Reno Gabrini: For His Lover (The Mob Boss Series Book 14) (16 page)

“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.

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?”

Trina looked at him as if he was nuts.
 
“Why am I worrying?
 
No you didn’t ask me that!”

Reno leaned back and crossed his legs.
 
“I’m sorry I didn’t make it home last night,
alright?
 
I’m sorry it happened.
 
But I’m getting tired of your bitching.”

Trina couldn’t believe it.
 
“My bitching?”

“Yes, your bitching!
 
My men work all night right alongside me, and their old ladies don’t
give them fits the way you’re always giving me.”

“Their wives can settle for less all they care to.
 
But I’m not going to settle for less, not
ever, and our children aren’t going to either.
 
And your behavior isn’t going to make us settle.”

“I don’t expect you to settle.
 
But you come at me every fucking time I have
to work all night.
 
Lighten up some for
crying out loud, Tree.
 
You don’t let me
get away with shit!”

“You don’t let me get away with shit either!
 
I work late, not all night, just later than
normal, and you come running to my office to see what the problem is.
 
And I call and tell you when I’m working
late.
 
It’s no surprise to you.
 
But you have a fit about that anyway.
 
But when you work late, I’m supposed to just
accept it?
 
You don’t call, you don’t
come.
 
You just do whatever the hell you
want to do and expect me to go along with your nonsense.
 
But you’ve got the wrong one, Reno, if you
think I’m going along with your crap.”

“Fuck it then!” Reno said angrily.

“Then fuck it!” Trina returned the fire.

Reno uncrossed his legs and leaned forward.
 
He knew what this was about.
 
It was Stephanie again, and the fact that he
didn’t tell her anything about her.
 
Until it was almost too late.
 
“Okay, I was wrong,” he said.
 
“I
was wrong that I didn’t tell you about Steph, I was wrong for not calling last
night, I was wrong.
 
I’ve got to do
better, Tree, and I will.”

Trina didn’t want to let him off that easily.
 
She looked at him.
 
“Why didn’t you come home?
 
What was so important that it took all
night?”