Reno's Gift (Mob Boss Series) (14 page)

None
of those notifications went well.
 

And
this one, because of the long history, was especially painful.

When
they stopped embracing, Cathy stared into his deep-set eyes.
 
She patted his coat lapel and marveled at his
trim, muscular frame.
 
She had thought,
after Shanks, that she stood a chance with him.
 
That maybe, when he returned to France, they could discuss their
relationship in more definitive terms.
 
But it was not to be.

She nodded
her head.
 
“It’s going to happen, Tommy.”

Tommy
hesitated.
 
He could sense what she
meant.
 
“What’s going to happen?” he
asked her.

“You’re
going to know how it feels one of these days.”

He
continued to stare at her.
 
He knew where
she was going with this, he just preferred that she didn’t go there.
 
But she did.
 

“She’s
going to break your heart,” she said as if it was a foregone conclusion.
 
“You’ve broken too many hearts, far too many,
for somebody not to break yours.
 
Shanks
didn’t do it.
 
You rebounded too
quickly.
 
But this Grace, this woman you
thought enough of to ask her to share your name, is going to be the one.”
 
Then the tears couldn’t hold back any longer.
 
“She has to be,” Cathy was barely able to
add.
  

And
then she hurried, like a woman realizing for the first time that her dreams
might not come true, out of the lounge.

Tommy
stared at her as she left, and his heart was conflicted.
 
But then he paid the ticket, left a tip, and
began a slow walk to the exit.
 
His cell
phone rang as he walked.
 
When he saw
that it was Sal, he answered right away.

“What’s
up?” he asked his brother.

“Hate
to bother you big brother but there’s a situation I figure you’d want to know
about.”

“A
situation?”

“Yeah.”

“Involving?”

“Grace,”
Sal said and Tommy stopped walking.
 
His
heart hammered against his chest.
 

“Grace?”
he asked his brother.

“Afraid
so.”

“What
happened?
 
Is she alright?”

“She’s
all right,” Sal said.
 
“At least
physically she’s fine.”

Tommy
began walking again.
 
“Only physically?”

“Afraid
so.
 
The bastard at least had the decency
to shoot himself rather than her.”

Tommy
was now outside, in the parking lot.
 
“Sal, tell me what happened.”

“Grace
was having dinner with this guy she says is called Cameron.”

“Cameron?
 
Cameron Birch?”

“That’s
the one.
 
Her ex-boyfriend or something
like that.
 
But they were talking and
then she stood up to leave.
 
And then
that fucker stood up too and blew his brains out.
 
Right in front of Grace he blew his brains
out.”

Tommy
felt faint.
 
His poor Grace.
 
“Where is she now?”

“The
cops are interviewing her.
 
But Tommy
here’s the clincher: the dude decides to pull his little stunt right in one of
your restaurants
 
In Diamante’s.”

But
Tommy couldn’t care less about the location.
 
He was too worried about his lady.
 
“Put Grace on the phone,” he said.

“I
told you the cops are talking to her now.”

“I
don’t care if the president is talking to her now.
 
Put her on the phone.
 
I have to hear her voice.”

Sal
exhaled.
 
He knew there was no changing
Tommy’s mind when he made it up.
 
“Hold
on,” he said.

And
Tommy did hold on.
 
With both hands.
 
His heart was a torrent of pain.
 
He pulled out a second cell phone, his
business only line, and speed dialed his pilot.

“Ready
the plane, Jeffrey,” he said into the phone.
 
“I want to pull out as soon as you can get it ready.”

“Where
to?”

“Home,”
Tommy said.
 
And then Grace was on his
personal cell phone.

“I’m
all right, Tommy,” she said.

Tears
came into Tommy’s eyes when he heard her voice.
 
He could hear the strain and the emotional drain in her words.
 
“Sure you’re okay?” he asked her.

“I’m
positive.
 
Please don’t worry.
 
I’m fine.
 
I’m talking with the police now.
 
We’ll talk later.”

“Okay,”
Tommy said, although he wanted to say so much more.
 
And then Sal was back on the line.

“She’s
upset that I called you,” he said.
 
“But
I told her tough.
 
You’re my brother,
she’s your lady.
 
You had a right to
know.”

“Damn
straight,” Tommy said.

“So
what’s the game plan?”

“The
plane is getting prepped now.
 
I’m going to
head back.”

“That’s
what I’m talking about.
 
She keeps saying
she’s all right, but a fragile girl like Grace can’t witness a thing like that
and be all right.”

“You
stay with her.
 
I don’t care how much she
complains.
 
You stay with her.”

“Don’t
worry.
 
A complaining female never
stopped me yet.”

Tommy
would have smiled.
 
Sal could always
cheer him up.
 
But not this time.”

Gemma
Jones watched Fran as she walked around the store looking for that perfect
outfit.
 
Trina was also behind the
counter at Champagne’s, and was watching too.
 
This was early afternoon, and there was a lull in the day.
 
Gemma glanced at Trina, and then continued to
look at Fran.

“Jody
called,” she said to Tree.

“Oh,
yeah?”

Gemma
looked at Trina.
 
“He said Reno fired him
yesterday.
 
I said that wasn’t
possible.
 
He said it was true.
 
Reno fired him.
 
Not you, certainly not me, but Reno.
 
I didn’t know Reno was a partner in this
business, Tree.”

“He’s
not,” Trina said.
 
“He and Jody have an
acrimonious history and it played out yesterday.
 
That’s all.”

“But
the fact still remains Reno fired him.”

“I
fired him,” Trina said, looking her friend dead in the eyes.
 

“You
fired him because Reno made you fire him.
 
But we’ve got to get that straight, Tree.
 
I know what kind of a
take charge
man Reno is.
 
But
he can’t take charge of Champagne’s.
 
He
can’t have charge of this.”

“Now
you just hold on there for a minute,” Trina made clear.
 
“My husband has enough on his plate, believe
me.
 
He doesn’t want to take charge of
this.
 
But you need to understand one
thing.
 
He does have charge over me.
 
And if he doesn’t want Jody around me, Jody’s
not going to be around me.
 
So I fired
him, yes, I did.
 
But it was my
decision.”

“I
don’t get you,” Gemma said, a puzzled look on her beautifully dark face.
 
“You are one of the toughest broads I
know.
 
I have seen you go toe to toe with
some of the meanest men I’ve ever met.
 
But yet Reno tells you to jump, and you don’t even question it.
 
You don’t even ask how high.
 
You just jump.
 
What’s up with that?”

Now
it was Trina’s time to be puzzled.
 
“What
do you mean what’s up with it?
 
Reno is
my husband.”

“So!
 
Does that mean you have to do whatever he
tells you to do?”

“Yes,
it does!
 
Now if Reno was a husband I
couldn’t trust, or a man who doesn’t handle his business, then yeah, I might
have to take more control of our marriage.
 
But Reno ain’t that dude.
 
He
handles his business and he handles his wife.
 
If I didn’t want a man like that I shouldn’t have married him.”

“So
you wanted a man to handle you?”

“In a
way, yeah.
 
I want my man to be in
charge.
 
I want to be pampered sometimes
and treated like a queen, hell yeah I do.
 
I don’t see where that makes me weak and insufficient.
 
Compared to other women I think I’m a
got
damn boulder.
 
But compared to Reno, I’m not even a rock.”

“Nobody’s
handling me like that, I don’t care how tough they are,” Gemma said.
 
“I’m in charge of myself and he’ll be in
charge of himself.
 
Fifty-fifty baby or
nothing at all.
 
And if that’s not good
enough for his ass then we can always do a seventy-five/twenty-five split.”

“Let
me guess: you’ll be the seventy-five?”

“You’d
better believe it.”

Trina
shook her head.
 
Gemma was dreaming if
she thought a strong man was going to let her run the show like that.
 
“And how’s that working out for you?” she
asked her.

Gemma
looked at her.
 
And then she smiled.
 
“You’re wrong for that, Tree,” she said.

“No,
now, answer the question,” Trina said with a smile of her own.
 
“You’re Miss Seventy-five percent.
 
Where’s this man who allows you to run the show?
 
Show him to me.
 
And I’ll show you a man who also runs behind
your skirt when trouble comes.
 
And I’m
not messing with you.
 
Some women don’t
like alpha males.
 
I’m just not one of
them.”

“I
like alpha males,” Gemma pointed out.
 
“But
they’d better like an alpha female or they won’t like me.”

Trina
had to laugh at that one.
 
“True that,”
she said as she laughed.

When
the laughter died down, Trina turned serious again.
 
“So what did you say to Jody?”

“I
told him I couldn’t help him.
 
We can’t
let anybody play one of us against the other one. So I wasn’t about to get
involved, no matter how it went down yesterday.
 
We’ll just have to find another accountant.”

Trina
smiled.
 
She truly loved Gemma Jones.

And
because they were on one accord, the rest of the day went as well as the
morning.
 
Fran hung around laughing and
talking, as they knew she would, and the day went by.
 
Until late afternoon, when the boutique’s
door opened and Belle Patrone stepped inside.

Belle
walked around the boutique in a slow paced, nothing-but-time-on-her-hands
wandering gait.
 
She kept glancing over
at Trina, who was serving a customer, and Gemma, who was ringing up another
customer.
 
When both customers had
finally left the store, and Trina was now behind the counter with Gemma and
Fran, Belle grabbed a blouse she had been eyeing and made her way to the cash
register.

“Hi,”
Trina said as she accepted the blouse, and moved to ring it up.

“Hi,”
Belle said, pulling the coins out of her Michael Kors handbag.
 
“You have lovely clothes in this boutique.”

“Thank-you,”
Trina said as she rang up the sale.
 
“Thank-you very much.”

Belle
looked at the amount- eight hundred and forty-nine dollars- and pulled out her
Discover card and handed it to Trina. Trina swiped the card while Gemma bagged
the blouse.

Belle
accepted the bag and then her card and receipt.
 
She smiled and began putting her card back into her purse.
 
But just before she was about to take her
leave, she looked again at Trina.