RENO GABRINI
THE TROUBLE WITH DOMMI
BY
MALLORY MONROE
Copyright©2020 Mallory Monroe
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This novel is a work of fiction. All characters are fictitious. Any similarities to anyone living or dead are completely accidental. The specific mention of known places or venues are not meant to be exact replicas of those places, but are purposely embellished or imagined for the story’s sake. The cover art is depicted by models and are not the actual characters.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE:
A few years have passed in Reno’s world. The PaLargio Hotel and Casino on the Vegas Strip has been completely renovated and is fully operational again, and Dominic “Dommi” Gabrini, Jr., has turned eighteen. The world doesn’t know what to make of a grown-up Dommi, and neither does Reno and Trina. Dommi, on the other hand, is ready to take the world by storm.
Until the world, on his very first try, takes him. . .
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
EPILOGUE
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PROLOGUE
Two Months Earlier
The quiet, simple room was packed with well-wishers, and Reno Gabrini and his cousin Sal stood out like sore thumbs. Not only were they the only Italians at the Wake, but they were the only outsiders with the balls to show up at all. But Dreek Fanarka did Reno a major league favor once. He had to pay his respects.
Sal Gabrini, still steeped into that mob life as one of its most feared bosses, was a man who wouldn’t trust the Asian Mafia, or the A.M. as they were known, as far as he could throw them. He was there for an entirely different reason. He was there as Reno’s backup. He wasn’t letting Reno show up alone.
The new head of the A.M., Dreek’s brother Oscar “Kong” Fanarka, saw the Gabrinis at his brother’s Wake and wanted to kick their asses out as soon as they walked in. But Reno ran Vegas. The A.M. ran most of their stateside business out of Vegas. He knew kicking Reno out wasn’t an option.
But that didn’t stop his skin from crawling when Reno and Sal made it up the mourners line, and Reno extended his hand. “Hello, Kong.”
“Good of you to come, Reno,” Kong said as the two men shook hands. “My brother would be pleased to see that you paid your respects.”
“He was a giant among men, your brother,” said Reno. “He’ll be greatly missed.”
Kong smiled, but he wasn’t about to small-talk with that asshole. He, instead, shook Sal Gabrini’s hand. “Nice of you to come, too, Salvatore Luciano,” he said.
But Dreek Fanarka never did shit for Sal. His feelings for the downed mobster and Reno’s feelings for the downed mobster were as different as night from day. “You’re finally taking over,” said Sal.
Kong smiled. He knew Sal wouldn’t know what respectful meant. But at least he knew where Sal was coming from. At least Sal wasn’t a wolf in sheep’s clothing like that slick bastard Reno. “Yes,” he said. “I’m in charge now.”
“It took your ass long enough,” said Sal with a grin, as if it was a joke. But it wasn’t. He knew what he was doing. He knew that Kong was the oldest of the three Fanarka brothers, but had been passed over to lead the syndicate time and time again. Both of his younger brothers were put in charge over him, and before them there were uncles and cousins in charge. All were dead now, along with his father. There was nobody left to stop him from ascending to the throne. But Sal knew such a lifelong affront had to hurt.
“What matters,” said Kong, knowing what Sal was made of, “is that I’m head of the families now. I’m in charge now.” He gave Sal a cold look. “That’s what matters,” he added.
Sal didn’t take it any further. Kong didn’t get his nickname for being nice. He was a madman nobody wanted to willingly tangle with.
“Have a nice day, gentlemen,” said Bashi, the flunky standing beside Kong. It was the brush off. They wanted the Gabrinis gone. But Reno and Sal didn’t mind. They wanted out too. They left without hesitation.
But before the next in line could be called over to offer their condolences and shake Kong’s hand, Bashi leaned into him. “How can you stomach that bastard?” he asked as they watched the Italians leave the room. “Sal Gabrini is a stain on the world.”
“Sal, I can stomach,” said Kong. “It’s that slimeball Reno Gabrini that I cannot take.”
“Your brother respected him,” said Bashi.
“I’m not my brother,” said Kong. “Dreek didn’t believe in settling scores. He didn’t believe in fighting back if the odds were not in his favor. My brother believed all’s fair in war. I do not share that belief.”
“What are you saying?” asked a concerned Bashi.
“I’m saying it’s time to settle scores,” said Kong. “Old, deep wounds. And the deepest one begins and ends with Reno.”
“Reno?” Bashi was alarmed. “Oscar, you cannot think such a thing. Reno’s the most powerful man in Vegas, a city we depend on. And,” he added, “he’s a Gabrini. He’s related to Mick Sinatra. Your brother was right. That’s an old wound you must not open.”
But Kong was already motioning for the next in line to come and pay their respects. “Watch me,” he said.
CHAPTER ONE
Two Months Later
Destiny Gabrini, the teenage daughter of Tommy and Grace Gabrini, fluffed up her cousin’s thick, curly hair with a smile on her face. “Now,” she said as if she actually knew what she was doing, “it’s perfection!”
Sophia Gabrini smiled too. “I wouldn’t go that far,” she said, checking out what her cousin had done to her hair. “But it’ll do.”
“It’ll do? Are you mad? It’s a hundred times better than the way you had it, Soph. At least every strand is in place now.”
“Maybe that’s the problem,” Sophia said, ruffling up her “perfect” hair a bit. “I prefer the windblown look, like my daddy wears his hair.”
“Like Uncle Reno?” Destiny couldn’t believe it. “You are insane. Uncle Reno’s hair always looks like he jus
t got out of bed and didn’t even brush it!”
“Exactly!” Sophie said with a grin.
Destiny shook her head in disbelief. “You are so like him,” he said as she fell back onto Sophie’s bed and grabbed the cellphone she had thrown there. “What I don’t understand,” she added, as she thumbed through her text messages, “is why some of us come out looking white and some of us come out looking black.”
Sophia frowned and looked at her cousin through her bedroom mirror. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“Us. Why we look the way we do. People look at you and I and all they see are two black girls. They would be shocked to know that our fathers are white men. But they look at your brother Dommi and my brother TJ and they’d be shocked to know that their mothers are black women. How can my brother and me, and you and Dommi, look so different? It makes no sense to me.”
“It’s called genetics, Des. Some genes outweigh other genes, or something like that.”
“You don’t know either.”
Sophia laughed. “No, I don’t know. Who cares anyway?”
“I hate graduations,” Sophia said, switching subjects as quickly as she brought of the previous one.
“How can anybody hate graduations, Des?” Sophie asked as she continued to get dressed. “That’s what makes no sense.”
“They all give those dreadfully-long, boring speeches and we have to sit there and listen. That’s the part I hate. And why do they have to take hours upon hours?”
“Depends on the size of the class.” Then Sophie looked at her cousin through the mirror. “Is he coming?”
Destiny gave her cousin a glance and a sly smile. Then she looked back at her phone. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“What’s ridiculous about it?”
“My dad will kill me if he knew the kind of boys I like. And Dad and Mom will be at the ceremony. That’s what’s ridiculous about it.”
“But what’s the big deal?” Sophie asked. “You like boys that are just like your dad. Why wouldn’t he mind that?”
Destiny looked at Sophie. “Boys like my dad? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You like bad boys, Des. That’s what it means. You like tough, great-looking, bad boys. Uncle Tommy’s tough. That’s a check. He’s great looking. That’s a double-check.”
“But Daddy’s no bad boy,” said Destiny. “He’s as straight an arrow as Mom.”
Sophia continued to stare at Destiny. Although they were both around the same age, Sophie felt as if she were eons older than her cousin. She knew how her Uncle Tommy and Aunt Grace sheltered Des and TJ in ways Sophia’s parents never shielded her and her brothers. Sophie wondered if Destiny even knew that their Uncle Sal was a mob boss, or that their Uncle Mick was the boss of all mob bosses? Or even that Reno’s father, Sophie’s deceased grandfather, once ran the mob too and that Reno had to take over and settle his old man’s scores? Although Uncle Tommy, as head of the Gabrini Corporation, played it straight most of the time, she wondered if Destiny realized her father was everybody’s enforcer when they needed him to be? She wondered if Des knew any of that!
But before she could so much as entertain the idea of asking Destiny any of those questions, Sophia’s bedroom door opened and her mother peeped inside.
“Thanks for knocking, Mom,” Sophia said.
“In my own home?” Trina Gabrini asked. “You better get out of my face! But at least you’re getting ready,” she added, and then she realized her niece was also in the room. “Oh, hey, Destiny.”
Destiny smiled and waved. “Hi, Aunt Trina.”
“Where’s the rest of that family of yours? They’re in town for the graduation too?”
“Yes, ma’am. They’re still over at Uncle Sal and Aunt Gemma’s house. But they’ll be at the ceremony.”
“That’s good.” Then she stared at Destiny. Her beauty astounded that way. “You’re looking prettier every time I see you, girl. I’ll bet Tommy has to beat those boys off of you.”
Destiny smiled. “ Not quite,” she said.
“Oh, yes, he does,” said Trina. “Just like Reno has to beat’em off of Soph. I’m not new to the game, child,” she added, and both girls laughed. “I used to be a teenager too, okay?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Destiny. Of all of her aunts, Sophie’s mother, she felt, was the hippest.
Then Trina looked at Sophia. “Where’s your father?” she asked.
“You know where,” said Sophie.
“He’s still in that casino? I know better than that,” Trina said.
“I told him you were going to be angry if he didn’t come on, but he just told me to get my ass out of the casino. It’s not a place for kids, he said.”
“Then why does he have his kid living above a casino?” Destiny asked, and Sophia laughed.
But Trina failed to see the humor. “Don’t get cute, Des,” she said to her niece. “Why your Uncle Reno does whatever he does you do not question. That’s my lane. Understand?”
Her Aunt Trina, she also realized, could be the toughest of all of her aunts as well. She was running neck-and-neck with Uncle Mick’s wife in that department, she thought. “Yes, ma’am,” she said.
“Killing his ass is my lane too,” added Trina, as the girls laughed and she left her daughter’s room.
“That’s my mother,” Sophia said as their laughter died down. “My mom don’t play!”
But Destiny was staring at Sophia. “But still,” she said.
Sophie, who had continued getting ready, looked at her through the mirror. “But still what?”
“I’m your favorite cousin, remember? Why didn’t you come to my defense, Soph, when your mother all but took my head off? Why didn’t you defend me?”
“Because I like my life,” Sophia said. “I’m not saying anything that would give my mother good reason to put me in an early grave. That’s why!”
Both girls laughed.
“You know how Ma can be,” Sophie added. “She doesn’t mean any harm.”
“Yeah, right,” Destiny said as she continued thumbing through her text messages. “You Gabrinis are something else!”
Sophia looked at her sideways. “And who do you think you are if not a Gabrini, Miss Destiny? A Sinatra?”
“A Sinatra? With mean Uncle Mick as my dad?” Destiny looked as if Sophia had just insulted her. “Bite your tongue, you silly girl. That would be worse! I feel awful for Glo and Joey and even the twins for having Uncle Mick as their dad.”
“But you don’t feel bad for cousin Teddy?” Sophia asked.
“Are you serious? Teddy’s just like Uncle Mick! He just knows how to disguise his meanness better.”
Sophia laughed. “Whatever, Des,” she said, and continued getting dressed.
Then Destiny set straight up. “He just text me!” she said excitedly. “He took off work today, and he just text me.”
“I thought he was his own boss.”
“He works for his uncle,” said Destiny. “But he still has to make arrangements to take an entire day off.”
“How old did you say that boy was again?” Sophie asked.
But Destiny wouldn’t say. She laid back down and anxiously read his brand new text message.
But Sophia continued to stare at her cousin. She believed Destiny’s new love could be as old as nineteen, although Des would never come out and say his age. And he wasn’t exactly some upstanding citizen, if Des’s track record in the boyfriend department was any indication. But dating a full-grown man while they were still in high school was so crazy to Sophia. But Destiny swore her to secrecy. And Sophie was nobody’s snitch.
Besides, she had her hands full just worrying about her stupid brother and the fact that he was about to go out into the world, with his reckless self. But sometimes, like now, she was just as worried about Des.
CHAPTER TWO
“But it’s tricky,” the tourist said as he stood beside Reno Gabrini’s tall chair in the casino. “You can’t tell you
r old lady you’re going to Vegas to gamble. That’ll cause her to go into hysterics. ‘What about the mortgage? What about the car payment?’ She’ll go apoplectic on you if you come out and tell it like it is.”
“So you lie?” Reno asked. “Is that what you’re trying to say?”
“You don’t lie exactly, no sir, at least not for the most part,” the tourist said. “But you don’t tell the truth, either,” added the tourist, and Reno laughed.
The tourist, a big-belly used car salesman from Scranton, had asked permission of Security, which was protocol, to talk with Reno. He had a buddy with him, an owner of a dry cleaners from Scranton, too, but his buddy couldn’t get a word in edgewise.
They were in Reno’s massive casino on the Vegas Strip, a casino voted the best in all of Vegas after it was renovated and reopened. And Reno Gabrini, voted the King of Vegas many years running, was doing what he made it his business to do every chance he got: sit in his casino, near the back, and entertain any customer who wanted to drop by and chat. He felt he learned more from that one-on-one contact with the regular joes than he ever learned from any algorithm experts and market samplers and other professional bullshit artists who told him what he wanted to hear as long as he kept the checks coming. The real people, he felt, gave him the real deal.
But Jimmy Gabrini, his oldest son, was standing beside his stool. And he was getting antsy. “It’s getting late, Pop,” he said to his father. “You need to make a start.”
“Yeah, yeah, I got it,” Reno said dismissively to his son. “If you didn’t tell her the truth exactly,” Reno said to the tourist, “what did you tell her?”
“I told her I was going to Vegas, okay?”
“You told her that much of the truth,” Reno said.
“I told her that much of the truth, right,” the tourist agreed. “But I told her I was going to Vegas, not to gamble and fuck, mind you, but for a convention.”
Reno smiled. “A convention?”
“Hell yeah. A convention! And you know what? She don’t even ask what kind of convention. None of that shit. You know why? Because it sounds legit. It sounds all business-like. ‘My husband, he’s gone to the convention.’ It sounds upper-class. She eats that shit up.”
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