ROMANCING THE MOB BOSS (16 page)

bedroom, in his robe, looking as if he’d seen a

ghost, Trina’s heart dropped.

Frank Partanna had responded to Joey

and Dirty’s retaliation. But not in kind. No

warning strike this time. He struck back, al

right, but had changed the game. And Paulo

Gabrini and Joey Gabrini were dead.

During the days leading up to the funerals,

where Reno was as stoic as a man without a

conscience, their life seemed to move in slow

motion. Their wedding was stil on, Reno made

it clear that no devil in hel was going to stop him

from making her his wife, but plans for where

and when were put on hold by Trina. She

wanted to plan her wedding in peace, not in

turmoil. And although it was a silent turmoil, it

was there like a invisible thief, robbing them of

al happiness, sapping them of al joy.

And as for that turmoil, as for the fact

that his father and brother had been gunned

down by Frank Partanna’s men like dogs in the

street, Reno didn’t want to talk about it. She

tried to bring it up, believing it was better to get

it off of his chest, but he refused to so much as

mention it.

He, instead, immersed himself in his

work, and she, in turn, immersed herself in

hers. And after work, she stayed in her

apartment, and he rarely cal ed her to his. She

knew it was because he needed time alone to

grieve, to work this al out in his own head, and

she was wil ing to give him that time. That was

why he loved her so much, he once said to her,

because she understood him so wel .

But after the funeral, his change in mood

began to worry her. He stil apparently needed

time, a funeral was a poor excuse for closure,

and she accepted that. But when she went to

talk to Lee Jones, and he told her to pay closer

attention, she did, although he wouldn’t tel her

why. But soon she understood why.

Men she’d never seen before were

constantly coming to see Reno. And not at his

office, either, but at the penthouse. He was, in

fact, spending more time with these men, it

seemed to Trina, than he was spending in his

office. It became so obvious to her that

something was up that, a week after the

funerals, when Reno came home to his

apartment and found her, to his pleasant

surprise, in his bed, she asked him about it.

“What men?” he asked her. They were

“What men?” he asked her. They were

both naked, since they never slept together any

other way, but they hadn’t had sex since Paris.

“I’m not a fool, Reno,” Trina said

careful y, “so I’l be very disappointed if you tried

to treat me like one.”

Reno sighed, ran his hand through his

hair, ruffling it into a mess. “They’re friends of

Pop’s,” he said.

“By friends you mean mob bosses?”

“I mean friends.”

“Who happens to be in the mob?” Trina

said this and looked at Reno, making clear that

she didn’t wasn’t taking any of his bul shit.

“Yes,” he ultimately said.

“So what’s going on?”

“What you mean what’s going on?”

“Just what I said, Reno. What’s going

on? Is it going to be another retaliatory strike?”

Reno got up and sat on the side of the

bed, his head in his hands. Trina got out too,

and sat beside him.

“What’s the matter, Reno?’ she asked

him.

Reno could only shake his head. “It’s

complicated.”

“Why are you having meetings with mob

bosses?”

Reno didn’t respond. Tears began to

appear in Trina’s eyes. “You promised me,

Reno. You said you wouldn’t do anything to hurt

me.”

Reno looked at her, astounded that she

could ever think that he would hurt her. “I’m not

gonna hurt you,” he said. “You know that.”

“But what are you planning?”

Reno looked away from her. “That’s not

for you to worry about.”

“Oh, real y? So you can go to prison, or

you can kil somebody and get away with it, or

be kil ed yourself, and I’m not supposed to worry

about it? This is my life too, Reno!”

“I know that, Tree. I didn’t say it wasn’t.”

“You make it seem like I don’t have any

skin in this game, like what you do won’t affect

me.”

“What you want me to do?” Reno

exploded, standing to his feet. “What you want

me to do, Tree? Nobody’s kil ing my father and

my baby brother and expect no retribution! I’l

see them in hel first! And if you don’t like it, if

you can’t live with that, if you can’t understand

that, then I don’t know what to tel you.”

Trina stared at Reno, at the man she

thought she knew so wel but now realized she

didn’t know at al , and stood to her feet. She

slung on some clothes, neither saying a word,

and left.

Reno stood at the massive window of

his penthouse apartment, looking down on his

city of a thousand tales, and held his resolve.

She’l be okay, he said to himself. She just

need to cool off, too.

+++

The next morning, when he awakened, he

expected to find her in her apartment at the

PaLargio, fast asleep. But she wasn’t there.

He went downstairs, to Amos office, but he

hadn’t seen her. He went over to Lee Jones’

office, because he knew she sometimes talked

to him, but he hadn’t seen her, either.

He kept trying her cel phone, but it kept

going straight to voice mail. And he had

meetings, with Japanese investors, who had

flown in from Tokyo, that he couldn’t cancel.

After those meetings, he sought out

Jazz, who was now working as Lee’s

apprentice. According to Jazz, she spoke by

phone with Trina late last night and Trina was in

a very bad way. She, in fact, told Jazz that she

was going home.

Although Reno was disturbed to hear

that Trina was in more pain that perhaps he had

realized, he took some comfort in knowing that

at least she was okay. His mother and sisters

had gone back to their home on the east coast,

back to Jersey, with Carmine and Dirty to watch

over them. He was watching over Trina. She

was staying with him.

He went to her old apartment in the

hood, driving his Bentley slowly, working out in

his mind just how was he going to ever explain

to her that a crime like the one committed on his

family couldn’t go unpunished, it just couldn’t.

He didn’t ask for this fight, but now that it was

upon him, what did she expect him to do?

upon him, what did she expect him to do?

When he pul ed in front of her complex,

he was surprised that her Civic wasn’t there. It

wasn’t at the PaLargio, so he was certain it

would be there with her. He went inside her

apartment anyway, using his key, only to find her

nowhere to be found. He asked some of her

neighbors, the ones he knew she was friendly

with, and they hadn’t seen her, either.

He got back into his Bentley, almost

panicking now, phoned Lee Jones, and asked

to speak to Jazz.

When Jazz came on the line, he tried to

control his anxiety. “She’s not here,” he said to

Jazz.

“Not where?” Jazz responded.

“Here. At her apartment.”

“Her apartment?” Reno could just feel

her confusion. “Oh, you mean her
old

apartment? Why would she be there?”

Now Reno was the one confused. “You

said she went home.”

“Yes, sir,” Jazz said, amazed that she was

able to talk this casual y with the owner of the

PaLargio. “She did tel me she was going

home. But not there. I meant, she went home.

To her home. To Dale, Mississippi.”

“
Dale
?”

Reno said,

his

heart

hammering. Dale, Mississippi? Was she

kidding him? Was she tel ing him that Trina,

that his fiancée, that the woman who was going

to be his wife, the woman he loved with al his

heart – who was his heart, had left him?

Reno dropped the phone.

Around a smal kitchen table in a smal

house in a quiet neighborhood in Dale,

Mississippi, Trina was attempting to explain to

her parents exactly why she left Vegas. For

Reverend and Mrs. Hathaway, seeing their

daughter in such distress was devastating.

They were never exactly close, when she lived in

Mississippi, but when she left town with that no

account

Jeffrey

Graham,

the

lines

of

communication were even more few and far

between. Now she was back, heartbroken, not

over Graham, but over some new guy, who also

happened, they eventual y discovered, to be

white.

“Why y’al looking at me like that?” Trina

wanted to know. They were drinking coffee at

the table, with her on one side, her parents,

married for nearly forty years, on the other. “Just

because he’s white?”

“We don’t mean to look at you any kind

of way,” her father said, “but what you’re tel ing

us is some shocking news here. And it don’t

have nothing to do with his race. You left here,

against our better judgment and any six year

old’s, with Jeffrey Graham. What happened to

Jeffrey Graham?”

Jeffrey was so yesterday to Trina that

she hadn’t even thought about him. “We been

broke up,” she said. “Something like two years

ago.”

Earnestine Hathaway, Trina’s mother,

glanced at the Reverend, and then back at her

daughter. Whenever they spoke by phone,

Trina always made it her business to never

discuss her business.

“And you’ve met this new man, this white

man,” her mother said, “and he owns a hotel?”

“The PaLargio, yes.”

“The PaLargio,” Reverend Hathaway

said, amazed. “That’s big time, ain’t it? That’s

sort of like Caesar’s Palace, ain’t it?”

Trina nodded. “Yes.”

“And the man you’re dating
owns
it?”

“He’s asked me to marry him, yes.” To

her surprise, her father smiled.

her surprise, her father smiled.

“Wel hel o,” he said. “At least you did

something right.”

Both Trina and her mother looked at

him, with a look that offended him.

“Wel , what y’al want me to say? I’ve

been worried sick about you, and you have too,

Earnestine, so don’t even be looking at me like

that. Working in some strip club, running off with

that Jeffrey Graham, I was worried sick. Now

she come busting in here talking about she’s

engaged to a rich man, a man who owns a big-

time hotel, and you want me to be upset

because she ain’t stil with some no-account like

Jeffrey?”

“He’s white, Cecil,” Earnestine

reminded him. “Don’t forget that part.”

“Wel , is he good to you, baby?” Cecil

asked his daughter.

“Apparently not,” Earnestine said. “Look

at her.”

And her mother was right, Cecil

realized. She looked on the verge of col apse.

“What’s he done?” Cecil wanted to

know. “He been beating on you?”

“No,” Trina said, shaking her head.

“Cussing you out?”

“No.”

“Cal ing you a nigger and tel ing racist

jokes?”

“No!” Trina said, amazed how off target

he was. “He hasn’t done anything to me. He

treats me wonderful. He treats me like his

queen.”

Cecil and Earnestine looked at each

other, and then looked at their daughter. “Let

me get this straight,” Cecil said. “He’s rich, he

doesn’t beat you, doesn’t cuss you out, doesn’t

treat you like anything but the Queen of Sheba.

And you’re upset, so upset that you ran home to

us. Why again? Maybe I missed it.”

Trina was so drained that she didnnt>

But her father wasn’t convinced. “That

ain’t good enough, baby girl. You tel ing me this

man treats you right, and that he’s good and al

that, but you got to flee town like he’s some

maniac you scared of? What’s going on here?”

Trina didn’t want to discuss it, but they

deserved to know something more than what

she was tel ing them. She leaned back in her

chair, wrapped her hands around her coffee

mug. “His father and brother were recently