CHAPTER NINETEEN
He got away from her. But not for long.
Trina’s heart was upstairs with Reno despite how repulsed she felt about what he had told her.
And his lack of contrition! What was that about?
That wasn’t the man she knew. She remembered that time when Reno left her for an entire year because he couldn’t save his son, but yet he’d cavalierly blow up a home that he knew contained innocent children?
Trina couldn’t believe it. She just could not bring herself to believe it.
She slowly climbed the stairs to their bedroom.
When she opened the double doors, Reno had already showered and was stretched out on their bed in a pair of shorts.
Even from where Trina stood, his muscular body looked stretched and veined, as if the tension in his joints were so overworked that they couldn’t relax at all.
Everything was tensed-up. And Reno wasn’t sleep.
She doubted if he would be able to sleep for weeks.
He was laying on his side, with his back to the entrance doors, seeming to stare at the wall.
Reno heard somebody enter, but he didn’t bother to turn and see who it was. His hope was that it was Trina. But he didn’t want to be let down.
It wasn’t until she walked slowly up to the bed and stood there staring down at him, and then she sat on the edge of the bed did he allow himself to turn around and look.
When he saw that it was Trina, he inwardly sighed relief. But that devastated look on her face let him know she still found him disgusting.
For several moments she just sat there. And then she looked at the man she still loved. And always would. No matter what.
But she had questions.
“Make it make sense to me, Reno. You wouldn’t do what you told me downstairs you did. I know you wouldn’t do that. Please make it make sense!”
She had a plea in her voice and in her huge eyes.
She needed a different answer. But Reno didn’t have a different answer to give to her.
And she had to understand that. “When I was still a kid, I was an enforcer in my old man’s syndicate.
I was always a fighter, Tree. I could always bring the brawn.
I even had to nearly kill my own father to get him up off of Jimmy’s mother.
And I hated myself for all of that. Because I saw what I was becoming.
What I could become if I stayed by my old man’s side. So I ran. And ended up in Vegas.”
He let out a harsh exhale. “I was still a kid when I took over the PaLargio. And when I say everybody was trying to take it from me, Tree, I mean everybody. Everywhere I turned, every single day in the beginning, somebody was cooking up yet another scheme to snatch it from me. But I was still that fighter. I was still that enforcer. And I fought back. I fought like hell. But I knew Moose Vatelli and his gang posed the biggest threat to me and mine. He could still back it up even after I had kicked his ass once before. And then I hear about his takeover scheme from my own informants inside his organization. What was I supposed to do? Sit back and see if his scheme worked? Was I supposed to sit back and let him take it from me? Fuck no! I fought back. I did it to him before he had a chance to do it to me.”
“But why didn’t you just gun him down?”
“Because he had heirs, Tree! He had sons. He had a daughter. He had daughters-in-laws. He had grandchildren that were going to grow up and want to avenge what happened to their parents. And they weren’t going to necessarily avenge it on me.
But on my children and my children’s children.
That’s how this shit works. Look at all I had to deal with down through the years over my father’s bullshit that threatened my entire family time and time again?
None of them were innocent. If they were Vatellis, they weren’t innocent.
Just like no Gabrini is innocent in my enemies’ eyes. That’s how this shit works.”
Reno let out another harsh exhale. Trina couldn’t help it. She touched his stomach as it moved in and out from his near-hyperventilating. He was crashing fast and she knew it. “It’s okay, Reno,” she found herself saying.
Tears were in Reno’s eyes. “I hate what I did, Tree. I hate that I was that hard back then. But I was fighting everybody and they hardened an already-hardened young man. The only thing that I protected was family. Everybody else was fair game. That’s how I was. That’s how I had to be.”
Then he tried to calm himself back down. Her touch helped. He looked at her. “But the answer is no,” he said to her.
Trina wondered if she had missed a part of the conversation. “No about what?”
“You asked me if I would do what I did all over again. The answer is no. I should do it to protect me and mine. But I wouldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it. And the fact that another mob family died because of my actions?” He shook his head. “The answer is no. I couldn’t do it all over again, no.”
Trina found herself falling apart too as they stared into each other’s eyes. She hated that it was true. She hated that he did what he had to do. But he did what he had to do. She understood that because she understood him. But that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. It pained her still.
But she understood him. “My poor Reno,” she said with raw emotion as she rubbed the side of his stubby face. And then she fell into his arms.
Reno was so relieved that she could bear to touch him again that he pulled her all the way up until she was laying on top of him. He held her as tightly as he could. He couldn’t let her go.
Then, when they both had calmed back down, Reno lifted her head up so that they would be face to face.
“I never wanna leave you, Tree. You know I don’t.
But Moose is still out there. Ready to do you or my children irreparable harm.
I have to finish the job, Tree. Lydia said Moose knows I was the one who took out his family.
She said he was coming for me. That’s why I have to go get him. I have to finish the job, Tree.”
Trina nodded. “I know you have to finish it, Reno.”
That response surprised him. He stared at her.
“I know you have to do it to him before he does it to you. But all I’m begging you,” Trina continued, “is that you don’t become them.
I married you because you had lines you wouldn’t cross.
Because you only went for them when they came for you and you kept it between the mobsters.
You can’t be Young Reno again. You can’t think like he was thinking.
You can’t wipe out children, too, because they might one day grow up and seek revenge.
Other enemies of your father already did that and they’ll continue to do that.
Are you going to wipe out everybody? It’s not possible.
That’s why you can’t become them. Because if you do,” Trina said, “you won’t have to worry about leaving me.
” She looked him dead in his eyes. “I’ll leave you. ”
Reno suddenly had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach at the mere possibility of Trina leaving him for good. But the fact that she hadn’t left already, and that she seemed open to giving him another chance at being the Reno she knew and loved, was everything to him.
“Promise me you won’t be that Reno ever again,” Trina said. “Promise me you won’t be like him or like them.”
Reno was rubbing her hair and nodding his head. “I promise, Tree. I promise.”
That sincere look in Reno’s eyes was what Trina was looking for, and she finally managed to exhale. Reno was back to her. She felt it in her bones.
Reno felt it too. Their connection, a connection nobody seemed to understand just how deep it ran, was back. And their love, that had never left, was heightened. So much so that Reno looked down at Trina’s lips that he was already missing, and then he kissed her.
And that one kiss, and that one look, was all it took.
Because Trina returned his kiss with fire of her own. They needed that kind of reconnection too.
That was why he was removing her shorts and t-shirt, and she was removing his own shorts, and they became entangled flesh to flesh.
Reno kissed her all over, and fingered her, and mouthed her, and ultimately entered her.
And as soon as he did, her entire body began pulsating from the sensations of his penetration.
She just knew it was going to be a quickie by the intensity of the feelings alone.
But then they held onto each other and fell into a groove.
The sensations were still there, but the urgency wasn’t. They took their time.
They made love-lasting, stress-relieving love.
Because it wasn’t about sex. Trina and Reno were captors of the feelings they felt for each other.
They went from a near-collapsed marriage, to a oneness again.
And the powerfulness of that turnaround fed their lovemaking. And then their passion took over.
So much so that every feeling they felt landed differently.
Every single touch, stroke, gyration felt earth-shattering and electrifying.
Until their slow-drag of a romantic coupling began to pick up steam.
Until they began to move faster and then furiously fast. The urgency returned.
The need to cum consumed them. They were nearly off of the bed from the pounding.
When they finally came, it was a one-two punch. Trina first, and then Reno could hold back no longer and came right behind her with a pouring that saturated them both.
And then they just laid there. They were breathing heavily as sweat beads caused their naked bodies to sparkle. They could barely move.
But Reno held onto Trina as if she was more precious than a trillion dollars. As if she was all he ever wanted from this life. He remained inside of her as they continued to remain where they were, holding onto each other.
It didn’t take long for that sense of don’t let it end, we can’t let it end overtake them again.
And within minutes he was moving inside of her again.
She was arching to the power of his penetration again.
They were cumming again.