Mob Boss 4: Romancing Trina Gabrini (33 page)

Nell was crying and shaking.
 
It was too much.
 

Reno knew he had to explain.
 
He reached out to the boy.
 
“Jimmy,” he said, touching his arm, but Jimmy
tore away from him.

“Leave me alone!” he said and did what he
always did whenever he was distressed: he took off running.

But Reno took off, too, and grabbed him from
behind, before he could get in his stride.
 
He then bear hugged his son, with his big, muscular arms holding him too
tightly for Jimmy to fight free.
 
He
could feel the young man’s ribs, he held him so tightly.

 
Jimmy felt
those big arms around him.
 
He felt the
warmth of those arms.
 
And he began to
sob an uncontrollable sob.
 
He was crying
for the life they could have had.
 
He was
crying for the bond he could have known.
 
It felt like more than a revelation for Jimmy. It felt like a
betrayal.
 
And he couldn’t handle it.

Reno was beyond crestfallen, too.
 
He turned his son around, and then pulled him
into his arms.
 
And Jimmy let him hold
him.
 
For the first time in his life, his
father held him in his arms.

Nell came up to them, tears in her own
eyes.
 
Reno pulled his car keys out of
his pocket and handed them to her.

“Take the car and go home,” he told her.
 
“I’ll bring him there later.”

Nell would have normally protested.
 
This was her son too, and she had every right
to be there.
 
But she felt as if she had
done enough damage already.
 
She took the
keys, got into Reno’s Porsche, and drove away.

And Jimmy continued to sob.
 
It was as if a lifetime of built up emotion
was flooding out of him.
 
Reno held onto
his son, his hand on the back of his son’s curly hair, and allowed him all the
time he needed to let it all out.

When his sobbing began to recede, and Jimmy
looked up, Reno knew half of the battle was already won.
 
Jimmy was still confused, and undoubtedly
angry, but he wasn’t repulsed by the idea that somebody like Reno could be his
father.
 
That had been Reno’s biggest
fear: that his own son would be repulsed by him.

Reno smiled at him, and placed his hand on the
side of his handsome, but oh-so-young face.
 
“Let’s walk,” he said.

“Was there a DNA test?” Jimmy wanted to know.

“Not yet.
 
We’ll get one.
 
But you’re mine.”

“How can you be so certain?”

“Your date of birth.
 
The
fact that your mother was. . . The fact that she was a virgin the night we got
together.
 
You’re mine, Jimmy.”

Jimmy nodded.
 
“I just want to be sure.”

“Yes,” Reno agreed, rubbing his thumb across
the boy’s cheek.
 
“I understand.”

Then
a sadness
came
over Jimmy.
 
Reno knew they were dumping
a lot on his plate, all at one time.

“Worried about the legal stuff?” he asked him.

Jimmy nodded.
 
“Yeah.
 
That too.”

“It’s a lot to deal with, I know.”

“I didn’t rape that girl.”

Reno glared at him.
 
“You didn’t?”

“No.
 
I
don’t know what happened, but I know we had consensual sex.”

Reno nodded.
 
“Good.
 
That’s good.
 
Then don’t worry.
 
I’ll take care of that, too.” Especially now
that the Drag was in on it, Reno inwardly added.
 

Then Jimmy frowned.
 
“Did you know she was pregnant?”

“No,” Reno said.
 
“She’s telling you the truth.
 
It’s complicated, Jimmy, but I know you know
that your mother loves you.
 
She told you
Fred was your father to protect you, not to hurt you.
 
And Fred stepped up to the plate.”

“He’s been a good father to me.”

“I can see that,” Reno said.
 
“He did an excellent job raising you and I
don’t want you to lose that relationship.”

“I won’t.”

“Good,” Reno said.
 
“But you’re a man now.
 
It’s about time you know the whole
truth.
 
That’s why your mother agreed to
let me talk to you.”

“I just don’t want any more bullshit,” Jimmy
made clear.

When he said those words, he reminded Reno of
his deceased kid brother Joey.
 
He looked
just like Joey when he said those words.
 
And Reno smiled.
 
“Don’t worry
kid,” he said.
 
“You’ll get no bullshit
from me.”

Jimmy smiled too, although the distress was still
all over his face.
 
Reno stared at him.
“Did you ever suspect that you were biracial?”

“I used to wonder about it all the time.
 
I used to get teased about it in
school,
they used to call me white boy and zebra.
 
But Ma would say that she has whites in her
family tree and skin color and racial features skip generations sometimes.
 
I wasn’t sure what she meant by that, but she
made it sound like it was possible.
 
And,
besides, I knew lots of bright skinned kids with two black parents, so I didn’t
question it like that.”
 
Jimmy hesitated
when he said that.
 
Then he frowned.

“So the fact that you have a white father
isn’t completely shocking to you?”

Jimmy shook his head.
 
“No,” he admitted.
 
But then he smiled. “But the fact that you’re
an Italian, too?” he added with a shake of his head.
 
“That’s an awful lot to put on a child.”
 

Reno laughed out loud.
 
This kid, he thought.
 
And then they walked.

They walked slowly along the riverfront, and
then along Broad Street, and then behind St. Albans.
 
Reno had both hands in his pants pockets, and
although he looked extremely relaxed, he was extremely terrified.
 
This was as new to him as it was to
Jimmy.
 
He had to tell Jimmy the circumstances
surrounding his birth, he and Nell had already decided that Reno would be the
one to tell it, and the thought of it still shamed Reno.
 
But he knew he had to do it.

They had been walking quietly for nearly five
minutes before Reno glanced over at his son.
 
“Questions, I’m sure,” he finally said.

“Yes, sir,” replied Jimmy.
 
He was a bundle of nerves, too, and it
showed.

“Hundreds?”
Reno asked.

“Thousands,” he admitted.

Reno smiled.
 
“Fire away.”

Jimmy continued to walk.
 
He didn’t know where to begin.
 
Then he decided it didn’t matter.

“Do you love my mother?” he asked Reno and
then looked at him.

Reno’s heart tightened.
 
“I care about her.”

“That’s not what I asked you.”

“No,” Reno said bluntly.
 
“I don’t love your mother.”

“You ever loved her?”

“It wasn’t that kind of relationship,
Jimmy.
 
No, I never loved her.
 
I only knew her for a very short period of
time.”

“So it was like that?
 
She was a one-night stand for you?”

“No,” Reno said sadly.
 
“It wasn’t even that serious, son.
 
We worked together, at Clauson’s of all
places.
 
I was in town visiting my father,
who owned Clauson’s, and we were fooling around in the storeroom.
 
My old man caught us and felt I wasn’t being
manly enough.
 
So he decided to show me
how it’s done.
 
He attempted to rape your
mother,” Reno said, and Jimmy stopped walking.
 
Reno stopped too.

“But I intervened,” Reno continued.
 
“We, me and your mother, ended up having
intercourse to keep my father and his friend from bothering her.
 
I know,” Reno added when he saw the disgusted
look on his son’s face.
 
“It’s a tough
pill to swallow.
 
But you wanted no bullshit,
right?”

Jimmy nodded his head.
 
“Right,” he said.

“That was the kind of old man I had.
 
He would have touched her, he would have
brutalized her, but he didn’t.”

“But if you knew he was like that,” Jimmy
said, “why were you fooling around with her at all?
 
Why did you put her in that position?”

“I know,” Reno said, still feeling the sting
of the guilt.
 
“But at the time I didn’t
think my father would go that far.
 
At least not when it came to one of my female friends.
 
I realized that night that he would go that
far and even further than that.
 
But
thank God she was able to get away.”

Reno paused.
 
“She got away,” he said again, “but not before I had ejaculated inside
of her.”
 
He looked at Jimmy.
 
“I know it sounds cold, but that’s what
happened. It wasn’t about love or romance or not even a one-night stand. We
were just trying to make the best out of a bad situation.
 
Out of a horrific
situation.”

There was a longer pause, and then they
started walking again.
  

“Are you as brutal as your father was?” Jimmy
asked Reno pointblank.

Reno frowned, as he thought about all of the
terrible things he had done in his life.
 
“Yes, son,” he admitted.
 
“I can
be.”

Jimmy looked at him.
 
“You harm people?”

“If they harm me or mine, yes, I do.”

Jimmy smiled.
 
“So what you’re saying is that my biological father is a straight up
Italian mobster?”

Reno stared at him.
 
“What’s so funny?” he asked Jimmy.
 
“You think that’s funny?”

Jimmy’s smile began to dissolve.
 
“I didn’t mean---”

“You think harming people is a game?
 
Something somebody like me would take
likely?”

“No, sir, I didn’t mean it like that.
 
I was just . . .” Then Jimmy smiled
again.
 
“But you have to admit
it’s
badass, that’s all I’m saying.”

Reno grabbed Jimmy by his shirt and turned him
to him.
 
He knew Jimmy was young and was
just reacting to all of this heavy duty news Reno had laid on him.
 
But he dreaded even the thought of any son of
his going down the same path he took.
 
“Don’t you dare glorify gangsters,” he said to Jimmy.
 
“You hear me, boy?
 
Gangsters are the scum of the earth.
 
The scum!
 
A fraternity of cowards with about as much honor as a pig in a
pigsty.
 
A bunch of testosterone driven
maggots!
 
And don’t you forget that.”

Jimmy was taken aback by Reno’s passion.
 
“I didn’t mean to glorify anybody,” he
said.
 
“I just want to know who I’m
dealing with.”

Reno thought about it, and then realized he
liked that answer.
 
He released him.
  
“You’re a good kid, Jimmy.
 
Stay that way.”

Jimmy smiled.
 
“Even with a father like you?”

Jimmy would never know how awful
that made Reno feel
.
 
“Yeah,” Reno said.
 
“Even with an
old man like me.”

Jimmy saw the hurt in Reno’s eyes.
 
He saw the pain.
 
He placed his arm around his father’s
waist.
 
“I was just joking, Dad,” he
said.

Reno was touched that the kid would even
bother to ease his pain.
 
That was a good
sign to Reno.
 
He smiled.
 
And placed his arm around
Jimmy.
 
“Well,” he said as they
continued to walk.
 
“That’s all right,
then.”