Mob Boss 4: Romancing Trina Gabrini (9 page)

“And what about this restaurant in Crane?
 
Why is
it called Clauson’s if your father owned it for twenty years?”

“Because the guy he bought it from was named
Clauson.
 
Doug Clauson.
 
It was a hit at the time, the most successful
restaurant in the town actually, so Pops was shrewd enough to keep the success
going.
 
He wasn’t screwing up a good
thing.
 
He kept the name. He even allowed
Clauson to keep ten percent stake in the business and to run it his way when
Pop wasn’t in town, which was almost all of the time.”

“What, your father didn’t care about it?”

“He cared.
 
But that’s not why he bought it.
 
He bought it because it was a hideout for him and his crew whenever the
heat was on back in Jersey.
 
They’d go to
Crane and lay low for a few months, return to Jersey when the heat was off, and
resume their business.”

“Their mob business?”

“Yeah.
 
I’m not sugarcoating it, yeah.
 
But he’s dead now and Clauson’s belongs to
me.
 
And it’s the perfect set up, Tree,
that’s what I like about it.
 
It’s a
small town, and a nice town from what I remember about it, and I don’t have to
go out and buy some business and go through all of that start-up craziness that
comes with that new business.”

“Are you going to let Clauson keep his ten
percent ownership stake?”

Reno shook his head.
 
“Nope.
 
I’m in the process of buying him out
now.
 
I don’t need a co-owner.
 
I’ve got you,” he said with a smile.
 
“But no, Tree, this is the right move.
 
Don’t you ever think I’ll regret it because I
won’t.
 
You
deserve a normal life, and I’m going to give it to you.”

“We have a normal life here, Reno.”

“Like hell we do.
 
Ever since I married you we’ve lived in the
PaLargio.
 
In a hotel,
Tree.
 
Normal people don’t live in
hotels.”

“Normal people don’t own hotels,” Trina
pointed out.

“Well this normal couple does.
 
And I’m giving you the sweet, quiet, gentle
life you deserve if it’s the last thing I do.”

 
Trina
smiled and he kissed her on the top of her head.
 
But just the thought of a slower pace life
made her think about their other little pressing issue.

“Maybe with this new start of ours,” she said
delicately, “we can finally have a family.”
 
Reno’s movements stopped.
 
Trina
stared at him from the prism of the mirror in front of her.
 
“Maybe we can finally have a child, Reno.”

Reno let out a tough exhale.
 
And then he sat on the edge of the dressing
table, facing his wife.
 
“Look, Tree, I
know you want a baby, I know you do.”

“It’s just that I’m in my thirties now,
Reno.
 
I’m not getting any younger.”

“I know, sweetheart, I know.”
 
He said this heartfelt.
 
“But. . .” A frown appeared on his suddenly
anguished face.
 

She knew what he was thinking about.
 
She knew he was remembering his own child,
who was murdered because of his mob connections, and he couldn’t get past
that.
 

“After what happened to my boy,” he said, “I
couldn’t. . .
 
I can’t. . .” He looked
Trina in the eyes.
 
Tears began to appear
in his.
 
She grabbed hold of his hand.

“I can’t risk it, Tree,” he said.
 
“I can’t let my curse fall on our child. I
can’t risk the curse falling on a child I have with you.”

“Stop saying that, Reno.
 
There’s no curse.”

“But there’s something wrong.
 
Everybody close to me has suffered.
 
And then after what happened to Ma, and
Marbeth and Carmine, and what almost happened to you and Fran, no, Tree.
 
You may not want to call it a curse, but
something’s wrong.”

“It was the lifestyle, Reno.
 
It was your father’s mob business that sucked
you in.
 
But that’s over with.”

Those words seemed to give him some
encouragement.
 
“And I pray it stays over
with,” he said. “You don’t know how much I pray
it’s
over.
 
But that’s why we’re getting the
hell out of Dodge. ”

“And if this new life turns out to be
everything you hope?
 
Then can we have a
baby?”

Reno exhaled.
 
“That’s a big if.”

“I’m just saying.
 
But if it turns out great?”

“If, and I mean a big if, our move turns out
to be the best move we could have ever made in our entire lives, then yes,” he
said, and Trina smiled.
 
“We’ll consider
it.”

Trina knew that wasn’t saying much.
 
But it was more than he’d said in the past.

“Besides,” he said, smiling too, “she’d be
something to behold, wouldn’t she?
 
A child of ours?
 
She’d have her mother’s brains and her daddy’s brawn.
 
She’d be smart and tough and have strength
like a world class bodybuilder.
 
She’d be
able to lift cars with her bare hands by day, and teach a class on molecular
biophysics by night.
 
A
child of ours?
 
Are you kidding
me?
 
The girl would be unstoppable, get
outta here!”

Trina laughed.
 
“Either that,” Trina said, “or a girl that freakishly uncommon would be
ugly as hell.”
 

Reno looked at her, and then burst into
laughter.
 
“Or, yeah, that’s possible
too,” he admitted.

But Reno knew, even if their move went
perfectly well, bringing a baby into this world would still be a longshot.
 
Because if he were to have a child with
Trina, the undisputed love of his entire life, and something were to happen to
that child, he knew he wouldn’t be able to handle it.
 
He knew he wouldn’t.
 
He’d put a bullet through his brains before
he could accept such a loss.
 
And that
would only give Trina double grief, and double pain.
 
It would hurt her to her core.
 
And he was out of the
hurting Katrina
business.

But all jokes aside, Trina thought, as the
laughter died down and she looked at her husband.
 
“So,” she
said,
a
serious look now on her face.
 
“Are you
really certain you’re ready for this move?”

“More than ready.”

“Even though things have calmed back down
here?”

“But for how long?” Reno wanted to know.
 
“After that shit with Marbeth and Vito
Giancarlo, and after all I’ve put you through?
 
No, Tree.
 
We can’t stay
here.
 
It’s
calm
now, yeah, it’s beautiful now.
 
Until all
hell breaks loose again, because it always does.
 
And you’ll get caught in my crazy world
again.
 
No, Tree, no.
 
No more hell for us.
 
No more drama for us.”

“Truth is,” Trina said, “I’m looking forward
to a change.
 
I can’t walk around the
PaLargio anymore without thinking about a lot of painful memories.
 
I still have nightmares about some of those
memories.”

Reno placed his hands on her shoulders.
 
“I know,” he said, remembering that hellish
time, too.
 
“And that’s why I’m not
waiting for another round of craziness.
 
We’re getting out.
 
Out of sight, out of mind.”
He stood up.
 
“No
more
 
drama
, Tree. I promise you that.”

Trina smiled and nodded her agreement.

“Now get your ass ready,” he said in that
commanding voice she loved, prompting her to laugh out loud.
 
“We’re late as it is!”

He smiled and kissed the top of her head.
 
Then he went into the closet to get his
shoes.
 
Trina felt so fortunate to have
Reno as her man, although her joy was tempered.
 
Reno had so many skeletons in his closet, so many scores that still may
need to be settled, that she wasn’t certain if going to Georgia was going to
make that big a difference to his enemies.
 
You can run, but you can’t hide
,
was the old saying.
 

And as she put on the diamond earrings Reno
purchased for her, that saying kept reasserting itself in her mind.
 

You can run,
but you can’t hide
.
 

And it made her pray, over and over, that it
was a saying that didn’t find a way, especially in their new life in Georgia,
to even attempt to come true.
  

CHAPTER FOUR

Shanell Ridgeway stood at the back of her
Mustang, in front of her ex-husband’s home, and watched her son retrieve his
luggage from the trunk.
 
Although his face
gave the look of a conservative, innocent young man, his clothes were all hip
and modern, even down to the baggy jeans he favored.
 
Nell used to worry sick about him, and if he
would receive the wrong influences in his young life.
 
But now she was at ease.
 
She raised him right, and it showed.

“Got everything?” she asked him.

“Think so.”

“Did you remember to get the money I left for
you on the counter?”

“I’ve got it,” Jimmy Mack Ridgeway said with a
smile.
 
He was well accustomed to his
mother’s check-off list every time they parted for the weekend.

“Make sure, Jimmy.
 
I don’t want Fred Ridgeway claiming I sent
you over here broke.”

“I’ve got it, Ma, stop worrying.
  
Dad’s not like that.”

Nell wanted to roll her eyes.
 
Dad
was exactly like that and worse, she wanted to say.
 
“If
there’s any problems
at all,” she said instead, “you call me, boy.
 
I don’t care what time of day or night it is.
 
I’ll come and get you.”

Jimmy looked his massive greenish-gray eyes at
his mother.
 
Although he was seventeen
years old, he was a small, shy seventeen year old with silky-rich brown hair
that flopped around his forehead in a pile of curls, making him appear as if he
was about to enter puberty rather than adulthood.
 
And that same hair, and those same eyes, and
that light-oak complexioned skin, also made him fodder for local gossip.
 
Ever since Nell returned to Crane with a
two-year-old baby in her arms, and Fred Ridgeway claimed that baby as his,
she’d heard it.
 
“That is not Fred’s
baby,” some would boldly claim.
 
“That’s
a white man’s baby.”

But overtime, and as times changed, most of
the gossip died down.
 
Soon, most of the
locals just accepted Jimmy Ridgeway as nobody’s son but Fred’s.
 
Not all.
 
But most.

“Stop worrying so much, Ma,” Jimmy said.
 
He loved the idea of going to Nebraska, and
being with his father.
 
But he was going
to meet his father’s fiancée and her family, and he dreaded that part.

And having his mother so apprehensive wasn’t
helping his anxiety at all.
 
“I’ll be
okay,” he said to her.

“But I mean it, Jimmy,” Nell said to him.
 
“I’ll come and get you.”

Jimmy smiled.
 
“You’ll come and get me?
 
We’re
going to be in Nebraska, Ma, not around the corner.”

“And I’ll still come and get you!
 
You don’t know those people.”

“But Dad does.
 
He’ll protect me.”