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

by Mallory Monroe

  When Trina settled back down, Reno put his arms around her. He knew she might feel caged. He knew, by the way she was lying on top of him with her back to his chest, that she might feel imprisoned by the strength of his arms around her. He knew she might be suffocating. So he loosened his grip. Just a little, but enough to let her know he was willing to try that too.

  But Trina didn’t want him to be anybody but who he was. Or it wouldn’t feel right. She took his arms and tightened them around her. Reno as her protector. Reno as her strength. That felt right. Perfectly right.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  It was girls night out at Ashley Marin’s house and Trina was laughing so hard she was crying. Carmen was determined to tell knock, knock jokes, and although none of them were funny, her delivery, with her Spanish accent, had them balling. Stacy would laugh, and then Trina would lean against her laughing, and then Ashley would lean against Trina laughing. It was that kind of night. Until Ashley stood up and sat Carmen down, and said she had a “major” announcement.

  “What announcement?” Carmen asked.

  “Guess,” Ashley said.

  “You’ve booked a trip to the moon?” Stacy asked, causing others to laugh.

  “Wrong,” Ashley said.

  “You’re a man trapped in a woman’s body?” Carmen asked.

  “Let me think? Wrong. Guess again.”

  “Nobody can guess, Ash,” Trina said. “Just tell us.”

  Ashley stood erect, with a smile on her narrow face. She was the tallest in the group, and the most curvaceous. Back in the day, when Trina waited tables in strip joints, Ashley was considered the prized stripper. “He put a ring on it!” she said happily, with a jump in place. Then she flashed the big rock on her finger as if she was flashing pure gold.

  “Bam!” Trina said when she saw it. “Let me see it!”

  Ashley leaned over so all of them could see, and Trina grabbed her ring finger and looked at it closely. Then she nodded her head and leaned back. “That’s a nice behind ring right there,” she said.

  “Thanks, Tree,” Ashley said sincerely. “Coming from you, with all you’ve got, you don’t know how wonderful that makes me feel.”

  “But what I want to know,” Trina said, “is who put a ring on it? I never heard you talking about no dude.”

  “Yeah!” Carmen said. “What gives? You wasn’t even dating as far as we knew. Who put a ring on it?”

  Ashley smiled again. “Guess,” she said again.

  “Child please,” Stacy said impatiently. She was the most outspoken of the ladies, although Carmen was a close second. “Just tell us. We can’t guess something like that!”

  Ashley exhaled. “Boyzie,” she said.

  All three of the ladies responded in unison. “Boyzie?” they asked, astounded to hear that name.

  “Yes, Boyzie!” Ashley said, her once cheerful face now showing some serious attitude. “Y’all got a problem with that?”

  “You’ve been dating Boyzie?” Stacy asked. “As in Boyzie of Boyzie’s Gentleman’s Club?”

  “Yes, Stace, yes! I don’t see where that’s so unusual! I was his favorite when I was on the line.”

  “Why would you even bring that up?” Carmen asked. “You haven’t worked the pole in years. None of us have! We moved on from that life. Why would you want to fool with that fool?”

  “He promoted her to manager, remember,” Stacy said.

  “And he’s not a fool,” Ashley said defensively. Trina stared at her. “He owns a strip club, yeah, he does, but he’s nobody’s fool.”

  “But you said it yourself. He still runs a strip club, Ash,” Carmen said. “He’s still banging every stripper that’ll let him, and you know that’s the truth.”

  Trina was still staring at Ashley. She was amazed that a smart girl like Ashley would have allowed herself to fall for a man like Boyzie.

  But she had, and was defensive as hell about it too. “He’s not banging any strippers,” Ashley said to Carmen, “so, as usual, you don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m the manager now, remember? I see everything.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “I do, Carmen, whether you want to believe it or not! All I know is he put a ring on it when no other man was willing to do that, and I’m still waiting to see yours.”

  “Oh, no she didn’t go there,” Carmen said and Stacy laughed.

  “Oh, yes she did go there,” Stacy said.

  “So what are you saying, Ash?” Trina asked her. “You’re in love with Boyzie?”

  Ashley plopped down in the chair that flanked the sofa. “Yeah,” she said. “I think I am.”

  “Oh, Ash!” Trina said.

  “Is he perfect?” Ashley asked defensively. “No, he’s not. I know that.”

  “But we’re talking Boyzie, Ash,” Trina said, still unable to wrap her brain around it. “Perfect isn’t the issue by a longshot.”

  “By fifty longshots,” Carmen agreed.

  “By several states,” Stacy agreed.

  “Okay, I get it!” Ashley said. Then she looked at Trina. Trina was the leader of their group. Ashley had thought that if anybody would be sympathetic, Trina would. But now she was bashing the idea too. “He’s no different than any other man,” she went on. “He’s a man. An imperfect man. But I love him.”

  “But you know he sleeps with those girls?” Trina asked her. “Keeping it real. You know that, right?”

  “No, I don’t know it, matter of fact,” Ashley said.

  “Oh, come on girl,” Carmen said. “You can’t possibly be that blind in love!”

  “I’m not blind and you won’t sit in my house and say that I am!”

  “Then I can leave your sorry house,” Carmen said, “‘cause your ass blind as a bat if you think Boyzie ain’t sleeping around!”

  “How do you know what he’s doing?” Ashley asked her. “Hun, Miss know it all Carmen Gutiérrez? Do you have cameras on him day and night? How would you know? And I’m surprised at you, Trina, after all that grief people be giving you about Reno. I just knew you would understand.”

  “Understand what?” Trina asked. “You can’t compare Boyzie to Reno on any given day.”

  “Oh, yes, I can too! You say Boyzie’s a hoe. Well, I say Reno’s one too.”

  “Ooh, I wouldn’t go there if I were you,” Stacy warned Ashley. “Trina will hurt somebody over her precious Reno.”

  “I’m just keeping it real too,” Ashley said, her hazel eyes bright with excitement. “They still talk about how much Reno sleeps around on you, Tree, you know they talk all the time about his infidelities. Especially when he’s out of town on all of those so-called business trips. He’s out of town on one right now. You don’t know who he has in his bed with him right this very moment. But yet you wanna judge me?”

  “She’s got a point there, Tree,” Stacy said. “You don’t know what Reno’s up to.”

  “Thank you,” Ashley said. “So you can’t talk either, Trina.”

  But Trina would have none of it. “When I worked at Boyzie’s, I saw with my own two eyes what that clown was up to. I saw him banging every silly girl that let him. And even after I left there I saw what he was doing to Jazz. And yeah, you’re right. People do talk about my husband. They talk like it’s their business to talk. But I haven’t caught Reno doing shit wrong. I know Boyzie. We all know Boyzie.”

  “She’s got a point there, Ash,” Stacy said. “We all know that joker.”

  “Okay, he used to mess around. And maybe he still does. Like Reno.”

  Stacy laughed. “She keeps trying to put your man in it, Tree,” she said.

  “I’m just saying,” Ashley said. “But I’m still going to marry him. People change. Maybe Boyzie has.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Stacy said. “But knowing Boyzie, maybe not.”

  “How long have you been dating the joker?” Carmen wanted to know.

  “He’s not a joker! Will you stop calling him that? But I’ve been dating him all along,�
� Ashley said.

  Stacy couldn’t believe it. “You mean while we all worked there?”

  But just as Stacy asked that question, and before Ashley could respond, knocks were heard on the front door. Ashley looked at her friends, knowing she hadn’t invited anybody else, and then headed for the door. But before she could make it, the door was busted down as if it was cardboard, and two masked men, both armed, hurried in.

  Everybody started screaming and scrambling, trying to run for cover, trying to do anything to get out any line of fire, but the gunmen warned them to stay put or die. They did as they were told.

  Although all three of the other ladies were staring at the gunmen, Trina was staring away from them, trying not to be noticed, trying not to hackle them in any way possible. She was Reno’s wife. She’d been in tougher spots than this before. And because of that experience, and because of her keen observations when the men first broke in, she’d already seen far more than any of the other three ladies ever would.

  But it didn’t matter. Because those men came with a purpose. One of them, the tallest one, pointed his shotgun at Ashley.

  “Tell that man of yours,” he said, “that he’s messing with the wrong people.” Then, to Trina’s shock, to Carmen and Stacy’s shock, he shot Ashley, pointblank, right between the eyes.

  Carmen and Stacy nearly knocked each other out trying to get away from there, but the gunmen warned them again that they’d get it next if they didn’t stay still.

  They froze in place.

  Trina was already in place. Stacy and Carmen looked at her for help, direction, something. But Trina was looking down, away from the gunmen. So they looked down too.

  Until one of the gunmen, the shorter of the two, took his shotgun and pointed it squarely at Tree.

  Earlier that evening, mere minutes before those gunmen broke into Ashley Marin’s Vegas house and turned their laughter into sorrow, Reno was in Atlantic City walking up the side stairs of an abandoned warehouse. He took the steps two at a time until he made it to the second floor. It was a cold, drizzly night and the last place he wanted to be was where he was: on some seedy side of town, pulling open a half-rusted steel door that opened into a wide space filled with dust mite, old school desks stacked against dingy walls, and three mob bosses waiting for him.

  The leader, Lou Lazio, sat in a chair in the center of the room, while Rudy Santushi, called Tush by the families, and Birch Tafarella, called Taft, were his wingmen. Taft and Tush were small potatoes to Reno, a couple of know-nothing thugs whose families once held some prominence on the East Coast until time and too many deaths took them out of the loop. But Lazio was still the real deal.

  “Glad you could make it, Dominic,” Lazio said in his strong Jersey accent as Reno made his way up to the three men. Lazio was older than Reno by some twenty years, and was a jolly-looking big man, three hundred pounds barefoot, with a fathead and a fat belly to match. But Reno knew there was nothing jolly about him. He was a bastard from way back.

  “How you doing, Laz?” Reno asked.

  “It’s been a long time,” Lazio responded. “Too long in my book. But you’re still looking good. Still looking prosperous. Although, and I don’t mean to be negative here, you’re the only Italian I’ve ever known who wears a five thousand dollar suit like it’s nothing; like it’s something he bought during a Blue Light special at Kmart.” He said this and laughed. His wingmen laughed too.

  But Reno didn’t crack a smile. They weren’t friends and he wasn’t about to pretend that they were. Bunch of drug-dealing scum as far as Reno was concerned. And that included Lazio. If Lazio wasn’t scum with serious reach, a don who could make a little noise if he really wanted to, Reno wouldn’t have even showed up. He wouldn’t give these men the time of day.

  Lazio knew it too. That was why he never cared for the Gabrinis. Always so high and mighty, as if they were above it all when they were no better than the rest of them. And Reno, in Lazio’s opinion, was even worse than his father. At least when Paulo Gabrini was alive he knew he was a mobster and never tried to be anything else. But Reno was an asshole pure and simple, a man who took himself way too seriously when, in truth, he was more ruthless than all of the mob bosses put together. But business was bad all around. Reno was the only one still making big money. They needed the asshole.

  “You wanted to see me?” Reno asked matter-of-factly as he stood in front of the men.

  “Do I want to see him, he asks,” Lazio said. “I hear Dominic Gabrini is in my town, right under my nose, and he doesn’t bother to so much as drop me a phone call? Of course I wanna see you! Have a seat, why don’t you?”

  Although Reno was in Atlantic City on some complicated business and didn’t really have time for this, he wasn’t about to underestimate Lou Lazio. He unbuttoned his suit coat, and sat in the chair in front of the three men.

  “So, Reno,” Tush asked, “life still good? Last time we talked, when I was visiting the PaLargio in Vegas, you said life was good. Life still good?”

  “It’s all right,” Reno said.

  “What I can’t understand,” Tush went on, “and I’ve thought about this. I’ve given this considerable thought here. What I can’t understand, Reno, is your name. Everybody I know named after their fathers, we call them Junior. Every single one of them. But not you. Nobody never calls you Junior. Why is that?”

  “You dickhead!” Lazio said and hit him upside his head. “Nobody calls him Junior because he’s not a Junior. His old man was named Paulo, not Dominic. Reno’s real name is Dominic.”

  “Oh, yeah, that’s right,” Tush said with a smile. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  Reno’s jaw tightened. He was in town to negotiate a deal to finally bring the PaLargio to Atlantic City after years of indecision on his part. The negotiations weren’t going well at all. Yet he had to sit up here and listen to this clown go on about his name. He looked at Lazio. “You wanted to see me?” he asked again.

  Lazio smiled, revealing yellowish, buckteeth. “Get down to business, in other words,” he said. “Okay,” he added, his smile now gone, “I’ll get down to business. We understand you’re going to be bringing the PaLargio to our neck of the woods.”

  When Reno didn’t acknowledge it either way, Lazio went on. “The thing is, this is our neck of the woods. We run this, Reno, and you know that. For you to take it upon yourself and make a move like that, without so much as a by-your-leave, is disrespectful in the extreme to us.”

  “Very disrespectful,” Taft said.

  “Major disrespectful,” Tush echoed.

  “We can’t let it stand,” Lazio went on. “You know we can’t. You wouldn’t, and you aren’t even a mob boss.”

  “At least let you tell it,” Taft added.

  “But we aren’t unreasonable men,” Lazio continued. “We know this is an overlook on your part, we understand that. That’s why the situation can be rectified. Easily.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Reno asked. He knew a shakedown when he heard it. “And how’s that? How can I rectify this situation?”

  “We’ve been talking,” Lazio said. “We figure, what’s it, ten percent stake could take care of the problem?”

  “Can rectify the situation nicely,” Taft added.

  “Nicely,” Tush echoed.

  “Ten percent?” Reno asked.

  Lazio smiled. “That’s right.”

  Reno look wasn’t harsh, but it was serious as serious could get. “Just so we’re clear,” he said. “Just so I’m understanding what you’re saying to me. Should I decide to bring the PaLargio here, to Atlantic City, you want me to give you a ten percent stake in my business. Is that what I’m hearing? You want me, like the chump you apparently take me for, to give you ten percent of my hard labor? Of my blood, sweat, and tears. Just give it to you. Like a chump.”

  “Now wait a minute, Reno,” Lazio said, as Taft and Tush nervously looked to Lazio to explain. “Let’s not go overboard here. We know you’re no chump.”r />
  “No you don’t,” Reno said, his face still a mask of seriousness. “You can’t possibly think of me as anything but a chump if you motherfuckers are sitting up here thinking I’m going to give you ten percent of anything that belongs to me.”

  “Don’t act like we picked that figure out of our asses, Reno,” Tush said. “You’re coming on our turf! You can’t think you can just walk in on somebody else’s territory without giving up something! Because if you do think that, you better have another thought coming.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Reno asked. “And what if I don’t have another thought coming?”

  “If you don’t,” Lazio said, “there will be consequences.”

  Reno’s heart began to pound. These fools better not go there, he thought. “Such as?” he asked.

  “Such as,” Taft said, “we’ve been known to knock heads first and ask questions later. We’ve been known to do that.”

  Reno continued to stare at the threesome.

  “Such as,” Tush said, “you have two sons, don’t you? And a wife, that black woman, who’s pregnant with another one of your children. Or at least she was pregnant. Am I right?”

  They went there. Reno fought to control himself. “Oh, I see,” he said. “You’re threatening my family now? Is that what you’re doing?”

  “We’re saying,” Taft said, “that if you don’t give up something in exchange for coming on our turf, there will be consequences of a familial nature.”

  Reno’s heart slammed against his chest, and all he saw was red. He pulled out his gun. Tush and Taft tried to reach for their own weapons but Reno shot Tush in the knee and Taft in the shoulder, causing both men to drop out of their chairs screaming in pain.

  “Toss those weapons now!” Reno ordered. And they did it. They tossed their guns at Reno’s feet. Then Reno stood up and put his gun between Lazio’s eyes.

  Lazio’s eyes stretched big as Kennedy fifty cents. “Reno, what are you doing?”

  “You mean consequences like this?” Reno asked him. “Like this?”

  Lazio held up his hands, stunned witless. “Reno, don’t do this,” he said, his own heart palpitating. “Why you overreacting like this? Don’t do this!”