“What you mean why not? Because he had to breach my security, that’s why not! Because he had to pay off my top people.”
Marcy shook her head. “Reno, Vito Giancarlo breached your security months ago, when that war started with Frank Partanna, didn’t you know that? Your people been his people for months. All he had to do was say the word. And he had to say it. Word had already gotten out that MarBeth killed Eddie. He couldn’t let her get away with that without a hit back, or everybody would know it was a Partanna.”
Reno could hardly believe it. Had he been that off base? Had he been outsmarted that badly?
Marcy laughed. “And your dumb ass actually thought I was the mastermind, that I could have hit the PaLargio.” Her smile left. “I hate your ass, you got that right. But I wasn’t about to be your sacrificial lamb the way our son was.”
Reno didn’t know if she was telling the truth or telling a pack of lies, and the fact that he didn’t know, didn’t have a clue, was a problem.
He left the safe room, ordered his men to give her some cash and take her back where they got her from. And then he stood there, both hands in his hair, wondering what in the world was going on here.
NINE
They sat on the patio, Reno and Trina sharing a lounger, and Tommy and Shawna side by side in chairs. Everybody had a drink, except Shawna, and everybody had an opinion on what to make of Marcy’s claim.
“I’m not buying it,” Trina said. “Eddie Giancarlo not dead? It’s too incredible, Reno.”
“We thought Pags was dead, too,” Shawna reminded her, “but Frank Partanna pulled it off. He fooled everybody.”
“But that’s my point,” Trina said. “Everybody saw it before. You can’t pull a stunt like that twice.”
“What do you think, Tommy?” Reno asked him.
Tommy just sat there, his legs crossed, his glass of wine resting on the arm of his chair. Then he exhaled. “We’ve got to talk to Vito.”
Reno nodded. “Agreed.”
“But the question is,” Tommy went on, “is Marcy Davenport a trustworthy individual? That’s the question.”
“Well is she, Reno?” Shawna asked. “You’re the only one around here with any intimate knowledge of her.”
Tommy glanced at Trina. Trina, however, couldn’t care less about any of Reno’s past romantic entanglements. She knew her worth to him.
“About some things, yeah,” Reno said.
“What about this thing?” Tommy asked. “What about Vito hitting the PaLargio and Eddie not being dead? What about Vito breaching your security months ago? You believe all of that shit?”
“Yes. No. Hell, I don’t know, Tommy,” Reno said, standing up and beginning to move around. “I don’t know. That’s what’s driving me insane. I have to know if what Marcy said was true. I have to be absolutely certain.”
“How can you be absolutely certain?” Shawna asked. “There’s no absolute proof in this game. Is it more likely than not that Vito Giancarlo hit the PaLargio, regardless of whether or not Eddie is alive or dead? I still say it has to be Vito, since you’re so certain it wasn’t Marcy.”
“It wasn’t Marcy. I looked into her eyes.”
“You looked into her. . .” Shawna shook her head, her irritation showing. “Excuse me, Reno, but what the heck does that mean?”
“Shawnie,” Tommy said.
But Shawna would not back down. “No, I need to know because let’s face it, Reno, your judgment of late hasn’t been all that stellar, I’m sorry but it’s true. And where I come from looking into somebody’s eyes and determining her soul is about as nuts as looking into somebody’s ears and determining her thoughts. Come on, Reno, you looked into her eyes? Seriously?”
“Marcy didn’t hit the PaLargio, all right? She’s been through enough. I’m not taking her through any more wild goose chases because you had a bright idea. I have to be absolutely certain this time, Shanks, and I mean absolutely certain.”
“Then you can forget it,” Shawna said, “because there’s no absolutes here.”
Reno, however, stood firm. “I’m not killing a man, or ordering a hit on a man, based on a maybe.”
“Then you’re a dead man because they’ll kill you on one. Or even less than a maybe.”
“Shawna’s right, Reno,” Trina said.
Reno looked at Trina, surprised. “So you say we hit back? You’re telling me that I should hit Vito?”
“I know you have reservations,” Shawna said.
Reno looked at her. “Reservations? Is that what you call it? Besides the fact that Vito Giancarlo has the kind of manpower and connections that can crush us, hell yeah I have reservations! If we hit, and this is a big if, I’m not doing this half-cocked like we did with Frank Partanna and Pags. I’ve got to know more. I’ve got to be sure.”
Shawna stood up too and walked over by the rail. She leaned against it. Tommy watched her. She was getting frustrated fast. But not because she disagreed with Reno. She understood he was making sense. But it seemed to Tommy that she just wanted to get this over with. That last job, where her error caused her to take casualties, was haunting her still.
“Why don’t we just let it die,” Tommy said. “No more bloodshed. Let it be.”
Reno was shaking his head, but Trina spoke up before he could. “He can’t do that,” she said.
Both Reno and Tommy looked at her. “Why not?” Tommy asked.
“Because they killed his family, his mother no less. You expect him to just forget something like that? Every mobster this side of Jersey will be gunning for Reno if he doesn’t get Vito.”
“But Vito is big, Tree,” Tommy said. “The kind of hit we can execute isn’t going to cripple an organization like that. He’ll hit back. Then what?”
“We aren’t talking about crippling him. We’re talking about taking him out, him and his boy if that fucker is still alive.”
Reno stared at his wife. She had changed. What he feared most after that attack was coming to past. She was forced to shed blood and now the strangeness of that shedding was beginning to seem less strange to her. His heart plunged.
Tommy, too, was alarmed. He looked at Reno. Reno was still staring at Trina.
He walked over to her. “Come on, babe,” he said, extending his hand. Trina was surprised that he was ready to call it a night this early, but she didn’t dispute him. She stood and took his hand.
“Call Carmine,” Reno said to Tommy. “I want him to get MarBeth here before we make any moves. I think Dirty can handle security for his own wife.”
“But you’re going to make a move?”
Reno looked at his cousin. “They kill your mother, nearly kill your sister, would have killed your wife, your Shawna. What would you do, Tommy?”
Tommy’s heart squeezed at the thought of losing Shawna. “I’ll call Carmine,” he said.
Reno was taking a cell phone call from Lee Jones by the time they made it into the bedroom. He laid across the bed going over business details regarding the PaLargio while Trina showered and brushed and put on a silk nightgown. Reno didn’t finish his phone conversation, however, until after she had gotten on top of him and straddled him. She smiled, pretended to be riding a horse, as he killed the call.
“Ride me, Reno,” she said jokingly.
“I’ll ride you all right,” Reno replied half-heartedly. She had on no panties underneath her gown and she knew he was feeling the pressure of her vagina against his stomach, something that always used to get him going. But he seemed unable this time to put aside the fact that a lot of unknowns lay ahead of them.
She stopped bucking. “What’s wrong?” she asked him. “Everything okay at the PaLargio?”
“Yeah, everything’s fine.” Then Reno pinched his temple.
“Then what’s wrong?”
Reno stared at her, placed his hand on her chin and then released it with a playful snatch, although his eyes had no play in them. “I’m a little concerned, Tree.”
“About
Vito?”
“About Vito. Of course about Vito. But about you too.”
This surprised Trina. “Me?”
“Yeah, you. Since when you sanction retaliation? You hate that shit.”
“I didn’t say I loved it. I said you couldn’t let Vito or whoever it was get away with it.”
“I can’t allow it, Tree. I can’t allow you to become me.”
A hardness came into Trina’s eyes. “It’s too late for that now, isn’t it?” she said, which surprised Reno. “They put us in this position, Reno.”
“No, they didn’t. They didn’t put us anywhere. They put me in this position, not us. And I’ll be the one to get us out of it.”
“We’re in this together.”
“No, we aren’t. I want you to understand that, Tree. No, we aren’t. You’re still innocent---”
“Innocent? How can I be innocent? I killed two people, Reno!”
Reno grabbed her by her bare arms. He shook her. “You’re innocent, you hear me? You’re not what you was forced to do. You’re not that and you will never be that, do you understand me, Tree?” Tears were in Reno’s eyes. “Tell me you understand that.”
Tears came in Trina’s eyes too, and she nodded, laid her head down on his chest. He wrapped her into his arms.
“I understand,” she said.
And she did.
It was after eleven by the time Tommy made his way up the stairs to his bedroom. He had been on the phone with Sal Luca about his restaurants, and with his security people about numerous other cases, including final preparations for the transporting of Carmine and MarBeth to Seattle. Francine was still too ill to travel, still in ICU, and therefore it was decided that Dirty, her husband, would stay in Vegas with her. But since MarBeth may still have a target on her back, and Reno wanted her out of harm’s way, Tommy ordered Carmine to get her safely to Seattle.
Now all Tommy wanted to do was get some sleep.
He changed his mind, however, when he entered his bedroom and saw Shawna lying on top of his bed. She was stark naked, on her stomach, her lithe, toned, beautiful brown body so gorgeous, so alluring to Tommy that suddenly getting sleep was the last thing he wanted to get.
He removed his tie as he walked toward the bed. “Hey,” he said.
“What took you so long?” she asked.
Tommy was surprised. He sat on the edge of the bed, stared at her, tried her. “Missed me?” he asked her.
Shawna hesitated. He could see the fear in her eyes. “Yes,” she said.
He smiled, placed his hand on her butt. “I miss you every time you’re away from me.” He began rubbing her in a slow, caressing rub.
She felt a tingle deep within her vagina as he caressed her. “Even after you dumped me?” she asked him.
“I didn’t dump you,” Tommy said, unbuttoning his shirt with his free hand. “I gave you an ultimatum.”
“You gave me an ultimatum, and then you dumped me.”
“I want to give you something else tonight,” he said, his hand sliding between her legs and rubbing against her womanhood. She sighed.
“What do you want to give me?” she asked, barely able to keep her eyes opened.
“My love,” he said and looked at her. Normally this was the time when she shut down. Any talk of affection turned her off. But not tonight.
“Your love in the form of what? Your dick?”
“That too,” Tommy said, his fingers moving between the lips of her vagina and scratching her there.
She groaned.
“Do you want some dick, Shawnie?” he asked as his fingers slipped deeper inside of her, moistening her with every rub, making her feel the anticipation of the heat as much as the heat itself.
She nodded. “Yes,” she said, her voice a whisper. “I want some dick.”
Tommy stood up, removed his shirt, unbuckled and unzipped his pants, and then stepped out of both his trousers and his briefs.
Shawna looked down, at his long, stiffening rod, at his lean but muscular thighs, at his tanned, athletic body that still turned her on in ways that sent shivers down her spine. She reached out, and took possession of his penis, and began a slow, gentle massage.
Tommy stood there, as she fondled him. And when she placed his penis into her warm, sweet mouth, that mouth he loved, his penis began to harden to such an extent that he knew he wasn’t going to last much longer.
He got in bed on top of her. She was still on her stomach as he straddled her. Then he took his engorged dick, rubbed it across her buttocks, and then slipped it, big and hard, into her vagina. His movements were slow and steady as her tightness had him going in but barely out. He squeezed her small, brown ass as he gyrated her, as he continued to move in and barely out, in and barely out, and she squeezed the sheets of the bed as she felt the intensity. This was Tommy, her gold standard, the man she loved above any other human being, and that fact along made her want to cry.
He laid down on top of her, his stomach against her ass, his in and almost out rhythm steadily increasing. “You turn me on so much, baby,” Tommy whispered in Shawna’s ear as he fucked her. “I could fuck you all night long.”
“Then do it,” Shawna said with sensual delight.
But he knew that was impossible. The feeling was just too intense. Because as soon as she said it, Tommy’s control broke and his gyrations became deeper, more penetrating thrusts that caused Shawna to scream his name.
“Tom-my!” she screamed as he rode her; as she felt the stiffness of his rod thrash against the walls of her vagina, over and over. And his thrashings kept going deeper and deeper until he was within the deepest part of her womanhood. And that was when he let it out. All of it. Into her.
She squeezed her vagina around his rod as he released, and the tightness of her climax, and the thrust of that release, met in a place of such high intensity that they both lifted up, and then crashed back down.
Later, as they lay arm in arm in bed, Tommy kissed her forehead. He was holding onto her as tightly as he could. And that elephant in the room, that trip to New Jersey tomorrow, could be ignored no longer.
“What’s going to happen, Shawnie?” Tommy asked her.
Shawna hesitated. “About what?”
“Vito Giancarlo.”
“We’re going to meet with him.”
“And?”
Shawna smiled. “And there will be blood.”
Tommy pinched her bare butt. “Don’t play with me.”
“I’m not playing. It’s the truth. You ask me what’s going to happen and I told you: bloodshed is going to happen, that’s what.”
Tommy hesitated. “And you’re okay with that?”
Shawna didn’t respond. She knew exactly where this was leading and she didn’t want to go there.
“And you’re okay with blood being shed?” Tommy asked again.
“No, I’m not okay with it,” Shawna finally responded, “but what do you want me to say, Tommy? It is what it is. I’ll just go and do my job.”
“And your job is what? Helping Reno kill Vito Giancarlo?”
“Vito is a bad guy--”
“Vito is a man, Shawnie. A human being. And who gives you the right to end that man’s life?”
“He killed Reno’s mother!”
“You don’t know that for certain.”
“I do know it, what are you talking about? And what difference does it make anyway? If he’s not guilty of this crime, he’s guilty of some other crime. I just do my job.”
Tommy hesitated. “And what if I ask you not to do this job?”
Shawna immediately moved out of his arms and began moving out of his bed.
“Shawnie!” he yelled and grabbed for her, but she was already on her way.
She grabbed his same dress shirt that he had earlier tossed off, put it on her naked body, and headed out on the balcony adjacent to the bedroom.
Tommy sat up, knowing he had bitten on sensitive fruit, and wondered if making amends was even worth the
bite.
He quickly decided that it was, put on his bath robe, and went out onto the balcony too.
Shawna was standing at the rail, her long hair blowing in the wind, as she looked out at the birdbath in the middle of the big backyard. His shirt on her body was blowing too, batting and wrapping around her slim body, revealing far too much of her for such a breezy night.
Tommy walked up behind her and opened his robe, wrapping her into it with him, her body now pressed against his. And they just stood there. Then Tommy spoke.
“Forget I said that,” he said.
“But you meant it, didn’t you? You want me to quit my job.”
“I didn’t say that, Shawnie. I don’t want you to get caught up in any mob war, that’s what I was talking about.”
“But that’s my job, Tommy. Reno hired me because he could trust me to do what I have to do. He doesn’t know who he can trust now.”
“I understand that.”
“He trusts you, but you’re no killer. You don’t have that in you, Tommy.”
“You’re no killer either.”
Shawna didn’t respond.
“I do what I have to do, too,” Tommy said.
“I know that,” she replied. “But that’s the problem. Sometimes on these kinds of jobs you don’t just do what you have to do, but what you think you need to do. That’s the difference. You don’t have that in you.”
Tommy exhaled. “I just want you safe,” he said, a frown of anxiousness engulfing his face. “I just want my lady safe.”
Shawna inwardly smiled. Because it was true. Tommy Gabrini really loved and cared about her, and was probably the only human being on the face of this earth who did.
She leaned back, against his rock hard, naked body.
“I’ll be safe,” she promised.
TEN
The private jet taxied at the airstrip in Newark, New Jersey and Reno stood to his feet. With him on the plane were Trina, Tommy and Shawna. Carmine and MarBeth, who arrived earlier that morning, was also with them. MarBeth might still be a target, regardless of what Marcy had said, and Reno therefore wasn’t about to take any unnecessary chances. The way he saw it he’d had more than his share of unforced errors over the past year. He wasn’t interested in having any more.
MOB BOSS 3: LOVE AND RETRIBUTION Page 12
