Free MOB BOSS 3: LOVE AND RETRIBUTION by Mallory Monroe Page A

stood to her feet and hurried to meet him halfway, her heart hammering too, as she fel into his arms.
    For the longest time they held onto each other. Until her tears had ceased from faling. It was only then that she alowed herself to pul back from him and look him in the eyes. “But you see,” she said, smiling and attempting awkward levity, “I saved myself. I panicked, cost the lives of five people, but I saved myself. I’m not a total wipeout.” And then her smile left and the tears fought hard to return.
    “Look at me,” Tommy said, tilting her chin. She looked at him. “You’l never know how pleased and proud and happy I am that you saved yourself. You understand?”
    Shawna smiled through her tears. That was why she realy came. Because Tommy, in truth, was the only human being to seem to give a damn about her. Men loved her body, thought she had that look they liked, but Tommy loved her. Not her body, not her looks. Her. Warts and al.
    “Yes,” she said. “I understand.”
    They stood there for moments longer, staring into each other eyes.
    “Have you had your dinner?” he asked her.
    She smiled, even chuckled. That was Tommy. “No, daddy,” she said, “I haven’t had my dinner yet.”
    “Get out of those got damn formal clothes,” he said, moving away from her and toward the kitchen. “Put on something more comfortable. I’l fix us something to eat.”
    “Yes, sir,” Shawna said with a salute, as she headed upstairs to his bedroom. Because she knew, like he knew, like their history together knew, that that dinner wasn’t the only thing he would be eating before this night was through.
    FIVE
    Reno and Trina were no longer at the hospital, but was temporarily holed up in one of Reno’s safe houses just outside of Vegas. It was smal on purpose, to better control security, and was one of only two houses on a tiny, dead-end street. Reno also owned the other house, the first on the street, where the security apparatus was set up. Only it wasn’t Reno’s security now, but Tommy’s. And until they could figure out just what happened at the PaLargio, it would remain Tommy’s people only.
    Reno had thought to move Trina into a suite on the south wing of the PaLargio, on the exact opposite end, and some twenty floors below, from where that penthouse massacre , as the papers caled it, had taken place. But he nixed that idea. He had miscalculated already when he thought Vito would hit the family compound in Jersey. Taking her back to the PaLargio, a place he had thought was rock hard secure, would be too risky. This was Trina’s life they were talking about. He wasn’t taking any chances.
    Reno had been meeting with various members of his team, including his board of directors and his accountants. Now it was pushing ten at night and he was stil having meeting. He was seated on the sofa in the livingroom of the smal house, blanketed by security, and seated across from him this time, in a line of chairs, was his team of public relations lawyers: al with stacks of papers seated atop their briefcases, al making pitches on how best, in the eyes of the public, for Reno to proceed. Seated beside Reno was Lee Jones, his general manager.
    “So the consensus,” Reno said, leaned back in a slouched position, too tired at this point to care how it looked, “is that we shut it down?”
    “Right,” his lead attorney said. “Keep it down for about a month, two months on the outside, long enough for the public to have moved on. And then we reopen.”
    Lee was shaking his head, disagreeing with the attorney’s assessment. “That makes no sense, Reno,” he said. “You’ve answered every question the Feds had to ask, Katrina has answered every
    question, Ritchie and Carmine and MarBeth have answered every question. They’re going to clear you and your family of any wrong-doing, I have that conclusion on great authority straight from the Sheriff himself. There’s no reason to close now. Especialy