She was once his queen. Once his woman. A year ago he asked her to marry him.
But she turned him down cold.
He leaned against the window pane, trying his best to look at her eyes rather than her body, trying his best to not want her so desperately. “How did you know I was in Portland?” he asked, deciding against small talk.
“I have my spies,” she said with that perfect smile of hers. Those beautiful white teeth against her smooth black skin just dazzled him.
Her look turned serious when he still wouldn’t return her forced gaiety. “Irene told me,” she admitted. Irene Burk was Tommy’s secretary for nearly a decade, and of all the women Tommy had had in that time, and he’d had many, Shawna was still her favorite.
“So Reno calls and you comes,” he said to her, a slight edge of bitterness in his voice.
Shawna caught that edge. “He said he needed me,” she explained. “Reno’s a good guy. I look after the good guys.”
“By being a button for the mob?”
“By getting rid of the bad guys.”
Tommy considered her. He hated the fact that she hired herself out as some modern day mercenary, working for the government, the mob, foreign governments even: anybody anywhere whom she deemed worthy of her hire. He used to worry about her to no end. He still worried about her. Some nights to this day he’d wake up in cold sweats worrying about her. The next night, however, he’d have a woman, it didn’t really matter who, in his bed.
But he also knew that her job was as much a part of her as his job was a part of him. And he’d never, not ever, try to take that away from her.
“What did Reno tell you?” he asked her, noticing how that tiny mole she used to have just below the right tip of her bottom lip, a mole he loved, was gone.
“He told me about the hit on the PaLargio. Told me about his mother and sister.” She looked Tommy dead in the eyes. “And how you saved his wife’s life.”
She always seemed so impressed with him. She always made him want to be a better man around her. “And what did you say?” he asked her.
“Damn straight he saved her life,” she said with that half-cocked smile of hers he loved to see. “That’s Tommy. That’s what he does.”
Tommy smiled. She always, somehow, managed to make him smile. But he couldn’t keep letting her bounce in and out of his life, especially after his ultimatum to her three months ago. He told her then that they couldn’t keep doing this. She’d already turned down his marriage proposal nine months prior to his ultimatum. But she kept dropping by, popping in and out of his life, anytime she needed reassurance or a man or whatever, and like the sucker he sometimes felt he was for her, he kept letting her back in. Three months ago he told her enough was enough. His heart couldn’t take it any longer. He told her they either committed exclusively to each other, and eventually started looking toward marriage, or it was over.
He woke up the next morning, and she was gone.
Now, three months later, she was back. To help Reno, he knew that was her main reason. But Reno wasn’t due in Vegas for another couple days, and she knew it.
He was trying to get her out of his system. He was trying to once and for all go on with his life. But how in the world could he ever do that, he wondered, if she kept coming back?
He had to treat this return as business. And nothing but. To protect his own heart.
But almost immediately he failed.
“I’m glad Reno knew how to get in touch with you,” he found himself saying, that bitter bite still in his tone, “because I sure as hell don’t.”
She turned back toward the window and the high-arching waves of the Pacific Ocean. “It was supposed to be over between us,” she said, and then looked at him again. “Remember?”
Tommy didn’t respond. He had never been able to admit that he and Shawna were no longer together. Not that they ever had an exclusive relationship. They never did. She was, in the beginning, the same as all of his other ladies. And he gave her the same spiel up front: no commitments ever, no demands ever, no jealousy over any of his other ladies ever. She saw whomever she pleased, and he did the same. That was always the way Tommy rolled and every one of his bed partners knew it. And for the first three years of their relationship, that was the way she rolled too. He, in fact, loved her daunting independence.
Until she slowly but surely started becoming his favorite. First it was in bed. He started wanting her more and more until no one else could come close to satisfying him the way she did. And then he started thinking about her, worrying about her, phoning her constantly whenever she was out of his sight. And he became more protective of her, and more disconcerted when he thought she was seeing some other guy. For over a year he wasn’t seeing anybody but her and he didn’t want anybody but her. He even did something he declared he’d never do and asked her to marry him. Her turndown almost crippled him. And he declared then to never fall in love again.
Problem was, he had never fallen out of love with her.
He pushed himself away from the windowpane and headed toward his huge bar in his massive great room. “Want something to drink?” he asked her.
She looked at him. She remembered the night he gave her that ultimatum. They were at this very house, in his bedroom. She began putting back on her clothes. Tommy got out of bed, put on his silk robe, and walked over and sat on the edge of the bed. She stepped into her dress and then came to him. He zipped her up, the way he always did, but this time he pulled her down onto his lap, holding her.
For the longest time they sat that way, their eyes closed. For Tommy it was her wonderful scent, every curve of her body, her smile and twinkling eyes and sincerity that he knew he was going to miss. For Shawna, any illusions about Tommy Gabrini were unthinkable. He was just a guy, she was still trying to convince herself. Just a man.
She eventually stood up. He stood up too. They stared into each other’s eyes. “Bye, Tommy,” she finally said, and then fell against his chest. When he didn’t wrap his arms around her again, she moved back and looked at him.
“I’ll be back this way in a couple of months,” she said. “I’ll see you then.”
But he was shaking his head. “I don’t think so, Shawnie,” he said.
Shawna stared at him. “You don’t think so?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I’m doing the best I can, Tommy.”
“Not good enough, kid.”
“Well what do you want me to do? Give up my job, give up the biggest part of who I am?”
Tommy shook his head. “And then blame me for it? Not on your life. That’s why this game we’re playing, this same time, next month malarkey, has got to stop. For both our sakes.”
Shawna swallowed hard. “So you’re willing to call it quits? To never see me again? Is that what you’re telling me, Tommy?”
“What do you expect me to tell you?” Tommy yelled. “I’m pushing forty, Shawna! I’m getting too old for this shit! We’ve been going around this mulberry bush for too damn long! When you turned down my marriage proposal, that should have been the end of it then. But we didn’t even skip a beat. The very next month you were back in my bed. But I can’t keep doing this, Shawna.”
She saw his hesitation, she felt his wrenching pain. But she still didn’t believe it when he said it. But he said it.
“It’s over,” he said. “That’s what I’m telling you.”
At first her look was doubtful, of that yeah, right, you know you still want me air of confidence. But when his look didn’t change, and their usual teary-eyed goodbye didn’t materialize, it was her look that changed.
And she didn’t want to engage him any longer. Didn’t want him to say words that she knew he would never take back. Couldn’t bear to know that he would never hold her again, never be there for her again. When he was all she had.
So she left. She walked right out.
Now, three months later, she was following him to the bar and sitting behind the t
hick bar counter. Anxious, once again, to change the subject.
“How did it go in Portland?” she asked him.
Tommy prepared drinks. He knew what she liked. “It went fine,” he said, not looking at her.
“Sal Luca tells me you’re thinking about opening a restaurant there. That true?”
His trip to Portland was completely related to his security firm, but he never discussed that side of his business enterprise with anyone. Not even with his baby brother.
Tommy sat her drink, a Gin Rickey, in front of her. Tommy had the same.
He looked at her, looked at the way her thin hand wrapped around the glass as if she was protecting it. “Why are you here, Shawnie?” he asked her, and then looked from the glass into her eyes.
A deep sadness crept over her pretty face, a sadness that caught Tommy short.
She sipped from her drink, avoided his eyes. “Reno asked me to come,” she said.
“Reno asked you to come in a couple days, after the funeral, when he would be in town.”
“So I came early. What’s the big deal?”
When Tommy didn’t say anything, but continued to stare at her, the pain crept back into her big, brown eyes. She tried to dismiss it, but she couldn’t. “I lost two of my guys,” she said.
Tommy didn’t say anything at first. He should have known she wasn’t worried about anything but that damn crazy-ass job of hers. But he understood her anguish. “What happened?”
“Rescue mission. We were a team. Eleven strong. I was team leader. We were supposed to get in, get out, it was all mapped out like I always map it out. Clean, fast, successful, that’s how I run any operation. And everything went according to plan. Until it didn’t.”
She swallowed hard, sipped from her drink. “I forgot . . .” She looked down, at her drink. Fought back tears. “I forgot to pull the pin.” She said this and looked up at Tommy, as if he somehow could undo her memories. His heart ached for her.
“What happened?” he asked her, his voice now soft, soothing.
“I tossed the grenade,” she said, “but I forgot to pull the pin. Me, the team leader, the experienced hand, forgot to pull the gotdamn pin! And they came at us, oh how they came at us, with all guns blazing. It was amazing, incredible that only two of us fell.”
She looked those big browns up at Tommy again. Tommy’s heart pounded against his chest. “But it was my fault,” she said, nodding her head. “All mine. No way to spin it as anything but my fault.”
Tommy stared at her. “Was this the first time you took casualties?”
She nodded her head, sipped more wine. “Where the fault was all mine,” she said, “yep. Very first time. I’ve had moments where we encountered the unexpected enemy and took a casualty here, a casualty there. But never when I was the unexpected enemy. I never took on unwinnable fights, you see. If there wasn’t a clear path to victory, I turned them down. Always. I wasn’t risking my life or the lives of my men if it wasn’t clear cut and possible. All I had to do was follow the plan. My men followed it. To the letter they followed it. But for me to be the one to. . .” She shook her head, drained down more gin.
Tommy knew her. She would hate him if he coddled her, if he immediately pulled her into his arms, although that was exactly what he wanted to do. And that, he also knew, was the last thing he needed to do. Because tomorrow she’d be gone again, back to that life he hated for her. And he’d be left broken, depressed, and angrily fucking every lady in his big black book, wishing it was her.
“Why are you here?” he decided to ask her. She didn’t want him to coddle her, and he wasn’t about to risk doing it.
She hesitated. She hated being vulnerable, absolutely hated it, but every time she came to Tommy that was exactly how she was. In a state so vulnerable, in fact, that nobody but Tommy could make her feel better.
“I’m here,” she said, “because I wanted to see you again.” Then she frowned. “No, that’s not true.” Because it went further than a mere want. “I needed to see you again,” she clarified, her bright brown eyes lifting up and looking him dead into his bright green ones. “Spend the night with you again.”
Tommy’s heart rammed against his chest. Those devastatingly gorgeous eyes of hers always did him in. Normally, through the years, he didn’t mix words with her. Just took her to his bed. Gladly took her. A stolen night here and there with her, once a month or so with her, was better than nothing. But he was getting older now. He wasn’t sure if he could continue to handle some drive-by romance with a sweet young thang like ShoShawna Shanks.
Especially with ShoShawna.
“Won’t that set us back?” he asked her, his heart still hammering.
She gave Tommy that honesty he loved. “Yes,” she said. “Of course it will.”
“And when Reno’s done with your services, you’ll answer the next call and be off to the next dangerous hot spot again.”
A wariness came over her big eyes. She looked out of the window. “I doubt if there’ll be a next call,” she said.
Tommy stared at her. “Of course there will,” he said. “You rescued the victims. Like you always do.”
“I lost two of my men,” she said, “and all three of the rescue subjects: a woman and her two children. Her very young children.”
When she looked back at Tommy, and he saw how actual tears were in her eyes, a woman who never cried in his presence before, he hurried from behind the counter.
She stood to her feet and hurried to meet him halfway, her heart hammering too, as she fell into his arms.
For the longest time they held onto each other. Until her tears had ceased from falling. It was only then that she allowed herself to pull back from him and look him in the eyes. “But you see,” she said, smiling and attempting awkward levity, “I saved myself. I panicked, cost the lives of five people, but I saved myself. I’m not a total wipeout.” And then her smile left and the tears fought hard to return.
“Look at me,” Tommy said, tilting her chin. She looked at him. “You’ll never know how pleased and proud and happy I am that you saved yourself. You understand?”
Shawna smiled through her tears. That was why she really came. Because Tommy, in truth, was the only human being to seem to give a damn about her. Men loved her body, thought she had that look they liked, but Tommy loved her. Not her body, not her looks. Her. Warts and all.
“Yes,” she said. “I understand.”
They stood there for moments longer, staring into each other eyes.
“Have you had your dinner?” he asked her.
She smiled, even chuckled. That was Tommy. “No, daddy,” she said, “I haven’t had my dinner yet.”
“Get out of those gotdamn formal clothes,” he said, moving away from her and toward the kitchen. “Put on something more comfortable. I’ll fix us something to eat.”
“Yes, sir,” Shawna said with a salute, as she headed upstairs to his bedroom. Because she knew, like he knew, like their history together knew, that that dinner wasn’t the only thing he would be eating before this night was through.
FIVE
Reno and Trina were no longer at the hospital, but was temporarily holed up in one of Reno’s safe houses just outside of Vegas. It was small on purpose, to better control security, and was one of only two houses on a tiny, dead-end street. Reno also owned the other house, the first on the street, where the security apparatus was set up. Only it wasn’t Reno’s security now, but Tommy’s. And until they could figure out just what happened at the PaLargio, it would remain Tommy’s people only.
Reno had thought to move Trina into a suite on the south wing of the PaLargio, on the exact opposite end, and some twenty floors below, from where that penthouse massacre, as the papers called it, had taken place. But he nixed that idea. He had miscalculated already when he thought Vito would hit the family compound in Jersey. Taking her back to the PaLargio, a place he had thought was rock hard secure, would be too risky. This was Trina’s life they were talking
about. He wasn’t taking any chances.
Reno had been meeting with various members of his team, including his board of directors and his accountants. Now it was pushing ten at night and he was still having meeting. He was seated on the sofa in the livingroom of the small house, blanketed by security, and seated across from him this time, in a line of chairs, was his team of public relations lawyers: all with stacks of papers seated atop their briefcases, all making pitches on how best, in the eyes of the public, for Reno to proceed. Seated beside Reno was Lee Jones, his general manager.
“So the consensus,” Reno said, leaned back in a slouched position, too tired at this point to care how it looked, “is that we shut it down?”
“Right,” his lead attorney said. “Keep it down for about a month, two months on the outside, long enough for the public to have moved on. And then we reopen.”
Lee was shaking his head, disagreeing with the attorney’s assessment. “That makes no sense, Reno,” he said. “You’ve answered every question the Feds had to ask, Katrina has answered every question, Ritchie and Carmine and MarBeth have answered every question. They’re going to clear you and your family of any wrong-doing, I have that conclusion on great authority straight from the Sheriff himself. There’s no reason to close now. Especially financially. And yeah, the public may move on in a couple of months, sure they may. But they may keep moving on and forget to return to the PaLargio. I’ve seen it happen.”
“I hardly think that we should be concerned about that at this point, Reno,” the lead attorney said with an obnoxious smile, his voice always modulated, super-calm, a quality that drove Reno insane. Show some life, some passion, something.
“Because the fact remains,” the lead attorney continued, “that there was a horrible shooting at that place that took the life of your mother; that has your sister still fighting for her life; that has your wife traumatized. The idea that it would be business as usual after something like that is a little amazing to me, quite frankly.”
MOB BOSS 3: LOVE AND RETRIBUTION Page 6
