A MOB BOSS CHRISTMAS: THE PREGNANCY (MOB BOSS SERIES) Read online

  “What happened?” she asked as she fell on her knees beside Dirty. “Richie, what happened?”

  Dirty began to get up. Fran tried to help him but he snatched away from her grasp.

  “What happened, Richie?” she asked again.

  “I slipped, nothing happened,” Dirty said as he stood up, although the blood trickling out of his nose indicated something slightly more contact-like than a slip. Fran saw it too.

  “But you’re bleeding,” she said.

  “Fuck it,” Dirty said.

  “But what happened?”

  “I said fuck it, Fran,” Dirty said to his wife and then smiled at the staring guests. “I need a drink. Where’s that bartender anyway?” Dirty said this as he began staggering for the bar, in search of a place to hide. He didn’t even look again at Reno.

  But Fran looked at him. She looked angrily at him, and then followed her husband.

  The guests began to realize there was no longer any show to see, Reno motioned for the band to begin playing again, and everybody went back to their own private conversations. Trina and Jimmy, however, made their way to Reno.

  “Are you okay?” Trina asked him.

  Reno wasn’t, not by a long shot, but this wasn’t the time or the place. “Yeah,” he said, sipping from his glass of wine once again. “I’m just lovely jovly,” he added.

  The door unlocked and Dirty and Fran made their way into their apartment inside the PaLargio. The party was over, they made it their business to stay for the entire show, but Dirty was seething. If Reno hadn’t decked him, and for no good reason if you asked Dirty, the party would have been a good one. It would have gone off without a hitch.

  But Reno did deck Dirty. He knocked him down like he was a piece of white trash worthy to be discarded. And as soon as the door to his apartment closed shut, he let Fran have it. It was all her fault, was how he saw it.

  “My fault?” Fran asked him in a shocked voice. “How is what Reno did to you my fault?”

  “You’re the one who told me all of that shit about Trina!” Dirty blared, his tie askew, his eyes blazing with anger. “You’re the one who told me about the abortion! You’re the one who had me telling your brother about it when you knew she had changed her mind!”

  “How did I know that, Dirty, do you listen to yourself? I didn’t find out until the next day, when I had lunch with her!”

  “You’re the one who started talking about Trina cheating on Reno---”

  “I said she might be cheating on him. I didn’t say it was a fact. I said she might be cheating.”

  “Now Reno’s mad at me!” Dirty said, ignoring Fran’s correction. “Now he’s treating me like a nothing, a nobody, and in front of all of those people! All because of your stupid ass!”

  “Stupid?”

  “Yeah, I said stupid. You’re stupid and crazy and butt-ugly on top of that!”

  “I’ll show you ugly,” Fran said and slapped Dirty hard across his face. “I’ll show you ugly!” she slapped him again.

  But it was one hit too many for Dirty tonight. He couldn’t lay a hand on Reno, but he could light into Reno’s sister. And he did. He slapped her and punched her and beat her down. Fran fought back, her brother had always taught her to defend herself, but fighting Dirty wasn’t the same as clawing on some girl. She got in her own licks, but Dirty kicked her ass. He beat her the way Apollo Creed beat Rocky, the way Ali beat Frazier, the way a lion would beat a cub. She grabbed the chair as she fell, but it slid and fell too.

  She was beaten down.

  Dirty saw the damage and thought about Reno. And how Reno was going to beat him down when he saw the damage, too.

  And Dirty did what Dirty knew how to do.

  He ran.

  Reno’s dick slid into Trina’s pussy as he entered her from the back and began to gyrate her with rhythmic strokes that kept them relaxed and sensual. They lay there, and fucked, going strong even after ten, fifteen, twenty minutes. Staying in the rhythm, enjoying every stroke.

  They were fully conscious of how much they loved the feel of that inner movement, the ridges, the friction that made their lovemaking like an innermost connection. And they connected like sparks in a fire. Reno kept popping off, over and over, and he sustained that level of intensity for nearly an entire hour. His naked body was sweaty, and his passion was even wetter. He couldn’t get enough of Trina.

  Until the phone rang.

  Reno, however, ignored the ringing as he continued to fuck his wife. There was no way on earth, he felt, that he could stop now.

  Trina didn’t see where they could stop, either. It felt just that intense. They couldn’t give up when they were so close to completion. Not when he was stretching every muscle within her body with strokes so masterful and gentle that she felt as if he could put this on her for hours on end. Even as the phone continued ringing they kept fucking. Reno wasn’t trying to stop and Trina wasn’t trying to ask him to stop. Whoever it was would eventually call back, was how they both saw it.

  Except whomever it was called right back.

  “Damn!” Reno said out loud, this time angrily, as he finally stopped stroking his wife and reached over and grabbed the phone.

  “What?” he asked without attempting to hide his irritation. His dick was in waiting, just sitting inside of Tree’s pocket as if it were a holding pattern, ready for the final thrusting to begin.

  But the voice on the other end was a distressed one. “Reno,” his sister said.

  And then Trina mischievously clenched her sex muscles around his now immobile cock, causing him to groan. He pinched her in retaliation.

  “Ouch!” Trina yelped.

  “Reno?” Fran said again.

  “I can’t talk right now, Fran,” Reno said into the phone. He began rubbing Trina’s ass. “I’ll have to call you back.”

  “Can you come?”

  “No, I can’t come! I told you---”

  “He beat me, Reno.”

  Reno stopped rubbing Trina. Trina looked at him.

  “Who beat you?”

  “Richie,” Fran said, and that was all Reno needed to hear.

  He leaned up. Trina immediately turned onto her back, causing his dick to slide out.

  “Where are you?” Reno asked Fran.

  “Home.”

  “Where’s Dirty?”

  “He left. He ran like a coward! Find him, Reno, and mow him down like a dog in the street!”

  “You just shut it and wait there. I’m on my way.”

  Reno hung up the phone. Trina began getting out of bed, too.

  Trina stood by the hospital bed holding Fran’s hand. Jimmy Mack stood beside Trina, and Reno stood on the other side of the bed. He was fuming, Trina knew, just by the way he was rocking his body from side to side. Dirty must have been out of his mind, Trina thought, to have done this to Reno’s sister.

  Reno’s cell phone rang and he moved away, talking on his phone. Trina looked at him. He had thrown on a pair of jeans and a turtleneck and he looked like a man on the verge. Nothing angered Reno more than when a man beat on a woman. Especially one of his women.

  Fran swallowed hard. “Water,” she said and Trina immediately took the cup of water with the straw sticking out of it and allowed Fran to sip. Fran was milking it and would probably milk it for months to come. That was just Fran’s drama queen personality. But Trina didn’t blame her this time. Dirty had left her in pretty bad shape.

  Her eyes were swollen shut. Her face had bruises all over it. The nurse was even hooking up an IV, which made Trina figure Fran would be here for at least a few days. Dirty was out of his mind.

  When Reno’s conversation ended, he walked back up to the bed.

  “You find Richie,” Fran said to her brother. “You find him and you cut off his balls, Reno. You find him and you put bullets up his butt, Reno.”

  The nurse, amazed at such talk, looked at Reno.

  Reno attempted to play it off. “What are you talking?” he said to hi
s foolish sister. “Bullets and butts and cutting off balls. What are you talking?”

  Reno gave Fran his best shut the fuck up look as the Nurse finished her work and left.

  “You know not to talk that way in front of strangers, Fran,” he said to his sister.

  “I want you to handle Richie.”

  “I will handle Richie, but that ain’t that nurse’s business.”

  Trina looked at Reno. She knew what was coming next.

  Reno nodded. “I’ve gotta take care of it,” he said.

  She was concerned, but she understood. “Be careful,” she said.

  “You know it. I gotta come back home to you.”

  Trina would have smiled, but it was too serious.

  “I’m going too, Pop,” Jimmy offered.

  “No, you’re not,” Reno countered. “I appreciate the support, but no. You’re staying right here with Katrina.”

  “But she’ll be fine, Pop.”

  Reno gave Jimmy a look that brook no debate. Jimmy reluctantly backed down. “Yes, sir,” he said.

  “Get him, Reno,” Fran said. “Get him good.”

  Reno looked at Trina. Sometimes he wondered if Fran was even worth the effort. He kissed Trina on the lips.

  And left.

  Reno was seated in the car with three of his men, including Danno, his security chief. What a night. He had gone from making sweet, tender love to his woman to being stuck here, in some filthy trailer park waiting for a signal. And it would take nearly forty minutes. But then there was movement. When one of their many snitches came out, waved his hand, and went back in, they knew to act. The trailer the snitch went back into was the signal itself. Because that trailer was the trailer where it was determined that Dirty was holed up.

  “Ready?” Danno asked Reno.

  “Like yesterday,” Reno said as he checked his pistol, put it back into his back pocket, and got out of the car.

  He and his men walked slowly across the street as if they were taking a leisurely stroll to a friend’s house. But as soon as they walk up the riggety steps that led to the trailer door, all pretense was off. They kicked the door in with a violent kick and barged right in. The house was so filled with meth-heads and crack heads and everybody started scattering. Reno searched frantically for Dirty, moving from room to room. When he made it to the one of the back rooms, Dirty jumped out of the window and took off.

  Reno took off, too. “He’s going out back!” Reno yelled as he ran out of the house, jumped down across the porch rail, and took off behind the house. Danno was right behind him.

  And they ran. They ran around junk cars and old trash cans. They ran through an alleyway, just catching another glimpse of Dirty, and then across an old abandoned factory yard. But Dirty was fast. He was across the street into a second trailer park by the time Reno eyed him again. Reno’s men were running too, but they couldn’t even keep up with Reno.

  And after more run-ins with barking dogs and Christmas lights and junk cars, Reno and his men gave up. They had no choice. Dirty was gone.

  Reno leaned over, his hands on his knees, and he was nearly breathless. “Damn,” he said out loud. “Damn!”

  The door to the penthouse opened and Trina and Jimmy sat erect. Trina was seated on the sofa and Jimmy was seated in a chair and both had been waiting all night for Reno. As soon as he rounded the foyer and entered the living room, and they both saw that he was, at least physically, fine, they sighed relief. And Jimmy stood up.

  “I’d better get to bed,” he said, heading for the exit. “Night, Pop.”

  “Goodnight, son,” Reno replied, giving him a hug as he walked by.

  “Night, Tree.”

  “See you tomorrow, Jimmy. And thanks.”

  When Jimmy left, Reno just stood there, and then he went and sat beside Trina.

  “Did you eat something?” he asked her. “You know how you feel in the mornings if you don’t eat something at night.”

  “I ate a few crackers,” Trina said. “That was all I could stomach.”

  Reno leaned back. “He got away,” he said to her. “But I’ll get him, don’t you worry about that. Nobody’s beating crap out of my sister without getting some crap beat out of him.”

  Trina shook her head. “I don’t know what Dirty was thinking.”

  “And I don’t care,” Reno said. “Dirty motherfucker. He’ll get his.”

  Trina wrapped her arm around Reno. “For a man who hates violence,” she said sadly, “you’re always knee-deep in it.”

  A grim look came over Reno. “I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I let Dirty get away with something like this they’ll be no telling what he thinks he can get away with next. I should have kicked his ass a long time ago.”

  “I told you he was bad news.”

  “But he’s my sister’s husband. What was I supposed to do, make her divorce him?”

  “No, of course not,” Trina said as Reno leaned against her. She wrapped her arms around him, and kissed his hair.

  And soon he fell into a deep, exhaustive sleep.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Two days before Christmas and Trina walked across the huge casino showroom floor on her way to a meeting with her front line managers. It was a meeting Dirty would have attended if he hadn’t made the foolish mistake of forgetting who Reno was. Now he was on the run, and Reno aimed to keep it that way.

  And just as she was thinking about Dirty and what he did to Fran and what Reno was undoubtedly going to do to him, she saw who she considered to be a blast from the past. It was Nathan, her old friend Jazz’s ex-beau.

  “Nathan?” she asked as she approached the slot machine where he was sitting. He was playing away, with seemingly no thought for those swirling around him. But he looked up when he heard somebody call his name. When he saw that it was Trina, he smiled.

  “Talk about a stranger!” he said and stood up, grabbing her hand into both of his and shaking it vigorously. “How you doing, Trina?”

  Trina grinned. This was the Nathan she remembered. Always full of life. “I’m doing great, what about yourself?”

  “Good now that I see the boss of this particular establishment. Long time no see, Tree.”

  “It’s been a minute, hasn’t it?”

  “Oh, man, longer than that. I haven’t seen you since I was fooling with Jazz. You’re sure looking prosperous.”

  “Why thank-you, sir. You don’t look bad yourself.”

  “That’s because I got a few days off. I started to go out of town, you know, to visit relatives, but then I started thinking about that. I live in Vegas, for crying out loud. All of this fine entertainment right at my fingertips. So I booked me a room here and I’m living the life of Riley in my own backyard. At least for a few days.”

  Trina laughed. “Well, we’re very glad to have you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “So you still live around the way?”

  “Yep. Still in the same place. Got me an old lady and her kids there with me now, but I’m still there. I thought you wouldn’t be here anymore though, the way Jazz was talking.”

  That made no sense to Trina. “What do you mean?”

  “She talked like you and Reno were getting a divorce. She said he was cheating or something.”

  Trina wasn’t even going to dignify that nonsense. “No, we’re still together.”

  “Good,” Nathan said. “And I figured y’all was. Jazz just be jealous sometimes. She ain’t got shit going for her, and look at you.”

  Trina didn’t care for comparisons like that, either. But for the grace of God she’d be in a similar boat as Jazz. “Seen her lately?” she asked Nathan.

  “Oh, I see her all the time. She’s always trying to hit me up for a few bucks. I told her I got me a good old lady now, and I don’t want no mess. But I help her out when I can.”

  “I saw her over at Boyzie’s in early summer. She wasn’t in a real good place when I saw her last. She was stripping, Nathan.”

&n
bsp; “I know. Now she can’t even get a job doing that.”

  Trina looked at him. “What do you mean? Boyzie got her back waiting tables?”

  “He fired her. She don’t work there no-more.”

  “What? Get out of here!”

  “He had no choice, Tree. For real, though. She got in a fight with a customer, and I’m talking a knock down drag out, Tree. She got arrested for it, too. Did three months at County.”

  Damn, Trina thought. “So what’s she doing now?”

  “Struggling, what else? Going from pillar to post. She’s staying at some rooming house for the homeless now.”

  Trina couldn’t believe it. Jazz homeless? She used to be Trina’s best friend. They used to have so many dreams. They used to strive for so much better. When Trina first came to Vegas, it was Jazz who befriended her and showed her the ropes and treated her like she was her blood relative. Now she was homeless, while Trina was living in a penthouse at the PaLargio? Yeah, Jazz had her issues, her gossiping ways chief among them, but Trina couldn’t forget her kindness when she did have it together.

  “What’s the name of the rooming house, Nathan?” Trina asked him.

  “Better Alms,” he said.

  Trina parked her Bentley across the street from the dilapidated looking rooming house. Christmas decorations lined the windows, but they were thrown together so haphazardly that they looked as if they were left-overs from Christmas past. Just like the men, some young, some old, that stood around the stoop holding beer cans and cigarettes and seeming to just be wasting away.

  It was a tough looking area, no doubt about that, but Trina was no stranger to tough areas. She’d lived in the best and the worst in her lifetime. She was just heartbroken that Jazz, two days before Christmas, was living in the worst.

  Trina snuggled up in her parka and made her way toward the front entrance. She already had every man’s attention. Her Bentley already made certain of that. But Trina carried herself in such a way that even they could tell she was no easy to manipulate, pushover bitch. You mess with her you were going to be messing with somebody. Every man on that stoop saw that.