MOB BOSS 6: THE HEART OF RENO GABRINI (Mob Boss Series) (3 page)

The
waiter took Trina’s drink order, as Liz and Gemma already had theirs, and once
her glass of Scotch arrived, they all got down to business.

“I
found three locations,” Gemma said as she handed her iPhone to Trina.
 
“The first one I’m not crazy about because of
the lack of heavy traffic in that area.
 
The second one is more promising, but it, too, lacks that high-end
traffic we will need.
 
The third one, I
feel, is perfection.”

“Of
which I disagree,” Liz said.
 
“It has
high-end traffic, yes, but not nearly enough of it.”

Trina
looked at the photos of all three locations on Gemma’s phone.
 
She was impressed with all three.
 
But she knew the third location well, and she
agreed with Liz.
 
“I don’t know, Gem,”
she said as she handed her back her phone.
 
“Liz makes a good point.
 
I’ve
been in that area a hundred times and I never see the kind of foot traffic
we’ll need to make our boutique a success.”

“No,
it’s not as busy, I’ll grant both of you that,” Gemma said.
 
“But our clothes are going to be so high-end
that we won’t need a sale every hour on the hour like most stores.
 
One good sales day could carry us for the
entire month.”

“Now
wait a minute,” Trina said.
 
“One
day?
 
I don’t know about that.”

“Look
at that gorgeous bright blue skirt suit you’re wearing,” Gemma said and Liz,
too, looked at Trina’s outfit.

“How
much did it cost?” Gemma asked.

Trina
had no idea.
 
Reno bought her that outfit,
and she had no idea where he got it from or how much he paid for it.

“Thousands,
right?” Gemma asked.
 
“Would that be a
safe assumption?”

“Given
Reno, probably, yes,” Trina said.

“Well,
ladies, if we sell clothing as high-end as the outfits Trina wears, for
example, then my theory is correct.
 
One
day of sales a month could sustain us.
 
At least it’ll pay the rent and any employees we might have.
 
And then eventually, down the line, we’ll
start turning a profit.
 
We have got to
take this as a piecemeal approach.”

Trina
and Liz looked at each other and smiled.
 

“It
makes sense,” Liz agreed.

“So
the third location is it, ladies?” Gemma asked.

But
again, Trina was cautious.
 
“I want to
see all three,” she said.
 
“Then I can
let you know.”

“Can
we at least see the first one this evening then? Say around six or so?” Gemma
asked.
 
“We don’t want somebody else to
come along and rent the space.”

“This
evening could work,” Liz said.
 
“Just as
long as I’m out of there before eight.
 
Posh and I are entertaining some dentists from out of town and I have to
have sufficient time to get myself together.”

“It
shouldn’t take long,” Gemma said.
 
“I’ll
have the realtor give us a quick tour and we’ll decide, as a group, then.
 
Okay, ladies?”

“Okay,”
Liz said.
 
“I’m in.”

Trina
didn’t have her phone with her, but she knew she could make time.
 
“I’ll be there,” she said.

Reno,
however, was getting angrier by the minute that she wasn’t here, at the
PaLargio, to greet him on his return.
 
He’d
been out of town on business for nearly a week.
 
He hadn’t seen his wife or his kids the entire time, and he missed all
three of them tremendously.
 
But they
apparently didn’t miss him, he thought warily as he removed his suit coat and
tie, tossing them across the sofa, and moved around his empty penthouse
wondering where the hell was his family.
 

He
knew his baby, Dominic
 
Gabrini, Junior,
was with his sister Fran.
 
He was Fran’s
sole source of support, including providing her with an apartment inside the
PaLargio just as he provided his son Jimmy Mack with his own place.
 
Because Fran was, as Reno called her, a
grown-ass woman, she would sometimes feel guilty and offer to assist them.
 
Today, apparently, she had offered to babysit
for Trina.
 
When Reno called her, she
said the baby was asleep.
 
But she
promised to wake him up from his afternoon nap, put him on his clothes, and
bring him to his father right away.
 

As
for his son Jimmy, he decided himself not to phone him yet.
 
It was summertime in Vegas.
 
He was undoubtedly living it up with his
friends.
 
So he didn’t bother to phone
Jimmy.
  

But
he was blowing up Trina’s cell.
 
He was
calling her repeatedly, at least, until he discovered that Trina had left her
phone in her office.
 
Which really unnerved
him.
 
She was always crying for more
freedom.
 
She was always bitching that
sometimes he treated her as if she was in prison.
 
But it was always her ass who couldn’t handle
the freedom.
 
It was always her ass
leaving her cell phone or taking off without telling him a damn thing, and then
worrying him sick because he had no clue where she was.
 
He trusted Trina with his life.
 
But he didn’t trust any of those assholes out
there who might be gunning for him but decided, since they couldn’t get to him,
to settle for his wife instead.

He
stood at the window and leaned against the frame.
 
He knew he had to calm himself down or he was
going to go ballistic on her when she did show up.
 
He understood how she felt.
 
He was overprotective of her.
 
He’d be the first to admit it.
 
But
what choice did he have
, he thought to himself as his face displayed his
distress.
 
It would kill him if anything
happened to Trina.
 
Sometimes he
wondered, based on her behavior, if she really understood that.

He
looked out of the window at a panoramic view of Vegas in the early
afternoon.
 
He was in his blue dress
shirt and dress pants, with his shirt now hanging out of his pants and giving
him that gorgeously rumpled look he was known for.
 
His thick, dark brown hair was all over his
head, messy because of his tendency to constantly rake his fingers through his
hair whenever he was upset.
 
And today,
on his return home, he was especially upset.

He
had the word out around the PaLargio that he was looking for his wife, which
was embarrassing in and of itself.
 
But
his hope, when he heard knocks on his front door, was that news of her
whereabouts were imminent.
 
He hurried to
the door and slung it open.
 
His sister
Fran, with his baby boy in her arms, were standing there.

“Dommi!”
Reno said with a grin as he hoisted his baby from Fran’s arms and pulled him
into his own arms.
 
He wanted Trina, but
he was just as thrilled to have his son again.
 

“Daddy!”
Dommi said, thrilled too, and began slapping his father playfully about the
face.

“That’s
right,” Reno said smiling down at his son’s beautiful light-brown mug.
 
“Beat up on Daddy, too.
 
Mommy’s teaching you good, boy.”

Fran
laughed.
 
“Welcome home, Ree,” she said.

Reno
reached over and kissed his baby sister on the cheek.
  
“How you doing, Fran?”

“Better
than you,” she said as she closed the door.
 
“Can’t find Trina, hun?”

“When
did she leave Dominic with you?”

“This
morning.
 
And I had to beg her to let me
babysit even then, which I don’t think is right.
 
I’m his aunt.
 
I’m your baby sister.
 
I should
have more access to my nephew, and I told her so.”

Yeah,
Reno thought as he listened to his sister and bounced his baby boy, she was
always telling somebody else something.
 
But what he found odd was that she never thought once to tell herself to
maybe get a job and support her own opinionated behind.
 

“I
also told her how that baby gets tired of going to work with her every single
day like he was her appendage or something,” she continued telling.
 
“And I don’t care if her office is right here
in the PaLargio.
 
You can afford a
hundred thousand nannies, but she won’t employ even one.
 
That’s just outrageous, Reno.
 
The only reason she agreed to let me babysit
at all was because she had some lunch date today.”

Reno
looked at her.
 
“Lunch date?
 
Did she say where?”

“You
know Trina doesn’t confide in me like that.
 
She wouldn’t tell me which man she had the date with, and I sure asked
her.
 
I thought it was Lee again, since
they always end up together somewhere around this place, but she wouldn’t even
tell me that.”

Reno
stared at her.
 
“What’s that supposed to
mean?”

“What’s
what supposed to mean?
 
I’m just calling
it the way I see it.
 
Every time you go
out of town on business she seems to have all of these lunch dates with these
different men all of a sudden.”

Reno
looked at his sister with a hard gaze.
 
“Cut that shit out,” he said.

“Cut
what shit out?”

 
“Your insinuating that my old lady is doing
some dip with some dude will get you no-where with me.
 
Do you understand where I’m going with this,
Francine?
 
Cut that shit out before I cut
you out and order Trina to not have anything more to do with you.
 
Understand where I’m going with this?”

Fran
understood perfectly.
 
She’d been in
Reno’s dog house too many times before.
 
“I was just saying,” she said.

“Stop
saying,” Reno said.
 
“Before I stop you.”

Fran’s
heart squeezed.
 
Ever since Reno met
Trina he always chose her over his own family.
 
Over his own flesh and blood.
 
But
he’d learn his lesson soon enough, was how Fran saw it.
 
Trina didn’t give a damn about him, but he
kept putting her on such a pedestal.
 
But
the truth will come to light.
 
Fran was
banking on it.

She
smiled.
 
“I leave for Europe next week,”
she said to her brother.
 
“It’ll be my
first European vacation ever.
 
I’ll be
gone for an entire month.”

“So
you’re taking a vacation from your vacation?”

“Don’t
hate.
 
It’s well deserved and you know
it.”

“Who’s
going with you?”

“Me,
myself, and I.
 
Unless you and your
family care to join me?”

“I’d
rather eat a car.”

Fran
laughed.
 
“In that case, may I make
myself a drink?” she asked her brother.

“Make
me one while you’re at it,” Reno replied as he walked, with his son in his
arms, toward the sofa.

Fran
rolled her eyes as she headed for the large bar in the back of the room.
 
One day she was going to tell him a thing or
two about bossing her around.
 
But she
knew it wasn’t going to be today.

 
“Happy to see Daddy?” Reno asked his son as
he sat down with him in his lap.
 
“Happy
to see your old man?”

“I
love Daddy,” Dommi said.

Reno,
delighted, pulled him closer into his arms.
 
“Oh, baby, Daddy loves you too!”

The
baby mumbled some words, then he said, “I want Mommy.”

Reno
smiled a weary smile.
 
Mommy had been
with Dominic day in and day out while Daddy had been out of town all week.
 
But he still wanted Mommy.
 
But Reno fully understood.
 
“I want her too,” he said as he leaned his
son’s face against his own.

Fran
brought a glass of wine to Reno and handed it to him.
 
She then sat down, with her own glass, in the
chair flanking the sofa.