Reno Gabrini: I'm Losing You

by Mallory Monroe

  Reno tightened his grip, causing Drake to fight harder. “Who’s behind it?” he asked.

  “I had to set it up. He has terrible things on me. Things about my predilections. Things that could ruin me!”

  “Who’s behind it?” Reno asked again, tightening his grip again.

  But just as he asked it, a gunshot was heard that was not a part of the gun battle upfront, and Drake, shot between the eyes, fell over. Reno looked around, his gun at the ready.

  “I’m behind it,” a voice was heard saying before Reno could aim his weapon at the figure that emerged from the woods. “Drop it, Reno,” he ordered. “Don’t make me kill you too.”

  Reno, knowing when he was outdrawn, dropped his weapon quickly. But what was even more stunning to him wasn’t so much as the surprise attack, as the man who just launched the attack.

  “Felix?” Reno asked. The man now approaching him was Felix Bartoni, Reno’s protocol chief.

  Felix smiled. “Seems like a long time ago when I approached you at that carnival, doesn’t it, Reno? You dismissed me then. Talked to me like I was your slave rather than your equal. Can’t dismiss me now, can you, Reno?”

  Reno would be lying if he said there wasn’t hurt with his anger. There was. He and Felix, like many of the men who worked for Reno, went back a long way. “Why?” he asked him.

  “Remember when I told you about that snitch Poker Lansky and how somebody was shaking him down? It was true. What was also true was that I hired Deeve Carney and those clowns to shake him down and then to kill him when you went to see him. We needed that distraction. Drake and The Bryant? Noonie and the drug raid? That was more than a distraction. That was a major part of our efforts.”

  “What about the Jackson Brothers? They a part of your efforts too?”

  “Of course,” Felix said with a smile. “They just didn’t know it. I found out they were robbing you and every other casino on the Strip, and was really good at it, so we hired them.” Felix smiled. “We gave them an offer they could not refuse. Ten percent and they live. Zero percent and they die. Smart boys. They took the ten percent. That kept you guessing too. But you stopped our momentum before we had a chance to take you down. Every time.”

  “Who’s we?” Reno asked Felix. They were now face to face.

  They were also not alone. Tommy, Sal, and Mick had taken out all of the security upfront and was now running around back. When they saw Felix, and the gun aimed at Reno, they stopped in their tracks.

  “Felix Bartoni?” Sal asked, surprised. “What the fuck is he doing?”

  Sal was ready to go and take Felix out, he hated backstabbers, but Mick pulled him back. “Wait,” he said. “Reno’s getting intel.”

  It was only then did Sal realize a conversation was going on.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” Reno said to Felix. “Who’s your boss?”

  Felix smiled even greater. “That’s the crazy part. Remember that day at the carnival, Reno? Remember Junna, the kid you dismissed and said I’d better never bring another rookie to a meeting with you? Remember that? Well that kid you treated like trash is the mastermind behind this whole thing.”

  Reno stared at Felix. He remembered the kid; he knew he was a new hire, but that was all he remembered about him.

  “His name isn’t Junna Parn, by the way. His name is Junna Partanna.”

  When Felix said that last name, he got Reno’s attention even more than he already had it. “Partanna?”

  “That’s right,” Felix said. “And yes, he is related to the infamous Frank Partanna. I know you remember Frank.”

  How could Reno forget Frank Partanna? He was the fucker who ordered a hit on Reno’s father, a then mob boss. Reno hit him back though, on the day of his wedding to Trina.

  “Frank was his grandfather. Pags, Frank’s son, as I’m sure you remember, was his father.”

  Reno remembered Pags too. He remembered how that asshole killed Nicky, Reno’s son, a son Reno didn’t even know he had until the day he died.

  “You killed Pags’ old man. Pags killed your kid. Then you killed Pags. Now Junna’s aiming for you.” Felix smiled. “Talk about a vicious cycle!”

  Then Felix pointed the gun at Reno’s head. “Now you die,” he said.

  But before he could pull the trigger, and as Sal, Tommy, and Mick were about to pull theirs, Reno jerked his arm, a switchblade appeared beneath his coat sleeve, and he slashed Felix’s neck. Felix, holding his neck as the blood shot out, looked at Reno in horror.

  “Now you die, motherfucker!” Reno angrily said.

  It only took a minute, if that long, before Felix Bartoni dropped dead.

  Junna Partanna, known to Reno’s security as a member of the team, arrived at the hospital and made his way to Trina’s floor. Once on her floor, there was security everywhere, with no one but family and members of the team being allowed to come and go. Junna, as a member of Reno’s team, was allowed to come and go.

  “June, what’s up?” the guard on door duty asked as Junna approached him.

  “Felix said for me to relieve you,” Junna responded.

  “How long I got?” the guard asked.

  “He says till morning.”

  The guard smiled. “Sounds great to me! Later, man.” And the guard gladly left.

  Junna stood there for several minutes, but he knew he had to act quickly. Reno and Mick and Sal and Tommy were out on a mission now. He had to strike before they returned. He had to once and for all end this shit.

  When his colleagues on the floor appeared to be laughing at some joke one of them told, and were otherwise preoccupied, he slowly opened the door to Trina’s hospital room, the room he had been guarding, and slipped inside.

  He turned around with his gun drawn. He expected to take down Big Daddy Charles Sinatra and Trina as quick as he turned. But what he didn’t expect, when he did turn around, was that Reno, Mick, Sal and Tommy were already back at the hospital. They purposely snuck back in. And every one of the guards outside, and out front, knew what his ass was up to. Trina had been moved to a different room. Trina and the wives and Big Daddy were in that new room. Junna, who thought he had the inside track of knowledge that day, was the only one who didn’t know. He never expected that.

  And what he also didn’t expect, especially when he turned around, was when Mick high-kicked that gun out of his hand, rendering him defenseless.

  “Looking for my wife?” Reno asked him. But he didn’t wait for an answer. He began beating Junna down. The more he thought about how this fucker came this close to taking Trina away from him, and away from their children, he became angrier and beat him even harder. He beat his ass. Tommy, Sal, and Mick, when they thought about how he nearly took Reno and Trina away from them, got in on the whooping too.

  He was on the ground, wallowing in pain, and they stomped him with their expensive shoes and kicked him like the dog they took him for.

  And after all the licks and hits and kicks, and when Junna Partanna tried to get back up, Reno Gabrini took him by the head and twisted it until his neck was broken. And he was as dead as his schemes, as Brizio and Felix, as all the fools who aligned themselves with him.

  Blood was everywhere. It was a nasty business. They all stood erect. They all had blood on their hands. But if his conniving ass was looking for sympathy in that room, he was not going to get it. They all looked at Reno.

  “It’s over, bubba,” Tommy said, patting him on the back.

  “Yeah,” Mick agreed. “The end of a chapter.”

  But Sal was less forgiving. “End my ass,” he said. “It ain’t over yet. His ass still owes me a plane.”

  And Reno, for the first time in a long time, actually had himself a belly laugh. “Yeah, I got your plane right here, Sal Luca,” he said, and the others laughed too. Their Reno was back.

  EPILOGUE

  The music was blaring in Reno’s backyard as the entire Gabrini and Sinatra families had themselves a rip-roaring good time. All of the men
, from Mick and Sal to Tommy and Big Daddy, were at one table. They were drinking and arguing about football teams and basketball teams and baseball stars. The children were there too, with the younger ones on the onsite playground with nannies from every household supervising them, to the older ones playing tennis and basketball on the courts further back. The women, from Gemma to Grace to Jenay and Roz, and their hostess Trina, were at a separate table. They were drinking and playing cards and talking loud too. Only they were talking about their men, and which one was the baddest.

  Roz seemed to think it was a no brainer. “I have Mick the Tick, okay? Case closed.”

  “Case closed my ass,” Jenay said. “They don’t call my man BIG Daddy Sinatra for nothing!”

  They all laughed.

  “Don’t rule Tommy out,” Grace said. “They don’t call him Backdoor Tommy for nothing,” she said.

  “But they also call him Dapper Tom,” Gemma jokingly reminded her.

  “And Loverboy,” Jenay added.

  “Right,” Roz agreed. “He may be the prettiest, I’ll give him that. But the baddest? I don’t know about that, Grace, I’m sorry.”

  But they all agreed on one thing: Reno was badass and brave. Because they knew, soberly, that if it had not been for his heroics, going back down into that water over and over and over again, and then refusing to give up on her even when the doctors had, that Trina would not have been there today.

  They looked at Trina. She wasn’t a hundred percent yet, but she was ninety-five percent her old self. “You’re back, girl,” Roz said, “in a big motherfucking way.”

  They laughed.

  “I’m beginning to feel like my old self again,” Trina responded as she shuffled the deck.

  “You haven’t said why you think Reno is the baddest of the Gabrini and Sinatra men,” Jenay said. “We said why, but you haven’t.”

  “Yeah, Tree,” Gemma said with a smile. “Tell us why Reno should win the Shaft prize.” It was the prize name they were going to give to whomever they voted to be the consensus badass of the group.

  But before she could respond, Reno left the men and walked over to the ladies table. He knelt down beside Trina’s chair and placed his hand behind her back. “You okay?” he asked her.

  “Yeah, Reno, I’m good.”

  “This isn’t too much for you, is it? Because if it is we can go inside and rest.”

  Trina was about to say that she was fine, and didn’t need any rest, until she looked at him. And she suddenly realized what he meant. And she was game too. Almost as much as he was. She put the cards down and rose from the table. “I think I will get a little rest,” she said to the ladies. “Will you guys excuse me?”

  “Sure thing,” Grace said, and Reno and Trina made their way into the home.

  Roz and the other ladies looked at each other and smiled. “Nine will get you ten what they’re up to.”

  “Now that’s what I call a no-brainer,” Jenay said.

  Roz grinned. “Let’s go and hear for ourselves,” she said, “just to be sure.”

  “You must be joking,” Gemma said. “That’s kid’s play!”

  “Well guess what, Gemma Jones,” Roz said, “I feel like a kid today, and I feel like playing too!”

  Gemma laughed. “Well alright!”

  “You’re in?” Roz asked.

  Gemma nodded. “I’m game.”

  Roz and Gemma stood up. They then looked at Jenay. But Jenay was already rising. “You don’t even have to ask me,” she said. “Kid’s play when I’m always serious all the time? You know I’m in. I have no problem getting my kid on today!”

  They laughed and then looked at Grace.

  But Grace smiled that smile that they knew meant she wasn’t with it, as she stood up too. “I’m going to check on the children,” she said. “Make sure they’re okay.”

  Roz smiled. “You are so different than us! But it’s a good difference.”

  “Yes, it is,” Gemma said. “Every group needs a Mother Teresa.”

  They laughed.

  “You’re different,” Jenay said, “but perfect for Tommy. That’s what matters.”

  Grace smiled. “Have fun,” she said, as she began walking away. Then she caught herself. “No, I take that back. Behave,” she said instead.

  They laughed, and made their way into the home.

  By the time they tiptoed their way upstairs, to the master suite, they could already hear the groans and moans. But when they got upstairs, and could hear the bedsprings singing and the bed itself pounding as if it was jumping up and down with hard crashes against the floor, even they were shocked.

  “Damn,” Roz said. “I thought Mick was rough.”

  “And I thought Sal was rough,” Gemma said. “But they ain’t got nothing on Reno!”

  Then they heard Trina cry, “Do it, Reno! Do your thang!”

  They smiled, and wanted to eavesdrop more, but quickly left them to it. Not because it was no longer joyous to hear, but because they felt as if they were intruding on a relationship so strong, and so beautiful, that even playing around seemed disrespectful. They went back outside, and let Reno, as Trina urged him on, to do his thang.

  VISIT

  www.mallorymonroebooks.com

  or

  www.austinbrookpublishing.com

  for more information on all of her titles.