MOB BOSS 2

by Monroe, Mallory

  And Reno had to give his cousin credit. It was working. Was even making him feel a pulse again. Taste of Southern was becoming his lifeline. But then he’d think about one southerner in particular, a certain hazel-eyed beauty from Mississippi, and that old familiar ache would replace any fullness, and that feeling of emptiness would replace any gain.

  Janet, the head cashier, sat across from Reno in his back booth. Reno sipped more beer and looked at her. She was a fair looking woman, strawberry blonde, nicely tanned, but she was a woman who always gave Reno the impression that she was trying too hard. And not just her work product, either. She’d also been trying to get Reno’s dick up her ass the entire time he’d been there.

  “I’m off in a few minutes,” she said.

  “It’s that time again?” he asked. “You work too hard.”

  Janet smiled. “Look who’s talking. You do nothing but work, my friend.”

  Reno gave a little snort and looked back down at his puzzle.

  Janet, however, continued to stare at him, at his rich, brown hair slicked back off of a face so attractive she understood how he could be kin to a great looker like Tommy Gabrini. And that body of his. She just knew he could satisfy her in ways that could turn her into his bitch for life. Regardless of how he treated her. Which, she suspected, given the rumors she’d heard about his ties to the mob, would more than likely be rough.

  But he never showed any interest. She could probably flash him right here and now, and he’d look, probably even get a hard on, but wouldn’t touch. He never seemed to want to touch. She once thought about asking Tommy if he was gay. But Tommy wasn’t the kind of man you could just walk up to and ask such a question. He was as standoffish as Reno, maybe even more so. Unless you were black, Janet thought with some bitterness when she looked toward the entrance door and saw a black woman walk in. Tommy seemed to just love those black bitches.

  “When I get off,” she said, turning her attention back to Reno, placing her hand over one of his, “I’m going to go home and cook a big, wonderful meal. And it won’t be any of this southern shit, either.” Reno smiled. “So why don’t I give you a call when I have it all ready, and you can come over and join me?”

  Reno looked up at Janet. She was a good person and deserved a good man. He, however, wasn’t that man. “I’d better not,” he said. “It’ll be late before I can get away from here and I’m going to be too tired to eat anything.”

  “Get lost, in other words?” Janet asked in jest. But when Reno didn’t correct her, didn’t say, no, of course not, but instead drained down more beer and looked out of the window away from her, she jumped from the table angrily, determined to leave his heartless sight. Only she bumped into the black woman who had just entered the building.

  “Look where you’re going, lady,” Janet admonished the woman, and then walked away.

  “Sorry,” the woman said to Janet’s back, wondering where did all of that anger come from.

  When Reno heard the woman’s voice, however, he went still. He knew it couldn’t be. Not here. Not in Seattle. He knew his imagination was playing tricks on him once again. He knew he was being suckered once again.

  But he looked anyway.

  And to his shock, to his utter surprise, Katrina, his wife, the woman he hadn’t seen in nearly half a year, was standing right in front of him.

  At first he just sat there, unable to make a move even if he had wanted to. And he didn’t know if he wanted to. He had done her the greatest favor of her life by leaving. As soon as he answered all the questions the authorities wanted answered, and they had nothing on him because he and his team knew how to clean up their mess, he left. But that poor child was still dead. But Trina’s life was still turned upside down. But his soul was still in ruins. All because of decisions, those shameful decisions, he was forced to make.

  Fear and pain kept him in his seat.

  “Hello Reno,” Trina said, staring at him. If someone didn’t really know him, they would say he made it out just fine; that he made it through that horrible storm all right. But she knew him, and she knew, when he looked up and she saw that devastation still flickering like warning lights in his bright blue eyes, that he was a long way from all right.

  “Hey,” he said, and he said it with a jerk in his voice, as if it pained him to say anything to her.

  Which pained her even more. But what could she do? “Mind if I sit down?” she asked.

  He rose in respect as she sat down on the seat Janet had just vacated. Trina had noticed, when she spotted him and was walking toward his booth, that the young woman had her hand over Reno’s, and it unnerved her even more than this crazy trip had already unnerved her. But she had come too far to turn back now.

  “Want something to drink?” Reno asked her. “What would you like to drink?”

  “Nothing, I’m good.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes.”

  Reno hesitated. Seeing her again was affecting him to such an extent that he had hoped going to get her something to drink would give him the time-out he needed to exhale, to stop himself from trembling. He sat back down.

  Trina tried to smile at him. She was only mildly successful. “It’s been a long time, Reno,” she said.

  It was such an understatement to him. Their whole meeting seemed like such an understatement. “Yeah,” he said. “It has been.” He leaned back, folded his arms. “You’ve been all right, Tree? Been taking care of yourself?”

  “I get by.”

  “You’ve lost weight,” Reno noticed, looking down at her body. “Too much weight.”

  “Just a few pounds.”

  “A few pounds my ass. You’ve lost ten, fifteen I guarantee it.”

  “Well what do you expect me to do, Reno? Most days I can barely breathe and you expect me to eat?”

  She regretted getting upset as soon as she did. But he was talking as if her life hadn’t been altered at all, and that angered her.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “What you sorry about? You deserve to hate my guts, are you serious?” Then Reno settled down too, the pain becoming almost excruciating. And then Janet came over, which didn’t help.

  “I’m getting ready to shove off, Reno,” she said, looking more at Trina than her boss.

  “All right, J, have a good night.”

  Janet nodded her head toward Trina. “Who’s that?” she asked as if she had a right to know, a fact not lost on Trina.

  “That’s my wife,” Reno said, staring Janet dead in her eyes. By her reaction it was obvious to Trina that she had no clue Reno was even married, let alone to a black woman.

  This time she was staring at Reno. “Your wife?” she said. “You never said anything about a wife.”

  “What are you my woman? When since I’ve got to tell you anything about my personal life?”

  “You could have mentioned it.”

  “Why?”

  Janet didn’t know how to answer that.

  “Just get outta here, all right?” Reno said, attempting to ease the tension he knew was quickly bubbling to the surface.

  Janet stared at Reno a moment longer, looked at Trina, and then back at Reno. “Up yours, Reno,” she said as she left.

  Trina smiled, although it was bittersweet. “Breaking hearts already?”

  “Ah, she’s been in heat since I’ve been here. She’ll have a new boyfriend soon and forget I even exist.”

  “But she works for you?”

  “She works for Tommy. This is his gig, not mine. I just manage the place for him. But he hires and fires and do all the personnel stuff.”

  “Your request I’d bet.”

  “Yeah, you’d win that bet,” he said.

  “So” Trina said, looking around at the nice but small restaurant, a restaurant that probably wouldn’t even be good enough to be alongside the chain of restaurants inside the PaLargio, “when you left me is this where you came?”

  Reno’s heart dropped. “I didn’t leave
you, Tree. Don’t say it like that.”

  “And how am I supposed to say it, Reno? I mean, you left me. That’s a fact. People ask me where’s my husband, and I tell them he left me. I don’t know how else I’m supposed to say that.”

  “You make it sound like I didn’t love you and left you, when it was nothing like that.” When I loved you too much, he wanted to add, but didn’t.

  Trina took his glass of beer and took a swig. Then she sat the mug back down and wiped her lips with the back of her hand. Reno found himself staring at those lips, remembering how they tasted, remembering how she tasted. “The point is,” she said, “you came here. To work for Tommy.”

  “I was just getting away. It wasn’t as orchestrated as all that. Tommy was my lifeline. He took me to his place out in Malibu first. I probably would have ended it all--”

  “Don’t say that!” Trina yelled loud enough to get attention. Then she lowered her voice. “Don’t say that, Reno.” She looked up at him. “Please.”

  Reno nodded. Some truth, he knew, was too hard to face. “Well, thank God I’m here and I’m able to see your pretty face again.” And it was still so gorgeous to Reno that he could hardly contain himself from not going to her, and touching it, and kissing it, and reclaiming it. But he stayed where he sat.

  A depressed look came over Trina. She leaned back. “I miss you, Reno,” she said and looked at him with narrowed eyes.

  Reno nodded, drained more Guinness. “How did you know I was camped this way? Tommy?”

  She nodded. “He came over to the PaLargio yesterday morning. Told me where you were. He said you’d probably kick his ass for telling, but he didn’t give a damn anymore. You were in bad shape, he said.”

  “Ah, what does Tommy know? Always getting into my business.”

  “It’s my business too. He felt I needed to find out, one way or the other, what your plans were.”

  “Plans? What plans?” Reno couldn’t shield his irritation.

  “Are you coming back to me? Or is it over for good between us and I may as well file for divorce?”

  Reno’s heart dropped. He didn’t want to deal with this. He couldn’t deal with this right now. “How’s the PaLargio?” he asked her. “Tommy says you’re handling it like a champ, that you’re running it and making it your own.”

  “I get by. Tommy’s been a good advisor, and he’s surrounded me with some good people to help me out.”

  “Good.”

  “But it’s not the same without you.”

  Reno hesitated. The idea of so much as seeing the PaLargio again pained him. “Yeah, well. You get to see Ma and my sisters anytime?”

  “I’ve seen them a couple times, yeah. They’re back at the family compound in Spring Valley.”

  “And your parents, how’s it going with them?”

  “Good. Mama’s fully recovered and back to be her regular ornery self.” Reno smiled. “And Dad’s still doing great. They visited me a couple times at the PaLargio.”

  “Oh, yeah? How did they like it?”

  “Loved it. As a place to visit, that is. But both times they couldn’t wait to get back to Dale.”

  “Good ol’ Dale.”

  “They love that new house you purchased for them. I didn’t even know you had purchased it.”

  “Yeah, I took care of that while you were still in that hospital in Dale. I didn’t want your mother to be released with no home to go to.”

  Trina stared at him. “You’re a very thoughtful man, you know that?”

  “No, because I’m not. I’m a ruthless man, a heartless man, a man who causes death and destruction everywhere he goes, and you’d be wise to never forget that.”

  Tears suddenly appeared in Trina’s eyes, tears she quickly tried to wipe away, but they were there. She reached into her purse and grabbed a tissue, and looked out of the window. When Reno realized she was teary-eyed, his heart dropped. He quickly stood up, slid on the booth seat beside her, and placed his arm around her.

  “Tree, I’m sorry,” he said, his heart like a torrent of pain. “Please don’t cry.”

  “I’m okay,” she said, looking away from him out of the window, her tissue now just clearing up any running makeup.

  Reno looked up and was amazed that his staff was standing behind the checkout counter staring at the two of them. “What the fuck y’all looking at?” he yelled. And they quickly, with terror now in their eyes, scattered.

  Reno squeezed Trina’s shoulder. “Come on,” he said, feeling heady at being this close to her again, “let’s get out of here.”

  They stood up and Reno kept his hand on the small of her back as he walked her out of the restaurant. When they got outside in the damp night air, Reno exhaled.

  “Better?” he asked her.

  “Yeah, thanks,” she replied.

  And for a few moments they just stood there, neither knowing quite what to say. “How did you get here? From the airport, I mean. You rented a car?”

  “I caught a cab,” she said.

  “Got a place to stay for the night? A hotel, I mean?”

  Trina shook her head. “No, I didn’t think to . . . No.”

  Reno nodded, his eyes unable to stop sliding down to her breasts, unable to stop thinking about how she felt in his arms. He, in fact, suddenly realized that his hand was still on the small of her back.

  “Come on,” he said and walked her to his Mercedes.

  When they got in and Reno made the slow drive to his home, there was a sadness between the two of them that hovered like a death. He reached over and took her hand as he drove, and she looked out of the side window, to avoid letting him see her tears. She was so hopeful on the plane, so determined to make Reno see the error of his ways and come back to her. But now she wasn’t sure if it would even work if he came back. They had drifted so far apart!

  She was stunned when he pulled up into the driveway of a rinky-dink looking tiny house across the street from a lumberyard. And it was in the booneys too, with no other houses around that she could see. Isolated. That, she guessed, after all, was the point.

  They walked, side by side like strangers, into the small home. But when they entered and closed the door, and the silence hit Reno like an old, familiar ache, before he even turned on a light, before he could even think about the consequences, he pushed her against the closed front door and began kissing her.

  It was so unexpected to Trina that she at first recoiled from his kiss. What was he doing? Why was he doing it? But as his lips seared into hers, as he pressed harder and harder and his tongue forced her mouth open and he licked and prodded and filled her with that headiness only Reno could fill her with, she joined in. Placed her arms around his neck and began returning his kisses.

  For the longest time they just stood there, against the front door, kissing. The sounds of their lips smacking, of their tongues exploring, of their moans and groans filled the quiet room.

  Reno could hardly contain himself as he kissed her, as he leaned closer into her and kissed and kissed and couldn’t stop kissing her. His manhood was so huge, so thick, throbbing so intensely that he unzipped his pants and sat it free.