______“the content of your character is your choice. day by day, what you choose, what you think, and what you do is who you become.”______
Name: Jesse Lombardi
Age: 38
Pronouns: He/Him
Time Living In Tonopah: Three years
Occupation: Bouncer at The Raven
Gang Affiliation: Narco for Los Santos
Neighborhood: Webster Village
Face Claim: Joe Manganiello
ABOUT
The eldest of six siblings including himself, Jesse was expected to take up the family business after his father. Instead, he got a job while he was supposed to be at school and saved up to move out the moment he turned eighteen.
He worked odd jobs, mostly physical labour that paid under the table as he did not get his GED, and moved around the country learning new skills and seeing new places, no longer living a life plotted out for him by his family.
Finally, he settled in Arizona with the love of his life, Emily. They had a daughter who was born with a heart defect that would take more money to care for than either of them had ever seen.
He fell in with Los Santos looking for a way to pay his daughter’s medical bills, and ended up separating from his wife due to the secrets he had to keep from her.
He moved to Tonopah and to this day sends money to Emily to pay for their daughter's medical bills and whatever else the two might need. They have zero contact otherwise, but his family is his driving force.
He knows he won't get promoted above narco if he doesn't change his attitude, but it's no secret he's not working for them because he wants to.
WANTED CONNECTIONS
LOS SANTOS “FRIEND”(?): The friend who vouched for Jesse and got him to join the gang. He’s definitely got at least some resentment about the whole thing, his friend not having been totally honest about what he was getting into. May or may not have forgiven this person, depending on how close they were beforehand.
SIBLINGS: Jesse has four sisters (three between 32-35, one 37) and one brother (roughly 30). He’s closest with his oldest sister as they did most of the caretaking while their parents were working. Has likely not kept in touch or been very distant with all siblings since he joined Los Santos.
While he spoke, Maeve had wandered over to inspect the gash. It was nasty - deep and stretched far. "Better get that sorted before it starts rustin'," She advised her while her finger traced the jagged line before she swung back to face the man. " 'Cause one it rusts, you're fucked." At his question, her eyebrow shot up, a mischievous smirk playing at her lips. "The kind that lands you in deep shit. Or, for you, I guess the kind that ends with you havin' a scratched up truck."
He didn't let it out audibly, but he ground his teeth against an internal groan. Yeah, she was right --it would rust fast if he gave it the chance. Just another straw on the pile, slowly creeping towards the last one it would take for him to scrap the beloved truck. He'd had it for longer than his daughter had been alive. "Well... yeah." He ran a hand over his head, smoothing back hair that had fallen down when he'd inspected the vandalism. "Same thing, far as I'm concerned. I've had this truck longer than I've been in this city." Hmph, he finally grunted aloud. "You know anywhere other than Reaper Crew I can go for this?"
As Lyla meticulously dried the sparkling glasses, Jesse ambled towards the bar. "I feel like every night is like pulling a double. But, that could be because I don't want to work." she mused while continuing her task. Her recent promotion, though less physically demanding than her previous gig as a dancer, still wasn't her dream job. The most exertion required of her now was the occasional lifting of a liquor crate, yet that hardly made her more eager to earn her keep. In an ideal world, she'd have opted for the life of a sugar baby, comfortably living off the generosity of some affluent, solitary soul. "Beer?" she offered, already reaching for Jesse's favorite without waiting for his response. With a playful sigh, she added, "I think I was supposed to be a Kardashian, and got switched at birth or something. I was definitely meant to be rich." She leaned her elbows on the bar. The night was slow, and she was bored. "Oh my god, did you hear about Brandie and Alyssa? Brandie was sleeping with her husband - and Alyssa broke her nose. Maddie saw the whole thing. Lucky little bitch." She mumbled the last part.
He huffed out a laugh. Wasn't that the truth. Most days he'd rather be pretty much anywhere else, but they all had bills to pay, and choice was a luxury for the wealthy. He nodded to the offer of beer, and again in thanks when she passed his favourite across the bar. "I'd say you'd make a good one, but I wouldn't want to insult you." He quirked a brow at the mention of a broken nose. "Seems like Maddie always sees the whole thing... I think she likes stirrin' the pot to get a front row seat, if you ask me."
Exiting the brewery, Sawyer made her way toward her red Porsche that was stationed prominently out front. Her focus was entirely absorbed by the email she was drafting when an unexpected voice shattered her concentration. She lifted her gaze, her blue eyes first landing on the man who had interrupted her before they shifted to notice the fresh, lengthy scratch marring her truck. With a cool demeanor, she sized him up, her words cutting through the air with precision. "Seems like you've gone and stuck your dick somewhere it shouldn't have been." She observed, her voice steady and imbued with a hint of challenge. A subtle smirk briefly danced on her lips as she continued, her tone laced with disdain yet not devoid of humor. "And if that's the case, then you're on your own, buddy. I've got a rule against wasting pity on a cheater." She paused, letting the words hang in the air before continuing. "Or you've pissed off some very vindictive teenagers."
Now, normally Jesse would have been immediately off put by this kind of person --nose in their phone, too preoccupied with who-knows-what to look up and pay attention. But woman make funny joke, and his caveman brain couldn't help but be at least a little charmed. "Ignoring the truck..." He began, "I look like a cheater to you?" It was a near-rhetorical question. Nobody looked like a cheater, and the people you'd least expect usually had the longest list behind them.
"I'd bet my money on dumb, opportunistic teenagers over anything. I mean..." He gestured to the duct tape holding a rusted chunk of the truck's body together. Barely. "How much worse can a scratch really make things?"
“What can I say? Ain’t as good as I once was,” Antonio supplied with a soft snort of laughter, shoulders rolling in a half-hearted shrug, though that was a bit more truthful than he perhaps wanted it to be. He’d come out here to brood, not to keep a close eye on much of anything other than his own thoughts and how they tended to slip away from him whenever he wasn’t careful. But he kept that to himself, preferring to focus on the rather large gash on Jesse’s truck. Lifting a brow, Tony grinned around his cigarette at the other man’s reply, “Doesn’t quite narrow it down.” Sighing, he wandered over, getting a closer look at the damage. “I don’t know, ‘mano,” he gave a doubtful hum, shifting his weight between his feet, “Much as I hate to say it, you might have to take it in.” But that would mean bringing it into Reaper Crew, the only autoshop in town and one highly connected to the Sons of Silence. In the back of his mind, Tony hardly wondered if it was even worth it, regardless of the ceasefire in place. Just because they couldn’t rip each other’s heads off didn’t mean they were one big happy family. “Or just let it ride,” he prompted, lips molding back into a familiar smirk, “Shit like this builds character, you know?”
"Sellin' yourself short there, man." He shot a gentle elbow into the other man's arm. He wouldn't say more on the matter, but he meant it. Antonio was one of very few people in this (relatively) new life of his that Jesse could say he admired.
He groaned. "Fuckin' Reaper Crew. My luck, they'd charge me for a whole new body for the thing." Would the math make sense to drive a whole town away, just to avoid The Sons? Not likely. "Nothin' to do about it this time of night, anyway. Want a beer or three? Take my mind off how fucked I am?"
Maeve cocked an eyebrow and surveyed the scene before her, eyes landing on the truck marred by a deep scratch slicing through its side. "Damn, who'd you manage to piss off?" She asked, her tone laced with a mix of amusement and incredulity as she took it all in. Her gaze flickered from the truck back up to the man before her, "Guess it depends on whether you actually had it comin' or not. I'm not about to snitch on someone if you've been fuckin' around where you shouldn't have." In truth, she hadn't caught a glimpse of the person responsible for the vandalism, but her curiosity was piqued, driven by a natural inclination to meddle where she might not be wanted.
He turned to face her squarely, listening as she chimed in and refraining from letting his frustration show on his face. She had a point, he couldn't argue that, and even if the implication offended him he knew he'd wonder the same of anybody else in his shoes. "Not as far as I'm concerned," he answered. Jesse kept his head down as a rule, and part of that was keeping relationships simple and drama-free, if he had them at all. As things stood, he hadn't fucked around anywhere for at least a handful of months. "I guess that depends on what kind of fuckin' around you're talking about."
A laugh fell from between her lips, the show of her teeth as the corners of her lips curled. "My boys learnt their lesson recently about fucking with anything in Los Santos." The two cars set on fire had been her doing and had sent a loud enough ripple that they had fallen in line. It was still fresh on all their faces, and for that, she owed Rio a favour. His advice had gone further than she'd ever imagined.
Waste her time? She didn't have a shift at the Outpost, and for tonight, unless something went wrong, she was free to spend it alone. The idea, however, of heading back to her trailer where her mother waited wasn't her idea of a good night. "Well, offer still stands. I don't have anything better to do with my time, anyway." she eyed him for a long moment, before she nodded down the road. "Two for one on beers tonight, fancy it?" Aelin was friendly, even if she was rough around the edges.
Oh, he believed it. He had learned early on that anyone involved in this operation, or any other like it, were there for a reason. Underestimating someone just because they looked cute or small or inconspicuous, would never bode well. If the kids had disrespected Aelin and the rules she'd laid out, he was sure she was more than capable of doing something effective to straighten them out that they wouldn't quickly forget. If she said it wasn't any of hers, Jesse would trust that.
Truth be told, he didn't have anything better to do either --nothing he wanted to face up to right then, anyway. The truck would have to wait either way, and there was a slim chance anybody would be coming back for round two. "Hell, be stupid to say no to a deal like that." He shrugged in vague agreement and gave her a small smile, gesturing to the sidewalk ahead of them for her to take the lead if she wished.
"None of mine," Aelin called, referring to the Rugrats she had running the streets for her in order to expand. However, her eyes zoned in on the rugged, zagged line that ran against the truck's paint and deep into the metal, and she winced. Her car was barely holding itself together, tape and other nonsense to keep it moving along. But the idea of someone doing that to it? She'd have been flipping the fuck out. Pursing her lips, folding her arms around herself, she made her way over while her eyes stuck to the abomination.
"Some people are such dickwads." Aelin muttered. "I didn't see anythin, I was on a phone call — " and that had taken over her immediate surroundings. "You wanna drive round and see if we can spot suspicious lookin' culprits?" and she meant it. He was Los Santos, which meant she'd do it. Without questions asked.
He squatted down to get a closer look at the scratch --a gentle word for it-- and thumbed at the jagged edge. Deep. Not gonna be much to do about that. Fuck. "Well, that's half the city ruled out," he joked. Sometimes it seemed like Los Santos, or someone somehow roped up in their business, was everywhere.
He looked up at her as she moved in, and huffed out a quiet laugh at 'dickwads'. She wasn't wrong. Standing up and wiping his hands off on his jeans, he answered, "I don't wanna waste your time, Aelin." Though the offer was tempting, he didn't think it would bear much fruit, so to speak, if fruit was the aforementioned dickwad. "Probably long gone, anyway. Don't imagine they'd be hangin' around to see my reaction."
Stepping outside the barcade and into the brisk night air, Antonio wandered over to where Jesse was, hands making quick work of setting a cigarette between his lips and lighting it. At first, in the scant lighting, he couldn’t see the angry line spanning the width of the other man’s truck, but as he neared, it became all too obvious. “Ohh, shit, hermano,” Tony started, cringing and yet finding it incredibly hard to mask his amusement at the same time. This would happen to Jesse, of all people. Shaking his head, he inhaled on his cigarette and shrugged, “Nope– after the fifth smoke break, I quit keeping watch.” By that point, he’d just been desperate to coat his nerves with nicotine before he could give into the more potent temptations all around him inside the barcade. While normally on guard at all times, he’d completely missed anything out of the ordinary on this go round. “God,” Tony murmured under his breath, trailing his fingertips along the groove that had been etched into the side of Jesse’s truck. “Any idea who you could’ve pissed off?” He wondered aloud, dusting the ash off the tip of his cigarette, “Or are we just chalking this one up to bad luck?”
He appreciated the concern from Tony, however tainted it was by the fact that he clearly found this at least a little bit funny. Fair enough. He should have let that truck go months ago, if not a whole year, and enough people had told him as much. Maybe this was a sign. A sign he couldn't afford, but still a sign. "Nice goin', eagle eye." He ran a finger over the scrape, prompted by Tony's doing so and by morbid curiosity--just as deep and nasty as it looked. "Uhh..." He pondered a moment, scanning through the long list in his mind of people who's good sides he certainly wasn't on. He didn't think he was on many people's shit lists, but there were enough people in town who'd have at least a petty reason to dislike him. "Turn and point, you'll probably hit somebody I looked at the wrong way." He grumbled and squatted down, muttering to himself about the state of this fucking town. Smirking, he glanced up at Tony. "Think I can buff it out?"
Jesse's truck was parked at the side of the road, a looong, jagged scratch dug into the passenger side --by a set of keys, he imagined. His first thought was that it was targeted, but it was just as likely to be some shitty teenager dicking around. His truck wasn't much of a looker, probably not worth as much as it would cost to fix the scratch, but it was all he had. At least they hadn't slashed his tires. He could still drive it, even if it made him look like somebody's cheating ex-boyfriend.
"Hey," he nodded to the only person within earshot, then gestured to the gouge that ran the whole length of his truck. "You see anybody do this? Or uh, run off like they didn't want to be caught doing it?"
LATE NIGHTS WERE not an unusual thing for him, given that he'd been working at The Raven for almost two years now. Still, he found himself exhausted by the end of his shift. Maybe it was the amount of pig-headed men he had to watch ogle the ladies, a lack of manners abounding. If it didn't technically break club rules, there wasn't much he could do, but it took a lot out of him to keep his mouth shut sometimes. No matter how tired he was, he made it a habit to sit for a beer with the staff while they closed up, and help wherever he might be needed. It was usually Lyla these days, given her promotion to manager, which he was perfectly fine with --she was lovely company.
He sidled up to the bar. "Just me, or did tonight feel like pulling a double for you, too?"