Reno Gabrini- the Trouble With Dommi

by Mallory Monroe

  “He had Amber picked up too,” said Trina.

  Dommi looked at his mother, shocked, then he looked at his father. “You have Amber?” he asked. “I thought you said you didn’t want to pick her up.”

  “The time wasn’t right when you suggested it,” said Reno.

  “When did it become right?” Dommi asked.

  “When I found out they were involving your sister too. That’s when I knew they were pulling out all the stops.”

  “But they’re pulling out all the stops to do what?” Dommi asked.

  Reno glanced at Sal. “I know how to leave the PaLargio undetected,” said Reno. “Me and Dommi are going to the Safe House. I want everybody else to stay here with the family, just in case. That includes you, too, Sal.”

  But that pronouncement concerned Trina mightily. “Why do you have to take Dommi too?” she asked.

  “Because, Ma,” Dommi answered for himself, “it’s my life on the line.”

  “Because he has to learn how to fight for his life, Tree,” said Reno. “This is how you fight.”

  Trina understood it, but the distress on her face told Reno she was having a hard time accepting it.

  He went to her, and placed his hands on either side of her pretty face. “It’s going to be alright, babe,” he said.

  “Take care of our baby, Reno,” said Trina. “He may think he’s grown now, but he’s still our baby.”

  Reno nodded. “I know it.”

  “Take care of him.”

  “You know I will.” Then he kissed her on the lips. “We’ll be back,” he said, and then he and Dommi, already heavily armed, hurried down the back hall.

  Tommy went to Trina, and pulled her into his arms.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  It took them nearly half an hour longer to get to the safe house than would normally be the case because Reno took the backroads. Then he pulled his Porsche into the garage at the safe house from a backstreet, and then through a dirt path that Dommi didn’t even realize was back there. But Reno was antsy. He turned off the ignition, and looked at his son.

  “Don’t fuck this up,” he said. “If you want to see Mariah again, follow my lead, you understand?”

  “What do you think Amber can tell us?”

  “Do you understand me, Dommi?”

  “Yes, sir. I understand. But what do you think Am can tell us?”

  Reno frowned. “How the fuck should I know what she can tell us? You follow every lead. That’s what we do. But her ass knows something. She’s the one got this whole ball rolling.”

  Dommi was nodding. “Right.”

  “But don’t let your emotions overrule your good sense, you hear me, Dommi? We need to hear what she has to say.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Then Reno stared at his son a moment longer. He hated that he was caught up in this world, but he was in it now. They got out of the car.

  Once they made it inside, Amber was seated in a chair in the sparsely furnished house, under the protection of two guards.

  “Where’s the boyfriend?” Reno asked, referring to Jaylin, their original captive.

  “We put him downstairs, Boss,” said the second guard. “We didn’t want these two communicating.”

  Reno nodded. That was his order, and they obeyed it. Then he and Dommi walked up to Amber. The second guard hurried and grabbed a chair for Reno, and placed it in front of Amber’s chair.

  Reno sat down. Then he leaned forward, his elbows on his thighs. “Why did you try to get my son killed?”

  Amber, who had already been terrified by Dommi, was already shaking her scared head. “But I didn’t,” she said forcefully.

  “Amber,” Reno said calmly, “what we aren’t going to do is lie to me.” He looked her in the eyes. “You never lie to me, you understand?”

  She nodded vigorously. Reno’s eyes had a chilling effect when he wanted them to.

  “Now you tell me the truth, young lady. Stop fucking with me. Why did you set my son up at Mo’s? And don’t tell me that bullshit about not knowing Cobahara’s guys and none of that shit. Tell me what you know.”

  “But I don’t know anything!” Amber insisted. And it was so sincere that Dommi believed her.

  But Reno didn’t. He already sized her up, and knew who he was dealing with. As soon as she finished speaking, he took his fist and knocked her, backwards, out of her chair. Then he got down and began beating her violently about her face.

  Dommi was stunned. His father said emotions should never rule his actions, but that was exactly what his father’s actions were being ruled by.

  And he was right. Amber set Dommi up for a kill that would have happened if Dommi was a lesser man. But because Dommi was his son, and knew how to defend himself, he survived the attack. But that didn’t make what she did, in Reno’s eyes, any less odorous. He beat her down.

  Amber was screaming okay, I’ll tell you. Please don’t kill me! Please don’t kill me, just after Reno’s first hard lick. But Reno didn’t ease up that quickly. He knew who he was dealing with. He needed her to understand who she was dealing with.

  Amber got the message when Reno stopped beating on her and Dommi got her and her overturned chair off of the floor. He threw her down onto the chair. Her face was bloody, and contrite with fear.

  “Jaylin isn’t my boyfriend,” she said. “The nephew of an assassin for the Asian Mafia, a man named Bert Mitsu, is the one I fool around with.”

  “Was,” said Reno.

  Amber looked at him. “Was?” she asked, as tears began to appear in her eyes. “What do you mean was?”

  “Get on with it!” Dommi yelled, scaring her, and she did as he ordered. She got on with it.

  “Bert told me that the head of the Asian Mafia put a contract out on Sophia.”

  “Why her?” Dommi asked, puzzled.

  “He didn’t tell me why! He just told me I had to help. He said he was using your cousin, Destiny, to get to your sister. They wanted your sister first because they said she was your father’s favorite.”

  Dommi glanced at Reno. It was true. He and Jimmy both knew it was true. He assumed it was because Reno had three boys (four if you counted his deceased son), and therefore it stood to reason he would favor the only girl. But Jimmy said it was more to it than that.

  “So Sophia was the main target.” Then she looked at Dommi. “But when I saw you dissing me and treating Mariah like that big bear was some kind of queen,” she said, “I decided I knew how they could easily get you.”

  “So you came up with the plan to get Mariah to the party and then take her out back?” Dommi asked.

  Amber nodded. “It was so easy. I knew she liked Jonathan, and I knew Jonathan liked me. I also knew you’d be looking at every move Mariah made, because you always did that in school, so I knew all they had to do was get her outside, start raping her, and you’d go out and check on her. Just like you did. And then they could kill you. It was supposed to be so easy. But you took out Bert’s cousin, his uncle’s son, instead.”

  “Why do they have Mariah?” Dommi asked. “What does she have to do with this?”

  “Oh, please, Dommi! You know why!”

  But Dommi didn’t know why. “Why?” he yelled. He was frustrated and scared for Mariah. “Tell me why, Amber!”

  “Because of the baby!” Amber yelled.

  Reno and Dommi both frowned. “What baby?” Reno asked.

  Amber gave Dommi a hard look, as if he had betrayed her somehow. “The baby Dommi put inside of that bitch!” she said.

  Reno was floored. He looked at his son. “She’s pregnant,” Reno asked, “with your child?”

  Dommi was just standing there, as if he was floored himself.

  “Dommi, answer me! Is Mariah pregnant with your --.”

  Before Reno could finish his sentence, Amber’s head suddenly jerked backwards, as if she’d been shot. When Reno saw the bullet hole through her forehead, he knew she’d been shot. He grabbed Dommi and they both hi
t the deck. And a sudden and unrelenting hail of bullets came crashing through the windows as if whomever was shooting aimed to take out every man in that house.

  Both of the guards were pulling out their weapons to fire back, but they were immediately shot down before they could pull out anything, and were riddled with bullets just like Amber.

  Reno and Dommi began crawling on their bellies as fast as they could to get out of the line of fire. They needed to get out of that living room and they were crawling for their lives to get out of there.

  When they made it to the kitchen area, they got up. Dommi began running for the back door, but Reno grabbed him and pulled him into the side pantry room just as the backdoor was busted open and a second wave of gunmen came in firing too.

  Reno and Dommi were nervously pulling out their weapons, too, ready to fire on them before they could fire into that pantry. But then they heard more gunfire, but it was coming from outside, as if somebody was firing on the very gunmen that were firing on Reno.

  Reno opened the pantry door and saw that the gunmen were turned around, toward the back door, firing outside, but they were being picked off one by one by one. And he and Dommi began hurrying out of the pantry, firing too and taking out those that the gunmen from outside hadn’t taken out.

  After everybody had fallen, they looked outside. And that was when they saw Mick.

  “Motherfucker!” Reno said, relieved. “I told your ass to stay back.”

  “You don’t tell my ass anything,” said Mick. “Sal’s with them. Everybody’s in the bunker, including Jimmy. That’s under control. But here? Not so much.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Reno.

  “The men that were out front just ran inside,” said Mick calmly, “and Tommy’s about to smoke this joint. So I’d get out if I were you.”

  Reno, shocked that those weren’t the first words Mick had said to him, grabbed Dommi and they both ran out of the house just as the house exploded with such force that it threw Reno, Dommi, and even Mick across the backyard.

  Jaylin, in the basement of that house, was consumed in the explosion.

  When Tommy, who had detonated the explosive, ran around back and saw his guys, he thought they had all been hit.

  But then he realized none of them had been hit. They all got up. They all were fine.

  Reno looked angrily at Mick. “Motherfucker, you could have told me the plan a little sooner!”

  “You were too busy chastising me,” Mick shot back.

  “Was it Kong Fanarka?” Dommi asked. “Was it his people?”

  Tommy nodded. “It was another wave of Kong’s people, yes,” he said.

  “Then there’s no more debating this shit,” Reno said bitterly. “We’ve got to take this fight straight to Kong himself. We’ve got to cut off the head of that ma’fucker or he’s gonna be sending groups in to take us out for the rest of our lives!”

  “I agree with Reno,” Tommy said. “This ends with Kong and Kong alone. We’ve got to go after him.”

  Mick didn’t verbalize his agreement, but he nodded his head.

  Dommi was still too shellshocked, and still suffering ringing in his ears from the explosion, and still reeling from what Amber had told him about that baby, to nod about anything.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “Tell your mother.”

  Reno, Trina, and Dommi were in the master bedroom’s sitting area after Reno, as soon as they returned from the safe house, had ordered his wife and son upstairs. Reno also wanted to keep Jimmy out of it and therefore didn’t invite him upstairs too. Jimmy was completely legit now, and Reno aimed to keep him as unblemished, for a Gabrini, as he possibly could.

  Mick, Sal, and Tommy were downstairs on their phones, putting the word out to all of their security chiefs and underbosses that Kong Fanarka was now wanted by the Gabrinis. But he had to be taken alive because he had an important hostage that they didn’t know where to find: Reno Gabrini’s grandchild.

  Dommi had told his father and uncles all about that situation on the drive back to The PaLargio. Now his mother had to know. But Dommi was never so tough when it came to breaking his mother’s heart. And he knew, because of his actions, she would be heartbroken.

  “Tell me what?” Trina asked her son when he wouldn’t respond to his father’s order. “What’s your father talking about, Dominic?”

  Dommi let out a harsh exhale and ran his hands through his massive pile of curly hair. He looked so old to Trina, as if he’d aged a year in a day. But he still wouldn’t tell her.

  Reno slapped him upside his head. “Tell her!” he ordered.

  “It’s Mariah,” Dommi said.

  Trina’s heart began to grow faint. Did Fanarka kill that girl? “What about Mariah?” she asked.

  Then Dommi panicked. He couldn’t bear to break his mother’s heart. “She told me she had a miscarriage, Ma,” he said hastily. “That’s why I never told anybody. I didn’t know she was still carrying it. She said she had a miscarriage.”

  But Trina was confused. “A miscarriage? What are you talking about, boy?” Then it dawned on Trina. And her already big, hazel eyes grew bigger. “Mariah’s pregnant?” she asked. And then her eyes grew even larger. “She’s carrying your child?”

  “I thought she had a miscarriage, Ma!”

  “She’s carrying your child?” Trina needed a straight answer from that boy of hers.

  Dommi finally nodded. “Yes, ma’am,” she said.

  “But you said she was just your friend, Dommi.” Trina was still trying to make sense of that bombshell news she’d just received. “You said she was just . . .” And then she realized how nonsensical she sounded. Dommi lied to them. What else was new? Whenever a young person’s mouth was moving, they were usually lying.

  Trina, as she always did whenever she felt overwhelmed and scared, looked to Reno.

  Reno saw the fright and anguish in his beloved wife’s eyes. He hurried to her and pulled her into his arms. “It’s going to be alright, babe,” he said to her.

  “Oh, Reno,” she said to him in a distressed voice. She was unable to see the bright side that quickly. “How do we know it’s true?”

  “Amber told us,” Dommi said.

  “Amber?” Trina asked. “And you believe her?”

  “She and Mariah used to be real close friends. She confided in her about all our issues. I told her not to. I told her Amber wanted to be in her place with me, that she wanted to kind of relationship me and Mariah had together, but Mariah wouldn’t listen to me. She liked Amber. She thought it was cool that the coolest boy in school and the coolest girl, at least from where she sat, liked being her friend. So when one thing led to another thing one night and we ended up pregnant, she told Amber that too.”

  “But why would Mariah claim she had a miscarriage?” Trina asked.

  Dommi rubbed his in-need-of-a-shave face with both hands. And he looked ashamed. Trina immediately knew why. “When Mariah told you she was pregnant, you told her you weren’t ready to be a father,” she said. “Didn’t you tell her that, Dommi?”

  Reno looked at his son. Was he that kind of a bastard that he would leave a girl stranded like that?

  But Dommi was shaking his head. “No,” he said. “I didn’t have to. She assumed, by my shocked reaction, that I didn’t want it. But I wasn’t going to leave her and that baby to fend for themselves, Ma. You know I wouldn’t do that. I just needed time to think this thing through.”

  “Something your ass should have done before you fucked that girl without a condom,” Reno said.

  “She was on birth control,” said Dommi. “She thought she had taken her pill, but she realized too late that she hadn’t.”

  “So you told her you needed some time alone,” Trina said,” which was code, to a woman, for get lost. So she got lost. She told you she had miscarried. She told you she felt you and her should just be friends.”

  Dommi looked at his mother. He was shocked. “That’s exactly what she said
,” he said. “But how did you know that, Ma?”

  “Every woman knows that, boy,” Trina shot back. “You didn’t abandon her with your words. You abandoned her by your actions. Emotionally, you abandoned that girl. So she gave you a way out.”

  “And your slick ass took it,” said Reno.

  Dommi frowned. “I wouldn’t have abandoned her,” he said bluntly.

  But Trina didn’t give a shit what Dommi was saying at that point. She was worried about Mariah, and their grandchild. “They still have Mariah, don’t they?” She looked up at Reno. “They still have our soon-to-be grandchild?”

  Reno nodded. He hated the thought of it too. “Yes,” he said. “They still have’em both. But don’t you worry, Tree. I’ll get Kong Fanarka. I’ll get that bastard. And when I do, it’ll end.”

  “But how?” Trina asked. “You said it’s the whole Asian Mafia, not just one family.”

  “But he’s the head of the A.M.,” Reno said. “Nobody’s forcing this fight but Kong’s stupid ass. We’ve got to get him and him alone. Not his minions like we’ve been doing. Not any other members of that mob. Him. Because when he goes down, it will end.”

  “But where are they keeping Mariah?” Trina asked. “Is she still alive? Do we know anything?”

  A distressed look appeared on Reno’s face. Dommi walked off, over by the window, and leaned his head back. He was distressed too.

  But Reno answered his wife. “No,” he said. “We don’t know anything yet. But we’ll find him.”

  “But we don’t know where she could be?”

  “My money says she’s with Kong. Where he goes, she goes. That baby she’s carrying is his insurance policy. He knows he’ll still live as long as he’s got her.”

  “Which means Mariah will still live as long as he’s alive,” said Dommi.

  Reno nodded. “Right.”

  “But how are we going to find him?” Dommi asked. “We can’t just walk up on the head of the Asian Mafia.”

  “You’d be surprised,” Reno said.

  But Trina still needed answers. “But why is he after our children?” she asked. “Why did he put that contract out on Sophie?”