RENO AND TRINA: GETTING BACK TO LOVE (The Mob Boss Series)

by Mallory Monroe

“Yeah, up yours too, Reno.”

  Reno laughed. Good old Sal. “So what’s up with you guys?” he asked. “What brings you two to France?”

  Reno found it odd that there was no immediate answer. Until he looked closer. It was then that he saw the drain on their faces. He saw that dread in their eyes. His heart slammed against his chest. They came to France to get him. He realized it as if they had just told him so. They were extremely busy men, commanding a business empire of their own. They wouldn’t have flown all this way together unless it was vital. Unless something terrible had happened. Something unspeakable had gone down, or they wouldn’t be here.

  “What is it?” Reno asked, his heart pounding louder than his voice could utter.

  “Why don’t you sit down Ree,” Sal suggested.

  But Reno would not be coddled. “Don’t tell me to sit down,” he snapped. “Just tell me what happened. Tell me my wife and my sons and my family are okay, or get the fuck out of my face right now!”

  Tommy immediately placed his hand on Reno’s arm. “They’re all okay,” he said softly. “They’re all physically fine, Reno, they’re all fine.” Then he exhaled. “But . . .”

  Reno looked at his cousin. When they were kids in Jersey, they would never call Tommy handsome. Reno was the handsome one, and Sal, but that word never seemed powerful enough to describe Tommy’s looks. Tommy was always the beautiful one. A beautiful boy. Now a beautiful man. And although Tommy hated that people referred to him that way, it was a fact. He was to this day an exceptionally beautiful individual with a serene, calming presence about him. And his presence usually had a way of calming Reno down too.

  But not this time.

  “But what?” Reno asked him, his earnest blue eyes searching his cousin’s eyes for clues. “But what, Tommy?”

  “But the baby,” Tommy started, and then he frowned and squeezed Reno’s arm.

  Reno’s heart pounded against his chest. It was obvious now. “What about the baby?” he asked.

  Tommy looked to Sal. He was better at delivering this kind of news than Tommy would ever be. Not that they had planned it this way. They had planned for Reno to phone home, so that Trina could tell him herself, but that wasn’t going to work. Reno wanted to know now and he wasn’t about to phone anybody until they told him now.

  And Sal told it in typical Sal fashion. He told it to him straight. “Tree had a miscarriage,” he said bluntly. “The baby died.”

  Reno suddenly felt wobbly. He leaned against Tommy’s strong body for support. Then he ran his hand through his already messy hair. “The baby died,” he said, as if he was telling them. “The baby . . . And Tree? What about my wife? Tell me---”

  “She’s fine, Reno,” Tommy assured him. “Trina’s fine.”

  Reno stared at Tommy. “But the baby . . .”

  Tommy nodded. “But the baby died, yes, Reno. The baby died.”

  Reno looked down, at the marbled floor, his eyes darting from one side of the room to the other as if he was seeking reasons for unreasonable news. He looked suddenly so anguished that even Sal was concerned. Then Reno took Sal’s advice and sat down in the chair.

  Tommy exhaled when he sat down. He knew an emotional man like Reno wasn’t going to take this well. That was why Trina asked them to come, because she knew it too. Reno was already scheduled to be in France for several more days, and she knew she couldn’t keep it from him that long. She wanted family to be with him when he heard the news, and to escort him back to Vegas personally if they had to.

  Tommy and Sal glanced at each other as Reno just sat there like the grieving parent he undoubtedly was. Neither one of the brothers had children, so it was tough for them to fully imagine what Reno was going through. It was only as they began to think about Reno’s two sons, and how devastated they would be if anything ever happened to them, that allowed them to be unabashedly empathetic.

  Especially Sal. Although Tommy loved Reno’s sons equally, Sal loved Reno’s oldest boy Jimmy Mack as if that young man was his own child. Jimmy was Sal’s heart. All Sal had to do was think about Jimmy, then he knew exactly what Reno had to be going through.

  But even then, he still would have been off the mark. Because Reno was devastated. His unborn child, the child he and his wife conceived and his wife carried in her stomach for nearly five months, was gone? Would never be?

  “We thought that if she made it through the first trimester, that if she took it easy and made it through those first three months, then she would be home free. We thought . . .” Reno ran his hand through his hair again, unable to truly believe it. He just couldn’t believe it! And Trina, he thought. His poor Trina! He looked up at his cousins. And this tough guy looked like a wounded child himself. It broke Tommy’s heart.

  “Where’s Tree?” he asked them. “You said she was all right. Tell me she’s all right.”

  “She’s fine,” Tommy reassured him again, squeezing his shoulder. “She’s absolutely fine, Reno. She should be out of the hospital by the time you make it back home. She wanted us to be with you when you heard the news. That’s why we’re here. She didn’t want you to be alone.”

  Reno nodded his head. “That’s my wife,” he said with what started out to be a proud smile, but ended up as a worried frown. “She’s always thinking about somebody else. She’s always looking out for everybody else when she should be looking out for herself. That’s how she is, Tommy, you know that.”

  “That’s Tree,” Tommy agreed.

  “I told her,” Reno continued. “I cannot count how many times I told her about that. Stop being so selfless, I told her. Stop worrying about everybody else and start worrying about yourself. But not Tree. She never thinks about herself. She never. . .” Then a distressed look appeared on his face. “My poor wife,” he said with agony in his voice. “How much more does she have to endure!”

  Then he thought about her on an even deeper level, realized what she was enduring, and then fumbled for his cell phone, only to be too disoriented to pull it out. Tommy handed him his own phone, and then knelt down to Reno and put an arm around him. Reno unnecessarily thanked him, and then finally pulled it together enough to phone his wife, Katrina Gabrini.

  His son, Jimmy Mack Gabrini, was inside the casino when he saw, through the wall-sized windows, that his father’s limo was arriving. As one of the numerous floor managers, he had a station that he was solely responsible for. But he left that station without alerting anyone, and hurried through the almost jammed-packed casino, through the famous archways, and across the equally chaotic lobby of his father’s hotel on the Vegas Strip. By the time he made it through the horde of people, Reno had already entered the building and was nearing the private elevators on the backside of the lobby. As soon as Jimmy saw him, he called his name.

  “Dad!” he yelled above the crowd noise, as he hurried for the elevators too. “Dad!”

  Reno turned when he heard his son’s voice. And when he saw Jimmy Mack hurrying toward him, he let out a sigh of relief. At twenty-one, he was Reno’s oldest child, the product of a long ago relationship with a now-deceased African-American woman. Although Trina was a black woman too, and Jimmy was often mistaken as her biological son because of it, there was no mistaking that he was Reno’s son. There were some obvious physical differences. Jimmy was biracial, of course, with a manageable mop of curly brown hair, a very light-brown skin tone, and a body more slender than muscular, although he was buffing up and getting there. But he had the intensity that his father had, and that swag Reno inherited from his own father, and that leader among men ability that was as natural to Gabrini men as air. And he was becoming the man his father most trusted by his side more and more each day.

  Reno pulled his son into his arms as soon as Jimmy arrived at his side. And they embraced with a warm, long, heartfelt embrace. When they stopped hugging, Reno kissed his son and placed his hand on the side of his face. “You all right?” he asked him.

  Jimmy nodded. “I’m okay,” he responded.
“But are you all right?”

  Reno lifted his eyebrows and removed his hands from his son’s face. “No,” he said honestly as he swiped his keycard, prompting the private elevator doors to open instantaneously. He stepped onto the elevator. Jimmy stepped on with him.

  Reno leaned against the rail and looked at his son. “You’ve been taking care of my wife?” he asked as the doors closed and the elevator began its long ascent to the penthouse.

  “I’ve been with her the whole time,” Jimmy responded. “Just like you told me to.

  “Good. That’s good.”

  “The only reason I came down to work tonight was because she had finally fallen asleep, and then Granny and Pa fell asleep too, so I came on down. But I’ve been with her the whole time, just like you told me to.”

  Reno nodded, exhaled, and wiped the back of his hand across his tired eyes. Jimmy’s heart went out to his father. “God’s got it in control, Pop,” he said to him.

  Reno smiled wearily. “I know, son,” he said. “Don’t you worry about me.” Then his looked turned hard. “It’s Trina I’m worried about.”

  “But don’t be, Pop,” Jimmy said cheerfully. “The good news is that she’s taking it really well. She’s not crying all the time or anything like that. She’s been real accepting of the situation.”

  “Yeah, that’s the problem,” Reno responded. “She’s been too accepting.”

  “Too accepting?” Jimmy asked, surprised.

  “Hell yeah,” Reno said as if it was an obvious fact. “Tell me she broke down and was flopping like some gotdamn fish. Tell me she questioned why and was screaming at everything in sight. Tell me she went to her room and refused to see anybody. But don’t tell me she’s accepting it. Because that’s bullshit. I know my wife. She just lost her unborn baby, her child? She’s not accepting this. Not now. Not ever.”

  Jimmy stared at his father. He had never before considered that Trina’s bravado could be an act. She was always so strong. She was always the one helping them make it through. That was why everybody believed she was moving on. But according to Reno, moving on was the last thing she was doing. Which blew Jimmy’s mind. How could he have been so blind? She was a woman with a big heart who just suffered a great lost. Of course she wasn’t moving on already! His father was right.

  When the elevator doors opened, Jimmy looked at him. “Want me to come with you?” he asked.

  But Reno shook his head. “No,” he said. “Go back to work. We’ll talk later.” Then he kissed his son again as Jimmy stayed on the elevator to head back downstairs.

  Reno entered the penthouse. He took both hands and smoothed down his messy hair as he made his way through the silent corridors of his massive home. He knew he looked like death warmed over, and he knew his appearance alone was going to worry Trina even more, but it couldn’t be helped. Nobody was going to give Reno Gabrini such terrible news and expect him to pretend everything was okay. Everything wasn’t okay. There was pain in paradise. And he wasn’t about to sugarcoat that pain. Not even for Trina. Especially not for Trina.

  He first looked into the bedroom that belonged to his youngest son, three-year-old Dominic Gabrini, Junior. Dommi was in bed fast asleep, and Trina’s parents, Cecil and Earnestine Hathaway, were both in Dommi’s room. Earnestine was in bed asleep with Dommi, and Cecil was in the rocking chair, asleep too. Reno was pleased. There was a time when those two people couldn’t figure out what in the world did their daughter see in him. Now they were his allies. Now they were as dear to him as his own deceased parents had been.

  Reno closed the door and made his way around another series of corridors. When he had the PaLargio renovated after a destructive fire, he changed the entire configuration of his bedroom. It was no accident that the master bedroom was now on a wing of the penthouse all its own. It was necessary. He personally informed his architects just how necessary it was for him and his wife to have optimum privacy. Not because they were some type of privacy freaks, but because they were bed freaks. Because he and Trina had such frequent sexual encounters that a day rarely went by, whenever Reno was in town, when he wasn’t doing her. In the morning, late at night, in the middle of the day they had sex without fail, and most of those encounters were of the very loud, very hard, sometimes very raunchy nature. They didn’t want their three-year-old, or anybody else for that matter, hearing any of it. He wasn’t that explicit with his builders, but they got his point.

  Reno stood just outside of the master bedroom, took a moment to compose himself, and then opened the double doors, not with a wide sweep, but with a slow push. His kid sister Fran was standing at the window, reading some text on her smartphone, when Reno walked in. She looked up and smiled, and then quietly hurried to her big brother.

  Reno swept her into his arms, but looked over at the bed as he held her. Trina was fast asleep on her side, looking angelic Reno thought, and he couldn’t take his eyes off of her. When he and Fran stopped embracing, he was already fighting back tears.

  “She’s okay, Reno,” Fran whispered to him, to reassure him. “She’s doing great. You know how tough Trina is. We’re more torn up about it than she is.”

  Reno was alarmed by how little they really knew his wife. She wasn’t doing great, why did they keep saying that? She couldn’t possibly be doing great! But he didn’t have the energy to school his kid sister or anybody else right now. “Thanks for being here for her,” he said to her instead.

  After Fran hugged him again and then left the room, Reno closed the doors behind him. And made his way up to the king-sized bed.

  He placed his hands in the pockets of his pants as he walked toward his wife. She looked so serene lying there, like his African queen, as her dark-brown face showed no outward signs of any upheaval whatsoever. Her silky black hair had been freshly combed, and that beautiful black body he knew so well had undoubtedly been freshly scrubbed. You’d think, just looking at her lying there, that she was ready for some glamorous photo shoot. She was ready to take the world by storm. But Reno knew better.

  He stood there, staring down at her, his face a mask of concern. Especially when he looked down at her stomach. She had been so proud of her baby bump. She had been so proud of her cautious behavior throughout the pregnancy. She was just getting to that point where they both felt reassured, because they thought they were out of the danger zone. And now this. Her body lost a part of itself. And everybody was trying to convince him that she was taking such a jolt just fine. Even she, whenever they spoke on the phone, was trying to convince him too. But he knew her. Like he knew his own name, he knew her.

  As if she sensed his presence, she opened her eyes. Reno’s heart squeezed when he saw those big, intelligent, hazel eyes. The contrast between her dark skin and her light-colored eyes were still a stunning combination to him. But her pain was as clear to him as the white of those eyes. And even when she saw him standing there, and smiled that bright-white smile at him, she could not hide her pain. Not from him.

  He crotched down beside the bed, so that they could be eyeball to eyeball, and he tried with everything within him to return her smile. But he couldn’t pull it off.

  “Well hello there, sleepy head,” he said to her.

  “Hello yourself,” she said to him and placed her hand on the side of his handsome but unshaven face. “Where’s Tommy and Sal?”

  “They headed back to Seattle. I insisted on it.”

  Trina smiled again. “You would. I’m just glad you didn’t have to hear the news alone. Jimmy wanted to go, but I felt Tommy and Sal would be more of a support to you.”

  “You think of everything,” he said. “And everybody but yourself.”

  Trina smiled yet again. “Oh, I’m fine, Reno, you know that. You know how I am.”

  Reno stared at her. “Yeah,” he said, his face hard and unwavering. “I know exactly how you are.”

  His words struck a chord with her. She looked at the state of the man before her. At his unruly hair. At his blood-shot
blue eyes. At those growing lines of age beside his eyes. Reno was in his late thirties, was pushing forty hard, but sometimes, like this time, he looked even older.

  But just seeing Reno again stirred emotions inside of her. And the fact that a smile couldn’t convince him the way she was able to convince everybody else. And the fact that he was willing to outwardly mourn the loss of their unborn child the way she was inwardly mourning that lost. It all made her feel free for the first time since it happened. She didn’t have to be strong for everybody. She didn’t have to be the brave one.

  And she couldn’t put it off a moment longer. The pain outwardly released for the first time. The tears outwardly shed for the first time. And his tears came too. She had her ally back. She had the one human being who understood what she was going through by her side once again. No words needed to be spoken. No pronouncements needed to be made. She threw herself into her husband’s arms, and he caught her and bore her up. And Reno and Trina, alone and together, grieved.

  They grieved for the loss of their unborn baby.

  They grieved for that life they knew they would never share.

  They grieved because trouble had come to paradise in a form it had never come before. It came intimately. It came like a thief and took what they had tried to build up, and knocked it back down.

  Reno silently prayed as he held Trina, and Trina silently prayed as she held Reno. Despite the sense of turmoil, despite the dread and the loss, they felt serene, and strong, and ready to battle back with the weapon of their love. Keeping them down was an impossibility. Although both of them sensed, as if it was a sixth sense, that fate was going to try and give it its’ best shot yet.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Six Weeks Later

  Her first day back to work and Trina was feeling overwhelmed. Gemma and Liz, her two business partners, had held down the fort, but the sales were the issue that concerned her most. She and Liz, in fact, had spent all morning going over the receipts. Now they were reviewing inventory logs and trying to determine if maybe they need to return some orders. The store was virtually empty, except for one customer and their two sales clerks, both of whom were doing everything in their power to make sure the woman didn’t leave empty-handed. Liz Mertan, a tall blonde and the wife of a well-regarded local dentist, was behind the counter with Trina opening up their third inventory log. Trina was still reviewing the second one.