And then, as she clamped down, she was putting it on him. He started squeezed her hips as he slapped against her ass and could hardly contain the sensations he felt. And then they came, together this time, as she clenched around his penis and he spilled out inside of her. Both of them were groaning as he thrashed harder and harder, getting everything out of their climax until that final shot took the breath out of them.
He was panting by the time the last of his cum filled her, and began to slide down her thighs.
They laid there, a moment longer, breathing heavily, and then he rolled onto his back.
“I’ve got to clean you up,” he said.
“We’ll take a bathe together.”
“That’ll work.”
Trina turned onto her side and looked at him. And she smiled.
He looked at her. “What?” he asked.
She looked down, at his penis, up the length of his athletically built body, and then into his face. “Good job, Reno,” she said. “Good job.”
Reno smiled and looked at her too. “I couldn’t have done it without you,” he said.
Trina laughed, and laid her head on his chest.
Reno received the text message a couple hours later. He and Tree were still in bed, cuddled together, when he grabbed his phone and read the message. He looked at his wife, to make certain she was still asleep, and then he eased out of bed. He put on his purple silk bathrobe, peeped in at his sleeping three-year-old, and then made his way along the corridors to the front of his home.
Jimmy was already up front, lying on the sofa with his headphones on, listening to what Reno was willing to bet was some of that loud rap music he could never understand. The music was apparently so good to Jimmy, though, that he didn’t realize his father was now in the living room until Reno was opening the front door. It was only then did Jimmy open his eyes.
Reno’s security chiefs, Boz and the assistant chief Nicky, were waiting at his front door after texting to notify him that they’d arrived. When they entered the home and Jimmy saw who it was, he immediately sat up. His father rarely summoned both of his security chiefs to the penthouse unless something major league was going down.
“Want something to drink?” Reno asked his chiefs as they headed further into the home.
“Thanks, but we’re good,” Boz responded.
Jimmy smiled. “Good answer,” he said, knowing how his father would never approve of his men drinking while they were on the job.
Reno slapped Jimmy playfully upside the head as he sat on the sofa beside him.
Boz, a tall black man in his forties, and Nicky, a tall Italian in his mid-thirties, sat in the wingback chairs in front of the sofa.
“So sock it to me,” Reno said, unwilling to waste time. “What you got for me?”
“We found Boyzie,” Nicky said.
“Then where the hell is he? Why isn’t he here? You told him I wanted to see him?”
“We talked to him, boss,” Boz said. “Thing is, he thinks those gunmen were a couple of drunks he tossed out of his strip joint a few weeks back.”
“Yeah, so?”
“That’s what he thinks is going on, but that’s not what we’re hearing,” Boz said.
“Then what are you hearing? Stop dripping it out!”
“We’re hearing Rudy Santushi and Birch Tafarella.”
Reno frowned. “Tush and Taft?” he asked, and Jimmy looked at him. He’d never heard those names before in his life. “I had to handle those fuckers when I was in Atlantic City. You’re telling me those gunmen worked for them?”
Boz nodded. “That’s what we’re hearing. Tush and Taft was behind it.”
“But how? They don’t have that kind of reach!”
“But Lazio does,” Boz said. “Tush and Taft sat it up. But Lou Lazio gave the order.”
Reno couldn’t believe it. That bastard! He had to have ordered it before he even met with Reno in Atlantic City. “So it was a planned hit. But what was it about?”
“They’re broke,” Boz said. “And I mean down to barely making their rent. Laz is doing a little better, but he’s hurting too. They’ve had too much heat around them for too many years, so now the Feds won’t give them any breathing room. They need a legit outlet. They knew you would turn them down cold on that ten percent threat, they knew that before they met with you. They didn’t expect you to shoot them, however,” Boz added with a smile.
Jimmy looked at his father. He’d shot somebody while he was away on business? He didn’t know why that part of his father still astounded him, but it still did.
Boz went on. “They knew you’d turn them down. So they planned to have their men strike last night during their meeting with you, so they could get your attention. And they knew they had to hit hard if they expected to make sure you understood that they weren’t taking no for an answer.”
“But why would they shoot Ashley Marin? What the fuck does she have to do with me? I don’t even know her. And why send a message to Boyzie?”
“Boyzie had nothing to do with it, boss. We don’t think that message was meant for him. That message was meant for you.”
Reno’s heart began to pound. “What are you saying to me, Boz?”
Nicky looked at Boz. Boz seemed hesitant, but he knew he had to go there. “They thought it was Trina, boss,” he said as if he was sorry he had to say it.
Jimmy’s already big eyes stretched wider. Reno could hardly breathe. “They thought what?”
“That Ashley woman they shot,” Boz said, “was a mistake. They thought they were icing your wife. They had a guy tailing her all week. When the gunmen came down from Atlantic City, they were told where she was, they were given a description of her, and they did what they were hired to do. Or at least they thought they did. Trina was described as a beautiful, dark-skinned black woman with hazel eyes. How easy was that, right? There were only four women in the house. What were the chances of more than one of them with hazel eyes? Only problem was, Ashley Marin fit the description too. Ashley was standing right there as soon as they broke in. They thought Ashley was Trina.”
Reno’s heart started pounding. His hands turned clammy and his mind could barely compute what Boz was saying. “Are you telling me, are you fixing your mouth and saying that Trina was the target?”
“Ma was the target?” Jimmy asked, astounded too.
“That’s what we’re saying,” Boz said to Reno. “They made a mistake. If they would have I.D. her properly, she would have been the one they shot. But Ashley Marin was the same race, same general complexion, had hazel eyes too. They thought she was Trina.”
But it still made no sense to Reno. Part of it was denial. He knew part of it was his unwillingness to even entertain what they were saying. “But how could her security break down so completely that two masked gunmen could---”
“There was no security that night, boss,” Nicky admitted.
Reno looked at him. “No security? What are you talking? Are you saying you didn’t obey my order?”
Nicky looked at Boz.
Boz steeled himself. “You put the protocol in place months ago, after you found out Trina was pregnant,” he said. “She was to notify Security any and every time she left the PaLargio for any reason. And even after her miscarriage, you kept that protocol in place. You even made it clear to her before you left for Atlantic City, and you made it clear to us that that was how it was going to be.”
“But it didn’t work like that,” Nicky said. “She almost never notified us of her movements when you left town this past week, and last night, when she went to meet those women, she didn’t notify us at all.”
“Not at all, Reno,” Boz said. “We eventually realized she had left the building when somebody bothered to notice that her GPS was active. But by then the shooting had already occurred.”
Reno sat there in what Boz could only describe as a state of suspended animation. He was beyond stunned. Because Reno was thinking hard. He was thinking how he never wou
ld have thought Tush and Taft had it in them. Or even Laz. He was thinking how he had underestimated his enemy, something he never did. And that underestimation could have cost Trina her life. His stupid ass move could have cost Dommi to lose his mother last night. And Jimmy to lose his best friend. And Reno to lose his heart! Stunned was too mild a word to describe how Reno felt.
But Reno being Reno, he didn’t fall apart in front of his own men. He stood to his feet. Boz and Nicky stood too.
“I need to get to Jersey,” Reno said, thinking more than one way. “Notify my pilot to get the plane ready.”
“I’ll handle that,” Nicky said.
“Notify my Jersey boys,” Reno said to Boz. “Tell them what’s going down. Tell them I need them to be ready to go tonight.”
“Want them to handle it, or wait on you?”
“No, wait on me. They can have Tush and Taft, what’s left of them anyway. But Lazio belongs to me. I want you to make that perfectly clear. They don’t make a move until I tell them to make that move.”
Boz nodded. “We’re on it,” he said. And then he and Nicky left.
Reno looked at Jimmy. Jimmy stood to his feet. He felt sorry for his father. Why did he always have to lead the charge? Why did he always have to be the one?
“I can go with you, Pop,” he said.
“No,” Reno said. “Not on this.”
“Then what can I do to help you?”
Reno wasn’t about to get Jimmy caught up in his hell. “Contact Uncle Sal,” he said. “Tell him to meet me in Atlantic City.”
“When?”
“Now,” Reno said and began to walk away. But he looked at his son, and saw the concern in his son’s big eyes. He moved up to him, and hugged him.
Reno’s heart filled with regret as he held his son. It was times like these when he hated that Jimmy and Dommi had to have him for a father, and that Trina had to have him for a spouse. “Take care of the family while I’m gone,” he said to his son. “That’s what you can do for me.”
“I will, Pop,” Jimmy promised. “I won’t let Ma out of my sight.”
Reno felt reassured by that. Although he already knew he was going to have an army of men guarding her, just the same.
But he still had unfinished business before he went anywhere. That was why, when he and Jimmy stopped embracing, Reno headed down the winding corridors and back into the master bedroom. As soon as he closed the door, and looked at Trina lying there, great fear mixed with great anger, and he was suddenly enraged. She could have died last night. Because of her refusal to follow his simple security instructions, she could have no longer been on the face of this earth. And that shit scared him far worse than Tush, Taft, and Lazio put together.
And this time Reno wasn’t playing. This time he had to get it through her thick, stubborn-ass skull just how serious he was. Once and for all.
He hurried to the bed like a man on a mission. He startled her awake by grabbing her up and then slinging her across the room, causing her to scream in shock, until her back was against the wall.
And then he let her have it.
He held nothing back.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Trina was naked and shaking in disbelief when Reno slung her out of bed and pinned her against the wall. But if she thought she was enraged by his shocking behavior, she was mistaken. Reno was the personification of rage.
“Didn’t I tell you to let my people know whenever you left this building?” There was nothing but anger in his voice. Nothing but rage. “Didn’t I tell you to never leave to go anywhere without one of my people going with you, Katrina?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Answer my question, dammit! Didn’t I tell you that? Didn’t I tell you that repeatedly?”
“Yes, you told me that! But I only went over to Ashley’s house.”
“I don’t give a fuck where you only went! It wasn’t about where you were going! It’s about your security! It’s about doing what I ask you to do because I know this shit better than you do! I know what people are capable of!” He was screaming so loud that Jimmy heard him all the way in the living room.
But Reno didn’t care if the man on the moon heard him. Trina had to understand what was at stake here. She finally had to understand! “I told you to notify my people if you left this building. I don’t give a fuck if you only went across the street! You were to notify them every time, Trina. Not some times. Not every now and then. All the time! You could have been killed,” he said, and his voice cracked. He leaned his head against her forehead, as his face reddened and turned into a mask of anguish.
And Trina was floored. He looked as if he had aged twenty years right in front of her eyes. She looked at him with a stunned look on her face. “What happened, Reno?” she asked him.
“It was you,” he said, fighting back tears and anger and fear. “They were after you.”
But Trina was shaking her head. “No,” she said. “They said Ashley was to tell her man---”
“Don’t you tell me what they said! They thought Ashley was you. They thought they were leaving a message for me!”
And as soon as Trina heard it, tears began to well up in her eyes. And Reno’s heart squeezed with even more emotion. But he knew he couldn’t weaken. She could have died. He couldn’t forget that. He couldn’t let that slide. He had to make her understand!
Just when she was about to wrap her arms around him, he grabbed her by the wrist and slung her back toward the bed. His bathrobe had come undone by the time he plopped down on the bed and slung her naked body across his lap. One time before he had gone this far with her. And it was for the same damn thing: her refusal to take her safety seriously!
And he did it. He just did it. He began spanking her bare brown ass as if he aimed to hurt her. If she didn’t fear him, if she thought she was his equal in all things, then it was over for them. His enemies would use her stubbornness like a logger used an ax and would chop down every semblance of life they had. Until they were chopping her down too. But not with Reno. Not on his watch.
He spanked her mercilessly. She wailed in pain, but he knew he could not let up. “Reno, stop!” she was screaming, and she was kicking and squirming to get out of his grasp. But her small body was no match for Reno’s muscular frame. He kept her ass on top of his lap easily. And he spanked her long and hard. He couldn’t stop spanking her.
Even Jimmy heard the licks. There was once a time when he would have hurried to her rescue. His father, he would have felt, was going too far. But not this time. Because Jimmy understood the stakes. It was either play the good husband and let Trina continue to defy him. Or play the bastard and force her to understand. That was why Jimmy left their penthouse. He went to Dommi’s room, picked up his sleeping baby brother, and hoped that his father didn’t get carried away. He hoped that his father wouldn’t do to her what Tush and Taft and all of those other shady characters failed to do. With his baby brother in his arms, he left the apartment.
And Reno continued spanking Trina. He was determined to let her have it. To make her finally get it through her thick skull. But as her ass started turning fire red from his spanks, and as he realized how much pain he was really inflicting on her, he came back to himself. He came back to the point. She almost died last night. No security was there, which could have prevented it. If those gunmen hadn’t been so moronic, her pattern of going places without security could have been her undoing. She was at fault here. She was at fault.
But Reno knew he bore the greater fault. He was the one who underestimated those assholes. He was the one who shot their asses but didn’t finish the job, as if just giving them a taste of his brutality would be enough for savages like them. He was the one who miscalculated once again. He was the one who had the kind of enemies that put his wife’s life in jeopardy from the moment she said “I Do.” And just the thought of his part in all of it, his starring role, caused him to stop spanking her mid-spank. And he fell back on the bed, and place
d his hands on the top of his head. His chest was heaving in and out, and his eyes were bright with unshed tears.
Trina moved quickly away from him when he stopped, and was about to rip into him for being so brutal. How dare he treat her like some dumbass kid!
But then she saw him lying there. She saw the pain in his eyes and the anguish all over his face. And she stopped before she started. She knew it had to take every ounce within Reno to do this to her. She knew he was trying to teach her to trust him more and to understand that he always had her best interest at heart. And on so many levels she did understand it. But her actions, she knew, proved differently.
Instead of cussing his ass out and fleeing the room, the way she had thought she would absolutely react, she couldn’t leave him like this. She couldn’t do it. She stood there, wiping her tears away, and stared at this man she sometimes wanted to throttle herself. But she knew he wasn’t like that. He didn’t spank her for the hell of it. She knew he loved her. She knew he was as terrified of losing her as she was of losing him. And that knowledge, that background, their history, mattered to her.
So instead of leaving in anger, and further straining an already strained situation, she got onto the bed, got on top of her husband, and pulled him into her arms.
Reno held her with a crushing hold, and his tears began to slide down his face.
Trina looked at him and smoothed the hair that had escaped onto his forehead. Seeing Reno this way did something to her.
“I know it’s like beating a dead horse to you, Tree,” he said. “I know you get tired of me asking you to alert Security. But when I tell you to do that, I’m telling you because I know it’s necessary. You may not like having all of that security around, but it’s necessary. Last night, when those men broke into that woman’s home, it was vital. And you didn’t have it.”
RENO AND TRINA: GETTING BACK TO LOVE (The Mob Boss Series) Page 15