Reno just stood there, watching the fireball, but something didn’t feel right. He didn’t feel right. He saw the explosion. He now saw the aftermath. But he should have felt more. His wife, the love of his life, was in that fire, and he didn’t feel anything? What the fuck, he thought, was wrong with him!
“Boss!”
It was one of his men.
“Boss!”
Reno already felt disoriented. When he heard his man calling him with such urgency in his voice, he looked angrily at his man. Didn’t he realize he was barely able to process this carnage as it was?
“Look!” the man cried.
Reno looked where he was pointing, out in the marina, and that was when he saw her. She had come out of the water, walking toward shore.
Reno stretched his eyes. Did he see what he thought he was seeing? He grabbed the suitcoat of one of his men. “Is that her?” he asked them. He was too crazy in love to believe it.
His man smiled. “It’s her, Boss,” he said, near tears himself. “It’s her!”
Reno began walking toward her. He began walking as if he had lead in his feet. He had been thrown backwards himself. He should have still been wobbly. But he wasn’t. He was too shocked to experience anything but the scene in front of him. And when she saw him, and began running to him, he began running to her.
When they finally met each other, they just stood there. Reno touched her face with his hands. Trina touched his arms with hers. And then they embraced.
No more pain.
No more fear.
No words.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Sal and Gemma Gabrini hurried inside the penthouse at the PaLargio. Reno was in the living room, behind the bar on the far end, pouring himself a stiff one.
“Where is she?” Gemma asked anxiously.
“Family room,” Reno responded. Gemma and the baby hurried for the family room. Sal sat at the bar counter.
“What are you having?” Reno asked him.
“Nothing.” Sal was distracted by the television set above the bar. It was a local newscast that was all about the death of Bobby Swann.
“It’s on every channel,” Reno said. “They’re praising that motherfucker.”
“What was his problem?” Sal asked. “Because you fired his ass he wanted to rape your wife?”
“Trina thinks it was more than that. She think he was going to hand her off to somebody else, further downstream. I’ve got boats out there, searching the area, but they haven’t turned up anything yet.”
“She might be right,” Sal said.
Reno looked at his younger cousin. “Yeah? What do you know?”
“I’ve been asking around. Hearing what I can hear. And I hear his ass was in deep with the mob.”
“Who?” Reno asked. Between himself and Sal Gabrini they knew damn near every mobster in the country.
“Nobody knows who. They said he was bought early in his career, and they would never let him go. I also hear he was a coke head. Him and his brother both.” Sal looked at Reno. “Was his brother on the boat too?”
Reno nodded. “Yup. Trina said she saw him.”
“Poor kid,” Sal said. “You’d think Florida would have been enough for her to go through. Now this.” Then he smiled. “I heard she sliced and diced that punk.”
Reno smiled too. It was the one satisfaction in an otherwise dreadful day. “She did. She can handle herself nicely. I just hate that she keep getting put in these situations where she have to handle herself.” And just the thought of what could have happened to his wife caused Reno to not just take a sip of his drink. He drained the whole thing down.
“So what are you thinking?” Sal asked. “You think there’s one mastermind behind all of this shit?”
“I can’t say. The only prospect I have alive is some businessman who’s claiming stupid crap rather than what’s really going on.”
“Marshall?” Sal asked.
Reno nodded.
“Jimmy still with him?”
“At The Stanton, yeah. And he’s working him over pretty good. But he’s still got nothing to say. He still claim the only reason he was going to pay Sam Jessup was because she was threatening to blackmail him for having a one-night stand with Trina.”
“What?” Sal was shocked. “Trina? Get the fuck out of here!”
“I know, right?” Reno responded. “It’s bullshit like I said.”
“What’s Trina saying?” Sal asked.
Reno nodded. “I haven’t asked her yet. She’s been through enough for one day. I’ll tell her, but not now.” And just the thought of Trina caused Reno to pour himself another drink, and head for the family room.
Sal followed him. “She’s going to want to know,” he said.
“And I’ll tell her. Just not yet,” Reno made clear.
Inside the family room, Trina was sitting on the sofa, with Gemma in the wingback chair. Gemma was amazed at how calm Trina appeared. “Are you sure you’re okay, Tree?” she asked her. “I’d be a nervous wreck if that happened to me.”
“I am,” Trina said. “But no point in crying over it.” She frowned. “I’ll be okay.”
Gemma squeezed her hand. “I know you will. What about Reno?”
Trina smiled. “Now he’s another story.”
Gemma laughed. “Yeah, I saw him when I first walked in. He’s getting tired of these close calls.”
A depressed look came into Trina’s eyes. “I wish to God it didn’t have to happen. He has so much to deal with.”
Gemma looked at her. “He’ll be okay, Tree. Reno’s strong.”
But Trina seemed unconvinced. Lately, she always seemed to get depressed when the talk centered on Reno and the pressures he was under.
Gemma decided to move on. “What about the kids?” she asked. “They’re still in school?”
Trina nodded. “We didn’t see any point of disrupting their day. But Reno beefed up their security all the same. And Maddie’s with the Nanny. What about Lucky?”
“Nanny too. Oh, and I spoke with Grace,” Gemma said. “She and Tommy are really concerned.”
“They called me,” Trina replied. “They wanted to drop everything and come and see about me, but I told them I was fine. I had to beg them not to come. I’ll feel worse if people had to stop their lives just to check on me.”
Gemma nodded. “I know exactly what you’re saying. You just want to get through it at this point. I guess it’s just so shocking that a guy like that would be so sadistic. I used to really like him.”
“So did I,” Trina said. “But he wasn’t worthy. Trust. He wasn’t worthy at all.”
Gemma shook her head. “You never really know people, do you?”
“I’m saying,” Trina agreed.
“You’re saying what?” Sal asked as he and Reno entered the room.
Gemma laughed. “None of your business, that’s what,” she replied playfully. “Nothing gets by you, does it?”
Sal laughed. “Nothing,” he said as he sat on the arm of her chair.
Reno, with drink in hand, sat beside Trina on the sofa.
Trina looked at him. “Where’s Jimmy?” she asked.
“Stanton,” Reno said.
“He’s still with Garry?”
Reno nodded.
Trina looked at Reno. “What did he say?” she asked him.
“Nothing. Lot of bullshit.”
“Sam said he was the man who was supposed to pay her.”
“But not for what she claimed,” Reno said.
Trina frowned. “Then for what?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Reno said. “Bullshit.” Reno placed his arm around her. “Don’t worry about that prick, Tree.”
But Trina wiggled out of his grasp. “What was he supposed to pay her for, Reno? I know you’re trying to protect me, but you don’t have to do that. Just tell me.”
Reno glanced at Sal. Sal didn’t know what to tell him, either. Reno exhaled, and looked back at Tree. “He claimed
you and him had an affair.”
Reno expected more of a reaction from Trina. Sal did too. They both sat there with pounding hearts.
“He said you slept with him,” Reno made himself clearer, “when you guys were at that convention in Florida. But that’s a bald-faced lie, right?”
Trina rose to her feet. Reno and Sal scrambled to stand up too. “Take me to him,” Trina said.
“What are you talking?” Reno asked.
“Take me to the Stanton, Reno, or I’ll go on my own.”
Reno frowned. “But what you need to go there for? To hear his lies?”
“Take me to him,” was all Trina would say.
Reno stared at her. Could it be true? Was that why she wasn’t denying it? “Okay,” he said. His heart was pounding, but he took her to Garry Marshall.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
His heart plunged when he saw Trina. It was supposed to happen today. He’d been told that it was all going down today and he would be free thereafter. Gabrini would be too grief stricken to give a damn about him or anybody else. That was the original plan. But what they didn’t count on was Sam Jessup ID-ing him. What they didn’t count on was Reno’s son tracking him down, even as he stayed out of the country on purpose. Now Trina not only survived the blast that was supposed to take her and Bobby and all of his men out of commission. She was walking into the safe house with Reno! Garry knew it was pretty much over by then.
And Trina, he could tell, was about to get this party started.
She walked up to Garry. She looked him dead in the eyes. He was already badly beaten. Jimmy and his posse had undoubtedly tortured the man. But he still wouldn’t give up the goods.
But he was going to give up his lie. Trina knew that. “We had an affair in Florida?” she asked him.
Garry tried to smile, although his swollen lip made it difficult. And Reno was standing behind her, like some damn prison guard ready to pounce. But he knew he needed Trina on his side at least. “You know me, Trina,” he said. “I’m always lying about my conquests.”
“Did we have an affair in Florida?” she asked him. “Or anywhere else?”
Garry still would not speak.
Trina kicked him in his ball with her very hard heel. Garry stood up fast, grabbing his balls, and then sat back down.
Trina was angry now. The one thing she hated was when some man tried to scandalize her name. “Did we ever have a one-night stand, an affair, or even touched each other inappropriately?” she asked him. “Did we, Garry? Did we?”
Garry shook his head. He gave in. He was hurting too badly. “No, Trina,” he said. “No. We never had an affair.”
Reno knew it was a lie all along, so he had no reason to be relieved. But Trina, to his surprise, wanted more from Garry than that.
“Why did you get in touch with Sam Jessup?” she asked him.
“And we know it’s not that bullshit story you told us about her blackmailing you,” Reno added.
Garry stared at Trina. “I really did want to go into business with you. That was for real.”
“Bullshit!” Reno said. “You were working with the enemy even then. You had to be. You didn’t just happen to show up in Florida. Your ass was dispatched there.”
“And we want to know by whom,” Trina added.
Garry shook his head. “I should have never went down that road.”
“Down what road?” Reno asked him.
“I had a decent business. I was making decent money. But I wanted the big bucks. I wanted to play in the big leagues.”
Trina wanted to ask more questions, namely about Sam, but Reno touched her arm. Let the fool talk, was always his motto.
The fool talked. Sam, he said, was one of many jobs. “There was no rhyme or reason to it,” Garry said. “When he called, I answered, and did whatever he told me to do. One month it might be leaving a package on somebody’s doorstep, and the package later explodes. It might be going to Florida to hook up with Trina. It might be contacting Sam Jessup, who was bought and paid for like me, and give her instructions on how to murder Reno’s son. She do the job right, then I would be back in a week’s time to pay her. We were all puppets on his string.”
“Whose string?” Reno asked.
But Garry wasn’t about to go there.
But Reno wasn’t about to let him skate, either. “Whose string, motherfucker?” he asked him. “Who’s pulling those strings?”
But Garry still wouldn’t respond.
“Tell him, Garry,” Trina warned. “You will one way or the other.”
But Garry would only shake his head.
Reno, tired of this shit, pulled out his gun. He grabbed Garry by the hair and was about to shove the gun in his mouth, when he finally caved.
“Partanna,” he finally said. “It’s Partanna. He’s finishing what his great-grandson couldn’t. He’s avenging his son’s death.”
“His son?” Reno asked.
“His son was Frank Partanna. It continues. What started the day you married Trina continues.”
Reno couldn’t believe it. He ordered a hit on Frank Partanna the day he married Trina, but that was in retaliation for the successful hit Partanna had placed on Reno’s own father, a vicious mob boss in his own right. After Florida, he just knew that shit was over. But it wasn’t.
Reno looked at Garry. “Where is he? Where’s Frank’s father?”
Garry didn’t respond.
Reno hit him with the butt of his gun, cutting open another face wound. “Where is he?” he asked angrily. “Where is that fucker now? Where is that fucker’s home base?”
“Italy,” Garry said. “He’s one of the richest men in Italy. He didn’t give a shit when you killed his son. Didn’t give a shit when you killed his grandson. They didn’t get along anyway. But when you killed Junna? When you took out his great-grandson, the last surviving Partanna?” Garry shook his head. “It was on then. He felt as if you were being disrespectful. He wasn’t about to let you get away with taking out the last in their family line. He hired small-time cons to steal your money to the tune of millions a month. He ordered his men at the FBI to intimidate you. He was supposed to kill your wife on that yacht, right along with Bobby Swann, another one of his puppets, but somehow she lived. But when he goes in, he goes all in. And that’s usually very bad news for his target.”
“Where is he now?” Reno asked. “Is his ass in Italy now?”
When Garry didn’t respond, Reno socked him again. “Where is he?!”
“I don’t know where he is!” Garry cried. “He doesn’t share his whereabouts with me! I was supposed to do my dirt and get out. Like always.”
“What does he have on you?” Trina asked Garry. “It can’t just be about the money.”
Garry shook his head. “Where do I start?”
“Has he threatened to kill you?” Trina asked.
“No,” Garry responded. “Not me. But he threatened to kill my mother, my father, my siblings, my nieces and nephews, my on and on and on if I didn’t do exactly as he said.”
Reno stared at him. “You dealt directly with him?” he asked.
“No. I worked through his people. But I got the message. Frank Partanna’s old man is a beast. He’s Mafia’s Mafia. You don’t want to fuck with him.”
“He doesn’t want to fuck with me, motherfucker!” Reno said angrily. But he was worried. How the hell was he going to track down a boss in Italy? Then he looked at Sal.
“The grandfather? Great,” Sal said, knowing how herculean this task was going to be, but he pulled out his cell phone anyway. If anybody had mob connections in Italy, it was Sal, a mob boss himself. “I’m on it,” he said, and began moving away and making phone calls.
Trina looked at Reno. “What are you thinking?” she asked him.
Reno was thinking hard. “They have an M.O.,” he said.
“Who does?”
“The Partannas. They come at you the same way.”
Trina was intrigued. “What d
o you mean?”
“Frank Partanna’s son, that nasty bastard who killed Nicky, worked as a beat cop. That was his cover.”
Trina remembered. “Right,” she said.
“Junna, Frank’s grandson, worked as a security guard.”
Trina was nodding. “Right. His ass worked for us.” Then Trina realized it. Her eyes stretched wide.
“What?” Reno asked her. “What is it, Tree?”
“The school,” Trina said.
Trina looked so stunned that even Sal stopped talking on the phone and looked at her.
“What about the school?” Reno asked her.
“That’s why I went on that yacht with Bobby. He had film of Dommi at Biltmore, the day they were taking school photos. Bobby claimed it was clever how they managed to get in the room with the photographer, but maybe it wasn’t so clever after all. Maybe they got in because they were let in.” She looked at Reno. “Maybe they were let in by the principal. The brand new principal! And maybe the principal’s real name isn’t Mr. Karash.”
Reno’s mind was racing too. Sal came over to them
“Maybe he’s Partanna too, Reno,” Trina said anxiously. “Maybe he blackmailed his way into that position the same way he blackmailed all of these people to do his dirty work.”
Reno’s heart was already dropping through his shoe. And he took off. He was pulling out his cell phone, calling his security detail at Dommi and Sophia’s school, as he ran. Trina and Sal took off behind him, with Sal on his cell too, calling for every available man to get to Biltmore Academy!
Jimmy, understanding his duty, pulled out his gun and, without hesitation, finished Garry Marshall. He put a bullet through Garry’s head. And then hurried for the exit too.
“Get rid of this trash,” he ordered his men, as he ran.
The charade was over. Bobby Swann’s death proved that. But when he realized Katrina Gabrini didn’t die in that explosion, and she miraculously managed to go free, he knew he had to finish the job himself. He had to cut the act, and get on with it.
He got on with it. He left his office inside the school, and went outside where he knew Gabrini’s beefed-up security team were stationed. He knew who they were because they had to have permission to be on his campus. He was the one who granted the permission. He walked up to the parked car. The man behind the wheel gladly pressed down the window.
Reno Gabrini: When His Woman Cries Page 14
