Reno's Gift (Mob Boss Series) (13 page)

“A
cyclop, Dad?” Jimmy asked between laughs.
 
“Cyclops are known to have three eyes.
 
They aren’t known to have a bad limp.”

“What
fucking ever!” Reno yelled.
 
“I don’t see
how you can find this humorous.”

“Oh,
Reno,” Trina said with great endearment.
 
“We were just playing, honey.”

Reno
looked at her.
 
She was smiling too.
 
“Playing?
 
You were just playing?
 
I’m having
a heart attack over here and you’re playing?”

Reno
was inwardly smiling, pleased that his wife and son could still surprise him,
but he wasn’t about to let them know that.
 
He began unbuckling his belt.

“Okay,
I got your play right here,” he said as he began to remove the belt from around
his waist.
 
“I got your play right here!”

Trina
yelped and jumped up as Reno took that belt and swung it toward her.
 
Although he purposely missed her, she didn’t
know it.
 
It was her time now to be
alarmed.
 
“Reno!” she yelled. “What are
you doing?”

“I’m
playing,” he said seriously as he ran her around the living room.
 
“You wanna play, don’t you?
 
You wanna have some fun at the old man’s
expense, don’t you?
 
And what are you
laughing at?” He said this to Jimmy, who was enjoying his parents run.
 
But when Jimmy realized he was about to get
it too, he jumped from the chair.

“But
Pop, it was a joke!” he proclaimed as Reno slung the belt and barely missed
him.
 
Reno had him on the run too.
 
Dommi was laughing and clapping his hands,
forgetting all about the Hulk.
 
He was
having the time of his life.
 

And
Reno kept pursuing them.
 
He didn’t stop
running them around that house until he had the fear of Reno back in their
hearts.
 
Then he stopped when he no
longer had the energy to continue.
 
He
put back on his belt, and headed for the kitchen.

“What’s
for supper?” he asked as he walked, as if he hadn’t chased a soul.

Trina
and Jimmy, both exhausted and scared, looked at each other.
 
Trina’s hair was standing on top of her head
and Jimmy had a migraine coming on.
 
How
could such an innocent, nothing joke go so very wrong, they wondered.
 
It was as if they realized, as they should
have already known, that Reno was not the one to play with.
 
They were both embarrassed and enlightened by
that realization.

Reno,
however, was in the kitchen laughing his heart out.
 
They got him good, he thought.
 
But he got them better.
   

FOUR

Tommy
Gabrini hated doing it, but this was his first time in France since the news
broke, and he knew he had to personally let her know.

She
had arrived early, he noticed, as the Maître D escorted him to her table.
 
And she was a striking woman to notice.
 
She was one of those extremely talented
African-American supermodels who made a killing in Europe, but could barely
find work at home.
 
So she packed up and
left America for good and made her home, and a very good living, abroad.
 
Whenever Tommy was on business in England,
he’d cross the Channel to Morlaix and hook up with her.
 
This was his first time seeing her in nearly
a year.

“Tommy!”
she said cheerfully with her exaggerated French accent as he approached her
table.
 
She stood up to greet him, and
they kissed cheek to cheek.
 
She wanted
more, much more, but she was a patient girl.
 
They weren’t meeting in a hotel lounge by accident.
 
A room with a view, thanks to her careful
planning, awaited them upstairs.

“It’s
simply amazing,” she said as he held her chair for her to sit back down and
then walked around to his own chair.
 
“You get better looking every time I see you.
 
Every single time.
 
How is this possible?”

Tommy
smiled warily and took a seat in front of her.
 
She wasn’t going to make this easy, and he was prepared for that.
 
What he wasn’t prepared for was his reaction
to her.
 
Because he certainly had
one.
 
She was still that beautiful
Cat.
 
Tall and slender, with that
gorgeous dark-chocolate skin and those African lips that used to work magic all
over him.
 
He was throbbing at just the
sight of her.

After
placing his drink order, a Scotch and soda, same as hers, and the waiter left
to fulfill that order, he leaned forward.
 
He wasn’t a man who mixed words, and he wasn’t about to start now.

“I’m
getting married, Cathy,” he said to her.

She
had been reaching for a nut from the snack tray when he said those words.
 
Her hand stopped mid-reach as if she didn’t
understand what he was saying.
 
And then
her eyes showed complete understanding.
 
“You’re
what
?”

“I’m
getting married.”

Cathy,
known across Europe now as Caterina, suddenly felt offended.
 
It wasn’t the words as much as the way he
said those words that got to her.
 
He
said them so casually, as if he didn’t care how devastating they sounded to
her.
 
Hey,
how are you doing, isn’t it nice outside, I’m getting married, pass the butter.
 

“And
when did this happen?” she asked him.

Tommy
exhaled.
 
“I proposed not long ago.”

“
You
proposed?
 
And to whom did you propose?
 
I thought after Shanks your proposing days
were over.”

“I
know,” he said with a knowing nod.
 
“I
thought so too.”

“Then
who is this woman?
 
Who is she, Tommy?”

Tommy
hesitated.
 
For some reason he had an
aversion to mentioning Grace’s name in the presence of his former ladies.
 
But he and Cat went back a long way.
 
She stood by him when his former fiancé,
ShoShawna Shanks, gave him all kinds of fits, and she was a sympathetic ear after
their break-up.
 
She deserved straight
answers.
 
“Her name is Grace,” he said.

“Ah.
 
Grace.
 
How charming.”
  
She said this
with no charm at all.
 
She said this
without even pretending to hide her bitterness.
 
“And who is this Grace?
 
Where did
she come from?
 
You never mentioned any
Grace before.
 
When did you meet her?”

Her
questions were now fast and furious.
 
But
Tommy kept it measured, steady.
 
He used
to think these kind of open relationships were the way to go, and the only kind
to have.
 
But Grace was right.
 
They were the most dishonest of all
relationships because as soon as the party was over, and one of the
participants was ready to move on, everything changed.
 
Suddenly people were staking claims that they
had shunned before, and the emotional wreckage it all had wrought staggered
Tommy still.
 
Now it was Cathy’s
time.
 
And because of the long history he
shared with her, it was tough. One of his toughest.

“I
met her a year ago,” he said.

“A
year ago?” Cathy’s voice was now laced with spite.

“About
that,” Tommy said, studying her and her quickly changed mood.
 
“Yes.”

“I
see.
 
A year ago.
 
That is strange to me.
 
Something about that is not right to me.
 
How can it be that I’ve been with you for a
dozen years, a dozen years, Tommy, but you won’t refer to me as so much as your
girlfriend in mix company?
 
Yet this
trollop called Grace pops onto the scene two minutes ago, pops up out of
nowhere, and you put a ring on it?”

The
waiter returned with his drink, and then asked if they were ready to order.

“Not
yet,” Tommy said and, once the waiter left, sipped from his glass of Scotch and
then looked at Cathy.
 
“You knew what our
relationship was about, Cat,” he said, staring her directly in the eyes.
 
“You knew it was an open relationship with no
strings whatsoever.”

“I
know that.
 
Of course I knew it.
 
I understand how we started.
   
But it’s been twelve years, Tommy.
 
When I first made love to you, I was
twenty-five years old.
 
I had my entire
life in front of me.
 
Now I’m
thirty-seven years old, can barely find A-list gigs because I’m perceived as
too old in the industry, and things change, don’t you see?
 
I’ve changed.
 
We’ve
changed.”
 
Her eyes were now bright with unshed
tears.
 
“How can you do such a thing to
me?
 
If you wanted to get married, if you
wanted a wife to settle down with, why didn’t you ask me?”

Tommy
frowned.
 
“What are you talking
about?
 
We didn’t have that kind of. .
.What are you talking, Cat?
 
We had a
friendship, yes, a good one, I thought, and we had sex.
 
But that was all we had.
 
I wasn’t going to ask you to marry me any
more than you would have accepted if I had.
 
What are you doing?”

It
seemed to Tommy that she didn’t know what she was doing.
 
She had more than a few men in her stable
still, just as he, until he met Grace, had more than a few women in his.
 
Neither one of them were marriage
material.
 
One of the main reasons that
he chose Grace above all of those wonderfully sophisticated and experienced
women, was because she was.
 

“So,”
Cathy said, sitting erect and fighting back any more embarrassing tears.
 
“When is the big day?”

Tommy
exhaled.
 
“In a few months,” he said.

“Where?
 
In Seattle?”

Tommy
hesitated.
 

Cathy
smiled, or, at least, attempted to.
 
“Don’t worry,” she said.
 
“I won’t
show up and demand you marry me, instead.
 
I’ll never be that desperate.”

Tommy
felt foolish for even thinking it.
 
“Vegas,” he said.

“Ah,
yes.
 
The PaLargio, right?
 
Reno?”

“Right.”

“So
the renovations are complete?
 
I thought
it was pretty well shattered after that explosion.”

“Part
of it was, yes.
 
The casino area mainly.
But it’s on its way back.
 
Reno expects
to have a grand reopening in about three months.”

“Ah.
 
Just in time for the wedding.”

“If
all goes well, yes.”

Cathy
nodded her head but Tommy could tell she was no longer invested.
 
It was a done deal as far as she was
concerned, and it saddened her.
 
She
looked at Tommy.
 
He always had the
bluest eyes.
 
He always had the brightest
smile.
 
He always was the only man to
make her feel as if she was more than just a piece on the side.
 
When, in truth, that was all she ever was to
him too.

She
grabbed her Dior bag and rose to her feet.
 
Tommy, surprised by her sudden move, stood too.

“You’re
leaving?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“At
least have dinner with me, Cat.”

“No,”
she said firmly.
 
“I’ve wasted enough
time with you.”
 
Then she leaned over,
and hugged him around his neck with one hand, while kissing him gently on the
cheek.
 
But then the tears attempted to
return, and she just stood there, still holding on.
 

Tommy
put his arms around her, too.
 
He was
sorry.
 
He didn’t mean to hurt her, just
as he didn’t mean to hurt all of his other “open relationship” females he had
broken the news to.
 
But he couldn’t duck
the truth.
 
He was marrying Grace
McKenzie, that was all there was to it, and he felt he owed his regulars at
least a face-to-face notification.