Mob Boss 4: Romancing Trina Gabrini (40 page)

Tommy moved to run after him, but Reno waved
him off.

“No,” he said as Trina ran to his aid.
 
“Leave him alone.
 
Leave him alone.”

Reno tried to get up, but stumbled back down.

Sully stared at him as Trina aided that
bastard.
 
My my, he thought, how the
mighty have fallen.
 
And although he
looked as grim as everybody else in the room, he cherished the thought.

Reno suffered no lasting physical scars, but
the emotional ones were beginning to take their toll.
 
When he didn’t hear from his son after hours
and hours, he and Tommy went looking for him the next day.
 
They searched Nell’s home, and the school
house, and Russo Park, and the church where Reno and Trina now attended and it
was believed that Nell and Jimmy would sometimes attend.
   
But to no avail.
 
By daybreak, and by the time Reno’s Vegas
muscle had arrived in town, Reno put them on the search.
 
Two days later, they found him.

“Where?”
Reno asked when he got the word on his cell phone.
 
He, Trina, and Tommy were at the dinner table
going through the motions of eating.

Mugabe, one of Reno’s top strong men when he
needed this level of backup, was on the other end of the phone.
 
“We spotted him at this old abandoned house
on a few acres of land off of a street called Placid.
 
Apparently the kid’s mother was born on this
property.
  
But from what we’ve learned
it’s been abandoned since his grandmother died over a decade ago.”

“Okay,” Reno said, standing to his feet.
 
“Good work.”

“Want us to bring him in?”

“No.
 
You
stand down. I’ll get him.
 
I’m on my
way.”

And Reno killed the call.

“They found him?” Trina asked.
 
She had been as worried as Reno had been.

“Yeah.
 
Over at his grandmother’s old place.”

“Poor child,” Trina said.

Reno looked at her.
 
Any other woman would have been resentful and
angry for being put in the kind of positions his situations were always putting
her into.
 
But she held up like a
champ.
 
He reached over and kissed her on
the lips.

“One thing for sure,” he said to her.
 
“I love you.”

Trina’s heart swelled when he said those words
to her.
 
Not that he
didn’t say them to her almost every day.
 
But she needed to hear them this day.

“Love you, too,” she said.
 
“But please let Tommy go with you.”

But Reno shook his head.
 
“He won’t beat my ass again, don’t
worry.
 
I’ll have to beat his if he
tries.”

Trina and Tommy smiled.
 
Because they knew Reno wasn’t joking.
 
And Reno took off.

Jimmy didn’t try to run or hide when he saw
his father’s Porsche.
 
He had already
seen some men scoping the place and was sure it was his father’s hired
guns.
 
And if it wasn’t, if it was his
father’s enemies, that wouldn’t have mattered either.
 
He just didn’t care.

Reno got out of the car and began walking
toward the shack of a house.
 
It was
wooden and small and Reno couldn’t believe that Nell once lived in a place like
this.
 
But it was a fact.
 
His baby’s mother had probably been dirt poor
once upon a time.
 
He was living high on
a hog, and she and his boy were probably barely surviving.

Jimmy opened the front door of the home and
stood at it, and then he walked further inside.

Reno stepped up on the wooden porch and made
his way inside, too.
 
Jimmy had squatted
down on the floor against the wall.
 
The
home was empty and filled with dust and grime.
 
Like the both of them, it was bare.

Reno squatted down too.
 
“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” replied Jimmy.
 

“Your mother was born here, I understand.”

“Yeah.
 
This was grandma’s house before the bank took
it back.
 
Now nothing’s left.”

Reno looked at Jimmy.
 
“
It’s
life,
son.
 
And life can be tough.”

Jimmy frowned.
 
And then he looked at Reno.
 
“I
was wrong,” he said.
 
“A boy should never
lift his hand to his parent.
 
My mother
taught me better than that.
 
I was
wrong.”

“I know.
 
I deserved it.
 
But if it happens
again I’ll kill you.”

Jimmy smiled.
 
Reno didn’t so much as crack a smile.
 
Jimmy stopped smiling, too, and cleared his throat.

He shook his head.
 
“Ma didn’t deserve what she got,” he
said.
 
“She didn’t deserve for her life
to end like that.”

Reno nodded.
 
“That’s the truth.
 
She was a
hardworking, good woman.
 
And you were
wrong, Jimmy, when you said nobody loved her.”
 
Jimmy looked at Reno.
 
“Somebody
did love her.
 
You loved her.
 
And, believe me, that was plenty for her.”

Jimmy smiled.
 
“Thanks.”
 
Then he frowned again,
as that gnawing ache deep within his heart returned.
 
“She was my hero,” he said.

Reno’s own heart sank.

“She stood by me through thick and thin,”
Jimmy continued.
 
“Even when Dad, when
Fred treated her like a dog, and divorced her, she still let me have a relationship
with him.
 
She still wanted me to have a
father figure in my life.
 
And I love her
for that.”

Reno nodded. “I do too,” he said, and Jimmy
looked at him.

“However, I don’t,” a voice was heard from the
back of the house.
 
Reno and Jimmy stood up as they looked.
 
Luigi Johnny Drago was standing in the
doorway of the hall, and entered the living room, along with three of his
goons, their guns drawn.
 
Now Reno and
Drago were face to face.

“Hello my old friend,” Drago said.

“What the fuck do you want?” Reno asked him.

Drago smiled.
 
“You are so predictable, you know that?
 
I expected you to say that.
 
I
expected you to be angry and want to kill a motherfucker.
 
And a motherfucker is going to die.
 
But it ain’t gonna be this motherfucker.”

“Why?” Reno asked.

Drago smiled.
 
“Why?”
 
Why do you have to die?”

“What’s your beef with me?”

Drago laughed.
 
“And you’re supposed to be so smart.
 
But it’s a simple.
 
Ain’t
no
rocket science here.
 
It’s real simple.
 
Your sister,
remember MarBeth?
 
MarBeth killed Eddie
Giancarlo.
 
Remember that simple little
matter?”

Reno swallowed hard.
 
“What does that have to do with you, or me?”

“I don’t think I like your tone, Reno.”

“Who the fuck cares what you like,” Reno said
defiantly, and Jimmy looked at his father.
 
Didn’t he realize that those men had their guns drawn?
 
And the guns were drawn on them???

“That’s my Reno,” Drago said, smiling.
 
“Always Mister Tough Guy,
even in the face of danger.
 
Well,
Mr. Tough Man Gabrini, I’ll tell you what the death of Vito’s son have to do
with me.
 
Vito’s son, dickhead, was my
brother.”

Reno stared at Drago.
 
His brother?
 
What the fuck?

“You always wondered why Vito always had my
back.
 
You always used to wonder
that.
 
Your old man didn’t know. And he
was Vito’s best friend.
 
But I expected
more from you, Reno.
 
Because
you were always smarter than the average thug.”

“Vito’s your old man?”

“That’s right.
 
And you killed Eddie.
 
You iced my
brother, Reno.”

“I didn’t ice
nobody
.”

“Your sister did, and she did it on your
orders!”

“That’s a
got
damn
lie!
 
I didn’t order shit!
 
Your old man ordered that killing and you
know it!”

“That’s a lie and you know it!” Drago roared
back. Jimmy’s heart was pounding.
 
“MarBeth killed Eddie and you ordered it.
 
Don’t try to put Vito in this.
 
That family of yours was terrified of
you.
 
They didn’t crap without you giving
them permission to crap.
 
MarBeth
wouldn’t have touched Eddie if you hadn’t said she could.
 
And you know it!” Drago yelled.
 
“You killed my brother.
 
You!
 
Not your sister.
 
You!
 
And I was just waiting for the right time,
for the right place, for the right set of circumstances to get you back.”
 

Drago took a moment to compose
himself
.
 
“You killed
mine,” he said, pulling out his own gun and causing Reno to stand erect.
 
“Now I kill yours,” Drago said and pointed
his gun at Jimmy.
 
He fired.

But as soon as he did, Reno jumped in front of
Jimmy and took the shot.
 
And the
succession of shots, three, four, five, six, ripped into Reno.

“Dad!!!”
Jimmy screamed.
 
“Dad!!!!”

“Get him!” Drago ordered, as he ran for the
exit.
 
His goons grabbed Jimmy and
hurried out of the house.

“Round one, Reno,” he proclaimed.
 
“Round one!”
 

But Reno had already passed out.

He came to in a haze of watchful eyes.
 
He didn’t recognize any of them.
 
Until he saw Trina’s.
 
Her bright hazel eyes gave him comfort.

“Hey,” he said.
  

Trina smiled.
 
They were in the bedroom, and Reno was lying in bed.
 
“How do you feel?”

“Sore as hell,” Reno said, touching his ribs.

“You were riddled with bullets, my friend,”
Tommy said.
 
“Fortunately pellets from a
ginned-up air gun, but still.”

“Pellets?
 
Air gun?”
 
Reno frowned. “Who would
---
”

“The Drag, that’s who,” Tommy said.
 
“He’s fucking with you, Reno.
 
He knew you’d take those bullets for Jimmy
Mack.
 
That’s why they weren’t the real
deal.
 
He can’t let it end that easily
for you.
 
He wants to see you
suffer.
 
Pumping bullets into you would
have been too easy.”

Reno shook his head.
 
If he had a dollar for how many times he’d
heard that in his life.
 
“How did they---”

“Sneak attack.
 
They took out Mugabe and the rest of your men.”

“Took them out?”

Tommy exhaled.
 
“Dead, Reno.”

“Damn!” Reno said.
 

“They do what they do,” Tommy said.

“And Jimmy?
 
He’s
okay?”

Tommy looked at Trina.
 
Reno looked at Trina.

“What is it?”

“They apparently took him with them,” she
said, and Reno immediately moved to get out of bed.

“Ree, you can’t,” she insisted, but the pain
forced him back down, anyway.
 
It was
excruciating.