MOB BOSS 3: LOVE AND RETRIBUTION (8 page)

Shawna swalowed hard. “So you’re wiling to cal it quits? To never see me again? Is that what you’re teling me, Tommy?”

“What do you expect me to tel you?” Tommy yeled. “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 stil didn’t believe it when he said it. But he said it.

“It’s over,” he said. “That’s what I’m teling 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 al she had.

So she left. She walked right out.

Now, three months later, she was folowing him to the bar and sitting behind the thick 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 tels 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 al 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 swalowed hard, sipped from her drink. “I forgot . . .” She looked down, at her drink. Fought back tears. “I forgot to pul 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 pul the pin. Me, the team leader, the experienced hand, forgot to pul the
got
damn pin! And they came at us, oh how they came at us, with al guns blazing. It was amazing, incredible that only two of us fel.”

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. “Al 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 al 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. Al I had to do was folow the plan. My men folowed it. To the letter they folowed 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 puled 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. Normaly, 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.

Especialy with ShoShawna.

“Won’t that set us back?” he asked her, his heart stil hammering.

She gave Tommy that honesty he loved. “Yes,” she said. “Of course it wil.”

“And when Reno’s done with your services, you’l answer the next cal 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’l be a next cal,” she said.

Tommy stared at her. “Of course there wil,” he said. “You rescued the victims. Like you always do.”

“I lost two of my men,” she said, “and al 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 fel into his arms.

For the longest time they held onto each other. Until her tears had ceased from faling. It was only then that she alowed herself to pul 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’l 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 realy 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 al.

“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
got
damn formal clothes,” he said, moving away from her and toward the kitchen. “Put on something more comfortable. I’l 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 smal 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 caled 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 stil having meeting. He was seated on the sofa in the livingroom of the smal house, blanketed by security, and seated across from him this time, in a line of chairs, was his team of public relations lawyers: al with stacks of papers seated atop their briefcases, al 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. Especialy financialy. 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 stil 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.”

“Would be downright disrespectful,” said his second-chair attorney. “I agree with Carl that we should shut down for a time.”

The third attorney nodded. “Me too,” he said.

“Not me,” Reno said, siding with Lee. “I understand how you’re looking at it. You’re looking at it from a public relations angle, I get that. But I have to look at it from a long term business angle. We were already bleeding revenues, gentlemen. And I don’t mean in drips. Although the casino is stil thriving, the hotel is only at a third capacity and the lounges are almost deserted-looking late at night.

People are gambling here, may get a drink at the bar here in the early hours of the night, but they aren’t staying here. They’re going to our competitors to stay. If we close now, that casino revenue wil be gone, the hotel and lounge revenues wil be gone, thousands of employees wil be out of a job. And it’l be as if we’re confirming that this place is tainted, and is closed because of the taint. I’m with Lee on this one. Our customers may never come back.” Reno shook his head. “No, gentlemen. That’s a risk too high for me to take. I can’t take that risk.”

“But have you considered your wife?” his lead attorney asked.

Reno’s jaw tightened. How dare that asshole mention his wife, as if Reno wasn’t considering her every moment of every second of every day? He had already decided that Trina was going to Tommy’s place in Seattle to recover, and he was going to be by her side there, until she was herself again and until he could figure out the who, what and why of that “penthouse massacre.” But that was none of the business of some punk lawyer who was going to get paid no matter what decision Reno made. The fewer people who knew his and Trina’s whereabouts, the better.

“Don’t worry about my wife,” he warned.

The lawyer suddenly realized his blunder. “I didn’t mean any disrespect, Mr. Gabrini,” he clarified, but Reno had already moved on.

“What about advertisers?” Reno asked, and as soon as he asked it, he heard his wife scream.

Reno and Lee were up and running before the team of lawyers knew what hit them. Reno ran down the hal and slung open the door of the bedroom, his heart about to go into some kind of cardiac arrest, until he saw her. She was stil asleep, her head turning side to side, her mouth intermittently mumbling and screaming, stil caught up in her nightmare.

“Get rid of the suits,” Reno ordered Lee as he moved toward the bed, “and you can go too. I’l get with you in the morning.”

“Right,” Lee said, glancing at Trina, wondering if she was ever going to be al right, and then he left, closing the door behind him.

Reno sat on the bed beside his wife. “Tree,” he said, gently shaking her.

When she did open her eyes, and saw that it was him and not her nightmare, she lifted up and fel into his arms.