Mob Boss 4: Romancing Trina Gabrini (39 page)

“But what message?” Reno wanted to know.

“I asked and I asked,” Sal said.
 
“What in the world could Luigi Johnny Drago
have against Reno of all people?
 
I
thought y’all respected each other.
 
Live
and let live, know what I’m saying?
 
But
all I’m getting back is territory.
 
Some
of our people heard that it might be all about territory.
 
Maybe Drag figures the PaLargio ain’t what it
used to be in terms of revenue stream, so he figure you gonna want a new
stream.
 
Maybe he figured that when
nutbrain Dirty started selling the little drugs he was selling around the
PaLargio, it was your test run.”

“Is he crazy?” Tommy asked. “Johnny Drago
knows how passionately Reno hates drugs.”

“He was figuring it was a cover,” Sal
said.
 
“I mean, his logic’s fucked up,
but it was logical, if that makes sense?”

Reno leaned back.
 
“That can’t be it.
 
Johnny knows me.
 
He knows I don’t operate that way.”

“I’m just telling you what our people came up
with,” Sal said.

“Maybe I ought to pay that little shit a
visit,” Reno mused.

But Sal was already shaking his head.
 
“No,” he said.
 
“I would advise against it.
 
It’s done.
 
He tried his little dirt, it didn’t work, and it’s done.
 
I’m not hearing about any plans for nothing
else.
 
It was just Drag throwing his
weight around a little.
 
It’s done.
 
Don’t stir it back up.”

Reno exhaled.
 
Somehow it didn’t feel done to him.
 
Somehow it was too easy.
 
It was
too fast.
 
It still felt stirred up.

They toasted and ate dinner and then lounged
out on the patio of Reno and Trina’s home. Sully and Blossom were there, along
with Tommy and Jimmy.
 
Nell had been
invited but declined.
 
For some reason
she viewed Trina as the enemy, but Trina wasn’t trying to worry about
that.
 
Insecurity was a fool’s game that
she wasn’t interested in playing.

She and Reno shared a lounger, with Jimmy and
Sully seated side by side.
 
Sully kept
seeing himself in Reno’s shoes, with his arms around Trina, lounging and
drinking and enjoying the night.
 
They
would probably have some serious sex later, he believed.
 
And just the thought of it made his dick throb.

Tommy and Blossom were standing along the back
fence chatting up each other.
 
But she
was wasting her time.
 
Reno couldn’t
remember the last time Tommy fooled around with a white woman or an Asian or
Hispanic or any other kind of woman.
 
If
she wasn’t black he usually wasn’t interested.
 
Which was always nonsensical to Reno.
 
But that was Tommy.
  
That was how he rolled.
 
Although beautiful Blossom
seemed to have piqued his interest.

“She’ll have him in her bed before this night
is through,” Sully said jokingly as they all were looking over at the
twosome.
 
“Every new man in town gets a
turn around the bases with her.”

“You didn’t hear that, Jimmy,” Trina said.

Jimmy laughed.
 
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

“Funny,” Reno said.
 
“She never tried to get around any bases with
me.”

“She had planned to,” Trina said.
 
“But she and I became friends so she squashed
that idea.
 
She’s very moral, in her own
way.”

“Yeah,” Sully agreed.
 
“She’s moral in her own very immoral
way.”
 
And they all laughed.

Later, after Tommy left with Blossom, and
Sully left alone, Trina drove Jimmy home.
 
Reno came along for the ride, although he had had too much to drink to
do any driving.
 
She parked on the street
in front of Nell’s house.

“Have a good night, kid,” Reno said as Jimmy
got out and waved to both of them.

Reno stared at Jimmy as he made his way to the
front door.
 
“He’s got a birthday coming
up,” Reno said as he watched.

“Yeah?”
Trina responded.

“Think I ought to buy him a car?”

Trina smiled.
 
“I’m sure he thinks you ought to.
 
Can he drive?”

“Yeah.
 
He has his license.”

“Then yeah, I don’t see why you shouldn’t--”

But before Trina could finish her statement, a
loud explosion rocked Nell’s house and hurled Jimmy backwards. Reno immediately
jumped over and covered Trina with his body as the house went up in billows of
smoke and fire.
 
When he realized Trina
was okay, he immediately thought about his son.

“Jimmy!” he yelled, and jumped out of the car.

 
But
Trina knew Reno.
 
He wouldn’t give a
second thought to his life if it would save somebody else’s.
 
And that terrified her.

“Reno!” she screamed as she hurried out of the
car, too.

Neighbors were already out, as the fear of the
fire spreading forced them into action.
 
Reno ran to his son and pulled him further away from the flames.
 

“Ma,” Jimmy was saying.
 
He was losing consciousness.
“Ma.”

Trina ran up to them. “Help him, Tree,” Reno
said and moved to go toward the house.

“Reno, no!”
Trina
yelled,
her
heart pounding.
 
But it did no good.

Reno was running toward the front porch.
 
All he could think about was saving
Nell.
 
He had to save Jimmy’s
mother.
 

He slung off his shirt to cover his head,
ready to feel his way inside, but a backdraft hit and the smoke and flames
leaped forward, forcing Reno back.
 
There
was no way he could get inside of that house.
 
And there was no way, he thought sadly as the sirens began to roar, that
anyone still inside of that house could have possibly gotten out.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Silence dominated every inch of that
room.
 
Reno and Trina were seated side by
side on the sofa.
 
Tommy was seated
beside Reno.
 
And Sully was seated in the
flanking chair.
 

For the longest time no-one said a word.
 
Jimmy was upstairs.
 
The hospital had treated him and released
him, but he was so devastated about his mother that they had to pump him with
pills.
 
Reno was checking on him
virtually every hour on the hour.
 
Every
time he checked, he was sleeping like a baby.

A baby in the middle of a Cat Five hurricane,
Reno thought.

And that was what it was now.
 
A category five.
 
The biggest.
 
Drago had elevated his game.

“I didn’t think he had it in him,” Tommy
finally said.
 
“Not Drago.”

“Yeah,” Reno said.
 
“Our first miscalculation.”

Sully wanted to ask who this Drago was, but he
knew how to stay in Reno’s good graces and thereby get to stay around
Trina.
 
Don’t make waves and don’t ask
questions.
 
That was the trick.
 
And all over the summer, he had learned to
avoid making waves and asking questions admirably.

“What could it be?” Tommy asked.
 
“Why in the world would Drag have something
against you?”

“The why doesn’t matter anymore,” Reno said.

“You called Vegas?” Tommy asked.

“I called Dirty.
 
He said everything’s okay in Vegas.
 
Fran’s okay.
 
No action around the PaLargio.”

“I wouldn’t trust Dirty as far as I could
throw him,” Tommy said.

“I don’t trust him.
 
He’s keeping an eye on Fran and the PaLargio,
but I got plenty people keeping their eyes on him.”

Tommy smiled.
 
He should have known.

“I got muscle from Atlanta guarding the house
now,” Tommy said.
 
“I take it your people
are on the way?”

“They’re on the way.
 
They’ll be here before daybreak.”

“Good.”

Trina leaned closer against Reno.
 
Reno placed his arm around her.
 
She knew how he hated to be dragged into yet
another conflict that wasn’t of his making.
 
But she noticed a change in Reno now.
 
He didn’t bemoan the fact of the matter.
 
He just focused on the fact of the matter.
 
It was as if the idea that he had a son, and
that his son was now in jeopardy, just like his first son had been, was too
much for Reno to even think about.
 
He
couldn’t even consider it.

“Where is she?” a voice was heard at the top
of the stairs and all of them looked up.
 
Jimmy began walking down.
 
Reno
stood up.

“You’re supposed to be resting.”

“I have rested.
 
Where’s my mother?”
 
Jimmy stepped down and walked toward the
foursome.
 
“I thought they said. . . I
thought I dreamed. . .”
 
He and Reno were
now toe to toe.

“
It’s
okay, Jim,”
Reno said, rubbing his arm.

“It was a dream, right?
 
They didn’t kill my mother.
 
Tell me they didn’t kill my mother.”

As much as it pained Reno, he knew he couldn’t
go along.
 
“They killed her, Jimmy,” he
said.
 
“Your mother died tonight.”

Tears immediately appeared in Jimmy’s
eyes.
 
He began to breathe heavily.
 
Reno attempted to place his hand on the young
man’s shoulder, but Jimmy slapped his hand away.
 
And that
anger,
and
that ruthlessness Reno once saw in him, that same ruthlessness that was in
Reno, came out.

“It’s your fault,” Jimmy said.
 
Trina stood up.
 
She had feared this reaction.

“You and your scum of the earth gangster
lifestyle did this to my mother.
 
You and your need to play the gangster!”

“That’s not fair, Jimmy,” Trina said.

“It is fair!” Jimmy shouted.
 
“He never cared about my mother.
 
He told me he never loved her.
 
Nobody ever loved her.
  
But she loved you.
 
She started talking about how y’all were
going to get together one day.
 
She
started talking about.
 
. . And you hated
her!
 
You hated her!”

Jimmy turned to leave, but then he turned back
around and cold cocked Reno, knocking him down.
 
Tommy and Sully jumped up, and Tommy attempted to rush to Reno’s aid,
but Trina held him back.
 
Jimmy jumped on
top of his father and began wailing on him, hitting him as if he was hitting a
lesser man.
 
He was crying uncontrollably
as he hit on his own father.
 
Reno
blocked the blows but didn’t strike back.
 
Not one of those licks could make him feel any worse than he already
felt.

Tommy was amazed to see Reno on the ground
like that, and Sully was astounded that a man like Reno would allow anyone,
especially his own son, to wail on him like that.
 
But Reno was taking a beat down from that
boy.
 
Sully couldn’t believe it.

But Trina could.
 
Because she knew Reno
better than any human being alive.
 
And Reno took the beating because he felt he deserved every hit.
 
He felt it was the least he deserved.

Then Jimmy was just flailing at air.
 
The idea that he was hitting his father, and
that his beloved mother was dead, made him feel like life itself wasn’t worth a
damn.
 
He wasn’t worth a damn.
 
And he stood up, and fled the home.