“I’m okay.”
“What did he do?”
“Tried to pull this on me,” Trina said, and handed Reno the gun Fred had tried to use.
Jimmy walked away from Val and over to his stepfather. “You pulled a gun on my mother?”
But Fred was unrepentant. “That bitch ain’t your mother,” he said hatefully. But to his shock, Jimmy punched him so hard that one of Fred’s teeth flew out. Fred looked at Jimmy, stunned.
Reno smiled. “You didn’t see that one coming either, did you?” Reno asked. “We Gabrinis are just full of surprises.” Then Reno frowned and hurried to Fred, grabbed him by the neck, and shoved Fred’s own gun inside of his already bleeding mouth.
“Now you listen to me, asshole,” Reno said. “You tell me what’s going on and you tell me right now. I’m going to remove this gun, but you’d better tell me who sent you and why, and you’d better tell it right the first time. There won’t be a second time.”
Jimmy knew his father, and he knew what he was capable of. He looked at Val. She was so overwhelmed and concerned that she no longer looked twenty-three, but twelve.
Trina looked at her and saw it too. She’s been through an ordeal. She couldn’t take much more. “Come on, baby,” Trina said, put her arms around Val, and was about to leave. But she turned and looked at her husband. “Not here, Reno,” she said to him and then walked with Val around corridors and corridors inside the penthouse until they were in the Nursery, where the nannies were and where both Dommi and Sophia were, asleep.
Back up front, Reno pulled the gun out of Fred’s mouth. He wanted to handle it where they were, but Trina was right. The living room of his family home was not the place. He pulled out his cell phone, ordered his men to come and take Fred downstairs, and then he and Jimmy quietly rode the elevator down to the basement too. But just as they were about to get off, Reno stopped Jimmy.
“Maybe you should go back up with Tree and Val.” Reno didn’t mean it. He knew Jimmy was at that age when trying to hide the facts of the Gabrini life from him was no longer viable. Besides, it was his girlfriend who had been taken. Jimmy had skin in the game.
“I’m staying with you,” Jimmy said.
Reno stared at him. “Sure?”
Jimmy nodded. “I’m sure.”
And Reno, satisfied, walked along the dark corridor that led into what his men called the dungeon: a soundproof room beneath the casino.
Fred was already sitting down, unbound, in a chair. One of Reno’s men had picked up where Reno had left off and had a gun down Fred’s throat. Reno walked up to him and sat down in front of him. Jimmy stood beside Reno.
“I can read bullshit a mile away,” Reno said. “So don’t bullshit me. You tell me the truth. You will not get a second chance to tell the truth.”
Fred nodded nervously. Reno nodded at his man, and the man removed the gun from out of Fred’s mouth.
Fred grabbed his neck as soon as the barrel of that gun left his throat. He knew what Reno was capable of also, and his heart was hammering because he knew.
“Leave us alone,” Reno said to his men, and they left out of the dungeon.
Reno, however, pulled out his own gun and pointed it at Fred.
Fred’s entire countenance grew weary. “What do you want me from me?”
“You can begin by telling the truth. No more of that bull shit story you told us. Why was my son’s girlfriend snatched?”
Fred shook his head. “She was nothing,” he said. Jimmy couldn’t believe he’d say that. But Fred not only said it, he kept saying it. “She was a misdirection. A pawn. Nobody cared about her. If she died, she died. She was just my ticket into the door. It’s you they’re after.”
Reno could feel Jimmy’s anger. But he was wasting his energy. Val was safe. This wasn’t about her anymore. They had to get to the meat of this matter. They had to find out what exactly this was about. “They’re after me?” Reno asked.
“It’s you they want.”
“Yeah, and who’s they?” Reno asked. “Who sent you?”
Fred hesitated. “You don’t understand. I had to do it. I owe money, you see. Big money.”
“I don’t give a flying fuck what you owe! Who sent your ass here?”
Fred exhaled. “I told you who.”
Reno stared at him. “Why would my business partner have anything to do with the likes of you?”
Fred found such a statement incredulous. “The likes of me?” Fred shook his head. “You don’t have a clue, do you? He knows how to do it. With you, he has these legit-looking business interests, and that’s good enough for you. You had no idea he was selling drugs right under your nose. I mean one of the biggest dealers this side of living. And you had no idea.”
Reno studied Fred.
“Don’t shoot the messenger,” Fred said. “For some reason he hates you. He hates you. That’s why he paid me to get rid of your wife. He wants you to suffer. I owe him, but he paid me to do this job, that’s how bad he wanted it done. He knew I used to be a cop and could handle myself. He knew I was no longer a cop because of my need for cash. I was the perfect man for the job.” Fred smiled. “So you can rough me up all you want. Help yourself. But he’ll still be out there, gunning for you. So rough me up all you care to.”
He frowned. “Rough you up? What’s that supposed to mean? Is that all you think I’m going to do to you?”
Fred’s heart began to pound. “Right,” he said.
“Wrong,” Reno said. “Dead wrong. What are you, an idiot? And you’re talking about I don’t have a clue? You think I’m going to let you walk into my home, threaten my wife while my two young children are asleep in their beds, and there be no retribution? You think all I’m going to do to your stupid ass is rough you up? That’s what you think? After what you tried to do to my wife, to my family? Get the fuck outta here!”
Fred’s heart started pounding. He looked at Jimmy. “You can’t let him do this, Jimmy. I’m your stepfather for crying out loud! I raised you! I claimed you as my own when he didn’t even want you! You have to stop him!”
Jimmy knew Fred was lying. He knew Reno didn’t know he existed until he was seventeen years old. But desperate men always lied. And Fred was reeking of desperation. And if Jimmy knew his father, and he did, Fred was right to be afraid.
Any other time and Jimmy would have come to Fred’s rescue. Any other time he would have tried to convince his father that he couldn’t kill the man who raised him. But that man had no problem coming to the Gabrini home and attempting to kill Trina. That man had no problem associating with people who terrorized Jimmy’s girlfriend and kidnapped her as if she was nothing more than collateral damage for his own purposes. And Jimmy was tired of it. He was tired of these people gunning for his father, time and time again, when his father was just trying to live in peace and harmony and keep his family safe. But they kept coming for him. They kept dredging up all of that past shit and coming for him. And Jimmy had had it.
But Fred was begging now. “You know how he is,” he was saying. “He doesn’t give a damn about you! He kills for the sport of it. He hurts people because he can. But you can’t let him hurt me, Jimmy. You know me! You know what kind of man I am! You have to stop him.”
And Jimmy buckled. He gave in. He took the gun out of his father’s hand. “No, Pop,” he said warily. “This is one dead man you are not going to have to give penance for.”
Then Jimmy turned to Fred and shot him, pointblank, between the eyes. Reno jumped to his feet as Fred slouched over, dead on the spot. “This one,” Jimmy said, “is on me. This burden,” he added, “I’m carrying.”
Reno’s heart fell through his shoe. He looked at Fred Ridgeway. Not that he didn’t deserve it. He did. He was the one who would have killed Trina without batting an eye. Reno would have had to take him out. He could not have let that stand. But then Reno looked at his twenty-two year old son. And he was devastated. Because now, he knew, if he’d never known it before, that Jimmy was him. That all
of the sins, the pain, the blood that soaked Reno’s hands like an oil slick, was going to pass on to Jimmy.
It was inevitable, Reno knew it was. But he had hoped and dreamed that his son could somehow stay away from the Gabrini brand. But now he was branded too. Now James Maxwell Gabrini, better known as Jimmy Mack, was Reno’s son through and through.
Reno took the gun from Jimmy’s hand. “Get upstairs,” he said.
But Jimmy was still staring at Fred. There might have been regret in Jimmy’s eyes, but Reno didn’t see it.
“Didn’t you hear me? I said get your ass upstairs.”
“I wanna stay down here with you, Pop.”
“I don’t give a fuck what you wanna do!” Reno’s heart was breaking. “I said get upstairs.”
“Why I got to go up there? What am I supposed to do when I get up there?”
“Comfort your woman. Sleep, eat, drink. I don’t give a fuck! Just get out of here!”
Jimmy knew his father was shielding him. He knew his father was determined to not even let his own men know that it was Jimmy who did this deed. But Jimmy did it so Reno wouldn’t have to, and he didn’t care who knew it. Reno wasn’t going to bear these burdens alone ever again. He hugged his father, and then he reluctantly left the dungeon.
Reno dropped down into the chair. He felt as if he had taken that bullet himself. Jimmy had just killed his own stepfather. He had just killed the man who raised him. And this was only the beginning. It was one thing to knock off some random guy who did you wrong. That was terrible enough. But Fred Ridgeway was family to Jimmy. Jimmy went there when he didn’t have to go there. Reno knew this was only the beginning.
And not only that, they had a big-ass problem on their hands, a problem by the name of Nicky Minnelli. Not because Nicky was some major badass they couldn’t handle. But because Nicky was a man Reno trusted and depended on. But if Ridgeway was to be believed, Nicky was also a man who had sent a killer to Reno’s front door. He was also a man who had caused Reno’s son to give up his normal life, and embrace the Gabrini normal.
This shit just got serious, and nobody knew it better than Reno.
He didn’t hesitate.
He pulled out his phone, and called Tommy and Sal.
TWELVE
After looking in on his children, Reno walked along the corridors of the huge, eerily quiet penthouse, and headed to his own bedroom. Trina was in bed, and had finally dozed off, but by the time he showered and got in bed behind her, she was wide awake once again.
“I thought I told you to get some sleep,” he said.
“I did get some sleep.”
Reno got under the covers and began moving his naked body against her. He was surprised when he felt material against his penis, rather than her naked body. He frowned. “What’s with the gown?”
“It’s not a gown,” Trina replied, “it’s one of your shirts.”
“Take it off.”
Trina was already lifting it over her head and removing it from her now naked body. She tossed it onto a chair. “Better?”
Reno pushed against her, felt her familiar tight ass, and then placed his dick in that warm slit between her butt cheeks. “Better,” he said.
“Jimmy and Val okay? Are they still asleep?”
“Yeah, they’re still sleep.”
“While you and Jimmy were downstairs with Fred,” Trina said, “Val wanted to go home.”
“Not tonight.”
“I told her. I told her you guys needed to get a better understanding of what was going on first. Then when Jimmy came back, they wanted to go downstairs to his apartment. But I wouldn’t allow that either. Where were you anyway, when you sent Jimmy back up?”
Reno remained downstairs, in the dungeon, and waited for his men to take away Fred’s body. He didn’t want Jimmy to have to experience that too. Besides, Val needed him and Reno needed time to think.
“I was still downstairs,” he said. Then he changed the subject. “I looked in on Dommi and Lexie. They sleep so peacefully, Trina.”
“I know,” Trina said with a smile. “Both of them will sleep through a hurricane, I’m telling you.”
“I so want them to have peace in their lives too. I don’t want them to ever have nights like this.”
Trina didn’t want it either. Lord knows she didn’t. But she also knew they would. They were Gabrinis. They would.
But as they laid there, Trina began to feel Reno’s uneasiness in a starker light. He was accustomed to having to make awful decisions, and she was sure Fred Ridgeway was one of those decisions, but she felt as if there was an even heavier sense of burden on Reno. A devastatingly heavier burden. She turned her body around, so that she could eyeball him, and suddenly they both were laying on their sides, facing each other. But when Trina saw Reno, she realized just how right she was. He looked as if he’d just lost someone near and dear to him.
“Reno, what’s wrong?”
As soon as she asked, tears began to well up in his big, blue eyes.
“Oh, baby, what is it?” Trina was super-concerned now. Reno rarely showed tears, but when he did, it always broke Trina’s heart. “Tell me, Ree. What happened?”
Reno looked at her, at her beautiful face, at her smooth, dark skin. At her. “Tommy and Sal’s coming,” he said.
Instead of being warmed by that fact, Trina felt a sense of dread. If Reno had to call in his cousins, there was trouble. Major trouble. “You called them?”
“Yep.”
“Because of Nicky Minnelli?”
“Because something’s wrong.”
“Not just a double-cross?”
“No. That’s bad enough, but no. I can’t say what it is, but I know something’s wrong.”
“What can I do?”
Reno looked at her. “Call your folks and send a plane to get them to Vegas. I don’t trust anybody but family right now. Give the nannies some time off and let your folks and Fran watch the kids.”
“Okay,” Trina said, nodding her head in agreement, but she knew him. That wasn’t why he had tears in his eyes.
“Are you going to tell me what else is bothering you?”
Reno hated to even think about it. But he knew he had to. “Jimmy,” he said, but he couldn’t immediately continue. The tears began to roll down his face. Trina placed her hand on the side of his face, and her touch alone eased the pain. It couldn’t eliminate it, nothing could do that, but it eased it. “Jimmy did the job,” he finally said.
But Trina didn’t get it. She frowned. “He did the job? What do you mean, Reno?”
“Jimmy did the job,” he said again, and looked at her. “The Fred Ridgeway job.”
And as soon as he said that name, she got it. She went from a look of puzzlement, to a look of pain. “Oh, Reno.”
“It wasn’t my choice, Tree. I was going to handle it myself. But Jimmy, he . . .”
“He what?”
“He took the gun out of my hand and before I could even react, he did it himself. He shot Fred Ridgeway, Tree.”
Trina closed her eyes. She opened them again, but the pain was still there.
“He shot him,” Reno said, comforted that he always had her to talk to. He needed to unload. “He said he was doing it for me. He said he didn’t want me to have to bear that burden too. I was so stunned. I was so . . .”
“Oh, baby,” Trina said, and was about to pull Reno into her arms, but Reno turned onto his back. He refused to be comforted.
“You didn’t fail him, Reno,” she said.
But Reno knew better. “I’m his father. Jimmy is my flesh and blood. If it wasn’t for the fact that he’s linked to me, he wouldn’t get in these predicaments. And this wasn’t his first time either, Tree. You remember Eddie Dreeson and what happened there. He let his emotions take control and he gets crazy with it, Tree. That’s on me. That shit ain’t on him! I caused that! The fact that my old man was the monster he was brought that shit on me, and the fact that I’m who I am is bringing it on
my children. On my son.”
Trina stared at Reno. “So what are you going to do about it?”
Reno shook his head. “It’s on me, Tree,” he said, with anguish in his voice.
“So it’s on you. What the fuck are you going to do about it then?” Reno looked at her. Trina was getting angry herself. “You’re the reason, you say. It’s all because of you. So I figure the only answer is for you to leave us.”
Reno couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He leaned up on his elbow. “Leave you?”
“That’s the answer, Reno.” Tears welled up in Trina’s eyes. “The only answer is for you to abandon us and stop being our children’s father. The way you’re talking you think they’ll be better off without you anyway. You think that’s the answer, don’t you? Well I sure as hell don’t!”
Trina frowned, her heart breaking. But she knew she had to go hard on this. She knew she had to impress it upon Reno. “We’ll be devastated if you leave us, Reno! You won’t be making it better, you’ll be making it worse! We’ll die without you! You hear me? We love you and we’re proud to be Gabrinis! So you stop that motherfucking talk right now. You stop it! You’re my husband and you’re the father of all of our children. And I’ll kill your ass myself if you even think about leaving us!”
Reno grabbed Trina and pulled her into his arms. He kept pulling until he had her on top of him. He bear-hugged her and she bear-hugged him and they both sobbed in each other’s arms. This was why he loved her so completely. Not just because she loved him back, but because she accepted him and his awful background and all of those awful decisions he always had to make.
“Oh, Tree,” he said.
She stopped hugging him and looked at him, the tears still in her eyes. “Promise me you’ll never leave us because you think we’re better off without you, Reno. Promise me.”
Reno smiled a loaded, weary smile, and moved hair out of Trina’s gorgeous face. “I promise,” he said. “I promise it’ll take death itself to ever get me away from my family.”
Trina smiled a genuinely happy smile. And hugged him again.
But, of course, Reno wasn’t about to just let her hug him. He began kissing her. And the longer she laid naked on top of him and they kissed, the bigger he became beneath her. And soon he was rubbing her ass, and then fingering her. And then, as soon as she was wet enough, he put it in her.
Reno and Son: Don't Mess with Jim (The Mob Boss Series) Page 13
