Reno's Gift (Mob Boss Series) (8 page)

But
it wasn’t only that.
 
Reno saw the man
behind the wheel.
 
That, for him, was the
troubling part.
 
It wasn’t that his wife
was in a car with another man.
  
It was
the fact that his wife was in a car with
Jody
Parks
.
 
Of all people.
 
“What the fuck,” he said again.

Reno
knew Jody Parks.
 
They went way
back.
 
Jody used to work for him for many
years before Reno was forced to get rid of him a few months back.
 
He was a tall, handsome, strapping black man,
and when he worked at the PaLargio he and Trina became fast friends.
 
But when he left the PaLargio Reno had
ordered her to stay clear of the guy.
 
Now she was sitting in his show car talking her ass off as if Reno’s
word didn’t mean shit to her.
  
As if he
hadn’t told her a damn thing.
 

His
blood began to boil.

Lee, however,
was still on the phone attempting to regain his boss’s attention.
 
“Reno?
 
Reno, are you there?
 
Reno?”

“I’ll
call you back,” Reno said to Lee and hung up the phone.
 

When
he moved to get out of the car, his eyes still trained on Trina, his buckled
seatbelt stopped his progression.
 
He
then angrily unbuckled the belt as if it had stopped him on purpose, and Jimmy
became concerned enough to touch him on the arm.

“Calm
down, Pop,” he said.
 
“You don’t wanna
cause a scene in front of her store.”

Reno
did take a moment to calm himself back down.
 
Because Jimmy was right.
 
He was
going to kick his wife’s ass right in front of her own clothing boutique if he
didn’t calm himself back down.

After
calming down as well as he could, he got out of the car.
 
With Jimmy right behind him, he began walking
deliberately slow toward the Maserati, his eyes unwavering as he stared at Jody
and Trina.
 
Jody had his hand on the back
of Trina’s headrest, and was looking at her intensely, as if sitting beside her
just made his day; as if he was sitting in the catbird’s seat and Trina was his
prey.

And
that was the problem for Reno.
 
It was
never about Trina running out and cheating on him.
 
He knew his wife.
 
He knew she only had eyes for him.
 
But it was those bozos that greeted her
whenever she went out; those bozos like that fellow in that car, that worried
Reno.
 
Because they wanted what he
had.
 
Trina might only have eyes for him,
but those lust-thirsty bastards had eyes for her.
 
And Reno knew it.
 
He knew what a special lady did to a
man.
 
He knew what it was like to crave a
woman.
 
Even a married woman in
love.
 
They knew how to be attentive and
oh-so-kind, and to wait patiently for just that right moment when there was
trouble in paradise, and then they’d pounce.
 

But
that didn’t mean he was giving Trina’s ass a pass either, he thought, as he and
his son made their way to the car.
 
He
was definitely going to deal with her.
 
Definitely.
 
But when he saw Jody
take his hand from behind her headrest and place it on her shoulder, as if he
was already getting impatient with the progress, Reno’s deliberation became
deliberate speed.
 
Trina always joked
that Reno walked in that one-leg-slung-out-in-front-of-the-other-leg motion as
if his dick was too heavy to carry, but he knew she would change her tune if
she saw how quickly he made it up to that car right now.

Reno
could hear them laughing at some joke as he approached.
 
They were so into each other, it seemed to
Reno, that neither one of them saw or heard him until he was literally standing
at Trina’s door.

Although
Trina was surprised and, he also noticed, a little annoyed to see him, it was
the man, playing the big man in Reno’s opinion, that spoke first.

“May
I help you?” Jody asked.

“May
you
help
me
?” Reno responded with incredulity in his voice, as if he
couldn’t believe the nerve of that guy.
 
“Yeah, you can help me, pal.
 
You
can help me by taking your hand off of my wife.
 
That’s how you can help me.”

Jody
Parks immediately removed his sunglasses.
 
“Oh, Reno,” he said with a smile.
 
“I didn’t recognize you.”

Reno
knew better than that, but he let it slide.
 
Especially since Jody immediately removed
 
his hand from Trina’s shoulder.

“It’s
been a minute since I last saw you, man.
 
What’s up, Ree?”

“I
could ask you that same question,” Reno said.
 
“What’s up with you?
 
What’s your
problem?”

Jody’s
smile left.
 
He took exception to Reno’s
tone.
 
“We were just talking, man,” he
pointed out.

“Talking
and touching, yeah, I can see that.”

“Reno,”
Trina quickly interrupted before the testosterone overtook both men.
 
Then she, too, had to calm back down.
 
She wasn’t exactly thrilled to see that Reno
was “checking” on her again.
 
She looked
at her husband.
 
“What are you doing
here?”

“What
is Parks doing here, that’s what I wanna know?”

“What
is that supposed to mean?
 
We were going
over the books and decided to take a break and go to lunch.
 
Jody’s our accountant now,” she said.

“Your
accountant?”

“Yes,
Reno,” Jody said.
 
“I own my own
accounting firm, remember?
 
That’s the
department I ran for you.
 
Accounting.
 
Or have you
forgotten?
 
But then age does that to
you, doesn’t it?”

Trina
looked at her companion.
 
“Watch it,
Jody,” she said.
 
“That’s my husband
you’re talking to.”

Jody
quickly put on his best charming smile and threw his hands in the air.
 
“Just joking,” he said.

“Yeah,”
Reno said as he began opening the passenger door.
 
“I’ve got your jokes, all right.”
 
Then he looked at his wife.
 
“Let’s go,” he said.

She
looked at him.
 
“What?”

“Out.
 
Now,” he ordered.

“But we’re
still talking.”

“I
said get the fuck out now!
 
What part of
that don’t you understand, Trina?
 
Now
means now!”

Trina
was angry by Reno’s heavy-handedness, especially in front of somebody she
considered a friend.
 
But she wasn’t
about to mix it up with her own husband in front of anybody, especially since
she knew she would lose that battle every time.
  
She got out of the car.

“I
can at least finish my work on the books I hope,” Jody said to her as she
decamped.

“Yes,”
Trina started to say, but Reno interrupted her.

“No,
you cannot,” he said.
 
“Your services at
this boutique are no longer necessary.”

Trina
was livid.
 
It was one thing for Reno to
handle her, but he had no right handling her business.

“You’re
out of line, Reno,” she said forcefully.
 
“Who we hire to do our books at Champagne’s has nothing to do with
you.
 
You have no right to tell me who I
can and cannot hire.”

“Well
guess what?
 
I’m telling you,” Reno
said.
 
“Jody Parks will not be doing the
books for Champagne’s.
 
End of
discussion.”
 
Then Reno looked at
Jody.
 
“Get the fuck away from my wife
and stay the fuck away from her!” He said this and then slammed the car door
shut.

It
was obvious that Jody didn’t like it.
 
The way he stared at Reno now, without so much as giving Trina a second
look, made that clear.
 

“What
says you, Tree?” Jody asked her, although he was still staring at Reno.
 
“Nobody respects a puppet.
 
Are you your husband’s puppet?”

Jimmy
looked at Trina.
 
She was nobody’s
puppet, but Reno ruled their nest.
 
He
ruled their family.
 
There was no doubt
about that.

Trina
stared at Reno.
 
He never did anything
unless there was a darn good reason for it, although she couldn’t see the
reason here.
 
But she knew Reno.

She
looked at Jody.
 
“Thanks for what you’ve
done so far, Joe,” she said.
 
“But we can
take it from here.”

And
those words alone slapped the smile off of Jody’s face.
 
He had expected fireworks from Trina.
 
She didn’t let anybody handle her.
 
But she wasn’t going along.

“Have
a good day,” she said to him.

“Have
a good one yourself,” he said to her and then, as if to prove some point, put
his car in gear and drove off in a jerk, putting an extra spin on his tires as
he did.

Reno
looked at Trina with such anger that he could hardly contain himself.
 
She looked at him with such anger that she
could hardly contain herself.
 
But they
were at the front door of the boutique and customers were coming out and going
in.
 
This was not the place.
 
But Trina knew, by Reno’s look alone, that he
was all but telling her that if she didn’t want a scene that she’d better get
them to a private place, and to get them there right now.

She
led him into the high-end boutique without saying a word.
 
Jimmy followed behind them, keeping his
distance from them on purpose.
 
He knew
his parents.
 
He knew when it was going
to be all-out war.

Gemma
Jones, who co-owned the boutique along with Trina and Liz Mertan, another
friend, was near the back of the store assisting a customer.
 
She looked up when Reno and Tree entered, but
neither of them looked her way.
 
They,
instead, headed toward the side stairs that led to the upstairs office.
 
Jimmy, however, headed toward her.

“Hey,
Jimmy, how you doing?” Gemma asked him.

“I’m
doing good.
 
And you?”

“I’m
okay,” she said as she watched Tree and Reno.
  
She’d seen the activity outside.
 
She saw when Jody and Trina arrive in Jody’s Maserati, and she could
tell, by Reno’s body language alone, how displeased he was.
 
As an attorney in town, Gemma occasionally
did legal work for Reno.
 
She knew
him.
 
“They okay?” she asked Jimmy.

“Yeah,
sure,” he said.
 
“They just need to talk,
that’s all.”

Gemma
appreciated Jimmy’s loyalty to his parents, but she was nobody’s fool.
 
Reno was hot.
 
She knew him.
 
Trina was hot.
 
She knew her.
 
And that was why she didn’t bother to say hello, or to say anything to
either one of them, as they headed upstairs.

The
upstairs was mainly the storage unit for the store, with an office in the far
back.
 
Trina and Reno made their way to
that office.
 
Trina was walking steadily,
with Reno just behind her. And even though he was so angry with her he could
strangle her, he was unable to stop himself from checking her out as they
walked. She had, in Reno’s estimation, one of the finest figures he’d ever
seen.
 
Everything was the way he wanted
it to be.
 
Her shoulders were small, her
waist was narrow, her ass was round and firm.
 
And her brown legs were so smooth and shapely that he could hardly wait
to put his hands on them again.
 
And the
idea that a prick like Jody Parks would have his grubby hands on any part of
that fine body, even if it was only her shoulder, angered him even more.

Once
inside the office, and once Reno closed the door behind them, Trina began
walking toward the desk.
 
But Reno
grabbed her by the arm, and slung her back against the door.