Reno disagreed. But she’d been through enough. He wasn’t going to argue with her. “The truth is, I don’t know where to begin to look, Tree.”
“You begin at the beginning,” Trina responded. “Begin at the beginning. It all seemed to have started with that bomb blast at Kal’s.”
“Right,” Reno said. “And they’re both dead and Stitch’s surviving widow don’t know shit.” But then Reno had a thought. “And then Bev was killed,” he said.
Trina looked at him. “What would her death have to do with what happened to us today?”
“Coincidence.”
It was a dirty word to a Gabrini. “What about it?” Trina asked.
“People don’t get shot and killed in my lobby every day of the week. Is it a coincidence that she just so happened to get shot and killed just after that shit went down with that bombing? Or, is it as planned as a vacation? Since I don’t believe in coincidences--”
“You’ve got to assume it isn’t one,” Trina finished for him. “You’ve got to assume it’s related.”
“I have to,” Reno said, nodding his head. But the wheels in his brain were still turning. “Glenn, Bev’s ex-husband, has a sister here in Vegas. If she’s still here.”
“A sister?” Trina asked. “You think she may know something?”
“She might,” Reno said.
“Does she know you?” Trina asked.
Reno nodded. “She knows me. She may not want to know me,” he added, “but she knows me.”
“Then you’ve got to go see her. You’ve got to see if she can help us.”
Reno seriously doubted if that bitch would ever want to help him, but he knew, for the safety of his family, he had to try.
Her name was Carrie Stavros and she worked at a truck stop diner near the interstate. While Tommy and Big Daddy remained at the house with the children and the wives, Reno and Sal got out of Reno’s Porsche, and walked into the diner.
Carrie was pouring coffee at a table filled with talkative truckers when Reno and Sal walked in. Carrie immediately paid attention to them, not because they stood out like sore thumbs in such a working class, blue collar establishment, but because she knew Reno. And she knew that bastard came because of Glenn and Bev’s deaths, and it wasn’t to pay his respects.
When they sat at a table, she made her way over there, and sat down, too. She folded her arms and stared her pinched face directly at Reno. “What do you want?” she asked him.
“How have you been, Carrie?” Reno asked her. “It’s been a few years.”
“What do you want?” she asked again. “He’s dead. Isn’t that enough for you? You took his wife. You took his life. What more do your kind want?”
“Now hold on there, sister,” Sal started to say, but Reno touched him on the arm.
Reno leaned forward. “Who was he trying to kill?” he asked her.
“It sure as hell wasn’t Bev,” she said. “Despite all the underhanded shit you pulled to get her in your bed, he still loved Bev.”
“You call it love,” Reno said. “I call it stalking.”
“He wasn’t stalking her! That’s what he wanted you and her to think. He was using her to get to you. Or actually,” she added, “your son.”
Reno’s heart squeezed. Sal was shocked, too. “My son was the target?” Reno asked her.
“That’s what his note said, yes.”
“His note?” Sal asked. “He had a suicide note?”
“He left me a note,” Carrie responded. “It wasn’t anything about no suicide. He lost everything this year. His business. His home. He was in debt up to his eyeballs. Then his new wife, the woman he married after Bev divorced him, left him, too. He had nothing. So when they came around and offered to pay him to take out Jimmy Gabrini, and offered to pay him top dollar, he said he took the offer. Little guy like him can’t get a break in this world anymore, so, yes, he took the offer. The note he left was about how they were supposed to pay me if he got killed.”
“Did they pay you?”
“Hell no. And I don’t know how to get in touch with them.”
Reno was anxious, but did not show it. “Who are they?” Reno asked her that all important question. “Who was supposed to pay you?”
But her answer only left them even more baffled. “I say they,” Carrie said. “But Glenn only mentioned one person. Stitch MaGraw was the name he mentioned,” she said.
After Big Daddy left late that night, to make his way, not back to Phoenix where he had been on business, but back to Jericho, Maine, to be with his own family, they all retired to their provided bedrooms.
All of the kids, with their various nannies watching over them, made pallets on the floor and slept together in the big family room.
Jimmy and his security detail remained at the hospital with Oprah. She was out of surgery, but her vitals wouldn’t stabilize, and therefore she remained in critical condition. Her parents never made it to Vegas. Although Reno was willing to send his plane to get them, they said they couldn’t leave their jobs in the middle of a workweek. Jimmy didn’t know what it felt like to live paycheck-to-paycheck to that degree, but he did know that no job could be more important than your own child’s life. He hung up the phone to avoid cussing their asses out.
Back at the PaLargio, the casino was jumping and the hotel was filling up fast. It was as if the life of the owner’s wife and children had never been in danger at all. But a closer look told a different story. Security told the story. And if beefed-up security around the PaLargio was tight, security around the penthouse was airtight. Reno left no stones unturned.
Tommy and Grace made quiet love in their bedroom as the night rolled on, while Sal and Gemma made quiet love in theirs. They were Gabrinis: it was rare for them to go a night without.
Reno and Trina were in the master bedroom, and Reno didn’t know what quiet lovemaking meant. Trina woke up to find his head between her legs, where he was licking and sucking and eating her as if he was eating his last meal. She didn’t even know he had made it back home. But by the way he was mouth-fucking her, she was happy to know it now.
And when Reno moved his naked body up the length of her naked body, and put his fully aroused penis into that wet, wonderful place he was just abusing, they wrapped into each other’s arms and had a long, sweet, passionate fuck. It was always a part of their stress relief. But today, as Reno was no more closer to figuring out who was targeting his family, made it all the more needful.
It would take nearly half an hour before they came. Reno had his stroke under control and Trina had cobwebs to clear before she could coast ahead. But when they got there, and that feeling of being on the verge of cum lasted and lasted, Reno lifted his head and looked into her eyes. He wanted to tell her that he loved her and that everything was going to be alright. He wanted to tell her that he was sorry that she and the children had to endure the horror they endured today. But his body spoke for him. The way he stroked her so lovingly. The way he caressed her in his arms. The way he leaned down and began sucking her breasts as he fucked her. And the way he moved back up, to her mouth, and kissed her with such strength and feelings that she knew he loved her, and she knew he was regretful. And she knew, as her body responded as vigorously as his body was responding, that they were going to cum in a massive way.
They came in a massive way. Trina grunted as if she was delivering another child, it felt so good. Reno groaned and poured as if he didn’t want it to ever stop, it felt so good. He kept stroking her for several minutes after their initial outburst. Until he pushed in, and didn’t have the strength to pull back out.
Trina lifted his face and looked her big, hazel eyes into his big, blue eyes. And she smiled. “Thanks for waking me up,” she said.
Reno smiled, too. “I knew, eventually, you would get the message.”
Then her look turned more serious. “How did it go?” she asked him.
Reno shook his head. “It didn’t. According to Glenn’s sister, Stitch M
aGraw hired him, too.”
Trina frowned. “But Stitch was dead before Glenn shot and killed Bev.”
“But Glenn didn’t know that,” Reno said. “After I did what I did to Stitch, I sent my clean-up crew to remove every fiber of Stitch’s charred being as if he’d disappeared from the face of this earth. He was missing. But it wasn’t on the news. Who the fuck cared if Stitch MaGraw was missing? There was no way for Glenn to know he was dead.”
“What about Stitch’s family?” Trina asked.
“My men already questioned them. The wife and both of his sons. They didn’t know shit about it. My men already questioned them.”
“But you haven’t questioned them,” Trina said.
Reno looked at her. “What difference does that make?”
“People will talk to you before they talk to your men. Gravitas matters, Reno. And nobody has it the way the Gabrinis and the Sinatras do. You instill fear in people,” she added with a smile, and kissed him on the lips.
Reno smiled, too, and returned her kiss. But as they continued to stare into each other’s eyes, that feeling of incompleteness; of wondering what-if Oprah hadn’t yelled for them to beware, or Trina or the children had been behind that counter when those women first walked in? What if one of their children had been hit?
They wrapped up even tighter than before, and held each other again. They held on as if they had to.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
With Sal on guard duty at the house with the family, Reno and Tommy rode down the long, narrow driveway that led to a small farmhouse on the outskirts of Vegas. It was in an isolated part of Vegas, on a lot nearly the size of Reno’s Vegas estate, and was surprisingly normal looking to Reno, considering how fucked-up Stitch was.
But as he stopped his Porsche near the front porch, Reno had a different concern. Stitch’s wife and sons knew he was missing. Reno wondered if they suspected he was the reason why. He took no chances in any event. Two additional SUVs, loaded with his men, drove onto the property behind them. And Reno and Tommy didn’t get out, until their armed guards got out.
But as they made their way up to the very dainty front porch and knocked on the very dainty glass-enclosed front door, it felt a little like overkill. Until the door was opened, and Stitch’s two sons opened fire.
Reno and Tommy and all of their men jumped off of the porch, ducked down, and returned fire. And although it should have been no contest, it was a contest. Stitch’s sons were loaded for bear and had been waiting on their asses. They had an arsenal of automatic weapons and was firing as if they were an army against a group of guys. But that was before Reno and Tommy took over.
While their men continued to battle, they ran around to the back of the house. They remained bent down as Reno leaned up to the side of a window and peeped into the house. He could see that nobody was in the back area of the home, and the gunshots were coming from the front of the house.
Reno nodded to Tommy and he and Tommy hurried over to the back door. Reno stood on one side. Tommy stood on the other side. And Reno counted with his fingers. One, two, three. Tommy reared his body back and kicked the door in. Reno went in first, with his gun drawn, and then Tommy followed.
To Reno’s amazement, the gun battle up front was so loud that the MaGraw boys didn’t even hear, or realize that their back door had been kicked in. The element of surprise was completely on Reno and Tommy’s side now. And they played it like a fiddle.
They made their way toward the sound of the shooting. The house was large, and therefore they were careful to constantly to turn and point their weapons not only in the front of them, but beside them and even behind them in case they were the ones about to be ambushed. And it worked to perfection. When they made it up front, they had been met with no resistance. And when they saw the two MaGraw boys, battling it out, shot for shot, with their men, they took cover on either side of the arch-top opening that separated the living area from the dining area, and Reno pulled out his phone, and pressed the button that transmitted a signal to his men.
His man up front, who knew to wait for the signal, received the signal and then ordered the men to cease fire. The MaGraw boys continued to shoot, but that didn’t matter at this point. Because Reno and Tommy were able to walk up to the two boys, put guns to their heads, and tell them to drop their weapons.
“Or die,” Reno added.
They dropped their weapons.
“Where’s your mother?” Reno asked them as Tommy kept looking around as he confiscated their guns.
But the brothers, still defiant, said nothing.
“Don’t make me kill that bitch when I find her,” Reno declared. “Where is she?”
When they still wouldn’t respond, Reno had a better idea. A reverse idea. “If she doesn’t show herself right now,” he said loudly, “then one of you will be shot in the head, and then more shots will follow. And you know me. You know I don’t bluff. If I say I’m going to kill your ass, I’m going to kill your ass.”
That was when they heard footsteps over in the other side of the house. “Don’t harm them,” a female’s voice said. They turned to the sound. It was Stitch’s wife. And she looked old. Beat down. But practical.
“I’ll tell you everything you want to know,” she said. “But you can’t harm my boys.”
“You mean the boys who tried to harm me?” Reno asked. “Fuck that! What else you got?”
“Don’t tell him shit!” one of her sons yelled.
Reno, aimed his gun, and fired. He put a bullet in her son’s skull. Then he pointed his gun at her other son’s head, and killed him, too.
The woman couldn’t believe it. She slumped back against the wall. But what did she expect, Tommy wondered, as their men rushed inside on hearing new gunfire? Those sons of hers would have killed them all if they could have. They weren’t about to be permitted to also live.
The woman seemed to know it, too. But before she fainted, Reno ordered one of his men to get her a chair. He also ordered the men to get rid of the sons.
Tommy expected her to fight that order. But she didn’t fight. To him, she looked as if she was tired of all of the violence, and might have been relieved that it was all over now.
She sat down in the chair provided. Reno knelt down in front of her. “This is the deal,” he said. “Your sons living was off the table. They came at us. We had to come at them. But your life is still possible.”
The woman looked at Reno. Life reappeared in her groggy eyes. She was interested. “What do I have to do?”
“Tell me the truth,” Reno said.
“Talk,” she said.
“When Oscar Di Salvo recruited Stitch,” he started. But the widow cut him off.
“Oscar didn’t recruit Malcolm,” she said. Malcolm was Stitch’s real name. “Malcolm recruited Oscar.”
Reno and Tommy were surprised. “Why would he recruit Oscar?”
“He had gotten out of prison. He had a big-ass grudge against you, and was doing all he could to get next to you at your casino. He was happy to take your wife down in the meantime.”
Reno’s jaw tightened at the thought of those bastards plotting against Trina.
“They needed his help to do the job,” the widow said.
“The job at Kal’s?” Reno asked.
She nodded. “Yes. The explosion.”
“Why would Stitch have this outsized hatred of me?” Reno asked. “What the fuck did I ever do to him?”
“It wasn’t about hate. It was about money. He had been recruited to provide the muscle. They had it all planned out. He recruited desperate people to do desperate things to you. And it ran the gamut from small to large. He recruited some guy in a trailer park to get your son in trouble, on the small end. To the explosion at that restaurant and that shooting in the lobby of the PaLargio to take down your son, on the big end. After he went missing, my sons took over. They were going to get that big paycheck, and they were ready for it. No upfront money. They would be paid when eve
ry job was done. So they took up where their father left off. They were ordered to kill that trailer park trash and his family. And they did it. And then they were told to get you where it hurt. And everybody knows if they go after that black chick, that wife of yours, they had you by the balls. So my boys recruited their dad’s people to kill your wife. That didn’t work either,” she said as if it was all so sordid to her.
But Reno had to know the mastermind. Who was behind this shit? “Who recruited Stitch?” he asked her.
She didn’t bat an eye. “Sam,” she said. “Sam Roustinconti.”
Reno’s heart dropped. And Tommy couldn’t believe it, either. Sam was Reno’s godfather. Why would he target Reno?
“Why would Sam want to harm his own godson?” Tommy asked the widow.
“Jealousy is what Stitch told me,” the widow said. Then she looked at Reno. “You got too big.”
Reno was thrown, and felt sick to his stomach. Schizeki had pointed the finger at Sam. He went to see Sam, looked him in the eyes, and was wrong as hell about him. He couldn’t believe Sam would do that to him, but now another somebody was saying he not only could, but did. Reno had to get this shit resolved.
But although he was thrown a mighty curveball again, he wasn’t so thrown that he couldn’t handle his business. He stood up. And looked the widow in the eyes. “You knew about everything that went down,” he said. “But yet you didn’t lift a finger to stop any of it.”
She was getting scared now. Reno had read her right. This was all about her. She might have loved her husband and sons, but it was all about self-preservation now. “You said you wouldn’t kill me.”
“I’m not going to kill you,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean you aren’t going to pay.”
Reno lifted his gun and shot her in the arm. She cried and fell off of the chair, holding her arm.
“Say a word to authorities,” he said, “and I’ll finish the job.”
Then he left, ordering his men to “drop her” near a hospital. Tommy followed him out.
But when they got to the car, Tommy got behind the wheel. He knew when Reno was troubled, and he knew when Reno was too troubled to drive. Tommy drove them away.
Reno Gabrini- the Man in the Mirror Page 15
