Reno Gabrini: For His Lover (The Mob Boss Series Book 14) (7 page)

BOOK: Reno Gabrini: For His Lover (The Mob Boss Series Book 14)
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“Who called this in anyway?” Trina asked.
 
“Some prankster?
 
Maybe it was our son trying to get some days
off from school.
 
But our child wouldn’t
do anything like that.”

“We were simply asking him if any of the allegations were
true,” the principal said.

“And I told them they weren’t,” Dommi replied.
 
“I told them.
 
Then they told me what happened.”

“You see,” Reno said.
 
“I’m telling you it’s all a pack of lies.
 
My son is telling you it’s a pack of
lies.
 
My wife is telling you it’s a pack
of lies.
 
What more do you want?
 
And if you still won’t take our word for it,
then where are the police reports?
 
If
all of this crazy shit went down the way that anonymous report claims it did,
where are the police reports?
 
You can’t
have getaways and gunmen and kidnappings without some kind of police
involvement.
 
So give.
 
Show me what you have.”

But he knew they had nothing, even as he also knew every word
of that anonymous report was true.

But practicality won out.
 
The social worker nor Principal knew anything about the kind of
lifestyle the Gabrinis were forced to lead.
 
And because it was so foreign to them, they accepted Reno’s
premise.
 
This was nonsense.
 
A fairytale.
 
Bullshit.

Detective Crowston believed every word, but without Dommi’s
cooperation they had no proof whatsoever.
 
They had no choice.
 
They released
Dommi to his parents.

But as Reno and Trina took their son out of the school and
made their way down the steps, they were concerned.
 
“Who could have called it in?” Trina asked as
they hurried away.

“Hell if I know,” Reno said.
 
“But they had a lot of details.”

“A lot, Reno,” Trina said.
 
“But how is it possible?”

“Hell if I know,” Reno said again.
 
Then, when they arrived at Trina’s car, he
looked at Dommi.
 
“Did you tell somebody
at your school about that incident?” he asked him.

“No, sir.”
 
When his
parents looked at him doubtfully, Dommi became even more animated.
 
“I swear!
 
Do I look like I have stupid on my forehead?”

“You’re going to have dead on your forehead,” Reno replied,
“if you don’t watch your mouth!”

“But how did they know?” Trina asked.
 
She was still vexed.
 
“Every one of those crooks who pulled that
stunt died that day.”

“Apparently not,” Reno said, looking vexed too.

Trina exhaled.
 
So did
Reno.
 
“I don’t like it, Tree.
 
I don’t like it one bit.”
 

She grabbed him by his chin and kissed him on his lips.
 
“I’ve got to go,” she said.
 
“Is Dom going to work with me, or with you?”

“With you, Mommy,” Dom said, leaning against Trina.
 
He knew he could have the run of his mother’s
place of work far better than his father’s.

But Reno knew it too.
 
“Me,” he said.
 
Then he looked at
his manipulative son.
 
“Get your ass back
over here.”
 
Dommi reluctantly moved back
over.

But Trina could still see the worry in Reno’s eyes.
 
“Stop worrying so much, Reno,” she said.
 
“Just look into it.
 
Maybe you’ll have a better read on who would
have reported something like this in a few days.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“I’ll be safe.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Reno said to her.
 
“I’ll put an extra man on your detail.”

“Can I go with you, Mommy, when you go to New York?” Dommi
asked.

“That’s not for another couple months,” Trina said.

“But I want to go.
 
I
know we’ll have to make the arrangements.”

Reno smiled.
 
That boy.

“I would love to take you,” Trina said to her son, “but I
can’t.
 
When I go to New York, I’m going
to work, baby, not to play.”

Dommi looked sad.
 
“I
don’t want you to go at all,” he said.

Trina’s heart melted.
 
“Ah, sweetie,” she said, moved away from her car, and surprisingly given
her size, lifted him up and into her arms.
 

Across the street, in the diner parking lot, Zell was still
watching through her binoculars.
 
She saw
Trina as she hugged Dommi and then sat him back on his feet.
 
She saw Reno kiss Trina, and then she saw
Trina get into her Mercedes, the top down, and drive away.
 
Reno put back on his shades as he and his son
got into his Porsche, and drove away too.

Andre didn’t have to have binoculars to see what was
happening.
 
He was crestfallen. “It
didn’t work,” he said.
 
“Gabrini’s son is
with him.
 
It didn’t work, Zell!”
 
He looked at Zell. “I told you your old man
didn’t know what he was talking about!
 
Now what are we supposed to do?”

Zell was surprised too, but she wasn’t crestfallen like her
baby brother.
 
She was made of stronger
stuff than that.
 
“Let’s get out of
here,” she said.
 
“We’ll call Father.”

“Not him again!”

“Yes, him again!” Zell responded.
 
“He’s all we have, isn’t he?”
 
She settled back down.
 
She didn’t mean to let her desperation show,
nor her unquenchable need to take down Reno Gabrini as if his fall was on par
with her air to breathe.
 
“Just go,” she
said disgustedly, and shook her head.
 
Gabrini won this round.
 
But she
knew her father.
 
This shit was far from
over.
 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
CHAPTER EIGHT
 

Two weeks later and Val glanced at her watch again as they
sat in the restaurant.
 
They were waiting
for Reno.
 
Jimmy was preoccupied,
fielding calls from his office, and Trina, sitting across from them, was
preoccupied too: she had Madison, Jimmy and Val’s beautiful baby girl, on her
lap.
 
But Trina wasn’t so distracted that
she couldn’t see Val glance at her watch less than twenty seconds after her
last glance.
 
“He should be here any
minute now, Val,” she said.

Val looked at Trina as if she was so consumed with her own
thoughts that she had no clue what she was talking about.
 
“Excuse me?”

“Your father-in-law?
 
My husband?
 
He’s on his way.”

“Oh that!” Val smiled.
 
“Dad has never been on time for anything lately.
 
I’m used to him.”

Trina could hear a little dismissiveness in her tone, as if
she was more annoyed by Reno’s lateness than she was letting on.
 
But when Val checked that watch yet again,
Trina became annoyed herself.
 
“Why do
you keep doing that, Val?” she asked.

Val looked at her with a puzzled expression on her face.
 
“Doing what?”

“Checking your watch,” Jimmy responded, as he ended his phone
call.
 
“Every two seconds you’re checking
your watch like you’ve got somewhere to be.
 
I noticed it a long time before Ma did.”

“I just don’t want to keep the baby out too late, that’s
all.”

“Neither do we,” Jimmy said, then looked on the side of
Val.
 
“Dad’s here!”
 
He could see his father coming toward their
table.
 
He rose to his feet.
 
“Finally,” he added.

Val looked too.
 
What
surprised Trina wasn’t the fact that Val was looking, but that she didn’t have
that lustful look she used to be unable to conceal whenever Reno showed
up.
 
But instead of being a comforting
development to Trina, as if Val had finally grown-up and out of her crush on
Reno, it bothered Tree.
 
Who, she
wondered, had her daughter-in-law’s attention now?

“Hey, Dad,” Jimmy said gaily on seeing his father, and he and
Reno hugged.
 
Since Reno promoted Jimmy
to a Senior VP position, they’d been closer than they’d ever been.
 
Jimmy called Reno constantly for advice.
 
Reno loved it.

“Hey, Dad,” Val said, too, as she rose and gave Reno a hug
also.

Reno removed his shades and then leaned down and kissed Trina
on the lips.
 
He unbuttoned his
suitcoat.
 
Val felt a tingle in her
vagina when she saw that bundle between Reno’s legs, and Kapper Cole’s own
bundle crossed her mind.

“Hey little princess,” Reno said as he sat beside his wife
and leaned down and smiled at his grandbaby.
 
“Hey Maddie May.”
 
Then he took
the baby from Trina and placed her into his arms.

“Where were you?” Trina asked.

“Something came up,” he said, smiling at his grandchild.
 
“Sorry I’m late.”

“Something always does come up in our line of work, Dad,”
Jimmy said as he sat back down too, beside Val.
 
“Nothing to be sorry about.”

Trina smiled.
 
“You
weren’t always so forgiving of your father, Jimmy.
 
Quite a change.”

“I learned from you,” Jimmy said with a smile of his
own.
 
“I could remember the time Dad
hardly ever came home, and the rumors all over Vegas was that he was sleeping with
all of these different women.
 
But you
kept forgiving him.
 
You said he was
worth it.
 
I agree.”

Reno looked at Jimmy.
 
What the fuck was he talking about?
 
He was talking as if Reno was running around Vegas cheating on Trina
with impunity.
 
As if he didn’t give a
damn about Trina’s feelings.
 
He was
about to set his son straight, but Trina did it for him.

“There was nothing to forgive,” she said.
 
“Reno worked hard to provide for us, and all
those rumors were just talk.”

“But it was so widespread,” Jimmy said.
 
“It had to hurt on some level.”

Reno didn’t interrupt.
 
He wanted to hear the answer himself.
 
He continued to bounce the baby, and listen.

“It hurt on a lot of levels,” Trina said.
 
“Of course it hurt.
 
But I knew Reno.
 
He wouldn’t do me like that.”

Jimmy smiled, and took Val’s hand.
 
It was only then did Trina realize he wasn’t
attempting to get into her feelings, but into his own.
 
She saw it earlier, and decided not to pursue
it.
 
Now she decided to go there.
 
“So how long has this been going on?” she
asked them.

Jimmy and Val both were puzzled.
 
Even Reno didn’t get it.
 
“How long has what been going on?” Val asked
her.

“This tension between you two,” Trina responded.

It was instructive to Trina that both Jimmy and Val
immediately glanced at Reno when she made that comment, as if they were more
afraid of his reaction than each other’s.
 
Jimmy even smiled and squeezed his wife’s hand.
 
“What tension?” he asked.

Val smiled too.
 
“There’s no tension between us.”

“I can cut it with a knife,” Trina said.
 
“Don’t play games with me.
 
What’s going on?”

Their smiles didn’t last.
 
It was then that Reno knew Trina was on to something.
 
“You heard her,” he said.
 
“What gives?”

Jimmy was the first to crack.
 
“Ask Val,” he said.

Val frowned and looked at him.
 
“What do you mean
ask Val
?”

“You’re the one who isn’t happy.”

“I am happy,” Val insisted.

“You could have fooled me.”

“We just moved to another part of the country, Jimmy.
 
And yes, that’s a big adjustment.
 
Dover and Manchester together feels smaller
than the Vegas Strip alone.
 
But for you
to take that and insinuate that I’m unhappy is a low blow even for you, Jimmy.”

Reno and Trina stared at Val.
 
Damn, Reno thought.
 
There was
some serious bite in her tone.
  
But
Jimmy still tried to sound conciliatory.
 
“It’s an adjustment for both of us,” he said.
 
“But you have to work at it.”

“You mean like you?” Val asked.
 
“You’re the one who works all day and all
night and doesn’t have time for his own family.
 
You’re the one who thinks my real estate career is just a little hobby.”

“I never said that!”

“You didn’t have to say it.
 
But you showed it.”

“And what about you?” Jimmy asked.
 
“I’m trying to build something special for
us.
 
Something that will put us on the map
as a power couple.
 
But you don’t
appreciate anything I’m trying to do.”

“That’s a lie and you know it!” Val shot back.
 
“You’re just trying to follow in your
father’s footsteps.
 
You’re just trying
to be the next Reno Gabrini when you don’t have the right stuff to tie his
shoes, let alone walk in them!”

Reno and Trina looked at Val as if she had just lost her
mind.
 
“What the fuck did you just say?”
Reno asked.

“I just don’t think he measures up to you,” Val said.

“Well he does,” Reno said, “for your information.
 
He’s strong.
 
He’s tough.
 
He has a heart. And
he works his ass off for you.
 
Where do
you get off telling him he’s not worthy?
 
Who the fuck are you to talk to my son like that?”

Jimmy could see Reno’s temperature rising.
 
He knew, once that temper unleashed, there
would be no taking it back.
 
He and Val
had enough problems.
 
“It’s alright,
Dad,” Jimmy said in defense of his wife.
 
“She talks like that sometimes,” he added, “but she didn’t mean
it.”
 
Then he looked at his wife.
 
“Did you, Val?”

Val stared at Reno.
 
She used to love him so much.
 
Now
he was against her too.
 
“No,” she said
after a moment.
 
“I didn’t mean it.”
 
And she looked at Jimmy.
 
“I’m sorry, babe.
 
It’s just been a very stressful time.
 
But you know how I feel.”

Jimmy smiled and kissed her on the lips.

But Reno and Trina wasn’t buying it.
 
Reno continued to play with the baby, but he
kept his eyes on Val.

 
 
BOOK: Reno Gabrini: For His Lover (The Mob Boss Series Book 14)
2.69Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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