Trina felt a swell of emotion come over her. She tried to suppress it. “Yes,” she said. “That’s where I am. Did you tell Roz you were coming to see me?”
Although Mick viewed Reno and Trina as one of very few couples that were more his equal in the family, he still didn’tanswer her question. What he told or didn’t tell his wife wasn’t her business.
But Trina wasn’t trying to be nosey. She was concerned. “Is she upset that you had to cut her vacation short to come see me?”
“I didn’t cut it short,” Mick responded. “I’m returning when I finish here.”
Trina was shocked. “You’re flying all the way back to Rome?” Now she felt worse. “Ah Mick, I’m so sorry to put you out like this! I could have waited until you came back.”
“I’m here now. What is it?”
Trina exhaled. It would be the first time she verbalized it to anybody other than Von, and she had no choice about him since the blackmailers made him their go-to person. “I’m being blackmailed,” she said.
Mick knew it had to be something of that magnitude or she would have informed Reno. “It’s personal, rather than professional blackmail I take it?”
She nodded. “Very personal, yes.”
“What do they want?”
“I expected you to ask me why was I being blackmailed,” Trina said.
“The what will tell me the why. What do they want?”
Another exhale by Trina. “They want one-hundred percent ownership of the PaLargio Hotel and Casino on the Vegas Strip.”
Even Mick was shocked. “Damn! They want thewholething?”
“They want all Reno’s shit, yes,” said Trina. “That’s their ask.”
Mick stared at her. “This wasn’t their first ask,” he said.
Trina’s eyes became anguished. And she shook her head. “No. Last year they came at me. They wanted fifty-one percent ownership. I told them a flat no. They settled for three million.”
Mick was inwardly floored even though he didn’t show it. “You paid them?”
She nodded.“Yes.”
“And Reno didn’t know?”
Trina was ashamed. “No.” She fought back tears. “That’s why Champagne’s is still struggling. I took it straight out of the operating budget, which was already crippled and dependent on Reno way too much. We were barely breaking even. Now he’s carrying the whole company because we’re in the red every single month.”
“You ever thought of shutting it down?”
She nodded. “But Reno won’t let me. He knows it’ll break my heart if I fail. He believes we’ll turn a corner again after the economy picks back up, but I’m not so sure about that. Luxury stores are struggling big time.”
“Who’s the person that contacted you originally?”
“None of the blackmailers have contacted me at all.”
That was strange to Mick. “Then how did you know they had the goods on you?”
“Video. Photos. They have it, Mick. There’s no doubt about that.”
“How are you getting information from them if they aren’t contacting you?”
“They contacted an old friend of mine. Somehow they found out he knew, so they made him the middleman.”
Mick stared at her. “It’s a he?”
