And their business conversation began. Mick was looking at opportunities in the UK and France, and Reno was looking more at Eastern European possibilities. And they talked about it until there was a knock on the door and Security let the servers in.
The gold-crusted cart was filled with gold-crusted trays of food and the two servers moved toward the two men ready to lift the lids and reveal the gourmet food the chef had especially prepared for such a powerful guest. Mick’s security had already frisked them, so there was no need for any concern, but Mick had an additional layer of security. “Before you leave,” he said to the two men, “I would like each of you to taste the food first.”
It was obvious that the servers found such a request odd, but they did as they were told. While they lifted the lids of the various trays, and Mick paid attention to that activity, Reno smiled and thought about the possibility of doing business with a man like Sinatra. It was implausible at best. Because with Reno, honor came first. He wasn’t sure if Mick Sinatra understood the word.
Tennis shoes, Reno suddenly thought. Why the fuck were his servers wearing tennis shoes? They knew the dress code. They knew better than that. And just as Reno saw the breach, he also saw one of the servers slice into the pile of spaghetti on one of the trays and pull out a handgun. The server’s body had been frisked, but not the food.
Reno pushed Mick aside as he was pulling out his gun and the server was pulling a pistol from the pile of pasta. Reno fired. He was leaned back firing and firing. By the time Security broke through the door with their own weapons drawn, both servers were already down and both were dead.
Mick looked up, stunned that he didn’t see it coming. Then he looked at Reno. And it unsettled him greatly. Because he now was in Reno Gabrini’s debt. He owed him one. He owed him big time.
CHAPTER THREE
“Good evening, Mrs. Gabrini.” The valet opened her car door while Dommi jumped out, opened the backdoor, and unbuckled his baby sister. He was about to lift her out of her car seat when Trina stopped him.
“I told you about that, boy,” she said as she eased Dommi aside.
“I can carry her, Mommy.”
“No, you cannot. Daddy has told you time and time again about trying to pick up his baby. She’s almost as big as you are.”
“I’m as big as you are,” Sophia said to her brother.
“You’re a baby,” Dommi said. “Shut up.”
Trina stopped all activity and looked at her son. “Dommi,” she warned.
He didn’t like it, but he apologized. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But she gets on my nerves.”
Trina smiled. What did he know about nerves, she thought, as she lifted Sophia into her arms. She worked harder than most, but she made it her business to always pick up Sophia from the exclusive daycare she attended, and Dominic from his exclusive private school.
“Hey, Ma,” a voice said behind her and she turned to see Val walking out of the PaLargio’s front entrance.
“Hey, Val. Where did you come from?”
“I just got here. I saw you drive up.”
“Hello, Auntie Val,” Dommi said to his brother’s wife. Trina smiled. Val wasn’t his aunt, but that never stopped the Gabrinis from mixing it all up anyway.
Val smiled too. “There’s my angel,” she said, and attempted to pick him up. “Oops, too heavy.” She put him back down and held his hand instead.
“I’m too heavy for you,” Dommi said, “and Mommy says Sophie’s too heavy for me.”
“Well she is,” Val said. Then she looked at Trina. “How are you doing, Ma?”
“Pretty good.”
“Picked them up early today?”
“Yep. Dommi’s school let out early for some weather day or something and I forgot all about it.”
“Oh, no, you had Dommi all day?” Val asked. “Is he driving you crazy yet?”
Trina gave her an are you for real look. “When does he not?” she asked.
“How can I drive her crazy if I can’t drive at all?” Dommi asked.
Val laughed. “It’s a figure of speech, boy,” she said, and they all began heading toward the entrance.
“I tried to call Reno,” Trina continued, “but I couldn’t reach his busy behind, as usual. Couldn’t reach Jimmy, either. Have you seen him?”
“He called. He’s supposed to be around here somewhere. I drove over as soon as I could. I couldn’t believe it. It was pretty bad, hun?”
“Yes, Lord,” Trina responded, pushing Sophie further up on her small hip as they entered the lobby. They were immediately greeted with numerous hellos from staff. “I could have been here thirty minutes ago if it wasn’t so bad,” Trina added.
Val frowned and looked at her mother-in-law. “If what wasn’t so bad? What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about traffic,” Trina responded. Then she looked at Val. “What are you talking about?”
“The shooting.”
Trina frowned. “What shooting?”
“The one in the Presidential suite today. Didn’t Mr. Gabrini tell you about it? He was the one who took out the bad guys.”
Trina’s heart dropped. “Reno was involved? Where is he now?” Her voice was on this side of panic. “Where’s Reno?”
“Probably still in the suite. It didn’t happen that long ago.”
Trina hurriedly placed Sophie in Val’s arms. “Take them to the penthouse, will you, Val?”
“Okay,” Val said, and Trina took off.
“Mommy!” Dommi yelled after her, prompting Sophia, who always followed his lead, to yell for Trina too. But Trina was gone.
She hurried onto Reno’s private elevator and made her way up to the Presidential suite. After getting clearance from the police at the elevator, she hurried toward the suite. Officers were everywhere, questioning the staff and men, bodyguards, she didn’t recognize. But when she realized the door to the suite was open, she hurried inside. As soon as she walked in, a man in a long, white overcoat, who was standing at the bar on his cell phone, his back to the door, turned around.
As soon as he did and Trina saw him in full: from his tall, elegant body, to the magnificence of his face, she stopped in her tracks. Who in the world was this, she wondered.
And when Mick saw her, standing there looking hurried and harried all at the same time, he felt a jolt too. What the fuck. “May I help you?” he asked.
“I’m looking for Reno. For my husband.”
“You’re his wife?” Mick was surprised. He expected her to be beautiful. Reno was a major player. But even Mick was impressed.
“Do you know where he is? Is he okay?”
“I’m sorry, yes,” Mick said, moving toward her, his coat flaring around him. He floated rather than walked, Trina noticed. “I’m Mick Sinatra,” he said, extending his hand. “Reno is fine. And thanks to him, so am I.”
“What happened?” Trina asked, absently shaking his hand.
“Two men, apparently employed by my enemies, pretended to be servers and opened fire on your husband and myself.”
Trina held her breath.
“But your husband saw them as frauds in the nick of time, or they would have took us both out.”
“Dear Lord. I’ve got to, nice to meet you, but I’ve got to find my husband.”
Trina moved to leave, but had to pull away from a hand she didn’t realize still held hers. She looked into Mick’s bright green eyes. He released her hand. And she took off.
Mick just stood there, stunned. “Wow,” he said.
But Trina didn’t hear him. She took the private elevator to the penthouse, to what was now their second home, and entered the home just as Val and the children were making their way into the kitchen. “Is he here?” Trina asked as she hurried in.
“I think so,” Val said. “The shower’s running in the back.”
Trina began to hurry toward the back of the house.
“I’ll come with you, Mommy,” Dommi said.
“Sta
y right there with Val,” Trina said as she left. “I need to talk to your father.”
Trina hurried around corridor after corridor until she arrived at the back of the penthouse, a private wing housing only the master bedroom.
“Reno,” she yelled as she opened the double doors and entered. She wasn’t so thrown, however, that she didn’t close and lock the doors behind her. It was a habit she and Reno never failed to remember after Dommi almost walked in on them and could have become traumatized for life. But when she heard the shower running, she didn’t hesitate. She hurried to the en-suite bathroom.
As soon as she walked in, she hurried to the shower stall and opened the door with a wide sweep. And there was Reno, his head down, his hands against the tile, his dick dangling against his thick thigh as the water caressed his tired body. When he looked up and saw that it was his beloved Trina standing there, his heart squeezed with emotion the way it usually did whenever she entered his space. But when he saw the worried look on her pretty face, he became worried too. “What’s wrong?” he asked her.
Trina was still in a state of shock. “Are you alright?” she asked him.
Reno didn’t get it. “Yeah, I’m alright,” he said. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Trina couldn’t believe it. “Val said there was a shooting. The guy in the P suite said you could have been killed!”
Reno smiled his best charming smiles. Trina loved him, this he knew. “Oh, that,” he said as if it was nothing.
But Trina wasn’t charmed at all. She was disgusted. “Oh, that? Is that all you have to say? I nearly had a heart attack when Val . . .” And then she shook her head. She was dying inside with worry and he was acting as if it was another day at the office. And it was typical Reno. She slammed the door so hard it nearly broke the glass, and left the bathroom.
“Trina!” Reno yelled, suddenly realizing his mistake. “Tree! Gotdammit!” He pushed off the water dial. “Tree!”
He got out of the shower, grabbed a towel, and hurried into the adjoining bedroom. When he saw Trina lying across their bed, on her back, her hands over her forehead, his heart sunk. “Honey, I’m okay,” he said, drying off. “I didn’t mean to be flip.”
But when he realized she was quietly sobbing, he ditched the towel and hurried to her. He sidestepped her heels that she had already taken off, and got on the bed beside her.
But when he attempted to pull her into his arms, she fought against it. “Leave me alone, Reno,” she said angrily, as she pushed him away.
But she was no match for his muscular bulk, and he easily took control of her. “It’s okay, babe,” he said as he wrestled with her and then held her in his arms. “It’s okay.”
Trina didn’t mean to cry. But when it came to Reno she always held deep-seated emotions that were all over the place. He was a loose cannon who had more courage in a finger than most men had in their entire bodies. It used to be sexy to her. Now it was just nerve racking. Because she married a man’s man. She married somebody who always had to be out in front; who always had to be the hero; who always had to be the go-to man. Jimmy was just like him, and she was beginning to see traces of it in Dommi too. They were fearless through and through.
Trina knew she was no punk either, and that was why Reno fell in love with her to begin with, but she knew when to dial it back. She knew when to let somebody else take the risk for a change. But the Gabrini men, with Reno leading the charge, would find such an acquiescence a dereliction in duty tantamount to treason. A man who relied on another man to stand where he should stand, Reno once told her, should lay down and die.
After allowing her to get her cry out, Reno placed his finger and thumb beneath her chin and lifted her face up to his. Now he not only had her body in his arms, but her undivided attention. He looked deep into her watery, beautiful hazel eyes. “I’m fine, baby,” he said. “I wasn’t in danger.”
“Quit lying,” Trina responded. “You were in danger. That man said you saved his life. He said if it wasn’t for your quick thinking you and he both would have been dead.” She looked at him with a look he knew meant she wasn’t playing with him. “That’s danger, Reno. Don’t lie to me or I’ll rip your dick off.”
Ouch, Reno thought, because he wasn’t a hundred percent certain Trina didn’t mean what she said. “It was dangerous,” he admitted, “you’re right. It was a bad situation. But I handled it like I always do.” He began rubbing her hair. “You have nothing to fear.”
Trina wasn’t buying that either. “I have plenty to fear,” she said. But then she placed her hand on the side of his face. “But I know your slick ass.” He smiled. She smiled too. “And I know you won’t leave us. I know you’ll do everything within your power to come back home to us. Because you’re strong, you’re tough, you’re mean as a motherfuck.”
Reno grinned. “That’s what I love most about you,” he said. “You’re such a meek and mild little lady.”
Even Trina had to laugh at that.
But then Reno turned serious. “I do what I have to do, Tree,” he said. “But it’s not about doing it for the hell of it, or to prove some damn point. It’s about survival. It’s about making sure I’m around for you and the children. So if some prick come at me with a gun, I’m coming at him with a canon if that’s what it takes. And I’ll never flinch from that. You show weakness, they pounce, Tree. And nobody’s pouncing on me.”
Trina smiled and rubbed the side of his face.
“You know I like basketball,” he said.
“You like every kind of ball.”
“But do you know when a basketball player is at his weakest point?”
“No,” Trina said. “But I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”
“A player is at his weakest point,” Reno said, “when he’s out on that court trying to save himself from injury. He won’t go hard for the rebound. He’ll come up short on the lay-up. He’ll sit back and let somebody else score the goal. But every time he backs off, somebody else is coming full steam ahead. And his guard is down. And guess what happens to that player who was trying to protect himself from injury?”
“He gets injured.”
Reno nodded. “And it’s a bad injury because he didn’t see it coming. He couldn’t brace himself. He couldn’t protect himself.” He looked into her eyes. “I go hard, Tree, because that’s the only way to protect myself and my family. And I teach you and the children to go hard too. To pay attention to your environment. To trust nobody but family. So laying on this bed crying about me is a waste of your tears.”
Trina stared at him. She knew he spoke the truth.
“You remember how I used to show you who was boss when you would try to get all emotional on me?”
“How could she forget? Reno used to spank the shit out of her. “I remember,” she said.
“I was hard on you like that,” he said, “because I couldn’t allow you to go weak on me. You are not a weak woman, you never was a weak woman, and I’ll continue to kick your ass if you try to become weak. We have children who need us. We have to go all-out in everything we do because we have to be on the lookout for any bullshit. We have to see it coming. That’s why I told you I was fine. Yeah, I had a rough day. But I saw it coming and was able to do it to them before they tried to do it to me. I’m fine.”
Trina understood. “Another day at the office?” she asked.
Reno nodded. “Another day at the motherfucking office. The Gabrini office. That’s right.”
Trina’s girlfriends used to complaint endlessly about how tough Reno was on her. He didn’t treat her right, they used to complain. He expected too much from her. But she told them then, and was reminded by him just now, that he had to be tough on her. She was a Gabrini woman. Nobody was going to go easy on her, and Reno knew it. He wanted to make certain she knew it too, and was equipped to handle it when it happened.
She wrapped her arms around him. He was expecting her to say something profound. “You’re wet,” she said, instead.
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br /> Reno smiled, laughed, and then laid on his back and pulled her on top of him. “And so are you,” he said, grinding his wet, naked body against her.
She laughed. “Quit, Reno! This is an expensive outfit!”
“Get out of it then,” he said, “before I rip it off of you.”
Trina looked at him. “You would, wouldn’t you?”
“Hell yeah I would.”
“Even though this is my favorite outfit?” she asked.
Reno began kissing her mouth and face and sweet neck. “The problem is,” he said as he kissed her, “this favorite outfit is hiding my favorite body. A body I want naked and beneath me.”
“But what about what happened? Why did they try to kill you?”
“They weren’t trying to kill me,” he said. “They were enemies of Sinatra.”
“The man in the Presidential suite?”
“Yeah,” Reno said, unbuttoning her blouse.
“Who is he? I didn’t know we even had a dignitary coming this week.”
“He’s not a dignitary,” Reno said. “He’s a gangster.”
Trina lifted his head from her chest, and looked at him. “You allowed a gangster to reserve the P suite?”
“He’s not just a gangster,” Reno said. “He’s a man who put my father in his place. I’m talking top of the food chain gangster. Where I come from, he’s royalty. He is a dignitary. I gave him the best room in the joint.”
Trina knew this was going to get her in trouble, but she loved when she got a rise out of Reno. “I know what you mean,” she said as Reno continued to kiss her cleavage. “He’s certainly easy on the eyes.”
Reno suddenly stopped kissing and looked at her. Trina smiled. “What?” she asked.
Reno proceeded to rip open her blouse, the buttons flying.
“Reno!” she yelled as she fought back laughter.
“He may be easy on the eyes,” he said as he lifted her bra and revealed her big brown breasts, “but I’m not easy. And just for that little comment, I’m not going to be easy on you.” He began sucking and squeezing her breasts so hard that Trina had to inhale from the sudden jolt of sensations.
Reno and Trina: In the Shadows of Love, Book 12 Page 4
