Mob Boss 4: Romancing Trina Gabrini (24 page)

“Reno!” Trina yelled in horror and hurried to
the two fighting men.
 
She didn’t even
know Reno was in the building, let alone in some mammoth struggle.

“Break it up!” she was yelling to the young
men.
 
“Break it up!”

And Jason then sprang into action, forcing
other excited youngsters to do the same.
 
And they pulled Reno off of Sully, with both men getting to their
feet.
 

Reno’s expensive silk suit was wrinkled, and
his mouth had a small trickle of blood.
 
He began heading for the exit.
 
“Get your shit,” he said to his wife, “and let’s
go
.”

Trina was concerned, and glanced at a
disheveled Sully, but she did as she was told.
 
Reno didn’t fight people just to fight people.
 
He had to have a reason.

When they made it outside of Ponder, and Reno
walked Trina to her Mercedes, Reno laid down the law. “I don’t want you coming
back here,” he said to her.

Trina frowned.
 
“And why not, Reno?”

“Because I said so.
 
That’s
why not.”

“Because you and Sully got your testosterone
on and decided to fist fight I can’t come here and help these kids?
 
It’s about the kids, Reno.”

“I know what it’s about.
 
You don’t have to tell me that.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“He’s getting a little too close to you for
comfort, that’s all I’m saying about it.”

“That’s it?
 
Because he’s flirty?
 
Reno, Sully flirts with everybody.
 
That’s just him.
 
I can handle that.”

“You aren’t coming back
here,
I don’t care what you can handle.
 
Nobody
disrespects my wife and gets away with it.
 
Nobody!”

“What disrespect?” Trina asked.
 
“What did he say?”

 
“I’m
not repeating that bullshit.”

Trina stared at Reno.
 
He was an emotional man, a man who felt
hard
.
 
And when it came to her, he felt
very
hard
.
 
And she loved him for it.

“I’ll just have to find another worthy cause,”
she said.

Reno looked at her.
 
He had expected more of a fight from her.
 
“So you’re okay with my decision?”

“No, I’m not okay with it.
 
But I know you look out for me.
 
And I trust your judgment.
 
I’ll find something else.”

Reno’s heart swelled.
 
He hated to pull her away from the kids, but
he wasn’t going to keep her around some man who was too into her.
 
He thought he saw it in Sully yesterday, but
he wasn’t sure.
 
Today, when Sully spoke
of her as if he was speaking of his own
woman,
erased
all doubt.
 
Not that he
didn’t understand Sully’s infatuation.
 
He did.
 
But he still wasn’t
allowing it.
 

He pulled her into his arms.
 
“That’s my girl,” he said, heartfelt.

And then Sully came hurrying out of
Ponder.
 
Reno frowned.
 
No that fucker wasn’t asking for more, he
thought.

But Sully, realizing big time his blunder,
came in peace.
 
The youngsters inside of
Ponder were looking out of the windows.
 

Sully had his hands up. “I was out of line,
Reno,” he said as soon as he arrived at their side.
 
“I apologize profusely.
 
I was completely out of line.”

Reno stared at him.
 
What kind of con was this?
 
He’d never known a man to get his ass
whipped, and then apologize.

“You got that right,” Reno said.
 
“You were completely out of line.”

“I know.
 
My ego got ahead of me and I just wanted to prove some point.
 
It was wrong on every level.
 
I would hate to lose your friendship, man,
over something that dumb.
 
And I would
especially hate for these kids to lose Trina because of my stupidity.
 
I couldn’t live with that, Reno.”

Reno thought about it.
 
“Well,” he said, finding it hard to completely
dislike Sully.
 
“Maybe I overreacted a
little bit.”

Trina smiled.
 
“Please tell me what you said, Sully, that caused Reno’s overreaction?”

“It’s too silly, Tree,” Sully said.

“Just tell me.”

Sully flushed embarrassed.
 
Reno, however, had no such problem. “He
intimated that his plumbing worked better than mine,” he said.

Trina shook her head.
 
Men, she thought.
 
“Impossible, Sully,” she said with a
smile.
 
“Impossible.”

Sully found himself smiling, too, and soon
Reno joined in.
 
“We actually fought over
something that dumb?” he said out loud.

“That’s what we fought over.
 
And I got your point, Reno, about the other
part of it.
 
I get it.”

“What other part?” Trina asked, but neither
man was willing to go that deep.

Sully extended his hands.
 
“Friends again?” he asked Reno.

“As long as you don’t get it twisted, yeah,”
Reno said, shaking his hand.
 
“We’re
friends.”

But neither one of them was as relieved as
Trina.
 
She enjoyed jogging with Sully,
and talking to him, and working at his center with some of the finest young
people she’d ever met.
 
She was relieved
without question.

But so was Sully.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Over the next several weeks, Trina and Sully became
fast friends who completely enjoyed the other’s company.
 
Every morning they jogged along the Blue
Ridge lakefront in Crane, and then around the old, closed down steel mill, and
then back to the Ponder Street Community Center.
 
Every day that Trina arrived
at Ponder, Sully, whose real estate office was next door, made it his business
to spend a significant part of his day there with her.
 

Their closeness became so obvious that the
young people at Ponder started calling Trina Miss Sully behind her back.
 
Sully loved it, but never bothered to mention
it to Trina, or correct the youngsters’ impression.

But one morning, during their routine morning
jog, Sully almost went too far. He was back into Reno’s good graces, and he had
Reno’s trust.
 
He knew where Reno
stood.
 
But as they took their daily
break against the out building behind the steel mill, he decided to push that
envelope and see where Trina stood.

Trina drank her water and patted her forehead
with the back of her band-encased forearm.
 
When she looked back up, Sully was pulling a small, wrapped gift from
his fanny pack and handed it to her.

“What’s this?” she asked him.

“Happy birthday,” he said.

Trina frowned.
 
“But it’s not my birthday,” she said, handing it back.

Sully refused to take it back.
 
“It will be in a few months, right?”
 

Trina smiled.
 
“A few months, Sully?”

“Indulge me, all right?” he asked. “You’re my
friend.
 
I wanted to do something nice
for my friend.”

Trina was reluctant, but she opened the
gift.
 
It was a beautiful, and expensive,
gold tennis bracelet.
  
She looked at the
bracelet, and then looked at Sully.
 
“I
can’t accept this,” she said.

“Why not?”
Sully asked.
 
“It’s for your birthday.”

“Nope,” Trina said, putting it back into the
box.
 
“I can’t accept this.”
 
She handed it to Sully.

“But why, Tree?”

“Why do you think, Sully?
 
I’m not trying to be funny, but Reno already
kicked your ass for trying to come onto me.
 
He won’t be so lenient the next time.”

“So you’re saying I can’t give my friend a
birthday gift?”

“I’m saying your friend’s husband, who is also
your friend, doesn’t want you or any other man giving his wife gifts.
 
Reno doesn’t play
that,
you should know that by now.”

Sully hesitated.
 
Now was when he found out if he was going to
be able to woo her the normal way.
 
“Who
says Reno has to ever know?” he asked her.

Trina looked at him.
 
“Go to hell,” she said angrily.

Sully’s heart dropped.
 
“I didn’t mean---”

“He’s my husband, and you’re my friend.
 
You have his confidence now, Sul, but I’ll
snatch it away myself if you ever again suggest I go behind his back---”

“That’s not what I was suggesting.”

“Then what were you suggesting?
 
You were telling me to accept some gift from
a man and not tell my husband.
 
I don’t
do that, Sul.
 
And I’m telling you, Reno doesn’t
play that.
 
We can be friends, but that’s
absolutely all we’ll ever be.
 
I thought
Reno made that clear to you already.”

“He did.”
 
He put the gift away.
 
“Boneheaded
move,” he said.
 
“Won’t
happen again.”

Trina smiled.
 
“I’m used to guys coming onto me.
 
But I expect more from my friends.”

“Understood,” Sully said.
 
“Won’t happen again.”

“Now,” she said, standing erect.
 
“Ready to finish what we
started?”

And she took off running.
 
“You’re cheating!” Sully yelled, as he took
off after her, his heart pounding.
 

He was making too many mistakes, he
thought.
 
Far too many.
 
He had to tighten it up or lose it all, he
decided.

Dirty, too, felt as if he was getting nowhere
fast.
 
He continued to work with the
bartending staff, and hang out with Jannie and the rest of the staff, but Drago
kept the pressure on him for results.
 
But he couldn’t find a thing.
 
There was no heat on Reno.
 
There was
no other reason for Reno to relocate to Georgia, except what Reno said all
along: he and his wife needed a change.

But Dirty’s luck changed several weeks after
his arrival in Crane.
 
Although Reno had
warned him about cheating on Fran, Dirty didn’t heed the warning and would fool
around with Jannie Winthrop every chance he could.
 
One night, after banging the shit out of her,
he received an unexpected gift.
 

They were laying side by side, both exhausted,
and
Dirty
was unfulfilled.
 
He knew the sex wouldn’t be great with
Jannie, because it never was.
 
But damn.
It wasn’t even good on this night.
 
Early
on he had wanted to be with Darla, but she had turned his advances down
cold.
 
That only left eager beaver
Jannie, who gladly agreed to meet him at the motel.
 
Especially after she learned that he wasn’t
just some random bartender helping Barkley and his crew, but that he was Reno’s
brother-in-law.
 
They hooked up
practically every night.

But she was a talker.
 
A big talker.
 
And would go on and on about their co-workers
as if she despised them all.
 
Dirty would
nearly fall asleep when she
laid
their gossiping.
 
Until she said something that caught
Dirty’s
attention.
 
He
was about ready to tell her that it was late and she probably should be on her
way, when she mentioned Nell Ridgeway and how she, to her credit, never got
caught up in anybody’s drama.
 
Except
that “mess” about her son,
which was old news now.