“No, Reno, nothing like that. They don’t leave calling cards.”
“Just do what I told you to do,” Reno ordered. “Call me back as soon as you secure Trina.”
He killed the call.
“What’s happened, Reno?” Sal Luca asked.
“They hit Pop’s compound in Spring Valley.”
“Is Belle okay?” Vito asked. “Everybody okay?”
“Everybody’s okay. We lost a couple of guards. They got away clean.”
“What are we gonna do now?” Sal asked.
Reno ran his hand across his eyes. Sal was astounded at how drained he looked. “I’m not handling any business here, on their turf. I got to get to mine. We all get back to Vegas.” He looked at Marcy. Then exhaled. “Marcy, come with me. Tommy, tell security to get the plane ready.”
“Sure, Reno,” Tommy said as he and the rest of the room watched Reno take Marcy into the bedroom.
Marcy’s heart was so elated that she had to contain herself. He’d seen her naked and wanted more, simple as that as far as she was concerned.
“Strip,” Reno said to her as soon as they entered the bedroom and closed the door.
She was so excited, she almost just did it. Then she realized how awful that would look. “Strip?” she said. “Why should I strip?”
“I don’t have time, Marce, not now. Strip.”
She realized he meant business and immediately did as he commanded. “Everything?” she asked as she got down to her panties.
“Everything,” Reno said, watching her, angry with his penis for betraying him. Marcy was a good lay, she was always good for that, but this wasn’t what this was about.
After laying her long, lithe, naked body across the bed, Reno got to work. He began running his hand through her hair, and then down underneath her arms, lifted her big breasts, and moved down to her womanhood. Marcy was beginning to suspect that this was more an inspection than a sex move on Reno’s part, until his fingers slid into her vagina and begin feeling her there. Then she moaned as she noticed his stiff erection and remembered how it used to be. She wanted him inside of her desperately and wanted for him to undress too.
But Reno wasn’t about to undress. He wanted to fuck all right, he couldn’t deny his erection, but not her. He wanted to be inside Trina. But since he couldn’t have her, he began massaging Marcy, not for the thrill of it, although it was turning him on, but because he knew every trick in the book.
He turned her over, onto her stomach, and Marcy was convinced he was going to enter her now, and enter her up the ass the way she liked it. Only it was his fingers and not his penis that was up inside of her, as Reno expertly checked her better than any prison guard could.
When he pulled out, he removed her shoes and checked them inside out, too. Nothing. Then he headed for the adjacent bathroom.
Marcy, realizing she’d been had, turned onto her side. “What was that about, Reno?” she demanded to know.
“Get dressed,” he ordered as he washed his hands with soap and water. “You’re going to Vegas with us.” He grabbed a hotel towel and began drying those hands. “I had to make sure you weren’t packing.”
Although she was angry at the way he had just treated her, she was also elated that he was taking her with him. He was doing exactly what Pags said he’d do. But she had her role to play. “What about my boy?” she asked as she stood and began dressing, trying her best to look worried. “What about Nicky?”
Reno stared at her. He couldn’t dismiss her outright because she could be telling the truth. You never could tell with Marcy. He therefore walked up to her, placed his hands on either side of her arm. Her heart pounded when he touched her. “We’ll find him,” he said, looking her dead in the eyes. “I promise you we’ll get him back to you.”
She was about to thank him for helping her, but his cell phone began ringing. When he moved away to answer, Marcy exhaled. Double-crossing Reno Gabrini wasn’t going to be as easy as she had thought. Especially if he decided to strip her again, for more sensual reasons.
“This is Reno,” Reno said into his cell phone.
“She ain’t here, Reno,” Carmine said on the phone.
Reno’s heart dropped. “What do you mean she’s not there?”
“She’s not here. When I left her earlier she was here working with Amos. Now he says she left.”
“Left? Left to go where, Carmine?”
“She told Amos she was going to pick up a friend from the bus station.”
Reno frowned. “What friend? What gotdamn bus station? Hold on!” Reno immediately placed Carmine on hold and called Trina’s cell phone.
“He can’t find your wife?” Marcy asked.
Reno grabbed a barely clothed Marcy by the arm and moved with her back into the living room. His heart was pounding as Trina’s phone began to ring.
***
Back in Vegas, Trina began searching in her shoulder bag for her ringing cell phone. She was seated on the sofa of her old apartment, seated with Jeffrey Graham, taking shots of gin-and-bitters, and laughing about their escapades in the good old days. It was one ring away from going to voice mail when she pulled it out and clicked it on.
“Hello?” she said.
Reno breathe again. “Where are you?”
“Reno?”
“Yes, it’s me. Where are you?”
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Don’t answer my question with a question, Tree. Where the fuck are you?”
“What are you yelling at me for? I’m at my apartment.”
Reno frowned. “In the PaLargio?”
“My old apartment.”
“What’s the address?” After she gave it to him, asking why as she did, he clicked her on hold, gave Carmine the address and ordered him to take an army over there and get her, and then came back onto the line. “Lock the door, Tree, is the door locked?”
“Yes, it’s locked. Why? What’s happened?”
“Who’s there with you?”
“A friend of mine. What’s going on, Reno?”
“There was a hit on my family in Spring Valley.”
“Lord no! Are they all right?”
“Everybody’s okay, a couple guards were hit, but I’m not taking any chances. Carmine’s on his way. You don’t open that door for anybody but him, you understand me?”
“Yes, Reno,” Trina said, her heart beginning to pound.
“I will fucking kick your ass, Tree, if you open that door for anybody but him!”
Trina could just feel his anguish. “I got it, Reno. Please stop worrying. I understand.”
“Who’s this friend you had to pick up from some bus station? Jazz?”
“Jeffrey,” Trina said. “From Dale.”
Reno didn’t like the fact that she was entertaining some man in her old apartment, but he was relieved that it was a man. “Is he a good friend?”
“Yes,” Trina said. “We’ve known each other since childhood.”
“You trust him?”
As a friend, yes. As a lover, no. “Yes,” she said.
“Put him on the phone.”
“Reno--”
“Put him on the phone.”
Trina rolled her eyes, then handed her cell phone to Jeffrey.
“What’s this?”
“My husband,” Trina said. “He wants to talk to you.”
Jeffrey’s heart began to hammer. This man was no ordinary husband and he knew it. He was possibly about to talk to a mob boss. He took the phone. “Hello?”
“This is Dominic Gabrini. You’re Jeffrey?”
“That’s right.”
“You’re a friend of my wife’s?”
Jeffrey hesitated. What was this about, he wondered. “Yes,” he said. “We go back a long way.”
“Good because I need you to do me a favor.”
“A favor? Sure, Mr. Gabrini.”
“Keep an eye on her. Some not so nice people may be gunning for her. I need you to make
sure she stays put, away from windows, until my people get there. Can you do me that favor?”
“Absolutely, sir,” Jeffrey said, standing to his feet. “Nobody’s getting in here.”
“You’re packing?”
Jeffrey hated to admit it. “Yes, sir.”
“Good,” Reno said, although he was concerned again that his wife was entertaining some man who had to carry a weapon around with him. “Keep it handy. She’s to open that door for nobody except Carmine Rossi. Got that?”
“I’ve got it.”
“I’ll remember this, all right? Put Trina back on the phone.”
“Yes, sir,” Jeffrey said, handing the phone to Trina.
“Are you on your way back?” Trina asked him as she watched Jeffrey hurry to the bedroom.
“Yeah, I’m going to head on back.” Then he let out an exhausted exhale. “Talk to me until Carmine gets there,” he said.
And she did. She talked with Reno and talked with Reno. She watched Jeffrey come back into the living room with a gun, she watched as he peeped out of the window, as he made sure every window and door was secure, as he walked around the apartment as if he was her bodyguard. She talked as Reno made other phone calls with other cell phones, as he barked out orders to check again on the plane.
He even made her talk with him after Carmine and his men arrived and they ushered her out of the apartment, down the stairs, and into the waiting limousine. One of Carmine’s men jumped into Reno’s Bentley and cranked up. Trina was just sliding into the limo when she heard the explosion. She looked up and saw her husband’s car in flames, saw the bodyguard get thrown to the ground. Dead.
“Tree!” Reno yelled on the other end, his heart hammering.
“It’s your car,” Trina said into the phone, still staring at the explosion.
Carmine pushed Trina further into the limo and jumped in behind her. “Go!” he ordered the driver. “Go now!”
The limo driver took off, driving in a swerve away from Trina’s old home. She looked back and could see her former neighbors staring in disbelief. She could see Jeffrey looking out of the window of her apartment, amazed by the scene downstairs, undoubtedly wondering what in the world had he gotten himself mixed up with. And she looked back at what was once Reno’s very expensive car, as another door flew from its’ burning frame. And she was wondering the exact same thing.
ELEVEN
It was nearly three am when they arrived at the PaLargio. Reno and Marcy headed up to the penthouse, but Tommy, with Sal Luca in tow, wanted to check out security around the hotel. The beefed up security wasn’t obvious to the untrained eye, but to Tommy’s considerable trained eye, it still appeared substandard.
Although Marcy stepped off of the elevator on the top floor ahead of him, Reno left her far behind as he entered his penthouse, calling for Trina.
“She’s in bad shape, Reno,” Carmine said as soon as he entered.
“Where is she?”
“On the balcony,” Carmine said and Reno didn’t wait for him to say more. Normally he would be concerned with her out anywhere during these uncertain times, but the penthouse balcony was up so high and had extra security. It was safe enough.
Reno’s heart hammered against his chest when he saw Trina seated in a lounger on that balcony, a drink in her hand. She wore a pair of shorts and a light pink hoodie, and had one of those shapely smooth brown legs of hers bent up, and the other one straight down. She also wore dark shades. Undoubtedly, Reno thought, to conceal the fact that she’d been crying.
Reno put both hands in his pant pockets and walked to the railing first, where a sweeping view of the Vegas skyline seemed within his reach. This used to be his dream, living on top of the world. Now all he wanted was for the violence to end, and for all of his loved ones, all of his responsibilities, to be safe.
He moved over to the lounger and sat on its edge. He looked at her drink, a Gin-and-tonic knowing Trina as he did, and then into her face.
“Eventful night, hun?” he said, attempting to smile, attempting to shield his hammering heart.
But Trina would not cooperate. She just sat there, staring forward, her entire body like a steel rod of stiffness.
“It’ll get better, Tree--”
“I can’t do it, Reno,” she said in a tone that discouraged debate. “I thought I could, I thought loving you would be enough and I could handle anything. But I can’t. I can’t handle this.” She rubbed her brow as a frown appeared on her forehead. “I saw a man die tonight, a man who got into a car I was supposed to get into. I saw a man die and it should have been me--”
“Oh, Tree,” Reno said, reaching for her arm, but she snatched away from him.
“I can’t do this!” she yelled, to make herself clear. “When it happened in Dale it was different. I passed out, Mama passed out, we didn’t know what hit us. And then I thought okay, they gave it their best shot and I’m still here, Mama’s still here, I’ll be okay.” She looked at Reno, her dark shades revealing nothing, her voice, her tense body, revealing everything. “But I won’t, Reno. These people are like animals, they don’t stop coming at you, they don’t--”
“Tree, look at me,” Reno said, moving closer to her.
“It’s like nothing matters to them--”
“Tree, look at me,” he said again, removing her shades. He was right. She had been crying. “It’s not going to be like this always, you hear me? Once we take them out--”
“Then they’ll try to take you out again--”
“No, they won’t. That’s not how it works. Once we get rid of the new power structure in Partanna’s organization, that’ll be the end of that organization.”
“Until you find out there’s a third layer to this craziness and it’ll start all over again.”
“No, Tree.”
“Yes, Reno. Yes! That’s how it works and you know it.”
“I don’t know shit! All I know is those fuckers will pay for what they did, they’ll pay for what they tried to do. And that’ll be the end of it, Tree, you have to believe me. Yeah, Partanna was a little deeper than we thought. Yes, I made a mistake. But I won’t again, I promise you I won’t again.”
Trina shook her head and looked forward, shook her head. “I can’t do it, Reno,” she said. “I can’t live like this.”
Reno moved closer still, his arm on her bare legs. “I know it’s an awful situation right now. I know you feel like you’re in prison right now. But once we get a handle on this--”
“You’re never get a handle on this!” Trina said, looking angrily at him. “Don’t you understand that? These people seemed to live for this shit. They kill one of yours, you kill one of theirs, and it’s like a game!”
“It’s not a game.”
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