Reno Gabrini: I'm Losing You

by Mallory Monroe

  Now the doctor was saying her prognosis was between bad and horrible. Now the doctor was saying that even if she lived, she might be a vegetable for the rest of her life. But Reno had prayed. He’d already been to the chapel. God, he believed, was going to say differently.

  The pilot and the four stewardesses all survived and were home with their families. Trina was the only one still in jeopardy. But Reno held on. Trina would be home with her family too, one of these days.

  But right now, he remained silent. Other than that breathing machine Trina was attached too, that awful and wondrous sound, silence permeated the room. You could hear a feather drop it was so somber.

  By day five, nothing had changed. Trina was still on life support. That breathing machine was still making that dreaded suctioning sound that made them all well aware of her perilous situation. Reno had dumped the original doctor and had specialists flown in from around the country. Men and women at the top of the medical profession. But they all came down the same as the local doctor. Pull the plug now, or pull the plug later. They wanted the money. They wanted to be the one who saved her. But it was not possible. Trina was hopeless, as far as they were concerned.

  But Reno kept praying. He wasn’t about to give up. If it took fifty years he was not giving up. He also wanted to move her to the PaLargio, or to their home in Vegas, but every doctor advised against it. Even life support, they said, wouldn’t be able to sustain her if he moved her. On that point alone, he accepted their advice.

  But as the days came and went, as the seconds and minutes and hours ticked away, even Reno was losing heart. He wasn’t giving up. But he wasn’t looking up either.

  “Eat your food, Dad,” Jimmy said to his father as all of the men sat in the hospital’s cafeteria to discuss their progress. It was day seven. Trina’s condition remained unchanged. Sal and Mick sat on one side of the table. Jimmy and Tommy sandwiched Reno in on the other side. Jimmy didn’t want to be his father’s nursemaid, but it couldn’t be helped. Reno wasn’t going to be of any help to Trina or anybody else, including himself, if he didn’t eat.

  “You’ve got to eat, Dad,” Jimmy said.

  “Forget about it, Jimmy.”

  “Eat your food.”

  “I’ll eat when your mother eats,” Reno responded.

  But that was nonsensical to Jimmy. He took the fork from his father’s plate as he had been doing every day since their ordeal began, raked up a heap of the spaghetti that sat there, and put it to his father’s mouth. “Eat it,” he ordered.

  Reno wanted to resist. He wanted to eat like he wanted a hole in his head. But for Jimmy’s sake he took a bite. The way he always did. Then another bite. He actually allowed Jimmy to spoon feed him. But it was as if he wasn’t eating a thing. It was tasteless and forgettable. He had other things on his mind.

  “What do we know?” he asked Sal, Tommy, and Mick. Big Daddy was upstairs, with Trina, their wives, and Trina’s children and parents. Although the hospital was swarming with their security teams, a Gabrini man or a Sinatra man had to stay with Trina at all times. They were taking no chances. “What have you guys found out?”

  “Gianni Drake,” Tommy said, “had been staying at his office inside FBI headquarters ever since you gave us the word that he was the mastermind.”

  “He knows Brizio is dead, and you and Trina escaped,” Mick said. “That’s why his ass stayed out of reach.”

  “I say we blow that whole fucking building up,” Reno said.

  Tommy smiled. “Like you blew up The Bryant?”

  Reno looked at him.

  Tommy grinned his gorgeous grin. “Yeah, I heard about that. He steals your talent; you blow the whole thing up. Yup, that’s my Reno.”

  Reno smiled too. For the first time in a long time, only Tommy could make him smile.

  But Sal was still stunned. “You want to blow up an FBI building?” he asked. “You want us to blow up an FBI building, Reno?”

  “Take out his ass and everybody associated with him,” Reno said. “Hell yeah. If he refuses to come out from there then I say make that his glass grave. Because he won’t get away with this. That’s a fucking fact.”

  “Blowing up the building won’t be necessary,” Mick said. “He went back to his old ways.”

  This interested Reno. “Drake?” he asked.

  Mick nodded. “He assumes, since there has been no movement on our end, that he’s in the clear. Maybe Brizio didn’t expose him. Maybe we don’t know that he’s involved.”

  “What are his old ways?” Reno asked.

  “Round of golf at the country club,” Tommy said. “Spa day. Fishing day. He’s back to his old ways. He’s a creature of habit.”

  “We haven’t made a move,” Sal said, “because we want him to believe his own hype. We want him to believe we don’t give a fuck about his ass, that we haven’t connected the dots in Florida and that plane crash to him. We want him to continue to think we only view him as a business rival and nothing more.”

  “In other words,” Mick said, “we want him to think we’re dumb as rocks and he’s the genius.”

  Reno nodded. “Good.”

  “You tell us the place and the time,” Tommy said, “and we’ll bring him in.”

  But Reno shook his head on that one. “No,” he said. “I’ll bring him in. After what he did to Trina, after all this suffering she has to go through, no way. I’m bringing that fucker in. And it won’t be dead or alive, either. Only dead.”

  Then Reno wiped his mouth, tossed the napkin on the table, and stood up. “I’ve got to get back to Tree,” he said.

  Everybody stood up too, as they had all finished eating anyway. The ladies in the cafeteria, mostly nurses, gave these big, powerful-looking men serious assessing looks as they made their way toward the exit. All of them in designer suits; all of them muscularly built and gorgeous: they were the talk of the room. But each one of them, except the youngest one, Jimmy, had their own ladies with them. Their wives. They weren’t about to complicate an already complicated situation by so much as returning the eager looks.

  But as they made their way along the long corridor that led to the elevators, Tommy pulled Reno back. As the others got on the elevator and made their way upstairs, Reno and Tommy remained downstairs. They were best friends. They were closer than brothers. They hadn’t had a chance to be alone.

  Tommy looked Reno in his tired eyes. But instead of giving him words of wisdom, or words of encouragement as Reno had expected, Tommy simply kissed Reno and pulled him into his arms.

  That simple gesture of decency, of caring and concern, broke Reno down. He squeezed his eyes shut and allowed, the first time since Trina had been hospitalized, for tears to flow. And he held Tommy tightly too. They loved each other deeply. They would never say it to each other. But the feeling, the concern and caring, was mutual.

  When they stopped embracing, they still didn’t speak words. There was nothing that needed to be said between them. Tommy pressed the elevator button. Reno wiped his eyes. And although they had to wait a long time before the elevator finally arrived, they weren’t in any hurry. The doors slid open, and they stepped onto the elevator.

  But everything changed when they stepped off of that elevator. Jimmy came tearing down the hall, running so fast Reno’s heart began to pound.

  “What is it?” Reno asked anxiously as he and Tommy began to hurrying toward Jimmy.

  “She’s alive! She’s alive, Dad!”

  Reno frowned. “I know she’s alive, what are you talking?”

  “She woke up. The doctors are in the room. She’s breathing on her own, Dad!”

  Reno grabbed hold of Tommy. And then, as if the enormity of Jimmy’s words were just sinking in, he ran. He ran so fast to Trina’s room that Tommy and Jimmy were just beginning to run when Reno was swerving his overzealous body, and then entering Trina’s room.

  There wasn’t a dry eye in the room. Not Dommi and Sophie, who were lying on the bed beside their mother; no
t Trina’s parents; not Big Daddy Sinatra and the wives. Not even the doctor and nurses. And when Reno walked into the room, and Trina saw him, she smiled so grandly he thought he was dreaming. This had to be a dream!

  But when he walked up to her, and she reached out her hand to him, he kissed that hand, and kissed her, and held her with the kind of love and awe he never felt for anybody else before.

  “It’s a miracle, Daddy,” Dommi said. “Either that,” he added, “or these doctors don’t know what they’re talking about.”

  Reno and Trina smiled and shook their heads. That boy, their similar expressions seemed to say.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  On the day they flew her from the hospital in Florida, to the hospital in Vegas, and with Gianni Drake back to his old routine, Reno knew he had to strike. He would have preferred to spend every waking moment with Trina. She was, after all, still fighting to regain her health. But he wasn’t going to rest until Drake was sleeping in his grave, and he had to make it happen.

  He rubbed Trina’s hair. He wanted her to hear it from him.

  But Gemma hit his hand. “Don’t rub her hair,” she admonished. “We just got it all pretty. Don’t mess it back up.” The other ladies agreed. They, along with their husbands, had been by Trina’s side from the moment it happened. And even today, as she settled down in the hospital in Vegas, they still were. Tommy and Grace’s small children, and Sal and Gemma’s small children, were all at the PaLargio with Dommi and Sophie, being protected by Jimmy. Mick and Roz’s small children were still in Philadelphia, under the supervision of Mick’s daughter Gloria, and his son Ted.

  But Reno ignored Gemma’s admonition, and rubbed Trina’s hair again.

  This time Grace hit his hand. “Reno,” she said with a smile, knowing he was toying with them. “Stop!”

  “You’re messing up her style,” Roz and Jenay piped in.

  “Who the fuck cares?” Reno asked with a smile. “I’ve got my wife back! Her hair could look like a horse’s ass as far as I’m concerned, and I still wouldn’t give a fuck.”

  The ladies, along with their husbands, laughed. “You are so romantic, Reno,” Trina managed to say, although it was with a very hoarse voice.

  Reno looked at Big Daddy and smiled. “I try,” he said.

  “Yeah, you’re a regular Mister Innocent,” Big Daddy said. “I know.”

  “I won’t go that far,” Reno said, and they all laughed. And then his look turned serious. He looked at Trina again. “I’ve got to make a run, babe,” he said.

  Every wife in that hospital room knew exactly what he meant. They all looked at Trina. Trina looked at him. “Be careful,” she said. And then said the famous Gabrini wives line: “I’ll kill you if you get killed.”

  He smiled. “I’ll be careful,” he said.

  And then Sal, Tommy, Mick and Big Daddy, all walked out into the corridor with Reno. But Reno stopped them there. He didn’t want to say anything in front of the wives, but he had plenty to say. “Nobody’s going with me,” he said. “And that includes you too Tommy. I have to do this alone.”

  “Reno, that’s not a good idea,” Mick said.

  “Maybe not. But that’s the way it has to be.”

  And with that, Reno left them and walked away.

  Mick threw up his hands. He didn’t like the idea one bit. None of them did. But they knew they couldn’t argue with a man who felt he had to do what he had to do.

  But Big Daddy looked at the others. “You guys have security on your ladies all the time,” he said, and everybody looked at him. “You call it invisible security because of their ability to remain out of sight while protecting your ladies without detection. I’ll hold it down here, but I want you guys to go with Reno. Be his invisible security. Just in case,” he added.

  And Sal, Tommy and Mick were in complete agreement. They wondered why they didn’t think of that themselves. They headed out too.

  Reno had been driving for several minutes when he suddenly pulled to the side of the road three blocks from the fishing lodge, got out of his car, walked down the street and around the block. When he got around the block he saw it. The innocent SUV parked on the side of the road, with its tinted windows, wasn’t fooling him one bit. He knocked on the window. “Open the door, morons,” he said.

  When the door was opened, and he saw Tommy behind the wheel, Mick on the front passenger seat, and Sal on the seat behind them, they all smiled. Reno sat down beside Sal and closed the door.

  “Damn,” Sal said. “We hire men to be invisible security all day long. And you catch our stupid asses the first time we try. Are we that bad?” he asked.

  “No,” Reno admitted. “I’m that good.”

  Sal smiled. “In your dreams,” he said.

  “Then I must be dreaming,” Reno fired back. “I tagged your ass easily.”

  “So what are you going to do, Reno?” Mick asked. “We’re here. We’re busted. Use us.”

  Reno exhaled. “His fishing lodge is three blocks away,” he said.

  Tommy turned around. “But this isn’t his fishing day. This is his golf day. He golfs twice a week.”

  “I had my man pull up and I studied his itinerary over the last week,” Reno said. “He didn’t go golfing last week. Neither day.”

  “What are you thinking?” Sal asked.

  “I’m thinking he’s not sure if the heat is on, so he’s interrupting his pattern. He’s breaking up the routine.”

  “But why do you figure he’s gone fishing?” Sal asked.

  “Because he does that twice a week too. Even with his concerns about revenge, he kept his fishing schedule last week. He didn’t golf, but he went fishing. My money’s on him being at his fishing lodge, rather than the golf course, right about now.”

  “What are you talking?” Sal asked with a frown. “That doesn’t mean he went fishing. He could have gone anywhere. He could actually be working for a change.”

  “Fat chance,” Mick said.

  “Sal,” Tommy said.

  Sal looked at his brother.

  “Never bet against a casino owner,” Tommy said.

  Mick laughed. Sal smiled too. “Whatever,” he said.

  But nobody was smiling when they made it to the fishing lodge. Reno had already reviewed the property from Google Earth, and they all decided on a two-prone strategy. Mick, Tommy, and Sal would go onto the property through the front way, where his security was more likely to be. Reno would go in from the back, where the actual fishing hole and, if his theory was correct, Gianni Drake was located. He therefore got out of the SUV two blocks away and ran across an open field, toward the river’s edge that led to the backside of the fishing hole.

  Tommy continued driving, heading toward the entrance gate of the lodge. Mick climbed into the far back, along with Sal, and hid in the compartment custom made for times like this. But before covering themselves they pulled out their weapons and loaded up.

  Tommy looked up through the rearview. “Ready?” he asked Sal and Mick.

  “Ready,” Sal responded, and then he and Mick covered themselves in the back hole.

  Tommy then pressed the Walkie Talkie icon on the SUV’s monitor screen. “Ready, Reno?” he asked.

  “Ready,” Reno responded.

  Tommy drove around the corner and then toward the entrance gate of the fishing lodge. One guard came out of the booth as Tommy assessed the situation beyond him. “Appears to be two men beyond the gate,” he said to Mick and Sal. “One smoking, one joking around. Both appear too relaxed to be on duty, but they’re heavily armed.” Tommy also noticed, as the outside guard signaled for his vehicle to stop, that the outside guard had the gate remote in his hand.

  “Good evening,” Tommy said.

  “May I help you, sir?”

  “Yes,” Tommy said, and aimed the shotgun that sat on his lap at the man without revealing the gun to the two guards inside the gate. “One false move and you’re dead. Understand?”

  The guard,
caught easily off guard, nodded.

  “Press the remote. Open that gate.”

  When the guard hesitated, Tommy placed his hand on the trigger. The guard then quickly pressed the button and the gate began to open.

  Tommy shot the outside guard once through the head and then floored the accelerator. He stopped steering and laid down on the front seat, his foot still on the gas.

  The SUV sped through the opening gate as the two guards inside the gate aimed their weapons and began firing at what they saw as a man in the front seat of the SUV. But as the SUV sped through the gate, approaching them wildly, Sal and Mick revealed themselves in the back and began firing at the two guards before they even realized more firepower was present. Both guards fell easily. Tommy sat up and placed his foot on the brake, bringing the bullet-ridden SUV to a halt.

  “Fucking bureaucrats,” Tommy said. “They wouldn’t know good security if their lives depended on it.”

  “Thank goodness,” Mick added.

  Moments earlier, around back, Reno was walking up to the lone fisherman sitting on a rock at the fishing hole. He easily could see that it was Gianni Drake. His heartbeat quickened. He couldn’t wait to take out the man who nearly cost his wife her life. He was ready. And just as the first shot was heard out front, and Gianni rose quickly in an attempt to retrieve his own gun, Reno, from behind, grabbed him and wrapped a cord around his neck. Drake fought hard to break free, but Reno was too powerful.

  When his fight stopped, Reno eased up on the choke. “Hello, Gianni,” he said in Drake’s ear.

  Drake was surprised, but not stunned. “What are you doing?” he asked him. “I didn’t have nothing to do with what happened.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “I just put it together. He was behind that takeover of The Bryant Hotel. He was the money and the muscle. I was just the face of that shit. And then you had it burned down. You shut that down. That was my payback. But I was just the face of that, Reno. I was never behind it. I was never behind that attack on your wife either. I swear to you, Reno.”