Then he looked at Trina. “You said the two of you bonded because she was from Mississippi too. Where in Mississippi was she from? Your hometown?”
“No, she wasn’t from Dale,” said Trina. She was wiping her eyes with the back of her hands. “She was from just outside of Jackson. A town called Flowood.”
Tommy looked at Sal and Mick. But Sal was as torn up as Reno. “I’ll get my guys on it,” said Mick. Then he glanced at Trina and Reno. They needed to talk. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.
But before they made it to the door, Reno stopped them. “I need a favor.”
They all turned and looked at him. “Anything Reno,” said a sympathetic Sal. The idea that Trina would have done something like that still ate him up too. What if Gemma told him something like that? Would he despise her? Would he leave her? He could only imagine what Reno had to be going through.
“If you have an ounce of love for my wife,” Reno said to all of them, “then you will never tell anyone what she told us in this room. Not even your wives. Not even her parents. Not even our children. You will never even mention it to me. Not ever. Can you promise me that?”
Trina was crushed that he was still fighting her battles despite what he now knew about her. They all stared at Reno. They were crushed too.
But Sal, who was often the bane of Reno’s existence the way they fought about everything, was the first one to speak up. “You have my word,” he said.
“Mine too,” said Monk.
“What conversation?” asked Mick. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Reno already knew Mick wasn’t going to discuss it.
But Tommy and Big Daddy weren’t so easily persuaded. And that was when Reno realized Big Daddy, a very moral man, hadn’t said a word.
But Tommy nodded. “You have my word as well,” he said.
Big Daddy exhaled. “Number one,” he said, “your ass don’t tell me what not to tell my own wife. But number two,” he added, “I won’t say a word until you find those blackmailers and get the story from them. Then I’ll see where I stand,” he said, glanced at Trina, and was the first to walk out. The others followed behind him.
But Reno looked at if he had one foot out of that door himself. Trina could feel it. “What about you, Reno?” she asked him. “Do you promise me that you’ll never tell anyone? At least not yet, Reno? Especially not our children?”
Reno looked at her with a hard look. “No,” he said bluntly. “I’m not going to promise you agotdamn thing!”
Trina’s heart dropped. She knew it would come to this. She knew it! Because she knew her husband. And Reno didn’t play games and he didn’t let you down easy to lighten the blow and he didn’t give a shit about making you feel better when your ass created the problem. She knew he never wanted any parts of any conspiracies even though he asked all of the family principles to be in on a conspiracy. They weren’t even allowed to tell their own spouses? But yet he couldn’t promise her to not tell their children? At least not yet? He wouldn’t do that evenat a time like this? Was there no end to that man’s ruthlessness and inflexibility?
Not that she didn’t deserve his hatred. She did. There was no doubt in her mind about that. And she knew this would be the outcome all along. This was no shock to her. But she had been hoping against hope for a much different outcome anyway.
But Reno continued talking. “I’m not promising you anything because I still don’t believe that shit, Trina.”
She looked at him. That was the reason? How could he not believe it! She stared at him.
He shook his head. “I can’t believe that. No way, Tree. You don’t break down like that. You aren’t made like that. You wouldn’t have done that to those people. I don’t care what your ass saying right now, you wouldn’t have done that. That’s why I’ll never believe it.”
Trina’s tears were dropping like rain now. She couldn’t love that man any more than she did in that very moment. He was anguished, not because of what she said she did, but because of who she was. Who he knew her to be.
“You’re the better part of me, Tree,” he continued. “You’re the better part of all of us. But you’re gonna sit up there and tell me that you heard that girl tell you it’s a family and there was no threat, but you kill them all anyway?” He shook his head. “No way. That math ain’t math-ingfor me and it never will. Because I know you!” He spoke it with pain in his voice. “I know you,” he said softer.
Then he frowned. “And who would be out there in the middle of nowhere recording everything that happened? And then that recording didn’t show up until a year ago? And they’re back again a year later?” He shook his head. “It happened. I’m not saying it didn’t happen. But there’s more to it than that.” Then an anguished look appeared on his face. “There has to be.”
He stared at her a moment longer, as if he still couldn’t begin to understand the story she relayed to him. As if everything he knew to be true and right was being called into question. And he couldn’t handle that. He headed for the exit.
“Reno,” Trina cried out, a plea for mercy in her voice. She didn’t deserve him, but she needed him. She didn’t want to be alone.
Reno stopped at the door, with his hand on the knob. He understood her pain. He truly did. But he had to get his own thoughts together. He had to figure out how he was going to figure this out. He had to be alone.
He turned the knob. “Get some sleep, Tree,” he said, and left the bedroom too.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Time ticked by at a slow but steady pace for Trina even as everybody else went on with their lives.
