Reno Gabrini: I'm Losing You

by Mallory Monroe

  He placed two of the men in the bathtub, and stabbed their dead bodies repeatedly. Then he placed one body on the far side of the bed Trina was sleeping in, and stabbed his dead body repeatedly.

  Then he took the knife, still soaking in blood, and wiped part of the blood off on her bathrobe, part off on the bedpost, and kept the remaining blood on the knife. Then he laid it in the bed, beside her black, beautiful body.

  When he saw that all of his work was as it was supposed to be, he smiled, and left the suite. And then anonymously called the cops about a commotion in that very same room.

  Even later still, after Reno had been in the air for nearly four hours, the call came in. It was Trina. She was talking low. He could barely understand her. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “I need you to come back to Florida.”

  “Why, Tree. What happened?”

  “They said I killed three people.”

  Reno jumped up. He couldn’t believe it. “They what?”

  “Can you come back?”

  “You know I’m coming back! Geez, babe! Did they hurt you? Are you alright?”

  “I’m alright. But they found the bodies in my room. All three bodies.”

  Reno couldn’t believe it. He pulled Calanesi, put Brizio in charge, and this shit still happened? He hadn’t been gone four hours!

  “Turn this motherfucker around!” he yelled to Sal’s pilot. “Get me back to Florida!”

  “I’m on my way, darling,” he said into the phone. “Just hold on, alright? I’m on my way.”

  Back in her Florida hotel suite, Trina hung up the phone. And then looked at the sergeant. “Let’s make a deal,” she said to him. “You give me what I need, I’ll give you what you want.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  “I don’t think so,” Dommi said as he ate another spoonful of Fruit Loops.

  “I know so,” Jimmy responded, as he fed his baby girl more food. “How about that?”

  “How about you don’t know as much as you think you know,” Dommi said.

  “Jimmy Mack knows what he thinks,” Sophia said. “Jimmy Mack knows everything. Mommy says so.”

  Dommi looked at his little sister. “You believe everything Mommy says, little girl? For your information, Mommy tells babies like you whatever you wanna hear so you don’t be scared at night. Life isn’t always about ponies and rainbows.”

  Jimmy laughed. “Just eat your food, boy, and leave her alone.”

  They were at the kitchen table in the penthouse. They were dressed for school, when Jimmy received a text to wait. They were on shut down. Security had been increased.

  Jimmy looked at Sophia. “And you’re absolutely correct,” he said. “I’m the best around.”

  “That’s not what she said,” Dommi said.

  “Whatever,” Jimmy said, then looked at Sophia again. “Believe everything Ma tells you and you’ll go far in this world.”

  Dommi looked at Jimmy. “One of the boys at school said his sister said Mommy isn’t your Mommy too. That true?”

  Jimmy looked at Dommi. “Are you for real? Dad and Mom both told you and Sophie I had a different mother. You know already.”

  “But why do you call our mommy your mommy if she’s not your mommy?”

  “She’s my stepma,” Jimmy said, “which makes her my mother too.”

  “What happened to yours?” Dommi asked, and he and Sophia stared at Jimmy.

  Jimmy fed little Madison another spoonful of food, and the intercom buzzed. Jimmy felt a little relieved. Talking about his mother’s untimely death was still painful. Instead of answering Dommi right away, he pressed the intercom button. “Yeah?”

  “Val is down here, Jimmy.” It was Reno’s Hotel Security Chief. “She wants clearance to come up. I know your father said she no longer has unfettered access, so I had to call up and check.”

  From the pot to the frying pan, Jimmy thought. He didn’t feel like dealing with Val either. But he knew he had to. “Yeah, Leif. You can send her up.”

  “Okay, Boss. She’s on her way.” Then he heard Leif add, apparently to Val, “don’t get an attitude with me for doing my job,” as he was hanging up the phone. Jimmy knew what that meant. Val was coming up, and she was coming up with a bad attitude.

  But Dommi and Sophia, two smart kids with attitudes in their own right, was still waiting for an answer, their big eyes trained on him like riflescopes.

  “Her name was Shanell Ridgeway, but everybody called her Nell,” Jimmy said. “She died.”

  “We know she died,” Dommi said. Then his eyes took on a concern and softness Jimmy rarely saw in his kid brother. “But how?” he asked.

  “A fire,” Jimmy said. “She died in a house fire.”

  “A house caught fire like paper does?” Dommi asked.

  Jimmy nodded. “Yeah.”

  Dommi shook himself like he was shaking off the willies.

  “You loved your mommy like we love our mommy?” Sophia asked.

  Jimmy nodded. The pain was still there. “Yes,” he said. “And because I was all she had, I think I loved her more.”

  Dommi looked at Jimmy. “You’re a good big brother, Jimmy,” he said.

  Sophia smiled. “I told you so!” she said just as the penthouse door opened and Val walked in. When Sophie saw her, she smiled. “Hey, Valerie,” she said.

  “Hey, Sophie,” Val responded with a smile of her own as she made her way to Jimmy’s side. “There’s my baby,” she said glowingly to little Maddie and then lifted her out of Jimmy’s arms and placed her into her arms. “Hey, Jimmy,” she added with less drama.

  “Hey,” Jimmy responded, still thinking about what his father had told him last night.

  But Val had already moved on. “Shouldn’t you guys be in school by now?” she asked Dom and Sophia.

  “We were gonna,” Dommi said, “but Daddy wants to stay home. Which is fine by me.”

  “I’m sure it is,” Val said with a grin.

  “Daddy went to Florida last night,” Dommi said.

  Val found that odd. “Why would he go to Florida?”

  Jimmy decided to go there. “He said he had a run-in with you in the casino last night, and needed some time away.”

  Val became angry. “You are so full of shit, Jimmy Mack, sometimes you just make me wanna--”

  “No cussing in front of the kids,” Jimmy said.

  “Sorry, kids,” Val quickly said, shaking her baby, “but that brother of yours--”

  “Is our brother,” Dommi said. “Nobody gets to say bad things about him but us Gabrinis.”

  “I’m a Gabrini too, Dommi,” Val said a little petulantly.

  “In name only,” Dommi said.

  “You need to act like a little boy, little boy.”

  “If you hurt Jimmy, you need to watch yourself, little girl,” Dommi responded.

  “Dominic, that’s enough,” Jimmy interrupted.

  “I’m just saying,” Dommi said. “She break your heart and I will not be responsible for my actions!”

  Val shook her baby and shook her head. “You’re just like your father,” she said bitterly.

  Dommi smiled. “Really?” he asked excitedly.

  Val rolled her eyes. “He thinks it’s a compliment,” she said to no one in particular.

  And Jimmy laughed. It was why he once loved Val: she had a wonderful sense of humor.

  They both looked at each other and suddenly the laughter died. And Jimmy left the room.

  Brizio met Reno’s limo outside of the hotel. Brizio had a lot to answer for, namely how could this shit happen under his watch, but Reno had Trina on his mind.

  “Where is she?” he asked as he jumped out of the SUV.

  “Still upstairs,” Brizio said, as he escorted Reno inside the hotel. “They haven’t taken her anywhere.”

  Brizio said more, mainly making excuses for, or telling outright lies about his failure, but Reno wasn’t listening. He didn’t give a fuck. He had to see his wife. He ha
d to find out what the heck was going on. He nearly ran onto the elevator, as Brizio had to actually run to keep up with him, and Reno pressed the button to the twenty-first floor. When they got off of the elevator, he and Brizio ran to Trina’s hotel room.

  Trina was sitting in the living room, with the sergeant and his two officers. The handcuffs were off. When the door opened, and Reno hurried in, Trina jumped from her seat and ran to him. Reno pulled her into his arms. The sergeant and his men stood too.

  “Are you alright?” he asked her, looking her over. She was allowed to change out of the blood-soaked bathrobe she wore, and now wore pants and a top.

  She was distressed, he could see it in her eyes, but she nodded. “I’m okay.”

  Then Reno, still with his arm around Trina’s waist, looked at the cops in the room. “These the guys accusing you of this bullshit?”

  “Hello, Mr. Gabrini,” the sergeant said as he extended his hand. “I’m sergeant Arnold.”

  Reno didn’t shake his extended hand. “What happened here?”

  “Three men are dead,” the sergeant said. “Do you care to see them?”

  “Do I care to . . .” Reno frowned. “They’re still here?”

  The sergeant nodded. “But they will need to be moved as soon as possible or they’re going to start stinking.”

  Reno looked at Brizio. Brizio hunched his shoulders. “He didn’t tell me nothing about this, Boss. You called me. Told me to get to Mrs. Gabrini’s room with every man I have here now. We did. This is what we saw. Cops interrogating her. I told our men to stand down, wait outside like they’re waiting now because we never interfere with police business.”

  It was a line they were taught to use around cops. We never interfere with police business. Reno looked at the sergeant. “Let me see them.”

  The sergeant escorted Reno into the bedroom. First he showed him the butchered body on the other side of the bed. Reno recognized him. He used to work for him back in the day. Was fired by him.

  “You know him?” the sergeant asked him.

  But that wasn’t the sergeant’s business. “No,” Reno said.

  Then the sergeant escorted him to the bathroom. Reno also recognized the two butchered bodies in the tub. Like the other guy, they used to work for him too. Like the other guy, they had been fired by him too. What the fuck was going on?

  “Know either of them?” the sergeant asked.

  Reno shook his head. “Nope,” he said.

  But what Reno did notice that nobody else apparently had, was that the men had been shot too. The knife wounds tried to cover it up, but he saw it. It was right through their backs. He was staring at those wounds.

  The sergeant looked at him, thinking he had a change of heart. “What?” he asked. “You think you know them?”

  “I said I didn’t know’em,” Reno responded with bite in his voice. “What are you asking me again for?”

  The sergeant didn’t like the guy, but that was neither here nor there as far as he was concerned. He didn’t have to like him to do business with him.

  When they made it back into the living room, Reno looked at Trina. “You were asleep when I left. What happened?” he asked her.

  “I don’t know,” she responded. “I remember hearing a commotion and waking up. I remember that. I remember getting out of bed and going to see what was going on, because it sounded as if something was happening up front. Then everything went black, like I was being drugged. I didn’t see anybody, but I felt arms on me. When I woke up, the cops were coming in and I was handcuffed. Then they found bodies in my suite, and the murder weapon, the knife, in my bed.”

  Reno stared at her. She always had a theory. “What do you think happened?”

  “Those guys came in here to kill me maybe, but somebody killed them instead. But the person who killed them wanted me to be accused of the murders.”

  Reno nodded. That was his theory too. But why would his former muscle men want to ice his wife? Then he thought back. Perhaps the same reason why he ran into Josie Supino, another former enforcer, in the casino just before he made the decision to come to Florida. He hadn’t seen Josie in years. That was no coincidence. And perhaps the same reason why they iced Poker Lansky. Perhaps the same reason why Gianni Drake was suddenly interested in taking his business down.

  But then it begged the question: why were Trina and these bodies still in this hotel room? Why weren’t the evidence technicians in here doing their job, and Trina in somebody’s jail? Reno looked at the sergeant. He knew a crooked cop when he saw one.

  The sergeant smiled. “Ask your wife,” he said.

  Reno looked again at Trina. “I made a deal,” she said.

  Reno hated that she was now so entrenched in his world, but he was pleased she could handle herself in it. “What’s the deal?” he asked.

  “They will allow your men to expose of the bodies. They will, in turn, make it clear to their commander there was nothing to see here. The disturbance call was a hoax by spring break college kids.”

  “And what do they get for their trouble?” Reno asked.

  “You give them a million bucks a piece,” Trina responded. “You’ll transfer the funds into an offshore account the sergeant already owns.”

  Reno should have known. Crooked to the core. What cop needed an offshore account? But he was happy that this was the cop who answered this call, rather than a good one. If, Reno thought again, given his experience, there was such a thing.

  Reno looked at the sergeant. “You’ve agreed to my wife’s terms?” he asked.

  The sergeant smiled. “Very much so,” he said. He extended his hand again. “Do we have a deal, Mr. Gabrini?”

  It wasn’t as if Reno had a choice. Three million dollars versus prison for his wife? He reached out to shake the sergeant’s hand.

  But just as he did, a bullet crashed through the floor-to-ceiling window in the suite’s living room and shot through the sergeant’s forehead, taking him out in one nanosecond.

  Reno knocked Trina to the ground as more bullets sailed and took out one of the two uniformed cops, and then took out the other uniformed cop. Brizio was able to drop too and crawl to the door. Reno and Trina hurried to the door too, avoiding bullets, until they, along with Brizio, were out into the hall and then up and running for their lives.

  They didn’t take the elevator, but the stairs. Reno held onto Trina’s hand as they flew down those stairs.

  “We’ll go out back,” Brizio yelled, as he was in front and leading the charge. “I already have some men positioned out back with a getaway car.”

  “Good,” Trina said.

  But Reno didn’t think it was good. He thought it was odd. Why would Brizio know they would need a getaway car? The cops had Trina in custody, ready to take her ass to jail. What would be the purpose of having a car out back? The same reason, Reno decided, this all went down under Brizio’s watch in the first place. The same reason his former enforcers were dead in that hotel room. It was a fucking set up!

  Reno pulled out his gun, already replete with a silencer, as they hurried down. Trina didn’t even realize he had pulled it out. But when they made it to the final set of stairs that would lead them out into the lobby, Reno didn’t hesitate, or second guess himself, or do anything but what he’d been doing all his life: he acted on instinct alone. He ran up on Brizio from behind, and put him in a chokehold.

  Brizio fought hard to escape, but Reno was too powerful. Trina was stunned.

  “What are you doing?” Brizio asked, stunned too. “What are you doing, Boss?”

  “Who hired you?” Reno asked.

  “You hired me!”

  Reno, with one hand still on his gun, shot Brizio in his big toe. Brizio cried out in pain.

  “Who hired you?” Reno asked again.

  “Drake!” Brizio said quickly. “Gianni Drake.”

  Reno had already worked that part out. “Why?” he asked. “To frame my wife? Tell me the whole fucking story.”

/>   “It wasn’t about your wife,” Brizio said. “It was about shutting down every hotel you owned, including, eventually, The PaLargio. That’s why he paid Noonie Garcetti to set Jimmy up with that drug raid. He wanted those east coast hotels closed first. But when you burned down The Bryant, he knew he had to up his game. He knew he had to hit you where it hurt the most. He wanted you to suffer.”

  “How?” Reno asked.

  “He ordered me to hire your ex-security guys to kill your wife. He ordered it the same night The Bryant burned down. So I did it. I hired some people. But that’s all I did. He wanted me to do more. He wanted me to go in with them, and do more, but I wouldn’t do it.”

  Brizio didn’t want to tell exactly what happened. He didn’t want to implicate himself any more than he was already implicated. “Drake did the rest,” he lied. “Drake is the one who went into her hotel room and killed those guys. He’s the one who set it up to frame your wife for their murders. I had nothing to do with that. He wanted you to suffer. He has a mighty grudge against you.”

  “What grudge?” Reno asked. “I don’t know that fucker like that!” Drake used to harass Reno back in the day, when Drake was a beat cop, but nothing Reno couldn’t handle. “Why am I all of a sudden on his shit list?”

  “I don’t know,” Brizio said. “He didn’t tell me anything like that.” Then Brizio begged. “Reno, please let me go. I didn’t harm your wife. I wasn’t even there! He hired me to recruit those guys. I wasn’t in it, Reno. You gotta let me go!”

  “Why my ex-employees? Why would you hire the rejects I kicked out of my organization? Why them?”

  “Because I knew’em,” Brizio said, still feeling the pain in his toe. “They were very loyal to me. And they hated you. And besides, Drake was paying major league. The biggest paydays of their lives. I knew I could trust them.”

  “Who else is involved?”

  “What do you mean? Nobody else.”

  “What about Calanesi?”

  “No. Hell no. He’d tell you right off the bat.”

  Reno agreed with that. Calanesi was inept, but he was no turncoat. “What about Josie?” Reno asked. He just saw his former security chief at the PaLargio. Was he a part of this too?