They all were stunned. “Shit,” said Reno.
“What does this mean if it’s not him?” Dommi asked. “How did whoever this is know we were coming here? What does this mean?” Dommi was looking from his father to his uncles to back to his father.
“It means that the war has already started,” said Sal, “and our asses are still in the planning phase!”
Then they all looked at each other. And they were suddenly panic-stricken too. “The PaLargio,” Reno said breathlessly, giving voice to what they all were thinking, and they all ran to the Mercedes as fast as they could run, with each one of them frantically pulling out their cell phones and calling their loved ones at the PaLargio, as they ran.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Mick Sinatra was restless. He wasn’t accustomed to being the one left behind, not ever, although it was his choice, and he spent most of that time pacing the floor. He glanced in the playroom, where Sal’s wife, Gemma, was sitting and talking with Trina’s parents as the three of them watched the younger kids. Sal’s boy Lucky was there, along with Tommy’s boy TJ, and Reno’s youngest son. Instead of disturbing the kids, who always looked at Mick as if they were terrified of him, he kept it moving.
But when he was about to walk past the family room and heard the ladies talking and trying to make sense of Destiny’s bad decisions, he stopped at the door and leaned his tired, big body against the jamb.
Tommy’s wife, Grace, he noticed, still looked distressed as she sat on the sofa beside her daughter, and her daughter was leaned against her like some baby. But Destiny was hardly a baby. She was a beautiful black woman, in Mick’s view, who knew she was a beautiful black woman. And whether her parents were ready or not, he knew she was going to be beating off men for the rest of her life. She had that kind of beauty. Sophia, Mick saw as she sat beside her cousin, was pretty, too, but in a more traditional sense. Destiny’s beauty, like her father’s beauty, was rare.
Reno’s old lady Trina, another beauty and one of the toughest women Mick knew, was in the family room, too, but she was just sitting back and was still as a mouse. That wasn’t like that sister, Mick thought. Not by a long shot! But he understood why she was so quiet. She was worried about Reno. And it wasn’t just Reno this time, but she had to worry about Dommi too. He was a grown-ass man now, in more ways than one, but he was still her baby.
And once again, Mick noticed, Destiny was trying to make sense of her behavior even as she was trying to explain it away. “I didn’t know he was like that,” she was saying to her mother. Grace was rubbing Destiny’s soft, curly hair as Destiny leaned against her. “He was always so kind to me.”
“But you know what your father told you,” said Grace. “He told you, ever since you were a little girl, Desi, that you had to always let us know who your friends were, or who you were hanging out with. He had to run background on those people to make sure they weren’t plants trying to do you harm. I can remember him running background on your ten-year-old playmates’ parents. That’s how serious he takes you and your brother’s safety.”
“I know that,” said Destiny. “I know Daddy wants to keep me safe. But you don’t understand, Mommy. Bert was different. Bert wasn’t like that.”
“He was very much like that,” Sophia said.
Mick always thought of Sophie as the smartest and most sensible of all of the next generation of Gabrini/Sinatra children. He could also see her parents’ toughness deep within her too. Soph was, in Mick’s view, the total package. And unlike Destiny, Sophia was going to be the one to beat back any man who tried to get next to her. She was a serious girl.
“He had the wool over your eyes,” Sophia continued saying to her cousin, “that’s why you didn’t think he was like that.”
“But you don’t understand, Soph,” Destiny said. “He was really sweet and kind to me!”
Sophia rolled her pretty eyes. “Oh, Des, you have so much to learn,” she said in a way that made Mick smile, because she said it as if her cousin was just north of hopeless.
But then Mick’s little moment of gaiety was interrupted by blood-curling yells from Jimmy. “Uncle Mick!” Jimmy started yelling. “Uncle Mick!”
Mick and everybody else in that family room took off down the hall and around the corner to Reno’s home office. When Mick, who got there first, ran in, Jimmy was sitting behind the desk, watching the big security monitor that showed every inch of his father’s casino.
“What is it?” Mick asked as he began hurrying toward the desk, and as all the others began running in too.
“Is that him?” Jimmy was asking, staring at one station in particular on the monitor.
“Is that who?” Mick asked as he hurried around the desk.
“Is that Cobahara?” Jimmy asked.
And when he asked it, Trina and Gemma hurried around that desk too.
Mick had to squint his eyes to make sure he was looking at whom he was certain he was looking at, and his heart dropped. “Motherfucker,” he said as if he was saying it mainly to himself. Because right before his eyes was Ken Cobahara, the man he knew had a contract out on Dommi. The man he knew would know why the Asian mob had a contract out on Sophia.
“Get everybody in the bunker,” Mick was ordering Jimmy as he began pulling out his weapon and hurrying toward the office exit. The bunker was the safe room every Gabrini and Sinatra household were required to have. “And call Security,” Mick continued ordering. “Tell them I’m coming down!” And before Jimmy or anybody else could get a word in, Mick had run out of that office.
And Jimmy was on his feet, with his cell phone in his hand. “Ma, get everybody in the bunker!” he ordered.
But he didn’t have to tell Trina. Whenever Reno left the house on “missions,” he made it clear that Trina was the one ultimately in charge. “If in doubt,” he always told his family, “do what Mommy says.”
And Mommy was hurrying Grace and the two girls out of the office even as Jimmy had Security on the phone and was telling them why Mick was coming down. Then he and Trina both were running into the play room to get Gemma, her parents, and the little ones into the safe room too. And even as they did, Trina’s cell phone began ringing. Reno was calling Trina. And then Grace’s cell phone. Tommy was calling Grace. And Gemma’s cell phone was ringing. Sal was calling Gemma.
But downstairs, just as Mick was getting off of Reno’s private elevator, his cell phone was ringing too. Dommi was calling Mick. But when Mick was handling business, his mind was singularly on the business at hand. He didn’t even notice his phone was ringing.
A large contingent of Reno’s security detail met Mick at the elevator. Mick began running toward the casino, where Cobahara was last spotted, with the chief of security attempting to run stride for stride with him.
“Have you seen him?” Mick was asking as he ran.
“No, sir. And our guys went over every inch of that casino as soon as Jimmy called.”
“Go over that fucker again,” Mick ordered. “He’s here somewhere!”
And then Mick’s strides overtook the chief’s strides, and Mick was gone.
Inside the massive casino was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. People were so numerous it seemed as if they were elbow to elbow. But Mick and Security were pressing their way through. Although Security might have been checking each and every face they encountered, Mick was checking corners. He knew how it worked. He knew Cobahara would need a quick exit if he was spotted. Mick was looking toward all the exit points.
But Cobahara was nowhere to be seen.
Mick called Jimmy on his cell phone. “Everybody in the bunker?” Mick asked.
“Everybody except Ma,” said Jimmy.
“Tell Katrina I said to get her ass in that bunker,” Mick ordered, “and get her ass in there now!”
“Yes, sir. Did you find him?”
“No. Is he still showing up on the monitors?”
“No, sir,” said Jimmy. “I just ran back in here after I got the
kids in the safe room. He’s not showing up anywhere.”
“Same here,” said Mick.
But as soon as he said it, gunfire erupted, not inside of the casino, but inside the lobby of the hotel. But the massive casino crowd, not to mention the crowds in the hotel lobby, began to duck and run and panic.
Mick already had his gun at his side and he and Security began running for the lobby. When they got inside, they could see two men, near the entrance, firing shots in rapid succession.
“Active shooter!” the security chief was yelling in his walkie talkie. “All men to the lobby. We’ve got active shooters in the lobby!”
But Mick saw something else. He was about to run for the men just as Security was heading their way. But he stopped in his tracks. Because he noticed that the men weren’t shooting at anybody. They were shooting in the air. They weren’t trying to maim or kill. They were trying to scatter and confuse.
And distract, Mick realized.
They wanted to distract Mick himself!
And as soon as he realized it, he was turning around and running for Reno’s private elevator in the back of the lobby. But when he went to swipe the keycard Reno had given to him years ago, and recently after the hotel was renovated, the key wouldn’t work. He looked at the pad, and saw that the elevator had been taken upstairs. It was stopped at the penthouse!
Mick’s heart dropped as he began calling Jimmy on his cell phone and running back into the casino, to Reno’s other private elevator in the back corridor of the casino.
But when he got to that elevator, and went to swipe his keycard, he realized that that elevator was stalled too. It was at the penthouse too! On the thirtieth floor!
And Jimmy, to Mick’s horror, was not answering his phone.
Jimmy was just getting up from the monitor in his father’s office when he heard gunfire just outside the door of the penthouse. Penthouse security, he realized, was in a gun battle.
“Jimmy!” Trina was yelling when she heard it too. “Get in the bunker! Jimmy, come on!”
But Jimmy was pulling up the penthouse monitors. He needed to know what they were up against. When he pulled it up, he saw the man known as Cobahara killing one guard, while the group of men with Cobahara were killing the other guards, as they shot their way toward the penthouse entrance.
Jimmy’s heart was hammering as he grabbed the gun he had on his father’s desk, and ran out of his father’s office. Trina, armed with an assault rifle, was in the hall, too, and she immediately grabbed Jimmy by the arm of his shirt and began hurrying him toward the bunker.
But they didn’t make it. Because the door to the penthouse was busted open with what sounded like a battering ram, and Jimmy and Trina turned just as the door was broken into. The hall where they stood was facing the front door, and as soon as they turned, they were now facing trained assassin, and grieving father, Ken Cobahara.
And within a split second, all that could be heard was the sound of guns firing in rapid succession, and all that could be seen of Cobahara and his men, and of Jimmy and Trina, was gun smoke.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Well gotdamn,” Reno said as soon as he sped onto the Strip and saw what looked like the entire metropolitan police department on his premises. Thousands of people were on the street, presumably people who had been guests at his hotel and casino, but no Gabrini was spotted in the crowd.
They had gotten through to Grace and Gemma, with both ladies saying that they were forced into the safe room because Cobahara was spotted inside the casino. Reno drove even faster when they heard that news. When they spoke again to the family, they said Sophie had gotten out of the bunker to check on her mother and brother, and they heard gunfire. They tried to pull Sophie back in, but she was as stubborn as her parents. She ran on out, shutting them back in. Reno’s heart fell through his shoe when he heard that news.
Now he was mortified. Something horrific had apparently happened for all of the Vegas PD to turn out the way they had, with armored trucks filled with SWAT cops just arriving when he arrived.
But Reno didn’t delay. He slammed on brakes, then he and Tommy, and Sal and Dommi, jumped out and began running toward the PaLargio. They ran with pure panic in their hearts. When they were able to squeeze through the crowds and get up to the tape, Sal saw that Captain Norred was on site, and in charge.
“Norred!” Sal yelled as he and the other Gabrinis were barred, by front line cops, from entry.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” asked Reno to one of the cops. “You can’t stop me. I own the PaLargio!”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Gabrini,” responded the cop. “We know that, Mr. Gabrini. But we are not allowed to let anybody through. You can’t come through.”
“Like hell, I can’t,” Reno said angrily, and torn the tape in two with his bare hands, and then he and the rest of the gang ran through. All they could think about was getting to their families. Those cops were just in the way.
But they were immediately accosted by over a half-dozen cops, all with their guns drawn. “This is a restricted area,” one of the cops yelled. “Get back! Nobody is allowed beyond this point. Get back!”
They held up their hands. They knew what cops were capable of. Until Captain Norred heard the commotion and was just heading over there. Sal pointed to the vocal cop, who seemed Bonnie Fyfe-like trigger happy. “Red,” Sal said, “come and get your boy. You better get your boy!”
Norred hurried over. “Put the guns away,” he ordered his men. “All of you,” he added, to the vocal cop. They all backed off.
“Sal, hey,” he said, but was surprised to see Tommy Gabrini with them too. Of all of the Gabrinis, Tommy, he felt, had the least amount of blood on his hands. But he had blood on his hands.
“Where’s our families?” Sal asked anxiously. “Let us in! We need to get inside.”
“You’ll get in, but not yet. We’re still clearing the lobby.”
“The lobby?” Reno asked. “Why?”
“There were two gunmen in the lobby,” said Norred, “but so far, no casualties there. Your Security team took both men out. But . . .”
“But what?” Sal asked. “What the fuck is wrong with you, Red? Why can’t we go in and make sure our families are safe?”
“SWAT is here,” said Norred. “They’ve got to make sure the coast is clear before we can let anybody breach the perimeter. You know how it’s done.”
“Fuck how it’s done!” Reno declared. “This is my property! Nobody’s keeping me off of my own property!”
And he and Sal and Tommy and Dommi, too, began to muscle their way past Norred.
“You can’t go in yet,” Norred was saying, as he tried to hold them back, but they were just too strong. But then more than a dozen cops ran over, and restrained all of the Gabrinis.
“Put them in one of the tents,” Norred ordered his officers. “I’ll be in there as soon as I get more intel.”
But out of the corner of Reno’s eye, he saw Mick on the side of the building, with Mick motioning for them to go left.
Reno snatched away from one of the cops restraining him. “Leave us the fuck alone!” he yelled. “You aren’t putting us in any fucking tent!”
And the others, taking their cues from Reno based on the look of I got this on his face, snatched away from the cops too. And they all left the cordoned off area.
But they didn’t leave the area. They, instead, walked around the backside of the crowd, and then down what looked like a dead-end alley, but an alley that led to what Reno knew was a door. Within seconds of their arrival, the door was opened by Mick Sinatra, and they all went through, locking the door back.
“Is everybody alright?” Reno immediately asked Mick.
“I don’t know yet,” said Mick as he began escorting them through the narrow passageway that led to the back stairs. “Both of the private elevators were disabled. I got on the public elevator that took me to the floor just below the penthouse, and then I ran up to the penthouse st
airwell, but they had that blocked off too.” Then he stopped in his tracks and looked at them. “And all I heard was gunfire,” he said. “It’s soundproof on the top floor, but I could hear the sounds in the stairwell.”
“Have you been able to reach anybody?” Reno asked. “We sure as hell haven’t.”
Mick was shaking his head. “Nobody’s answering. Not even your wives in the bunker.”
“What about my son?” Reno asked.
“I don’t know,” Mick said with regret in his voice. “And Trina’s fast ass wouldn’t go down in the bunker like I ordered her to,” Mick added.
Reno closed his eyes, opened his suit coat, and exhaled. He hated hearing that!
Mick frowned. “But that’s my fault,” he added, and Reno opened his eyes. “I should have kept my ass up there,” Mick continued. “That’s on me, not her.”
They all could see the distress on Mick’s face, which didn’t help any of them. Because if Mick Sinatra was worried sick, what did that do for the rest of them?
“The way Red was talking,” Sal said, “the cops don’t even know there was gunfire at the penthouse.”
“That’s because it’s soundproof,” said Dommi. “Nobody heard anything.”
“Are there any other secret passageways to get up there, Reno?” Tommy asked.
But Reno was already shaking his head. “No,” he said with anguish in his eyes. “That was coming. I had the plans drawn up. But it wasn’t in yet.”
“Damn,” said Sal.
But then Mick continued walking.
“Where are we going, Uncle Mick,” Dommi asked as all of them were following Mick, “if there’s no other way?”
“There’s what you call no way,” said Reno, “and then there’s Mick’s way. Just shut the fuck up and follow the man!”
And Dommi did just that. And despite all that was going on around them, he inwardly felt a sense of accomplishment. He was in the club now. He was no longer that boy. He was a Gabrini man now. But the reality that he caused all of this mayhem, brought him back down to earth. That sense of dread returned.
Reno Gabrini: The Trouble with Dommi Page 13