Page 31 of Trina Gabrini: Bring Him Back Home to Me

“I told you why. I missed you, Reno. I tried to be with other men, but they don’t do it for me. Not like you do,” she said as she touched his private area.

He removed her hand. “Don’t play with me, Lydia. Tell me the truth.”

Lydia coquettishly jerked her long blonde weave back and then ran her long fingers through it. She used to turn him on whenever she did that. Long before he knew she was a plant for her old man, he turned her on. But now he wanted her ass out of his life so that he could get his family back. Because if it was the other thing that brought her back into his life, something so horrific he could not even speak it in his own mind, there was no going back to family. That would be over for Reno.

But she was still being coy with him. “Just give me some bed action, Reno. Then we can talk.”

“We ain’t doing shit until I find out what gives,” Reno said. “Don’t take me for your fool. You’ll do that shit at your own risk.”

Lydia looked at him then. It was as if she had momentarily forgotten whom she was dealing with. But she realized now. He could see it in her eyes. And her mood shifted. “Daddy knows what happened to my baby sister. To his baby girl.”

Reno had already suspected that part. But did he have accurate information? “What does he know?” Reno asked her.

“He knows your father raped her and then beat her to death.”

She made it sound so ordinary, as if she was accustomed to even worse herself. But it would never sound ordinary to Reno. Covering up for his father after he committed such a heinous crime was one of the shames of Reno’s life. But if his father was to go down, they all would have gone down.

“And what does he plan to do about it?” Reno asked.

“He didn’t tell me what. But as soon as he found out, he was ready to attack. He suspected all along your old man knew what happened, but he never would have ever imagined he was the one who did it.”

“If it was my father who did it,” Reno said as if he had no clue himself, “how did he find out now?”

“Somebody who used to work for your old man just got out of prison a couple weeks ago after serving a dozen years. He needed money to start over, and his ass was too old to begin at the beginning, so he told Daddy he had a story to tell for a price. That’s how we found out.”

Reno’s jaw tightened. His old man had been dead for decades. But his enemies were still coming out of the woodwork. That was why once any member in your family was in the mob, you could never get out whether you were in it or not. That was the one thing he feared the most for his own children: that they would be bearing the scars of his past too.

“What does your old man plan to do about it?” Reno asked her.

“I don’t know. But he’s planning something big. That’s why I came to you, Reno. To warn you. You know how much I always loved you even after you did what you did to me. That was business. That didn’t change my heart. It never did.”

“How can I make it right?” Reno asked her.

“For me, you can sign the PaLargio back over to me.”

Was this broad nuts? “Even though that will you presented was bogus as hell and that woman never left shit to you? Is that what you’re talking about? Are you talking about the fact that I stole back what you were trying to steal from me? Is that what you want me to make right? You want me to let you steal it from me anyway?”

She stared at him. “You aren’t hearing me, Reno. Signing over the PaLargio to me, the rightful owner, is the least you can do. My father knows. And with that knowledge he holds all the cards. I don’t think you’re hearing me.”

Reno heard her loud and clear. And her old man, and the reach he still had, that was worrying him to the point of despair. But for her to suggest he had no cards at all to play? Who did she think she was? “Moose does realize,” he said delicately, “that I kicked his ass once already and decimated his organization. Right?”

He could tell Lydia didn’t like the way he put it, but she tried not to show it. “He knows what you did,” was all she would say about it. “And he knows more than that.”

When she said those words, Reno’s heart dropped. Because her look changed and she could no longer hide her hate.

She stood up. “I know more than that too,” she said. “Don’t I boys?” she said and Reno, realizing she was giving the signal for her goons to show themselves, stood up too.

And that was when her men came out of the closet with their guns drawn.

“Put your hands in the air where we can see’em, Gabrini,” one of them said.

Reno recognized the voice, but he couldn’t place the face. Not that it mattered. He put his hands in the air.

Lydia went up to him. “This is for what you did to my sister,” she said and slapped him hard across his face. “And this is what you did to me,” she added, and slapped him even harder.

Then she smiled. “Now it’s my time to take care of you.” Her smile left as fast as it had appeared on her face. “Get’em boys,” she said as her two goons grabbed Reno. One of them began frisking him.

That was when Reno stopped her. “I thought you wanted bed action,” he said to her. He didn’t give a shit about any bed nor her in that moment, but it was a distraction. Because the two goons laughed and Lydia turned back around, undoubtedly to tell him how much she hated his guts and would never want to have anything to do with him ever again. The wanting him was just a ruse. They wanted him disarmed.