Reno Gabrini: A Man in Full by Mallory Monroe Page A

out, and then watched as she headed for the restrooms.  He especially watched the various men watching her, prompting Jody to laugh.
    Reno looked at him.  “What’s so funny?” he asked.
    “I see you’re very protective of your wife.  And I don’t blame you.  You can never be too careful nowadays.”
    Reno studied Jody.  Then he sat down, but not on the booth seat across from Jody where he and Tree had been sitting, but right next to him.  Jody was immediately on guard.
    “So, Reno,” he said nervously, “how about those Knicks?”
    They both were from the New York/New Jersey area and grew up as Knicks fans.  But Trina was out of sight now.  Reno was done with the games.
    “You’ve got all of this advice for my wife, do you?”
    Jody’s heartbeat was quickening.  “I was giving her some business pointers, yes.”
    “You were giving my wife business pointers?  Does that make sense to you?  That you, a man with a small, shitty-ass business of his own, is going to give the wife of a man who owns one of the largest businesses in the entire state of Nevada some fucking business advice?  That’s fucked up, wouldn’t you agree, Jody?  I mean, wouldn’t even a fucked up sonafabitch like you would have to agree with that?”
    “I’m not going to sit up here and take your insults, Reno,” Jody said angrily. 
    But Reno was angrier.  He slung a gun out of his pocket, put it underneath the table, and pressed the barrel against Jody’s testicles.  Jody wanted to jump out of the booth, but Reno pressed harder.
    “You willing to sit up here now?” he asked him.
    “Reno, this isn’t funny.”
    “Funny?  You think I’m trying to be funny?  You think I play games, Joe?  You’ve known me a long time.  We used to run together, remember that?  Have you ever known me to play games?”
    Jody was sweating now, as his heart was racing with fear and his eyes were watering from just the thought of what one wrong move by Reno’s hand could do to him.  He stared at Reno as if Reno was his lifeline.  “No,” he said.  “You don’t play games.”
    “I do not.  Even as a child I couldn’t do it.  Hide-n-seek?  Fuck that.  Patty cakes?  I got your cakes right here!  But you get my point.  Don’t you, Joe?  If I wasn’t down with the game-playing as a kid, when the only thing a kid was good for was playing games, then imagine how much I hate it now?” 
    Reno turned serious, and pressed the barrel of his gun harder against Jody’s testicles, causing Jody to wince in pain.  “Let me make myself perfectly clear,” he said.  “You like my wife.  I get that.  You think she’s attractive. I get that too.  You can think whatever you want to think about her.  You can love her slamming body, her pretty face, her fingernail polish for all I care.  It’s a free country and I don’t give a shit.  But if you think for a second you’re going to seduce her or entice her or so much as speak a cockeyed word against her, then you’ve got another thought coming, brother.”
    Jody was staring at Reno.
    “I don’t know why you decided to pay her a visit.  But I do know there’s a foul reason behind it.  You’ve wanted my wife from the moment I introduced her to you.  But I thought you were a loyal friend, and I dealt with that.  But you showed me what you were about.  You don’t know what loyalty means.  And all of this shit about you changing, yeah, right.  You change like a chameleon change.” 
    Then Reno pressed the barrel even harder.  “Leave my wife alone,” he said.  “Stay away from her or the next time, Jody, I will release this trigger.  And there will be no question-and-answer session then.  Just your balls flying like fucking balloons away from your ass.”
    Reno stared at him longer.  He remembered the man he used to know, and love.  He remembered the man who disrespected his wife and had to leave his inner circle.  And he hated that it had come to this, but