Reno's Gift (Mob Boss Series) (30 page)

“What’s
wrong?” she asked him.
 
“Tell me what’s
wrong.”

Reno
rubbed her arms.
 
Tears were in his eyes.

“Is
it Jimmy?” Trina asked.
 
“Has something
happened to Jimmy?”

“Jimmy’s
okay,” Reno said in a voice Trina didn’t recognize.
 
It almost sounded hoarse and too low to be
Reno’s voice.

“Then
if Jimmy’s okay, then why . . . Then . . .”
 
It dawned on her like an elephant suddenly discovered in a room.
 
The unspeakable.
 
She began to shake her head.
 
“Dommi?” she asked, with disbelief in her
voice.
 
“Something happened to Dommi?”

Reno
fought back the tears.
 
“We don’t know
where he is, Tree,” he said.

“What
do you mean you don’t know?
 
He’s with
Fran!
 
She picked him up this morning.
 
What are you talking about, Reno?”

“Fran
took him,” Reno said.
 
“And I don’t know
where.”

Trina’s
heart dropped.
 
She remembered the last
time they took a child from Reno.
 
And
what happened to that child.
 
“I don’t
understand,” she said.
 
“Fran’s his
aunt.
 
Why would she . . . I don’t
understand, Reno.”
 

Reno
tried to pull her into his arms, but she fought the pull.
  
“You go get my child.
 
Don’t just stand here, why aren’t you out
getting our child, Reno?”
 
She hit him
and pushed him.
 
“Go get Dommi!
 
You can’t let it happen, Reno.”
 

Reno
gathered her in his arms.
 
She crumbled
against him.
 
“What happened to Nicky
can’t happen to him.
 
I told you that.
 
I told you. . .
 
Call Fran.
 
Have you tried to call her?”

Reno
nodded his head.
 
“We don’t know where
she is, Tree. We’ve tried everywhere and everybody and everything we could
try.
 
Nobody knows where she is.
 
Nobody knows where she took Dommi.”

And
it proved too much for Trina.
 
She lost
her balance, and began feeling the pull to the earth, and then it all went
black.

TWELVE

Tommy
and Grace sat on the living room sofa, with Tommy’s arm around Grace’s
shoulder, and Jimmy Mack sat beside them.
 
Sal and Gemma sat on the bar stools in front of the bar counter, with
Sal smoking a cigarette and Gemma flipping through her smart phone’s numerous
text messages.
 
It had been a long night,
with everybody exhausting their contacts, creating new contacts, and generally
asking anybody with any knowledge of Fran or Belle or Lefty or even Ollie if
they knew anything at all.
 

Nobody
knew a damn thing.

Sal
tapped the ash off of his cigarette.
 
“Damn shame,” he said.
 
“When I
get a hold of Francine again I’m going to choke the life out of that bitch.
 
And if she hurt that boy. . .”
 
Sal shook his head.
 
That was the unspeakable part of the entire
horror.
 
He remembered MarBeth and how
she turned on the family.
 
Not Fran too!

“Sal,”
Gemma said as she continued to go through her text messages.

Sal
looked at her.
 
“What sweetheart?”

Whenever
he used an endearment toward her, something inside of her leaped with
elation.
 
But she kept it tamped down and
never showed such feelings.
 
Trying to
get all excited over a relationship that was definitely going no-where would be
like getting excited when a stranger won the lottery.
 
It was nice for them, but what exactly was it
going to do for her?

She
looked at him.
 
His blue eyes never
looked her dead on.
 
They always seemed
to be watching her, but also the room at the same time.
 
“Who’s Nicky?” she asked.

Sal
hesitated.
 
Tapped his ash in the ashtray
again.
 
“Nicky,” he said, “was one of
Reno’s kids from a previous relationship.”

“He
was killed, wasn’t he?”

Sal
nodded.
 
“Oh, yeah.
 
It was. . . one of the worst times of our
family’s life.
 
Some of Reno’s enemies
did the kid in, and it nearly did Reno in.
 
We had him on suicide watch there for a minute.
 
And his marriage to Trina, forget about
it.
 
That was over.”

“Why
would you say that?”

“Because
it’s the true.
  
It was over!
 
Reno left her, left the PaLargio, left it
all.
 
Tommy had to all but wrestle him to
the ground to get him to come to Seattle, come to his family.
 
And then eventually he regained his good
sense and went back to Tree.
 
But it was
touch and go for a long time there.
 
Nobody gave that marriage a chance in hell of surviving that.
 
But it did.”

“Trina
fears what happened to Nicky could happen to Dommi.”

“But
it won’t,” Sal said firmly.
 
“I’ll kill
Fran and every piece of shit motherfucker who aided and abetted her before that
happens.
 
Fran’s not stupid.
 
She knows not to fuck with us.”

Gemma
stared at Sal for a moment longer, then went back to reviewing her text
messages. Only she didn’t really see a word on the screen.
 
Because she believed Sal.
 
He would actually kill somebody if they did
him wrong.
 
She’d been around criminals a
good portion of her career.
 
She started
just out of law school as a public defender.
 
But the idea of falling for a guy who played for keeps gave her some
pause.
 
And, she also had to admit,
excited the hell out of her.
 
She looked
at Sal again, as he puffed on his cigarette, and her eyes trailed down to the
bundle between his legs.
 
Yes
, she thought.
 
Salvatore Luciano Gabrini, flaws and all,
just might be the total package.

In
the back of the house, in the master bedroom, Reno sat in the wingback chair at
Trina’s bedside, while Trina lay in the bed on the doctor’s (and Reno’s)
orders.
 
Reno was slumped in the chair as
he held her hand and fought sleep.
 
His
eyes were partially closed.
 
Trina just
lay there, staring at him.
 
His hair was
piled around his face in a thick, soft, messy bunch, and his five o clock
shadow made him look even more worn than he actually was.
 
It shouldn’t have been possible, because he
was extremely worn, but it was.

Trina
attempted to smile.
 
“You look worse than
I feel,” she said as their fingers interlaced.
 
“You’re the one who need to be in bed.”

“You’re
the one who fainted.”

Trina
didn’t need to be reminded of that.
 
She
looked away from Reno.
 
“Fran won’t hurt
Dommi,” she said.

Reno
nodded, but didn’t open his eyes.
 
“I
know.”

Trina
looked at him.
 
“Then why did she take
him?
 
Why won’t she let us know where she
is, and where our child is?”

“I
think it’s me she’s after, babe.”
 
He
opened his eyes.
 
Trina could see unshed
tears still in his big, weary blue eyes.
 
“Just like MarBeth was.”

“Don’t
say that,” Trina implored.
 
“She has no
reason to want to hurt you.
 
What have
you ever done to her except love her and take care of her and pay all of her
bills?”

An
anguished look came onto Reno’s face.
 
“And kill her husband,” he added.

Trina
looked at him.
 
“Dirty?”

“Yeah.
 
She and one Dirty were still married when I
offed him.”

“But
they were separated.
 
He beat the shit
out of her and they remained separated.”

“But
he was still her husband.
 
She loved him
at one time, and for all I know could have still loved that asshole.”

“So
you think she might have taken Dommi to avenge Dirty’s death?”

“It’s
crossed my mind.
 
A thousand other things
have crossed my mind too.
 
But yeah,
that’s something I’m thinking about.
 
And
then there’s Bruno Lucci.”

“What
about him?”

“Belle
says he’s been making noises about getting his revenge for my part in getting
him locked up for a decade.”

“So
what does that have to do with Fran?”

“Bruno
and Dirty were friends there for a while.”

Trina
finally understood.
 
“So you think Bruno
might have recruited her to bring you down.
 
You think the two of them might be working together?”

“Yeah.
 
No.
 
Fuck, I don’t know, Tree,” he said as he stood to his feet.
 
He began roaming he room with one hand on the
back of his neck and the other hand in the pant pocket of his once pristine,
but now badly wrinkled suit.
 
He, in
fact, slung his suit coat off and tossed it in a chair.
 
His shirttail was already hanging out.

“I
should kick her ass just for taking us through this shit,” he said as he
roamed.
 
“She knows how close-knit a
family we are.
 
She knows how Dommi gets
when he doesn’t see us.
 
If she was angry
with me, she should have taken her anger out on me, not my child!”
 
Then he placed his hand on the side of his
head.
 
“How could she do this to me?
 
How could my own sister do this to me!”

The
bedroom door opened quickly.
 
Reno and
Trina both looked.
  
It was Tommy and
Grace.

“They’re
here, Reno,” Tommy said and Reno, without saying another word to Trina, hurried
out of the room.
 
Tommy hurried behind
him.

Grace
came in and closed the door.
 
She smiled
as she moved toward the bed.
 
“Feel any
better?” she asked her.

“Who’s
here?” Trina asked Grace.

Grace
knew she would.
 
She sat in the chair
Reno had been sitting in.
 
“Reno wants
you to rest, Tree.”

“I am
resting.
 
Who’s here?”

“Three
men.”

“But
who are they?”
 
Then Trina realized
who.
 
“Do you know their names?”

Grace
shook her head.
 
“I heard Tommy call one
of them Big Joe or something like that.”

“I
know who you mean.
 
Big Mo.
 
I know him.”
 
Then she nodded her head.
 
“Good.
 
That’s good.
 
You bring in guys like Mo, that means Reno’s pulling out all the stops.”

“He’s
the best at what he does?”

“Oh,
yeah.”

“So
he knows how to track people down?”

“I
doubt it.
 
But he sure as hell knows how
to mow’em down,” Trina said, and Grace’s heart grew faint.
 
How in the world, she wondered, would she
ever get used to this?

Trina
looked at her.
 
She could sense her
anguish.
 
“Time, Grace,” she said to
her.
 
“It’ll take time.”

“But
you’re completely used to it?”

“No.
 
Of course not!
 
Every time there’s upheaval it’s strange and
unsettling.
 
But you have to love your
Gabrini man so much that you’re willing to face days like this.
 
Awful, dark, cold, scary days like this.
 
Because you know, as long as there is breath
in his body, that your man will do everything in his power to make this right.
 
Nobody messes with Reno, or Tommy, or Sal
Gabrini without there being serious retribution.”