the largest family. “They want all of our territories.”
“They’ve been taking your lands?”