A Mob Boss Christmas: The Pregnancy (20 page)

Messenger my
ass
, Trina wanted to say.
 
“Go on,”
she said instead.

“So when we got to my place, he insisted on coming
in.
 
He said he needed to use the
restroom.
 
That old
line, right?
 
But foolish me, I
let him in.
 
I went into the kitchen to
make some coffee, but when I came back he was asleep on my sofa.
 
I mean fast asleep.
 
Since it was late anyway, and he seemed so
peaceful, I left him there and went on to bed myself.
 
It wasn’t an hour later,
Trina,
that
your husband was getting in bed with me.”

Wait a minute.
 
Trina looked at her.
 
Reno said it
had all went down on her sofa.
 
“He got
in bed with you?” she asked Cheri, unable to conceal her surprise.

“Yes!
 
And he
was naked.”
 
Cheri waited for a response
from Trina, but Trina continued to stare at her.
 
“He was butt-naked,” she went on.
 
“And he started kissing on me and feeling on
my breasts and the next thing I knew his finger was in my vagina.”
 
She wiped away an invisible tear.
 
“It was awful, Trina.
 
I’d never felt so brutalized.
 
And he kept fingering me.
 
He wouldn’t stop.
 
I tried to pull him away, but you know how
muscular and strong Reno is.
 
I couldn’t
do it.
 
He just kept kissing me.
 
And then the next thing I knew he put his
penis inside of me.
 
And
began pumping on me.”

Trina was getting nervous.
 
She sounded so convincing.
 
It sounded almost true!

“It was horrible,” Cheri went on.
 
“He ripped my gown
off,
he sucked my breasts until they were sore.
 
He was so brutal!
 
I was bleeding
when he finished with me.”

Trina’s heart began to pound.
 
“Are you telling me. .
.
Are you saying that he
raped
you?”

“I’m not going to call it that,” Cheri said, in what
sounded like a different voice.
 
But she
changed on purpose.
 
This was going to be
her trump card.
 
And she had to sell it
right.
 

“You claim he forced himself on you, but he didn’t
rape you?
 
Why wouldn’t you call it
rape?”

“
Because.
. .,” she paused
again, for effect.
 
“Because I enjoyed it
too much,” she said and looked her large eyes at Trina.

Trina swallowed hard.
 
She didn’t understand.
 
“You
enjoyed it?”

“Yes.
 
I
enjoyed it.
 
That’s why it wasn’t rape
anymore.
 
Who enjoys a rape, right?
 
I mean, who does that?
 
And the way Reno made me feel, I would have
let him fuck me all night if he had wanted to.”

Trina’s heart dropped.
 
This woman was crazy!
 

But the crazy woman went on.
 
She could tell she was getting to Trina.
 
She could tell Trina was beginning to believe
her.
 
She knew how good her man was in
bed.
 
Cheri believed Trina understood
exactly what she was talking about.
 
If
she would have said she didn’t enjoy it, Trina would have never believed
her.
 

“He was talking about how much he cared about me and
how badly he had wanted to do this to me for a long, long time.
 
So I kind of enjoyed it.
 
But afterwards I felt awful.
 
It was wrong what we did.
 
It was wrong what he did to you.
 
And I had to tell you about it.”

Trina felt as if she’d been hit by a ton of bricks.
  
She felt blindsided.
 
She was expecting Cheri to come in her office
and declare Reno forced himself on her.
 
She expected her to declare that she was the innocent victim who didn’t
want to go to the authorities, so she came to Trina.
 
But she admitted she enjoyed it?
 
She admitted that she was guilty, too?
 
Trina hadn’t expected that at all!
 

“I don’t believe you,” she finally said, although she
said it a lot weaker and less certain than she had intended.

“Why don’t you believe me?” Cheri asked.
 
She had been expecting initial
resistance.
 
She also expected Trina’s
common sense to overrule her emotional sense and she’d come around to her
side.
 
“Why would I lie on Reno, Trina?”
Cheri went on.
 
“Why would I risk my
entire career on a lie?”

Trina couldn’t even begin to answer that
question.
 
And she wasn’t going to
try.
 
She stood up.
 
“Come with me,” she ordered.

Reno’s office had its usual circus-like atmosphere
with so many managers and assistants competing for his attention that it was a wonder
to Trina the he didn’t go nuts.
 
He sat
on the front edge of his desk, in a fabulous blue periwinkle suit.
 
He had his reading glasses on as he reviewed
a proposal to get Diana Ross and other mega stars at the PaLargio.
 
Trina’s heart started hammering as soon as
she saw him.
 
So many of these women
around here wanted that man right there, and she was beginning to wonder if
some of them, specifically Cheri Dallas, had already had him.

Since she never had to be buzzed in, Reno didn’t even
realize she was in his office until she spoke up.

“Will everybody please leave,” she said.
 
“I need to talk to Reno.”

Since everyone knew who Trina was, they didn’t argue
any points.
 
They began leaving.
 
When Reno looked up and saw that Cheri was
with her, he didn’t argue either.
 

After the office was cleared, and Reno had set the
contracts aside, Trina walked over to him.

“Cheri,” she said, “
tell
Reno what you just told me.”

Although Cheri was far less confident now, she
nonetheless relayed the same story.
 
Including the complete fabrication about the bed and the bleeding.
 
But Reno was actually relieved.
 
Now he knew that she was a liar.
 
Now he knew that Trina was right, and he had
been set up all along.

He listened without any emotion whatsoever as Cheri
went on and on.
 
How brutal he was, she
said.
 
How shocked she was, she
insisted.
 

Trina stared, not at Cheri, but at Reno.
 
She knew how Reno hated lies.
 
She knew how Reno hated to be caught up in
somebody else’s agenda.
 
But when Cheri
finished, he didn’t rail against her.
 
He
remained remarkably calm.
 
He paused and
did nothing at first, and then he removed his reading glasses.

“Here’s the deal,” he said as he folded his glasses
and placed them on his desk.
 
He rubbed
his hand across his tired eyes and then looked at Cheri.
 
“Right at this very moment there are certain
friends of mine at your home.
 
Certain
skillful
friends
of mine.
  
They’ve planted what
will amount to roughly fifty thousand dollars’ worth of cocaine inside of your
home.”

At first there was no reaction from Cheri.
 
Then she frowned.
 
“They planted?
 
What do you mean?” All she could think about
were gardens and flowers.
 
But why would
he be talking about gardens and flowers?
 
And then, when she realized what he was actually saying, she jumped from
her seat, causing the chair to fall back and crash to the floor.
 
Her heart started pounding.
 
“Drugs?
 
They planted drugs?
 
In
my
house?
 
What are
you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about,” Reno said, his
voice measured but his eyes as cold as ice.
 
“And after those drugs are conveniently placed in your home, Miss
Dallas, certain police officers, in response to a certain tip, will
conveniently visit and search your home.
 
And find those specific drugs.
 
All it will take is a phone call from me.”

Cheri was shaking.
 
“You can’t do this to me!
 
You
can’t get away with something like that!
 
What are you talking about?
 
What
are you talking?”

“I’m talking ten to twenty.
 
Fifty grand worth of dope?
 
Oh, yeah, I’m talking at least that.
 
You’re going down.
 
You will soon become Big Bertha’s girlfriend
for at least ten to twenty years.
 
That’s
what I’m talking!”
 
Reno showed his first
flash of anger.

Cheri was now terrified.
 
She began looking around.
 
She began searching for a way out of this
nightmare Reno had just plunged her into.
 
“You can’t,” she said absently.
 
“How can you . . .” Then she looked at Reno.
 
“I don’t understand.”

“You don’t?” Reno asked.
 
“Now suddenly you don’t understand?
 
What, you thought you were going to waltz
into my hotel, tell my wife all of these lies about me raping your ass, and I’m
supposed to cower in a corner and let you get away with that shit?
 
Is that how it was supposed to go?
 
Is that it?
 
You’re out of your
got
damn
mind!
 
Who the fuck you
think you’re dealing with?”

It was at that very moment did Cheri realize who she
was dealing with.
 
He wasn’t just some
businessman.
 
This was Reno Gabrini.
 
The man reputed to be a mob boss.
 
This was the man reputed to have ordered a
hit on Frank Partanna and Pags and Johnny Drago.
 
What in the world was she thinking?
 
How in the world could she have been so
stupid?!
 
She just put herself in all of
this jeopardy over some damn dick!

Reno began pulling out his cell phone.
 
“The cops are waiting for a phone call from
me,” he said.
 
“I give them a call and
it’s over for you, sweetheart.
 
It’s the
end of the line for you.
 
You won’t see
the light of day for many, many years to come.”

“But you won’t get away with it!” Cheri pleaded.
 
“I’ll tell them what you did to me.”

“I didn’t do shit to you and you know it!” Reno
blared.

“But they don’t know it!” Cheri blared back.
 
“I’ll say you raped me.
 
I’ll say you planted those drugs after I said
I was going to the cops.”

“And I’ll deny your charges,” Reno said.
 
And that little line stopped Cheri cold.
 

“But,” Cheri said, far less assured just that
quickly.
 
“They won’t believe you.”

“Why won’t they?” Reno wanted to know.
  
“Especially after I
confess to sleeping with you.”
 
Trina looked at him.
 
“And I’ll
declare it was consensual and a one-night stand and I regret every second of
it.
 
And I’ll even throw in the fact that
I begged my poor wife for forgiveness.
That’ll
 
make
more sense than me raping your
ass.”
 
Then he pointed angrily at
her.
 
“Who the fuck you
think you’re dealing with?”

Cheri felt defeated.
 
Reno showed her his cell phone again.
 
“All it’ll take is one phone call from me,” he said again.

“But I don’t deserve this.
 
What have I done to deserve this, Reno?”

Reno couldn’t believe how clueless she was.
 
“You
lied
on me
woman!
 
You’re accusing me of raping
you!
 
And you don’t get it?
 
You tell my wife the truth now, or I declare
I’ll call those cops without batting an eye.
 
And I don’t bluff, Cheri.
 
You
know that.”

Cheri’s heart felt as if it was pounding out of her
chest.
 
She’d never been this afraid in
her life.
 
She looked to Trina.
 
Trina was a cold bitch, too, but she was
never ruthless like Reno.

But Trina sat on the edge of the desk next to
Reno.
 
There was a time when she would
have felt sorry for Cheri.
 
There was a
time when she would have told Reno to take it easy, and she would have
ran
to Cheri’s defense.
 
But Trina had seen too many people attempt to destroy her husband for
all kinds of twisted reasons that had more to do with them than him.
 
Her days of pity were over.