But Dommi wasn’t in that place. “I can deal with it,” he said. “That man started it, and I finished it. That’s what I’m supposed to do. I can deal with it.” Then a different, less-defiant look appeared in Dommi’s eyes. “But I just don’t like the idea of mommy hurting.”
Reno knew exactly what he meant. The loved ones syndrome. They could handle it. They just didn’t want their loved ones to have to handle it too.
“Mommy’s a tough broad,” Reno said to Dommi. “She’ll be okay.”
Dommi smiled. “What’s a broad?” he asked. “Is that a word from the olden days?”
Reno laughed. “Fuck you!” he said, and father and son got out of the vehicle.
Inside the safe house, Sophia and her grandfather, retired pastor Cecil Hathaway, were at the small kitchen table playing Pokémon, while Trina and her mother, Earnestine Hathaway, were in the kitchen washing dishes.
“Not even a dishwasher in this dump,” Trina said as her mother handed her another dish to dry. “I’m going to kick Reno’s ass.”
Earnestine laughed. “I want you to try,” she said. “I think it’s your ass that will end up getting kicked.”
Trina smiled. She knew it too. “But he could have done better than this.”
“I know you’re used to palaces now,” her mother said, “but this is a safe house, Trina. To keep us safe. That’s all this is about.”
Trina understood what her mother was saying, but she expected more from Reno. Their children and her parents were in this tiny hellhole of a house. She wasn’t taking it back. “He could have done better than this,” she said.
But when that door unexpectedly opened, and Reno and Dommi came through, all was forgiven.
“Hey boy!” Cecil said cheerfully as he stood to his feet. Dommi ran to him and they embraced.
“Trouble has come to town,” said Sophia, as she continued to sort her Pokémon cards.
“I love you, too, Sophie,” said Dommi with a grin.
Trina was happy to see Dommi, but she was thrilled to see Reno. Because seeing him meant the threat had, at least, been neutralized. Seeing him meant that they could go back home. After giving Dommi a hug and a kiss, she ran to Reno.
She wore a pair of shorts shorter and tighter than Reno would have preferred her to wear given that his men were guarding that house and feasting their eyes on her every chance they could, he was certain, but he knew it was just his own insecurities coming out.
When Trina arrived at his side, Reno pulled her into his arms and closed his eyes tightly as he held her. And when they stopped embracing, they kissed long and passionately. It had only been a couple days since they saw each other, but that was a couple days too long.
When they stopped kissing, Reno kept Trina in his arms. She looked at him. “It’s over?” she asked.
Reno nodded. “It’s over,” he said. He could have phoned her yesterday and told her the news. But he was too broke up, too devastated, to phone anybody. He had to regroup before he spoke with Trina.
And after he kissed Sophie and greeted Trina’s mother and father, he made his way into a back bedroom where Carmine, their youngest child, was sleeping. Trina, sensing something more was bothering him, went with him.
They stood at the baby’s bed and stared at him. Trina took Reno’s hand and held it. He squeezed hers.
“Dommi behaved?” she asked him.
Reno looked at her. Had Dommi told her already? “Sure he behaved. Why?”
“Just wondering, Reno, dang,” Trina responded. “Why are you reacting like that?”
Reno stared at her. She was the smartest person he knew. Not book-smart. Tommy and Jimmy were the book-smart grownups in the Gabrini clan. But she had the kind of street-smarts that couldn’t be taught. Trina saw shit even Reno sometimes missed. Especially when it came to him. “I’m just tired,” he said.
“You’re tired,” Trina conceded, “but you’re something else too.”
“Tired is enough,” Reno said.
“Not for you, it’s not,” said Trina. “Now cut the crap and tell me what’s going on.”
Reno continued to stare at the baby. This was a conversation he wasn’t ready to have.
But he knew he had to have it.
He leaned down, holding onto the small gold chain around his neck, and kissed their still-sleeping baby. Then he continued to hold Trina’s hand as he escorted her into the back bedroom.
“How do you like the place?” he asked as he closed and locked the door.
“Hate it,” Trina responded. “Your ass could have put us up in a better location.”
“I could have,” Reno said. “But this was the safest location. And that, asshole, was more important to me. Am I forgiven?”
Trina smiled. “Your ass forgiven,” she said. “Now tell me what’s going on.”
Reno motioned for Trina to sit down on the queen-sized bed. She sat down.
Reno placed his hands in his jeans pockets, jiggling change, and stood in front of her.
“What is it, Reno?” Trina asked him. “Why are you being so cagey? What happened?”
A distressed look appeared in Reno’s eyes. “I hate to tell you this, babe,” he said. Then he proceeded not to tell her.
Trina frowned. She knew it had to be bad or Reno would not be acting that way. “Reno, what is it?” she asked. “Just tell me.”
And, at her request, he just blurted it out. “Dommi killed Pump Futarda,” he said, and then looked at Trina.
She just sat there. Her hazel eyes were wide with fright, anger, sadness, he couldn’t tell. Then he realized it was all of that and rage. Because Trina jumped up from that bed and began beating the shit out of Reno. She hit him with her fists. Reno put up his arms, to stop the blows from hitting his face, but he let her beat on him.
“You motherfucker!” she cried as she hit him. “How could you, Reno? How could you? You said you would protect him! You said . . .”
Then her licks lost their punch, and she was just blindly flailing at him. It was then did Reno grab her and pull her into his arms. He felt every ounce of the pain she felt.
For a long time, they just stood there arm in arm, until Trina stopped sobbing. Reno handed her his handkerchief, and she wiped her hurt eyes.
She looked at him. “How did it happen?”
“I was taking him to Jimmy’s office. He was going to spend the day with him until I got off work. But I saw Pump driving four lanes over from me. I couldn’t just let him drive away, Tree. My men had been searching like mad for that fucker. I had to follow him. So I did. I skipped every lane, nearly getting into all kinds of accidents, and followed him. My men couldn’t keep pace. It was rush-hour traffic.”
“But why didn’t you put Dommi out on the side of the road, Reno, and order your men to pick him up? Why didn’t you . . .”
The tears returned. Trina hated crying. But it was their child they were talking about. Their son had killed a man!
But Reno was agreeing with her. “I should have, Tree. Do you realize how many times that has since crossed my mind? I should have put him out or just let that fucker get away. Something! I should have put Dommi first, not my thirst for revenge.”
He shook his head. Trina stared at him. Reno took his responsibilities as the head of the family seriously. Too seriously. She could see the pain all over his face.
“But I wasn’t thinking like that, Tree,” Reno continued. “All I could think about was that shit he tried at your awards banquet. How he could have killed you if we hadn’t figured it out. And how he put the resource officer from our kids’ school on his payroll. There’s no telling what he had planned for him. And then to take out members of his own syndicate to get to us?”
“Tell me what happened,” Trina said bluntly. She didn’t want to get off on side issues. She needed to hear the part where Dommi got involved.
“I followed Pump to this isolated house that was so ordinary nobody would have thought a don would live there. But
he was hiding in plain sight. I told Dommi to stay in the car, and I ordered my men, when they arrived because they were stuck in traffic, to get Dom and take him away from there. But they didn’t get there in time.”
“What happened?” Trina asked.
“When I grabbed my guns out of the lockbox in the glove compartment, Dommi must have memorized the combination. You know how slick his ass is. When he heard gunfire, he put in the combo, grabbed one of my guns, and got out looking for me. He said he had to make sure I was okay.”
A sad look appeared in Reno’s eyes. “But I wasn’t okay, Tree.”
Trina stared at him. Her heart seemed to go still. “You weren’t?”
Reno shook his head. “No. I had killed Pump’s guards, the few he had around the place, but Pump outsmarted me and came up behind me. He had my ass dead to rights, Tree. He was ready to pull the trigger.”
Trina’s heart dropped.
“I was a dead man. I declare I was a dead man. But Dommi showed up and pulled that trigger before Pump could. Dommi saved my miserable life.”
Reno said it, not as a point of pride, but as a point of shame. And Trina knew what he meant because Dommi once saved hers that way. But what he had just said changed everything for her. Dommi killed a man. But he had to do it. He had to!
Trina pulled Reno into her arms. And when they stopped embracing, she pulled back and looked at Reno. “Don’t you dare blame yourself for this, Ree,” she said. “He saved your life. Our son had the balls to save his father’s life. He didn’t panic. He didn’t shirk. He did what he had to do. Thank God he was there.”
“But he was there because I had him there. He was there because my ass went there. I have to blame myself, Trina. This shit falls on me. He has blood on his hands because of me.”
Trina wasn’t going to sugar coat it. “You’re right,” he said. “But not just you. Me and you. We brought him into this world knowing full well our shit stank. Now we’re all surprised that his stank too?”
They actually smiled. Then Trina shook her head. “Thank God he was there, Reno. That’s all there is to it. Thank God he has your instincts, and got out of that car. Because if you would have died, I would have died. The biggest part of our children’s hearts would have died.”
Then she seemed resigned to the fact, and pulled Reno in her arms again. “Fuck it, Reno. It is what it is. Man up and get over it.”
Reno looked at her. Did she just tell him to man-up? Then she smiled, and he smiled, and they finally relaxed. What was does was done.
But as they stood there, still hugging, Reno felt her. Not just her spirit. He had been feeling that all along. But her body against his. He pulled back and looked at her again. And he realized, at that moment, he had an itch that needed scratching. An itch, he realized, as he looked down at her luscious lips, and her big breasts, that only she could scratch. And itch that was throbbing and tenting his jeans.
And this time, when he kissed her, it went deep and passionate. This time, he didn’t stop with a kiss. He laid Trina back onto that bed, lifted her shirt, and began sucking her breasts. He closed his eyes and enjoyed every second.
As he sucked, he pulled down her shorts and began fingering her too. She knew what he really wanted, and he knew what she wanted as well. She rubbed his hair as he sucked her breasts in anticipation of what he was going to be sucking next.
And she was right. Reno pulled her shorts completely off and then began fondling her breasts with his hand. But his mouth moved southward, between her legs, and he fondled her, and sucked her, and began mouth-fucking her.
So much so, and with such unbridled passion, that Trina couldn’t help it. She came in his mouth.
She was still in the throes of her orgasm when he stood up, dropped his jeans, and rammed his dick inside of her with such force that it intensified her cum to a point she could hardly contain.
She was in a state of delirious passion as Reno fucked her harder than she could ever remember. He didn’t spare her, and she didn’t want to be spared. He pounded her. He moaned and groaned and laid into her with no delicacy, no tactfulness, no mercy. It was what they both needed to forget all pain, and they took the chance!
They made love in that heightened state until Reno came too. He leaned over her body, kissed her hard on the mouth, and came with a thunderous outburst.
And he kept fucking her. He couldn’t stop. He kept saying her name and fucking her, thinking about how much he loved her; thinking about how much he needed her.
Until his energy, like a deflated balloon, finally fell flat. He rolled off of her, and onto the bed, right alongside her.
They laid there, well spent and satisfied, until that tune called reality played again. And they dreaded the truth of it. But the truth was the truth, as Reno had told Dommi. Even the ugly truth. He pulled Trina into his arms.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE DAY OF THE ARREST
The shot Dommi had fired that killed Pump Futarda still reverberated in Reno’s mind as he finally woke up out of his stupor. His hotel physician was there. His men were there, including his senior security chief Stef Siranno. And Reno, to his shock and amazement, was tied down to the bed.
“What the fuck?” he asked as he attempted to break free. He looked at his men. All of whom were on his payroll. “What the fuck is going on, Stef?”
“We’re under strict orders, sir,” Stef said.
“Orders? Strict orders? Your ass works for me! Whose orders?” Reno blared.
“Sal Gabrini’s, sir.”
“Sal? Where the fuck is Sal?”
But none of them knew. Sal had gotten a phone call, and had taken off. “We have no idea, sir,” Stef said.
“Untie me,” Reno ordered. “I’ve got to get to my son.”
“Mr. Gabrini said you were going to confess to murder, sir. We can’t let you do that, sir.”
“Untie me!” Reno yelled again.
“We can’t do that, sir. We’re under strict orders. Even Tommy Gabrini has phoned and told us not to release you until he arrives. And---”
Reno frowned. “And what, motherfucker?”
“Mr. Sinatra has phoned too. He’s given the same order too, sir.”
Reno couldn’t believe it. Mick was in on this shit too! But he knew, with Sal and Tommy and now Mick telling them the same thing, there was no way they were going to defy those orders. Reno would fire them for obeying the order. Mick Sinatra would kill them if they disobeyed it.
Reno laid his head back down, and stopped the struggle. It was useless anyway. “Get Sal’s ass on the phone,” he ordered his chief.
But Sal Gabrini was preoccupied himself. He was in his Bugatti flying through the streets of Vegas. After receiving that phone call from Gemma where she was screaming from the top of her lungs; where she was screaming that they were taking Lucky, and then the phone went dead, he received a second call: from Jimmy. After Dommi was taken away by the cops, Sal had told Jimmy to get to his house. His purpose was different. Sal had wanted him at the house to keep Lucky so that Gemma could go downtown and help get Dommi out of jail. But when Jimmy arrived at Sal’s house, his purpose changed.
Sal had already phoned the guards at his house to get inside and save his wife and son, but there was no answer to his call. He had then put out a call for every outside man that worked for him to get to his house now and protect his wife and son at all costs!
Jimmy had gotten there first, but even he was too late.
By the time Sal arrived at his home, his lieutenants, including his underboss and right-hand man Robby Yale, were there in force. It also included five sharpshooters at his entrance gate, carrying rifles. But they were not the men Sal had left at that gate when he left his family earlier. Now he was in too much of a state of panic to wave or even acknowledge the presence of the new protectors. His mind was on his family. He had to find out what happened to his family!
The gate opened and he sped his Bugatti through that opened gate. He d
id not stop speeding until he had sped up his driveway and parked behind the slew of cars and SUVs his men had raced over in. He didn’t see the dead bodies, all guards that had been stationed on his property, until he stopped his car. All of the guards were accounted for, except for the two guards that had been posted at the front gate: the first line of defense. All of the guards on site had been killed.
He jumped out of his car and ran toward the steps just as Jimmy, along with Robby Yale and two of his men, both top lieutenants in his syndicate, were already running down the steps and toward his car.
“Where’s my family?” he asked them without breaking his stride. He began running up the steps they had just descended from. They turned and ran back up with him.
“We don’t know, Uncle Sal,” Jimmy said. He looked as if his heart was breaking. “When I got here they were already gone.”
“Gemma and Lucky?” Sal asked him.
“Yes, sir,” said Jimmy. “They were already gone Uncle Sal!”
Sal looked at Jimmy with wild fear in his eyes. “Where’s Sophia?”
“I locked her inside one of your guesthouses. I shielded what I could from her eyes, but she already saw too much.”
A fucking nightmare! Sal thought. “Get her and get her away from this place,” he ordered Jimmy. “I don’t want either one of you around this shit another second.”
“Yes, sir,” Jimmy said, and hurried for the guest house, to do what he was told.
Sal looked at Robby as they hurried toward the entrance. “What do we know?”
“I hate to say it,” Robby said, “but we don’t know a gotdamn thing, sir.”
“Don’t tell me that,” Sal said angrily. “Don’t fucking tell me that!”
Reno and Sal Gabrini: Fire with Fire Page 12
