“I know that’s right,” Oprah said. “I’ll take care of it.”
The door to the shop chimed, signifying an entrance, and Trina glanced up. She was about to say, Welcome to Champagne’s, and return to tagging merchandise, until she saw who had entered her store. It was Bobby Swann. As if he didn’t get enough of them already.
He entered smiling, however, as he walked toward the counter. “I come in peace,” he said. “Please believe that.”
Oprah glanced up when she heard the voice. Why would somebody walk in saying such a thing? But when she saw who it was; when she saw that Bobby Swann was standing within inches of her, she nearly swooned.
“Bobby Swann?” she asked. “You look like Bobby Swann!” She knew he was appearing nightly at the PaLargio, but somehow, at that moment, it didn’t compute.
But Bobby got a kick out of it. He smiled even greater. “Not only do I look like him,” he said, “but I’m willing to bet I am him. How are you, darling?”
“I’m fantastic, Mr. Swann. I listen to you on iTunes all the time!”
“Thank you. That is so sweet!”
“How can I help you?” Trina asked Bobby. Oprah might have been unaware to what transpired between them earlier, but Trina was well aware.
“Yes, you may help me,” Bobby said. “Can we talk?”
“I’m not stopping you from talking. What is it?”
“Privately, Mrs. Gabrini, if you don’t mind? It’s strictly business. I know what you and your husband decided, but I have what I think will be a good way out of this mess for all three of us. Without lawsuits and the like. I don’t need the publicity, and you don’t need the financial drain.”
“You presuppose we’ll lose,” Trina said. “I wouldn’t bet on it.”
Bobby smiled. “And I wouldn’t bet on it, either. That’s why I’m here.” Then he looked toward a door on the far side of the shop. It housed an office he was already told would be there. “May we?” he asked her.
Trina knew they had to have this conversation. Either now, she knew, or in front of lawyers. She never liked those money grubbing lawyers Reno hired. But she liked Bobby Swann even less. “No, we may not have a private conversation,” she said. “In fact, we aren’t going to have any conversation. Leave my store, please.”
“You don’t want me to leave. I have information you desperately need.” When it appeared as if Trina wasn’t about to relent, he did. “I have information about the millions your husband is losing in his casinos. I know who, and I know why.”
Trina frowned. How in the world would he know about that? “What do you know?” she asked him.
Bobby looked at Oprah. Oprah was glad to accommodate her idol. “I’ll just take these upstairs,” she said as she grabbed the stack of socks Trina had been tagging. Bobby waited until Oprah had gone upstairs before he continued.
“What do you know about my husband’s casinos?” Trina asked again.
“I know he’s hemorrhaging money. I know he needs it to stop. I know about Sam Jessup and what she tried to do. I know about the Mexican and what he tried to do. I know it all, Mrs. Gabrini. Katrina. Trina. Tree. I even know Reno calls you Tree.” He smiled. “Let’s make a deal.”
But Trina still wasn’t about to make any deals with this devil. “You may know all of that,” she said, “but you aren’t taking it up with me. Take it up with my husband. Don’t bring that shit to me. You need to go.”
Bobby shook his head, as if he wasn’t about to go anywhere. “I don’t think you want me to do that, Mrs. Gabrini.”
“Oh, really? Watch me.” Trina walked from around the counter and up to Bobby.
Bobby loved her fearlessness, was even turned on by it, but he knew it was going to change.
“I want you out of my store,” Trina said to his face, “and I want you out now.”
But instead of Bobby turning and leaving, he pulled out his cell phone, pressed the button, and showed her the screen.
Trina, thinking he was about to film her, was about to slap that phone out of his hand. But then she saw her son. Her eyes stretched, and she grabbed the phone out of his hand. Dommi was sitting there, with a green background. Her heart dropped through her shoe. She looked at Bobby.
“You’ll want to come with me, Mrs. Gabrini,” he said, snatching his phone back. “We have business to take care of.”
But Trina was only concerned about Dommi. “Where’s my child?” she asked. She was in near panic-mode. “Where’s my son?”
“He’s with us. For leverage only, don’t worry. I’m no monster. But if you don’t cooperate, I can be.”
“How do I know you have him?” Trina asked.
“I just showed you how.”
“But how can I be sure this isn’t a bluff?”
“You can’t be,” Bobby said impatiently. “You can’t be sure! Do you want to try me?”
“Let me talk to him.”
Bobby’s patience was gone. “Look, bitch,” Bobby said in a low, but angry tone. “Don’t get your employees involved in this. You’ll talk to him when you get to him. Right now, you will get your purse. You will get your cell phone. And you will hug me as if I’m the love of your life. For the cameras in this store that I know are looking at us right now. And then we’ll go to your son. No drama. Your child’s life depends on it.”
“Where is he?”
Bobby smiled, although his eyes were hard and cold. “We’ll going to him right now. I’m taking you to him. Don’t blow it by thinking, foolishly, that you can make a scene and still see your son alive again. Not going to happen.”
Trina knew her back was against a wall. And she had no choice. No choice at all. She hurriedly grabbed her purse and cell phone from behind the counter, and followed Bobby out.
Oprah, upstairs, was clueless to the distress her boss was suffering through. She was beside herself with excitement. She was in Trina’s upstairs office, on her cell phone, calling everybody she could think of. “Bobby Swann is in Champagne’s!” she decried over the phone. She couldn’t help it. Her excitement could not be contained. “Bobby Swann is in my store right this very minute!”
When the store phone rang on Trina’s desk, she answered quickly, so that she could return to her own call list. “Champagne’s. May I help you?”
“Hello, Ope.” It was Reno. “Put Mrs. Gabrini on the phone.”
“Oh. I’m sorry, sir, but she’s in a meeting.”
“Okay. Well. If she gets out before I arrive, tell her to wait there. I need to talk to her.”
“Will do, sir,” Oprah said. She was disappointed he didn’t ask who she was in a meeting with, so she volunteered the information. “She’s in a meeting with Bobby Swann, sir,” she said excitedly, “but I’ll tell her as soon as they’re done.”
There was a pause on the other end. Oprah didn’t expect that. “I’m on my way,” was all Reno said, and ended the call.
Oprah looked at the phone. He was probably jaded, being that he was the one who hired Bobby to perform at the PaLargio, she decided. Because she didn’t know any other human being who wouldn’t be over-the-moon to know that Bobby Swann was around. Unless it was Mrs. Gabrini. She didn’t seem all that thrilled either.
But Oprah still was. And as soon as she hung up the phone from Reno, she was back on her cell phone, calling one and all about just how lucky she was.
Feeling lucky wasn’t even on the radar for Reno as he drove over to his wife’s boutique. Unlike Oprah, his excitement on learning that Swann was at Champagne’s was nonexistent. He gripped the steering wheel and stared out into the busy Vegas traffic. He usually wore sunglasses on any given day, but he wore them right now to conceal the pain in his eyes. After what happened in Swann’s hotel suite, why would Trina be meeting with him? She had to know how badly the man wanted to fuck her. Why would she give him the time of day? And that shit Marshall just laid on him. It was getting to be too much for Reno. It was tearing him apart. When Marshall told him that he had an affair w
ith Trina, Reno dismissed it out of hand. He knew that bastard was lying. But he also knew Trina had been in a bad way. He also knew it had something to do with Florida. He also knew when he went to Florida to be with his wife, he couldn’t find her. And she did return, like four that morning, with Garry Marshall.
Reno gripped the steering wheel even tighter. This was Trina. His tower of strength. His Tree! There was no way, he kept telling himself. There was no way. Please Lord, he finally said aloud, let there be no way!
But by the time Reno arrived at Champagne’s, he had a different worry. A far more compelling worry.
A salesclerk was downstairs, stating that she didn’t know where Mrs. Gabrini had gone. And when Oprah came down, she, too, was baffled. They had been there earlier, she said, in a private conversation about the PaLargio. She left them and went upstairs.
“Call her cell phone,” Reno ordered as he searched every inch of that boutique. But she wasn’t there. And when Oprah called her cell phone, it went to Voice Mail. Oprah left a message.
Reno ran upstairs, to her office, and turned on her computer. Oprah ran behind him.
“Is everything okay, Mr. Gabrini?”
“I don’t know yet,” Reno said as the computer came on. Reno sat down, entered the complicated password he gave to her, and entered the security file. He pulled up today’s closed-circuit TV, scanned down to an hour earlier, and watched it. Oprah watched too. But what both of them received was two people talking. No acrimony could be interpreted. And then they left together, with Bobby placing his hand on the small of Trina’s back. Like lovers, it seemed to Oprah.
It seemed that way to Reno too, as he watched that tape. But he knew it couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be! But he also knew he had to consider the possibilities.
Maybe he forced her to leave, he thought. Maybe she left willingly. Maybe what happened earlier with Bobby was a ruse, and they were having an affair too.
Then Reno caught himself. Having an affair too? What was he thinking! His mind was in overdrive, and none of it was making sense. Trina wasn’t having an affair with Bobby Swann or anybody else! But where was she? Why did she leave with that snake?
Two hours later, after Reno had phoned and searched every place Trina could have been, and after ordering every available man in his security apparatus to find his wife, he worked out of his office. Luigi Spanelli arrived in his office and informed him that they had found Trina. She was still with Swann and was on a yacht called the Pride and Joy. Reno grabbed his coat, and sped off to the marina.
CHAPTER TWENTY
He knew he didn’t have a lot of time. The captain was prepping the boat for launch and they were only going less than ten miles downstream before he had to turn her over to the Big Man’s team. But as he made his way downstairs, to the cabin where his men had just placed her, he knew he had to act fast.
When he unlocked the small cabin and walked in, closing and locking the door behind him, Trina was nearly hysterical. “Where’s my child?” she cried. “You said my child would be here. I’ve been sitting in here for hours and you haven’t told me anything! Where’s my son?”
Bobby smiled. “You’re gorgeous when you’re upset. You know that?”
“Take me to my child, Bobby. I wanna see my child!”
But Bobby only smiled, and began unbuckling his pants.
“What are you smiling about?” Trina was confounded. “What is it? Where’s Dommi?”
“Home. In school. How should I know?”
Trina was stunned. “What do you mean? He’s not here? You don’t have him?”
Bobby shook his head, as he unbuttoned his pants. “Nope.”
Trina frowned. “But that was Dommi on your phone. Where was that?”
“It was clever, wasn’t it?” Bobby began unzipping his pants. “It was photo day at his school. It was very hectic that day. We got one of our people to pretend to be a member of the photographer’s crew, and walked right in. The school thought she was with the photographer. The photographer thought she was with the school. She was able to hang out in the room where the photographs were being taken, wait until little Dominic Gabrini, Junior walked in, and we took our own pictures that day. Very clever.” He pulled out his penis.
Trina saw it, and was shocked by how small it was. She always envisioned Bobby Swann would be huge. But then she realized her error. She’d been with Reno so long, and had become so accustomed to his gigantic dick, that average size looked tiny to her. But she didn’t care either way. He child wasn’t on this boat. Her child wasn’t in danger! She was inwardly so relieved, and so elated, that she could hardly conceal her relief.
And she was also free. She could now, without worrying if she was endangering Dommi, go buck wild on his horny ass.
But she had to be strategic. That was always Trina’s style. Don’t jump too fast. Let the mouse come to the mousetrap.
“Get out of those clothes,” he ordered her as he stared at her breasts and rubbed his cock. He began moving toward her. “We don’t have much time.”
“What’s going to happen to me?” Trina asked him.
“You mean after I fuck you?”
Trina’s jaw tightened. She could only imagine the horrific things Reno would do to this punk if he so much as uttered those words in his presence. But she was in danger. She had to play this smart. “Yes,” she said. She even looked at his penis, as she was interested. “After that.”
“You treat me right,” Bobby said. “You put it on me the way you put it on Reno, then nothing will happen to you. I’ll let you go. And we’ll forget this day ever happened.”
He was in Trina’s face now, and fully aroused. “Is that a good enough deal for you, Trina? Is that good enough?”
He was lying, and she knew it. But it played right into her hand.
“My son is fine. I get to fuck my idol.” She smiled, looking adoringly at his penis. “That’s good enough for me.”
Bobby smiled. All these bitches wanted was dick. He placed his hand on the side of Trina’s face. “You’re gonna suck it for me first. Like a good little girl.”
She nodded her head, like a good little girl.
“You bite me,” Bobby said, “I’ll kill you. I can be a good guy, but I can be a bastard too. Don’t try me, Trina.”
Trina was still staring at his penis. “You went through all of this just to be with me. I’ve been wanting this since I was a teenager and you were in Fierce. Bite you? Are you kidding? I’ll never bite Bobby Swann.”
Bobby smiled. “You ain’t nothing but a bitch whore,” he said with an arrogant chuckle. “Come on, bitch. Take care of me!”
Bobby moved his average-sized penis to Trina’s mouth. And Trina was true to her word. She didn’t bite him. But just as he place his penis to her mouth, she revealed the razor blade in her mouth, a blade Reno always made her have somewhere on her person, and violently sliced his penis in half.
Bobby screamed from the top of his lungs as he watched half of his penis fall from his body. But he was so hysterical, and so terrified, that his scream turned out to be a soundless scream. Not a sound came out. He fell to his knees, as the blood gushed out, and then he fell onto his side, holding what was left of his dick, still screaming his silent scream.
Trina jumped up as he fell down, and removed the now bloody blade from her mouth. “I won’t bite my idol,” she said, “but I’ll cut a bitch.” Then she spit on Bobby. “Bitch!” she yelled bitterly, thinking about how he used her own child to lure her onto that boat, and then she took off. He said they didn’t have much time. That probably meant they were going to transport her and turned her over to somebody else. She had to get off of this boat!
She unlocked the door and looked out into the hall. Nobody was around. She didn’t hesitate.
She flung open the door wider and began running down the corridor. But as soon as she ran out, Bobby’s silent scream finally activated his voice, and he was heard screaming with a deafening scream.
&
nbsp; Trina could hear the footsteps of Bobby’s men running behind her. When she turned around, and saw his men run down the stairs, her heart dropped, and she ran even faster than she thought she could.
When Bobby’s men saw her, they stopped, crouched, and fired their weapons. Just as Trina was turning the corner, bullets rang out, ricocheting and nearly hitting her.
When she turned the corner, she was running so fast that she slid and then headed for the end of the corridor where the observation deck was located. But the men kept coming, and Bobby kept screaming for them to get that bitch, get that bitch!
By the time Trina made it on the observation deck, the men turned the corner, saw her, and aimed their weapons again. And fired. But Trina had already decided, just before the shots rang out again, that it was do or die time for her. So she did. With a running lead, she leaped over the railing, just ahead of the hail of bullets, and jumped into the river.
But as soon as she jumped, it wasn’t bullets she was concerned with. As soon as she jumped, the entire yacht exploded. It went up in flames. Trina was deep down in the water, over ten feet deep down, but even she felt the ripples of the massive blast.
On land, Reno had just arrived at the marina, and was walking toward the yacht. The explosion threw him backwards, over his car, but he still found the willpower to get up, and hurry toward the destruction. Trina was on that boat. His men had told him that his wife was on that boat. And he wasn’t about to let her just die, without die trying to save her himself.
But his men pulled him back. They held Reno back. And he fought them. What did they think they were doing? His wife was in that fire! But there was no use. His men were not about to let him go.
Reno Gabrini: When His Woman Cries Page 13
