“But it’s like a game, Reno. There are winners and losers. I’m terrified that one night you’re going to be the one to lose, and I don’t think I can deal with that if it happens.”
“It won’t happen. Listen to me, Tree, it won’t happen. Once we get a handle on this--”
“Reno,” Marcy’s voice was heard and both an angry Reno and a curious Trina turned to the sound.
When Reno realized Marcy had come out onto his balcony, he roared. “What the fuck you want?” he asked her.
Trina looked at Reno, amazed by his rudeness.
Marcy wasn’t amazed, but she became equally nasty. “I want to know what you’re going to do about our son,” she said, staring at Trina to see her reaction more than Reno, “that’s what the fuck I want!”
Reno could not believe she had just blurted that out, and was ready to pounce, but Trina, instead, spoke up.
“Who is that?” she asked Reno.
Reno almost wanted to fling himself from that balcony. It seemed as if every bad decision he’d ever made in his life was all coming to a head right here and right now, at the worst possible time. “Tree, we need to talk,” he said.
“Hello,” Trina said, looking around him and staring at Marcy, causing Marcy to walk slowly toward Reno and his new bride.
At first Marcy wasn’t impressed. Was pleasantly surprised, in fact, by Trina’s lack of impressiveness. Because from a distance Trina looked okay, looked cute, kind of sexy, but nowhere near in the same league as Marcy’s own beauty.
But up close told a different tale. Marcy quickly changed her opinion when she came closer and saw Trina’s bright hazel eyes staring out in a perfect contrast to her smooth, elegant dark skin. When she saw her full lips and her buttonish, African nose. When she saw that she was big where a woman should be big, and small where a woman should be small. Marcy had the body of a supermodel, but it wasn’t a curvaceous body. This wife of Reno’s, this black woman, had the kind of curves she always suspected Reno preferred. And Marcy’s heart grew faint. Pags only told her that she was black. He never mentioned her dazzle.
“Hi,” Marcy said when she reached Trina and Reno. She almost smiled as she often did when she greeted someone, but that would have been disastrous. What mother smiles when their child is supposedly kidnapped?
“Who is she?” Trina asked Reno again.
“Marcy Davenport,” Reno said reluctantly. “She’s going to stay at the PaLargio for a few days. Marcy, this is my wife, Katrina Gabrini.”
Marcy nearly choked when Reno rubbed it in. Katrina Gabrini. As if he wanted to make clear to her that she had what she once wanted. “Nice to meet you, Katrina. I’m sure Reno’s very lucky to have you.”
“You mentioned a son,” Trina said, long past niceties.
“That’s right.”
“We used to hang out, Tree,” Reno tried to explain, but Trina was staring at Marcy.
“We used to know each other,” Marcy said. She wanted to add intimately but didn’t. Because she also knew that if she came on too strong with that we have history boasting, she’d lose her. And if she lost the wife, she just might lose Reno’s help. Pags made it clear. Either Reno’s head ended up on that platter, or her son’s would. Truth was, and even Vito Giancarlo didn’t know this, but she’d gotten her son safely out of the country as soon as Pags reentered her life insisting she get back in the game, so she was certain he was safe and that his life wasn’t in danger.
But Pags also had the goods on her because, after Reno and his old man dumped her, she turned to Partanna. And Partanna didn’t just want her to sleep with men the way Reno’s father had her doing. He wanted her to maim or even kill a few while she was at it. Which meant she was in trouble. Which meant she knew nothing about their crimes and misdemeanors, but they knew everything about hers.
She had to deliver Reno.
“They have my son,” she decided to blurt out.
Reno looked angrily at her again, and was ready to rebuke her again, but Trina wasn’t trying to let him.
“Your son?” she asked, staring at Marcy.
“They kidnapped him. He’s only six years old.”
Trina looked at Reno. “Kidnapped?” she asked, her already wary face growing even more faint.
“Will you excuse us for a minute, Marce?” he asked in a tone that was expecting only one answer. Marcy wanted to smile. She knew dissension when she saw it, which was perfect for her. That woman, who probably never knew the gangster life, was ready to dump his ass.
“Sure,” she said, “but we need to have a game plan, Reno.”
Reno frowned. “You don’t tell me what we need to have. I know what we need to have. And where the fuck is Carmine! I told him to keep an eye on you.”
“I’m right here,” Carmine said, stepping out onto the balcony. “She said she needed to discuss that situation with you.”
“Get her out of here,” Reno said, angry that Carmine allowed Marcy to dictate to him. “I’m talking here.”
“Come on, let’s go,” Carmine said as he grabbed Marcy by the arm and escorted her off of the balcony.
Trina looked at him. “You have a child?” she asked.
Reno nodded. “I think so, yeah. I just found out myself, Tree.”
“And she’s the mother?”
Reno nodded. “Yeah.
“And this child of yours has been kidnapped? Kidnapped, Reno?”
Reno knew it sounded awful. And it was. “Yes,” was all he could say.
“Partanna’s people again?”
Reno nodded. “We think so, yes.”
Trina shook her head and began to rise. Reno rose too, his heart pounding.
“You need to do all you can for your son, do all you can. But I can’t. . .” She moved to leave, but Reno blocked her.
“Tree, listen to me.”
She scuffled with him, trying to get away, and she succeeded, moving out of his grasp, hurrying off of the balcony, and heading straight for the bedroom. Reno hurried behind her, astounding Carmine and Marcy both, who were in the living room waiting for him. But he was calling after his wife, calling after her like some pecked hen. Carmine especially was astounded.
Trina grabbed a carrying bag from the closet as soon as she entered the bedroom and began to take underwear from a drawer and toss them in the bag.
“Tree, listen to me,” Reno said as he entered. He knew any self-respecting, smart woman would leave him, and Tree was nothing but respectable and smart. But he wasn’t appealing to her head, but to her heart. “Tree, please listen to me.”
She threw a garment in her bag and looked at him. “I can’t do it, Reno, don’t you understand? I can’t!” Tears appeared in her eyes.
Reno’s heart dropped when he saw her tears. And he grabbed her and wrapped her in his arms. How could she want a man like him? “Partanna’s people are trying to fuck with me, Tree, that’s all this is about,” he said pleadingly. “They don’t want no kid, they ain’t gonna hurt no kid. They just playing with my mind, they aren’t going to hurt a kid. Don’t worry about that. That’s handled, that’s taken care of.”
Trina shook her head again, and her big, bright eyes took on a staring, shocked look. “It just blew up, Reno,” she said.
Reno stared at her.
“It was so loud. I can still hear it. I turned around and it just blew up. And it could have been me, Reno. I could have gotten behind that wheel like I was supposed to get behind that wheel and it would have been me. But one of your security people decided to drive the car. Carmine wouldn’t let me drive. But one of your security people. . . that poor man!”
She sobbed in Reno’s arms. He knew it was all his fault, he knew his decision to marry her and bring her into his world put her at risk. Now it was more than a mere risk. They were targeting her. But not in the traditional way. They didn’t just want to shoot her down. They wanted to knock her out, to make it clear to Reno that this wasn’t going to be as simple as it was when they gunned dow
n his father and brother. He was going to suffer long and hard for what he did to Frank Partanna, which meant Tommy was probably right and the leader of Partanna’s underworld was Partanna’s son, was somebody kin to that bovine bastard.
“It was so loud Reno,” Trina kept going. “It wasn’t like it was in Dale. All I remember in Dale was putting the cat out of the backdoor and then I was in the hospital. But this time I saw it, Reno. I saw it with my own two eyes. And that man--”
“Tree, it’s all right,” Reno said, holding her tighter, rubbing her hair and fighting back his own tears. “It’s going to be all right.” He pulled her back, placed his hands on either side of her face, his heart pained to see her in such distress. “Look at me,” he insisted. “Tree, look at me.”
When she did, when her big bright eyes were able to focus again and they looked up at him, he felt like the most selfish man alive. “I know you want to leave,” he said, “and you have every right to leave. I understand what you’re saying, I do, Tree.”
He had to swallow hard before he could continue. “But you can’t leave,” he said, tears now appearing in his eyes. “It’s not safe. I’m sorry, but it’s not, and I can’t let you go anywhere right now. After this is over and you still . . . want to leave me, then okay, you have that right to leave. But not now, not until this is done.”
His eyes glazed over and Trina saw nothing but anguish. “It’s my fault, Tree. I should have never brought you into my world. When you came for that job interview after our one night stand, I should have told you no, you can’t work here, and walked away. And when you left me the last time, after this mess with Partanna first started, I should have let you go. But I love you so much, Tree,” he said and Trina leaned her forehead against his, tears now in both of their eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Reno ultimately said.
Trina closed her eyes. “It’s not your fault,” she said. “Maybe that’s why it’s hitting me so hard right now. Because it’s my fault. You told me not to go anywhere. You ordered me not to go. You said you’d kick my ass if I went.”
They both tried to smile. They both failed.
“But I went anyway,” she continued. “I didn’t listen to you. I thought you were being overprotective, just being your regular domineering self. So I went. I didn’t think anything else was going to happen to me. I thought after Dale. . . I thought. . . Now my actions, my actions, not yours, caused that man, that bodyguard, to lose his life--”
Reno pulled her against him again, her face resting on his broad chest. He didn’t have any more words to say. And for a good few moments he didn’t try to say anything. He just allowed her to cry, to stand in the bedroom of their palatial penthouse, the floor to ceiling curtain-less windows revealing a startlingly gorgeous backdrop of Vegas at night, and cry her eyes out. And he truly didn’t know how to reassure his own wife. He didn’t know what to say, he didn’t know how to act. For the first time in his life Reno Gabrini, the man known as the iron man, was lost.
Then he heard Carmine’s voice. “Reno,” Carmine said and he pulled from Trina, wiping tears from his eyes with his back still to his brother-in-law.
“What is it?”
“Pags is on the phone.” Reno quickly turned around. “He wants to talk to you.”
Tears or no tears, Reno flew out of the bedroom, with Trina, wiping her own tears, hurrying behind him.
“He wants you,” Marcy said as soon as she saw him, trying her best to look terrified. “He wants to talk to you.”
Reno grabbed the cell phone that was in her hand and put it to his ear. “This is Reno,” he said.
“Hello, Dominic,” Pags said on the phone.
“What the hell is this about, Pags?”
“Same old Reno. Impatient.”
“Yeah, I’m impatient. Especially when I’m dealing with a dead fucker.”
“Yeah, that was ingenious, wasn’t it? Frank used to sit back and laugh at you and your old man and Vito Giancarlo and all of you stupid assholes who actually thought he was stupid. But who’s laughing now?”
“Frank ain’t,” Reno said. “But what you want? Where’s the kid?”
“Why are you calling him that, Dominic? He’s your kid, your son. Don’t you forget that.”
“Where is he?”
“We’ll be in touch. We just needed to make sure you were fully onboard here.”
“On board for what?”
“Patience, Dominic. You always lacked patience. We’ll be in touch. And please don’t be so foolish as to try and trace our calls. You aren’t dealing with amateurs. Besides, we’re too smart for your dumbass, Reno.” Then he laughed, and killed the call.
Reno stared at the cell phone, saw that it was an unknown name, unknown number. He handed it to Carmine.
“What did he say?” Marcy asked.
“He’ll be in touch,” Reno said.
“Where’s Nicky? Did he say if Nicky was all right?”
“He said they’ll be in touch, that’s all he said. We’ll just have to sit tight and wait.”
Then he went over to Trina, grabbed her by the hands. He expected more grilling from her, more wariness. But, to his shock, she was more concerned about the fact that the boy had been kidnapped than by the fact that the boy was his. “When did they take him?” she asked Marcy.
“Yesterday,” she said. “They said I was to hook up with Reno, that they won’t tell me anything until I hook up with Reno. Then they’ll be in touch.”
“They know it’s his son?”
She nodded. “They know.”
Trina looked at Reno. “That’s why you went to Jersey? To get with her?”
“To, no, Tree, I didn’t know either. I had no idea I had a son. She just laid this on me.”
Trina found his need to say that odd. “I already worked that much out, Reno,” she said.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Come on, Reno. If you knew you had a child in this world he would be right here under lock and key at the PaLargio, just like I am. I’m your responsibility, as you’re always reminding me, and he would be too. That’s just you, Reno.” She frowned. “Of course you didn’t know.”
Reno smiled, proud of her. He should never underestimate this woman. Never. He put an arm around her.
“Is this the first time they’ve been in touch?” Trina asked, looking from Reno to Marcy.
“Yes,” Marcy said. “The first time.”
Trina nodded. What a beautiful woman, she thought, the kind of trophy girlfriend any man would want by his side even if he couldn’t stand her. But he’d love to show her off. This woman and Reno matched, Trina also saw. She could see how they once hooked up. She was even willing to bet that people often looked at them and declared them the perfect couple. She also knew that those same people would look at her with Reno and declare them the odd couple.
Then she inwardly smiled, thinking how Reno would respond to such people. “I got your odd couple right over here,” he’d say angrily. “Right between the balls.”
And just thinking about that, about the man himself, and how he always found ways to make her laugh, to make her feel like the most important woman in the world to him, made it clear to her how leaving Reno and this maddening world of his would never be as simple as walking away.
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