MOB BOSS 6: THE HEART OF RENO GABRINI (Mob Boss Series) (15 page)

“Don’t
you dare talk to me that way!” Trina said.

“No,
you’re right,” Reno said.
 
“Talking’s
over!”
 
He grabbed Trina by the arm again
and began hurrying her to the couch in the office.
 
 
When
he saw Jimmy and that open door, he yelled.
 
“Close that
got
damn door!” he
said and Jimmy, terrified, quickly stepped back out of the office, and slammed
the door shut.

Reno
sat on the edge of the couch and slung Trina across his knees, her ass turned
to him.

“What
are you doing?” Trina was protesting.
 
“Let me go!
 
Reno, let me go!”

But
Reno was in that zone.
 
Talking was over,
as far as he was concerned.
 
He slung
down her pants and panties, took his open hand, and began spanking her bare
butt in a way that was meant to punish.

“Reno
stop!” she kept screaming.
 
“Stop!
 
I don’t give you permission to do this!”

“Good,”
he said as he continued to beat on her ass.
 
“I don’t want your permission!”

“But
it hurts!”

“It’s
supposed to hurt.”

“Reno,
you’re hurting me!”

And
it was only then did Reno stop.
 
It was
only then did he realize just how red her ass had become, and how out of
control he was becoming.
 
He stopped, but
he wasn’t through.

He
stood her back up to where she was standing between his legs.
 
His hands were on her narrow waist.

“You
listen to me, Katrina Gabrini, and you listen good.
 
I run this family, do you understand me?
 
I wear the
got
damn pants in this house, not you!
 
I respect you and I love you above any other
human being on the face of this earth, but when I make a decision that I know
is best for this family, you will not defy that decision.
  
You don’t know half the crap I know when I
decide the way I decide so stop second-guessing me!
 
I’m getting tired of that shit, Tree.”

He
tried to calm back down.
 
“You’re a
smart, gorgeous, independent woman who speaks her mind freely.
 
And I love that about you.
 
But you don’t run this.
 
You have got to understand that.
 
You’re my best advisor.
 
You’re the one I trust most to give it to me
straight.
 
But I have to make the final
decision when that decision is about protecting you and Jimmy and Dominic.
 
That call is mine to make, not the other fucking
way around!
 
You can’t tell me shit when
it comes to doing what I have to do to protect this family because you can’t go
there!
 
When a fucker has to be killed,
who’s gonna make that call?
 
You?
 
Well, would you?”
 
Reno shook her as he asked her.
 
“You’ve got plenty of answers tonight, so
answer that!”

But
Trina couldn’t.
 
Because she fully
understood what Reno meant.
 
She was his
partner, but eventually somebody had to make the call.
 
What he did tonight with Ashley and Cooper
was his call to make.
 
Tears began to
appear in her eyes.

“Oh,
Tree,” Reno said, pulling her into his arms, her butt still in flames from his
beating, but her heart understanding fully what he meant.
 
Reno would sacrifice Ashley and Cooper and
ten more like them to protect his family.
 
And she had to understand that.

“I
don’t ever want it to be up to you,” he said as he held her.
 
“You don’t have that killer instinct, and I
don’t want you to ever need to have it.
 
You get it, don’t you, Tree?”

Trina
nodded her head.
 
She looked at him.
 
“Yes,” she said.
 
But the sadness in her eyes broke Reno’s
heart.

“You
didn’t marry a meek and mild school teacher, babe,” he said.
 
“I wish you would have, but you didn’t.
 
You married me.
 
And when it comes to protecting me and mine,
not a more ruthless sonafabitch has ever been born.”
 

Trina
studied him.
 
She always knew of Reno’s
ruthlessness on a metaphysical level, but hearing Reno say it caused her to
shiver.
 
And it caused Reno to pull her
into his arms again.
 
Reno lifted her up
to sit her back on his lap, but when he inadvertently touched her red hot
bottom, she winced.
 
And was reminded
that even when it came to her, there was such a thing as pushing Reno too
far.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN

Early
that next morning, Trina woke up alone in bed.
 
At first she was about to turn over and get more sleep.
 
It wasn’t as if she was unaccustomed to Reno
working so late that he sometimes didn’t come home at all.
 
She was, in fact, too accustomed to that.
 
But then she remembered what had happened
last night and she quickly looked at the clock on the nightstand.
 
It was now three a.m.
 
When she last saw Reno he had received a
phone call and had to leave.
 
He ordered
her and Jimmy to remain in the penthouse until he returned.

She
hadn’t heard from him since.

She
got out of bed and grabbed her bathrobe.
 
Her butt from his spanking was still a little
sore, but just the reminder of it kept her sober.
 
Reno had said a mouthful last night.
 
She couldn’t remember the last time she saw
him that angry.
 
If she wasn’t willing to
get down and dirty with the bad boys, he all but said, then she’d better not
pretend to be down like that.
 
Going easy
on people who were out to destroy you was a fool’s game, and he had to be in
charge because he knew how to play that game.
 
Trina knew how to play it too, but not for keeps the way it sometimes
had to be played.
 
But that, in Reno’s
mind, meant you had no business playing at all.

She
placed the robe on her naked body and began heading for the front of the
house.
 
She never used to sleep in the
nude before she married Reno, but now she rarely slept in clothes.
 
It was mainly because she found it more
comfortable to sleep in the buff, but also because most morning when she woke
up, Reno would manage to have her gown up to her neck, or her pajama pants down
to her ankle, and with a certain member of his person resting deep inside of
her.
  
Since she ended up pretty well
nude anyway, she began to stop bothering dressing only to be undressed.

She
made her way to the Nursery first.
 
Jimmy
was fast asleep in the bed with his baby brother in his arms.
 
Trina leaned against the doorjamb and watched
Reno’s two sons.
 
The one she birthed and
Jimmy Mack, birthed by a woman from Reno’s past.
 
And she loved them both as if they both were
her own.
 
Especially Jimmy, who she felt
was going to need that love the most.
 
Because he was so much like Reno!
 
But where Reno learned how to handle his ruthlessness, she was worried
sick that Jimmy didn’t have that nuance in his personality.
 
He would just be ruthless.
 

She said
a prayer for Jimmy and Dominic as she stood in the doorway.
 
“Lord, keep a hedge of protection around
them,” she prayed.
 

And
then she went searching for her man.

But
he wasn’t there.
 
Which meant, at three
a.m., he was still out and about who knows where.
 
She walked around their penthouse apartment
remembering when they first got married and how much she hated this part of
their life.
 
Reno was a workaholic and
would stay out all night many nights.
 
She used to go out searching for him, determined not to be any man’s
fool, but would always find him in one lounge or another inside the PaLargio,
or in his own office, hard at work.
 
Over
time she stopped even bothering hunting him down.
 
She grew to trust him.
 
So far, he proved that her trust was not misplaced.

So
she decided to trust that he knew what he was doing tonight, and headed back to
bed.
 
But just as she entered the
bedroom, she saw something different in her periphery.
 
The French doors in the bedroom that led to
the balcony were slightly opened, which she knew, when she first went to bed,
wasn’t the case. She therefore walked over to the doors and looked out.
 
Reno, to her great relief, was seated on the
lounger, still dressed in the same clothes, staring out at the early morning
Vegas skyline.

She
pulled her robe tighter and walked over to the rail.
 
It was summertime in Vegas but the night
breeze gave off a night chill.
 
She
glanced back at Reno.
 
He was still
staring straight ahead.

“Been
out here long?”

“Not
long, no.”

“Been
home long?”

“No.”

“Where
were you?”

There
was no response.
 
As Trina expected.

She
turned to face him.
 
“Why don’t you come
to bed?” she asked.

“Where’s
Jimmy?”
 
he asked her.

“He
wanted to go to his apartment since you were taking so long to get back, but I
told him you said to wait here so he’d better wait here.
 
He’s asleep in the Nursery with Dominic.”

Reno
nodded.
 
“Good.
 
We keep him under our thumb for now.”

Trina
looked at her husband with a worrying glare.
 
“Why?” she asked him.
 
“What’s
happening?”

It
was only then did Trina realize Reno was smoking.
 
He doused the ash into a tray on the side
table.
 
He only smoked, she knew, when he
was royally stressed.
 
“What is it,
Reno?” she asked again.

“Tony
Tufarna is back on the scene.”

Trina
frowned.
  
“Who’s Tony Tufarna?”

Reno
looked at Trina.
 
He suddenly realized
that she had no idea about that part of his past.
 
But she needed to know, especially if the
intel is right.
 
He therefore reached out
his hand to her.
 
She went to him and sat
on the lounger, partially on his lap.
 
They were both in the lounge position.
 
He placed his hand around her waist and intertwined his white fingers
with her black ones.

“Tony’s
mother used to own this place,” he said.
 
“Tony ran it, but his mother owned it.
 
Her name was Miss E.
 
Elena
.
 
She was a good woman with a big heart.
 
I was still a kid when she hired me as her general manager.”

“She
hired you?”

“Right.”

“Although
you said Tony was running the place.”

“Right.”

“Why
would she hire you, especially if you were just a kid?”

“I
was a cocky kid, and she liked that.”
 
Reno also remembered how he turned down her request to be her bed
partner, and she liked that too.
 
But he
wasn’t going to defame her character by mentioning it.
  

“I
take it Tony didn’t like the fact that his mother went over his head.”

“He
didn’t like that particular executive decision on his mother’s part at
all.
 
He also didn’t like the fact that
his mother and I eventually became something more than friends.”

Trina
hesitated.
 
Her fingers gripped his
tighter.
 
“You mean you and she were
lovers?”

Reno
looked at her.
 
From the side he could
see the texture of her smooth brown skin.
 
He kissed it.
 
“Yes,” he said.