Trina looked at Stephanie when he said her name. “Stephanie Deevers?”
“We’ve been friends since childhood,” Reno continued. “She came to town a few weeks back because she had a request.”
Trina was puzzled. “What kind of request?” she asked. To sleep with you? To ruin our marriage? To ruin my life?
“To assist her,” Reno said, “in ending her life.”
Trina was floored. Jazz and Andre too, began smiling and then laughing. “Oh, you’re good,” Jazz said. “She catches you in the act, and you claim you were just here to kill her. You’re a piece of work, Reno!”
“Fuck you, Jazz!” Reno yelled.
But Stephanie was equally shocked. Trina saw it first, then Reno realized it too.
“To end my life?” Stephanie asked, staring at Reno. “What are you saying?”
Trina could see the confusion on her husband’s face. And she only saw the half of it. “You came to town because of the cancer,” Reno said to Stephanie. “You showed me the X-rays and everything. You said you didn’t want to die alone. You said you didn’t want to take your family through all of that shit and you needed me to help you, Steph! Why are you acting like you don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about?”
“Because I don’t!” Stephanie said decisively. “You aren’t here for any such thing, and you know it!”
While Reno stared at Stephanie, stunned witless, Stephanie looked at Trina. “I didn’t even know he was married, ma’am,” she said, getting out of bed. She was naked as a Jayhawk, and didn’t seem to give a damn. She began putting on her clothes. “He brought me out here so nobody would recognize him or his car. This has nothing to do with assisted suicide. Really, Reno? Assisted suicide? This has everything to do with you getting back together with me, and you know it!”
Jazz laughed. “Fucking versus assisted suicide,” she said. “Um, which one would I believe?”
But Trina wasn’t playing anybody’s game. This was her life. Her life! She had too many unanswered questions. “How do you know Jazz?” she asked Stephanie.
“Who’s Jazz?” Stephanie asked. And then she looked at Andre. “And who are you?”
“Don’t you worry about me,” Andre said. “I ain’t fucking somebody’s husband.”
“He came to me. He wanted to fuck me. He wanted us to get back together.”
“That’s bullshit!” Reno decried. “What are you talking? Where’s Stephanie?”
“Don’t stand up there like you know me,” Stephanie said, tossing her blond hair back as she put on her blouse. “I haven’t seen your ass in years. You’re just putting on this innocent act for your wife. Yeah, right. Innocent my ass!”
Trina was staring at Reno. She couldn’t tell if he was more hurt by what he believed to be a betrayal of his childhood friend, or the fact that Trina thought something more was going on. The fact that she couldn’t tell said it all to Trina.
“Tree,” Reno began saying, in that please believe me voice she knew so well. He was ready to get down on his knees and beg to get her to believe him.
But Trina stopped him before he could even plead his case. “You don’t have to go there, Reno,” she said. “I know good and well you weren’t in this hellhole fucking this bitch.”
Stephanie was shocked by Trina’s response. So were Jazz and Andre. “You believe him?” Jazz asked. “You believe him? Tree, I know better than this.”
Reno stared at his wife. He knew she was special, but how could she believe him against this kind of set up?
“So you believe your husband,” Stephanie said. “Whopdedo. You actually think I would come all the way to Vegas after I left this town years ago, show your husband X-rays of my supposed disease-ridden body, and then ask him to help me kill myself? Why would I do that?”
“I don’t know,” Trina admitted. “But I know you’re a liar. I know liars lie.”
Stephanie frowned. “What?”
“You just stood up here and claimed you don’t know Jazz or this guy.”
“So?” Stephanie asked. “I don’t know them!”
“You know him,” Trina said, referring to Andre.
Andre frowned. “What are you talking about? I don’t know that bitch.”
“Quit tripping,” Trina said. “That bitch is your wife.”
Now Reno and Jazz both were stunned. “His wife?” Jazz asked.
Reno looked at Stephanie.
“They met in Mexico. She spent many years in prison for killing her husband. She got out, she gets deported back to the States, and lo and behold she’s not out six months before she’s married to Andre here. I ran background on you, from your photograph on my security cameras. Stephanie is your wife.”
“But how can this be, Dre?” Jazz asked. “I acted like she was some random you never met before. You were playing me too?”
“Believe her if you want to,” Andre said.
But it was Stephanie Reno couldn’t believe. “What’s going on here, Steph? What kind of game are you playing?”
His words struck a chord with Stephanie. An angry, bitter chord. “Game?” she asked him. “What kind of game am I playing? You left me in that prison to rot!”
“I didn’t even know you were in prison!” Reno yelled.
“That’s a lie!” Stephanie yelled back. “I sent word by my lawyer, and he said you knew about it but told him to go fuck himself. You didn’t give a damn, Reno. You didn’t give a damn!”
Tears were in her eyes. Real tears this time, Reno figured, not that fake shit she was crying before Trina came. “I killed my husband, but you knew he was abusive. You could have spoken up for me. I sent for you. But you never came. Nobody came. It was awful!”
“I didn’t know, Steph,” Reno insisted. “I would have helped you had I known!”
“You knew,” Stephanie insisted. “That’s why I was glad to bring you down. You and your whole family. I just want that sweet revenge. I was going to break up your marriage with this one here, and Kap Cole was going to break up your son’s marriage.”
Reno and Trina looked at each other, then both of them looked at Stephanie. “Kap Cole?” Reno asked her.
“Who’s Kap Cole?” Trina asked.
“He’s the man who was banging your daughter-in-law. That’s who! He was a friend of mine and Andre’s. We paid him to sleep with little Miss Val, after we found out, of course, her predilection for certain kind of men. But he skipped out on us. Just took off. We haven’t heard from him in weeks. Where is he? Did Reno find out about his involvement with his precious daughter-in-law and did something to him? We knew, after we couldn’t find Kap, we had to speed this thing up. Now your clever little wife figures out my relationship with Andre, and makes all of us nervous.”
“Yet she’s not as clever as she thinks she is,” Andre said, and Reno knew he was reaching for a gun.
But Reno reached too, and pulled out his gun just as Andre pulled his. Reno knocked Trina down and was firing as he fell on top of her.
Andre was firing as he fell too. They were trading gunfire like they were trading cards, and bullets sailed all over the small room. But Reno was a better shot. Andre dropped dead.
“You alright?” Reno anxiously asked Trina. “Are you okay?”
Trina nodded that she was. “You?” she asked, touching the side of Reno’s face.
“I wasn’t hit,” Reno said. “I’m okay.”
But when the couple stopped paying attention to each other and paid attention to the others in the room, they were astounded. Both women, Stephanie and Jazz, had been hit and both were down.
Reno hurried to Stephanie. She used to be his friend. She used to be somebody he cared deeply about. But she was already dead.
“Call 911,” Trina cried as she crawled to Jazz. Jazz was down, but she was still alive. The bullet had penetrated her stomach and she was bleeding profusely.
As Reno called 911, Trina pulled Jazz’s head onto her lap. “It’s okay,” she said, as she comforted
her. “You’re going to be alright, Jazz, you’re going to pull through.”
“I didn’t know,” Jazz was saying, looking at Trina. “Please believe me. I just wanted to help you. I thought I was helping you.”
Trina knew Jazz was helping herself, the way she always did, but this was not the time for that lecture. “You’re going to be alright,” she said to her old friend. “Just hang in there.”
And Trina looked at Reno. He was staring at his friend’s lifeless body. She knew he was hurt. She knew he was devastated. And his words to Trina proved that. “I had no idea she had been in prison,” he said. “I had no idea.”
And he said it as if it were an indictment against himself. If he had only known, his expression seemed to say, then none of this would have ever happened. Kap Cole would not have been paid to seduce Val. Jimmy would not have had to do what he had to do to Kap Cole. And Stephanie Deevers and Andre would still be alive.
But Trina knew roads didn’t travel that straight. Bitter people were bitter. It didn’t matter what they were sucking on.
“The ambulance on its way?” Trina asked Reno.
Reno nodded. “Yeah,” he said, still staring at Stephanie.
“One thing for certain.”
Reno looked at her. “What?”
“I don’t think you and I can take too many more days like this.”
Reno wanted to smile. Any other situation and he would have. But in this situation, after such a stinging betrayal, after another shootout with yet another fool who thought he was going to lay down and take it, he couldn’t.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Two weeks later, after life had calmed back down to Gabrini normal, which wasn’t exactly calm to most any other family, Trina was glad to be getting away. She needed a change of pace like she needed air to breathe. Reno didn’t take betrayal well. It seemed worse than a death to him. And then for Stephanie to die too? For a week afterwards, he was a basket case.
Trina felt some sense of betrayal too, although not on the same scale, but it didn’t surprise her. Jazz was still in the hospital, still recuperating, but Trina didn’t bother to go see her. Because Jazz had it in for Reno. Which meant Jazz, though she would never admit it, had it in for Trina too. That was why Trina could handle Jazz’s betrayal. She expected it from Jazz. Reno, with Stephanie, was blindsided.
But now Trina was on Reno’s private plane waiting for takeoff. And not only was she going to the Big Apple, which was exciting enough for her. And not only did she have a ringside seat for New York Fashion Week. But she was going to meet Jean Paul Cousteau, a man who could position her beloved Champagne’s as the next big thing. And Trina wanted this big break badly. She was praying that they could make it work with terms she and Gemma could live with, and he would give Champagne’s an exclusive on his new women’s line.
Oprah Davenport, Trina’s store manager, sat on the plane beside her as they both reviewed a buyer’s catalogue. “This is cute,” Oprah said. It was a page filled with colorful blouses.
“It’s cute,” Trina agreed, “but I need more than cute. That was the problem with our inventory last Spring. It was filled with cute this and cute that, but it didn’t wow anybody. I need wow. I need stunning.” She turned to the next page. More cute colorful blouses. “I need for each and every one of our Spring and Fall pieces to be on point, and then pushed to the next level. We’re on the cusp of greatness, O. Our store is about to blow up. I need this inventory to shine.”
“I thought the Cousteau collection was going to be the collection that puts us on the map,” Oprah said.
“It will be,” Trina said, “if I can seal the deal while I’m in New York. But we’ll need more than one designer to stay on that map. I’m thinking long term. I need you to think that way too.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Oprah said as Trina turned yet another page. Oprah was learning so much from Trina, and she loved the experience.
“But all I’m seeing here is more cute,” Trina said disappointedly, and turned yet another page.
Oprah pulled out her bottled water and was about to take a sip when she glanced out of the plane’s window. She moved her head closer to the window, to make sure she wasn’t seeing some mirage. “Boss?” she asked.
Trina continued to review the catalogue. “What?”
“I didn’t know your husband was coming too.”
“He’s not,” Trina responded, turning another page.
“Apparently he didn’t get the memo.”
Trina looked at Oprah. “What are you talking about?”
“Out there,” Oprah said, pointing toward the window with her bottled water. “Do my eyes deceive me, or is that Mr. Gabrini?”
Trina looked too and was surprised to see Reno getting out of his Porsche, buttoning his suit coat, and head across the tarmac toward his plane.
Trina leaned back and exhaled as she watched him. His suit was well-worn, and his hair looked tussled, but what did she expect? He stayed out all night again. Didn’t bother to call, didn’t bother to come, and he knew she was leaving for New York this morning. She closed the catalogue.
Oprah saw how deflated her boss suddenly appeared, and she wasn’t surprised. She knew Trina and Mr. Gabrini had been going through some tough times lately. Word on the street, in fact, was that he had cheated on her and she caught him in the act. But Oprah also knew that Trina didn’t allow her to cross the line into her private life never, and that she was not her friend but her employee. But that never stopped Oprah from trying. “You okay?” she asked.
“I’m okay,” Trina responded, although her body language said differently.
Oprah smiled. “Looks like the last person you want to see just before takeoff is that husband of yours. But that’s men for you. We can’t live with them, we can’t live without them.”
Trina didn’t respond to that.
Oprah decided to push that envelope even further. “I can lock the door and stop him from getting on,” she said.
Trina looked at her with a displeased look on her face. “You can what?”
Oprah knew she should have backed down. But she was out there now. “I can lock the door and stop him from getting on,” she repeated.
“You can stop him from getting on his own plane? Girl bye! And stop injecting yourself in my business.”
“I wasn’t trying to get up in your business, honest I wasn’t. I was only trying to help.”
Trina handed the catalogue to her. The last time she heard that was when Jazz made that same ridiculous claim. “Help by finding me some fabulous clothes,” she said. “Help by doing your job and stop worrying about my relationship with my husband. That’s off limits and you know it.”
“I know it,” Oprah responded. Then she smiled. “But you know me too, boss, now come on. You know I can’t resist the chance to drink that tea.”
Trina couldn’t help but smile. That was why Oprah had worked her way into her favorite employee: nothing riled her. Not even Trina’s temper.
“But don’t worry,” Oprah said, looking through the catalogue, “I’ll find you those wow clothes if it’s the last thing I do. I’m a good gossiper, but I’m an even better manager.”
Trina smiled. “Good,” she said.
But when Reno made his way onto the plane, removing his shades and heading to the back of the plane, where Trina was seated, her smile dissolved. She was upset with him and couldn’t hide it.
Reno wasn’t exactly bursting at the seams with charm for her either. He looked exhausted.
“Hello, Mr. Gabrini,” Oprah said when he walked over.
“How are you?”
“Very well, thank you.”
But it was Trina that Reno came to see. He looked at her. “Glad I caught you,” he said.
“What are you doing here?”
“To see you, what else?” Reno sat down beside her. “I called my pilot and told him not to leave before I got here, but I was still sweating bullets getting here.”
�
��You did all of that when all you had to do was come home at a reasonable hour and say goodbye right then and there? Sounds like overkill to me.”
To me too, Oprah wanted to say. “Will you excuse us?” Reno said to Oprah.
Oprah, a little offended, looked at Trina. He just got there and was already ordering her around?
But Trina never went against Reno in public. Besides, they needed to talk. “Go up front,” she said. “And get that collection together.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Oprah said, glancing at Reno as she grabbed the catalogue, her water, and her purse, and moved toward the front of the plane.
Reno smiled weakly. “That’s a woman with an attitude,” he said.
But Trina wasn’t feeling it. “She’s alright.”
Reno moved to the seat across from her. He wanted a full view of his wife, and got it. She was dressed lovely as usual, this time in a designer pantsuit. She crossed her legs, revealing stilettos with heel tips that could put his eye out if he wasn’t careful. She shook one of those shoes, as if to remind him of that very fact.
“I hate that you’ll be away for a whole week,” he said, leaning forward with his hands clasped together. “I never get any rest when you’re out of town.”
Trina almost said something discourteous to him, like her trip wasn’t about him, but she held her peace and looked out of the window.
“The kids are going to miss you too, I know that.”
That did it. “How would you know that, Reno?” she asked him. “They waited last night for you to come home. They stayed awake as late as they could. But you didn’t bother to show up.”
Reno frowned. “You talk like shit don’t happen. Something came up, alright? I had to handle it.”
“Shit better not happen while I’m out of town, I know that much,” Trina said threateningly. “You’d better be there for our children.”
“I’ll be there,” Reno made clear. Then he frowned. “When the fuck am I not there, Tree?”
“It’s not up to the nanny to be there,” Trina said. “You’d better have dinner with them every night and tuck them in bed every night, Reno, I mean it.”
“I said I’ll be there. What more do you want me to say? Why are you worrying about that for?”
Reno Gabrini: For His Lover (The Mob Boss Series Book 14) Page 12
