“Trina!” Gemma was surprised.
But Trina frowned. “Damn right kill him,” she said. “I’m not taking that back. He didn’t hire those men to hold conversations with Reno and me. He tried to kill us last night! He started this shit.”
Gemma understood everything Trina was saying. But still!
But that was exactly why Reno loved Trina. Despite their differences, and they always seemed to have them, they were still a team. A united front. Nobody treaded on one of them, unless they treaded on them both.
“I’m meeting with his syndicate tomorrow,” Reno said. “I’ve got to get their assurances that they’ll stay out of it if I avenge what happened last night.”
“And if they won’t stay out of it?” Gemma asked.
“I’m still going to avenge what he tried to do to my wife last night. I’ll just have to treat them as if they were him, and avenge them too. It’ll make my job that much harder. That’s all.”
Gemma smiled. Bonnie and Clyde had nothing on Reno and Tree!
“But something’s still bothering me,” Reno said.
“Not that shit again,” said Sal. “It’s over, Reno.”
“Not that,” Reno said. “But that lawyer. Why didn’t you take that lawyer to a safe house? He might know more than he was letting on.”
“That was my plan,” Sal said. “Don’t you think I know what to do? But then he suddenly says, ‘hello, Officer Holder,’ and startled me. And I realize I’m in a fucking courtroom, surrounded by cops and lawyers, and cameras all over the fucking place. Including the parking lot. What am I supposed to do?”
But Trina heard something else. “Officer Holder?” she asked Sal. “Did you say Officer Holder?”
Sal looked at her. “Yeah. That was the name of the cop that suddenly walked up on us. And that lawyer was able to shield himself from me by hurrying over to that cop. I was out of bounds, on the wrong turf to try shit like that. And he knew it.”
“Reno?” Trina said.
Reno looked at her. “What?”
“That resource officer at Dommi’s school this morning.”
“What about him?”
“His name was Officer Holder. I remember his nameplate on his uniform.”
Reno’s expression changed. “Are you sure?”
“I’m certain. I remember wondering if he, by some fluke, could be related to our former attorney general Eric Holder. I remember thinking that. I remember that name on his nameplate.”
Reno looked at Sal. “Was this cop a tall black guy?”
“With a bald head, yeah,” Sal said. “You think he works at Dommi’s school?”
“He works there!” Trina said.
“But what’s the big deal?” Sal asked.
“What are the chances that a man who just so happened to be telling another man about my wife, also just so happened to be saved from you by another man who works at my son’s school? What are the chances of that shit not being by chance, Sal?”
“No chance,” Sal said, and Reno hurried to his feet. Trina stood too.
“Where are you going?” Sal asked them.
“To talk to his ass. That so-called resource officer works for Futarda. I’m willing to bet my life on it. That shit at Dommi’s school wasn’t random either. None of this shit is random!” And Reno and Trina took off.
Sal stood up too. “Come on, Gem,” he said, tossing a couple hundred bucks onto the table. “They may need backup.”
Gemma wasn’t accustomed to being invited on a “run” with her husband, and she knew he was only allowing it because Reno was allowing Trina to go along. But she wasn’t about to voice any complaints. She got up and headed out of that restaurant too. She was curious as hell.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
It took nearly half an hour, but their men tracked him down. At a Steakhouse on Plymouth. They were all in Trina’s Mercedes: Reno behind the wheel. Trina on the passenger seat. Sal and Gemma on the backseat. And when Reno drove onto the parking lot, he parked the car and looked at Trina.
“According to our guys, he’s in the back in a booth.”
“Alone?” Trina asked.
“Yes,” said Reno, “although he may be waiting for somebody.”
“Don’t fuck around, Tree,” Sal said. “It’s better we handle this before that person he might be waiting for shows up. We don’t want to make a public scene if we can help it.”
Trina nodded. “Got cha.”
“Alright, babe,” Reno said as he looked her up and down. Despite himself, he could still see her fine body being touched by that Pump-ass Futarda. It was going to take him time to get over that crazy news!
But he had a job in front of him now. “Get in there and do your thing,” he said to her.
Trina smiled, too, although she could tell Reno wasn’t feeling her just yet, and got out of the car.
Then Reno hit his fist against the steering wheel. “Damn,” he said when the door closed behind her.
“What is it, Reno?” Sal asked him. “And please don’t tell me it’s that old shit again.”
“Wish I would have taken her home first,” he said. “What man in his right mind let his wife do shit like this?”
Sal nodded, glancing at his own wife. “Know what you mean,” he said.
Then Reno exhaled, and he and Sal got out of the car too.
Inside, Trina entered the restaurant and recognized her mark immediately. The bastard, she thought. But she put her feelings aside, put on her best smile, and headed to his table.
When she arrived, she smiled even grander. “Hey. I thought that was you!” She stopped at his table.
Officer Holder, the Resource officer at Lakeview, was surprised to see Dommi Gabrini’s mother in front of him.
Surprised and scared, thought Trina. Yeah, your ass ought to be, she also thought. “Remember me?” she asked.
“Yeah, sure. Dommi’s mother.”
“Right!”
“How are you?”
“I’m good. How are you?”
“Very well, thank you.”
“Officer Holder, right?”
“That’s right.”
“You’re just the person I want to see! May I sit down?”
The officer moved around in his seat. “Well, actually,” he said with a weak smile, “I’m expecting someone.”
“Are you?” Trina sat in his booth anyway.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “I said I was expecting someone.”
“I know what your ass said,” Trina responded, her smile now gone.
The officer frowned. “Now look, Mrs. Gabrini,” he said in a voice he undoubtedly used on the kids at school.
But Trina had an equally stern voice. “No, you look,” she responded to him. “We know your ass involved with Pump Futarda, so don’t even try it.”
There was a pause. “Pump who?” he asked.
“Oh, so we’re dumb now? We’re playing dumb now? Got it.”
He stared at her. He knew Reno Gabrini’s wife wouldn’t be there unless she had the goods on him already. He dropped the dumb act. “What do you want?” he asked.”
“I want you to look around. Like over there. And over there.”
Holder was confused. He looked where Trina had motioned. When he saw Reno Gabrini sitting at the bar, his heart began to pound. When he looked in the other area of the room where she had motioned and saw Sal Gabrini, his heart began to hammer. He should have known this was no casual drop by!
“Now, Mister Resource Officer,” Trina said, “you will get your ass up from this table and walk with me outside. No fuss. No scene. My husband wishes to have a word with you. Now move it, or there will be a scene, and I’ll be the one making it.”
Holder hesitated, but he knew who those Gabrinis were. What was he going to do?
He got up, along with Trina, and walked in front of her as they headed for the exit. Reno went out in front of Holder, and Sal got in behind Trina as they headed for the exit.
&nb
sp; But as they walked past the kitchen area of the working-class restaurant, Holder broke away from his captives and ran into the kitchen.
“Shit!” Sal yelled and ran behind him. Reno grabbed Trina and hurried out of the restaurant. He knew his role was to take care of her and Gemma just in case that sucker circled back and tried something, and he aimed to do that.
But Sal aimed to catch that so-called resource officer. And when he ran into the kitchen, and spotted him, he took off after him. Holder had already bumped into a bit stack of plates, causing them to crash to the floor and shatter. The kitchen staff started yelling at him, but he didn’t give a shit. He looked back, and saw that Sal was on his tail. It was then did he give that staff even more consternation: he purposely overturned a hot pot of pasta on the stove, burning his own hand, as he ran out of the kitchen and down a narrow hall that led to the back-exit door.
Sal had to sidestep the broken plates, jump over the pasta, deal with an already angry kitchen staff, but it barely slowed him. He pulled out his gun and took off down the narrow hall, too, careful to check every room as he passed them. But it was a long and twisting hall, and that slowed him considerably, but he kept making his way toward that exit.
But just as Holder ran out, he had another encounter with the unexpected. A car, Trina’s Mercedes, driven by her husband, sped up and knocked him off his feet. Holder was knocked onto the hood of the car, and rolled back off of it, in front of it.
“Stay here!” Reno ordered the ladies as he got out of the car and ran up to Holder’s body.
But Holder landed on his back and had his gun pointing at Reno. “Make one move toward me,” he said, “and you’re dead!”
Reno held up his hands, backing up slightly. “It’s alright, player,” he said. “It’s your world.”
But then Sal ran out of the back-exit door, forcing Holder to quickly turn his body and his gun toward Sal. And he fired a shot that missed wildly. But Sal, instinctively, fired almost simultaneously with Holder’s shot. And Sal never missed. He shot Holder through the heart.
As Gemma and Trina got out of the car, Reno ran to him, and checked his pulse. They needed him alive to get answers!
But it wasn’t to be. He looked at Sal, shook his head, and then stood up. “Damn,” he said.
Gemma placed her arm around Sal. “You okay, babe?” she asked him.
He nodded. He was okay. Holder left him no choice in the matter. But he was upset too. Not only did he have to answer to the cops now that he killed one of their own, but he had to loop them in on the fact that Pump Futarda was behind that attack last night, when Reno and Sal would rather handle that without police interference.
Sal looked at Reno. “Not our night,” he said.
“Figure out a way to not bring Pump Futarda’s name into it,” Reno said to him. “We don’t want those cops in our personal business.”
Sal looked at him. How the fuck was he supposed to accomplish that? But he wasn’t about to tell Reno that. “What are you telling me that for?” he asked him. “I know what I need to do.”
“I’m just saying you need to come up with a different explanation.”
“I know that, Reno, damn!”
“You know it?”
“Yeah I know it!”
“Then what’s the explanation?”
Sal frowned. “How the hell should I know?”
Reno couldn’t believe it. “Really, Sal? Really?”
“It just happened, Reno!”
“And those people in the restaurant just called the cops on us, Sal! The cops will be here any minute. We’ve got to get the story straight.”
“We’ll have it straight.”
“So tell me what you got,” Reno said. “I know what I would say, but tell me what you’ve got.”
Sal hated to be bested by Reno, but he also knew he was right. He gave in. “Just tell me, alright? What are you just standing there for?”
Reno smiled. “Smug motherfucker,” he said. Then he looked at the body of that dead cop in front of them. And they both cut the nonsense.
Sal and Gemma made it home late that night. Lucky was spending the night with Neeco in the guest house, and that gave the couple some quality time alone. Time they surely needed.
Gemma had taken a long bath and was in bed before Sal, who was on the phone from the moment they arrived home, made it upstairs. When he got upstairs, he showered, got out, and then pulled a chair next to the bed and sat down. He liked to air dry, as he called it, whenever his body was drained and stressed.
Gemma was naked, too, but was in bed covered by their silk top-sheet, and she was staring at Sal. “You think the cops bought it?” she asked him.
“Bought what?”
“That story we told them. About Holder claiming to have information for us on what happened at that awards banquet?”
“I think they fell for it,” Sal said. “And if they didn’t, so what? Fuck’em! That witness saw him try to shoot me first. They didn’t see Reno knock him down with Tree’s car, thank goodness, but they saw him pull his gun and fire toward me.”
“I’m surprised they have no cameras at that restaurant.”
“Too cheap.” Sal smiled. “Thank goodness.”
Gemma smiled too. That sounded like Sal through and through. But as her eyes roamed downward, to that considerable package between his legs, her smile turned hooded. Even in its sleep state, Sal’s package was very well-hung.
And when he looked at her, and saw that she was looking at him in that particular way of hers, that sleep state began awakening.
“Move that sheet,” Sal said to her.
Gemma removed their silk sheet, revealing her sleek, naked body. As soon as Sal saw her, from her breasts to her abs, to her long, shapely legs, his package not only became fully awake, but stood at attention. His eyes lingered between her legs.
“Open them,” he said to Gemma. His own look now hooded too.
Gemma smiled, and gladly parted her legs. When she did, Sal got up, sat on the edge of the bed, and moved his hand between those legs. He entered her with one finger, and then two. He looked at her as he massaged her. “Get wet for me,” he said.
Gemma didn’t know what he expected her to do. It was not as if she could get wet just by wishing it so. But, to her shock, as soon as he said it, she could feel the moisture herself. It began saturating his fingers.
Sal felt it too. “That’s my girl,” he said with a smile, and then got on the bed, between her legs, and mouthfucked her.
Gemma closed her eyes and relaxed her entire body as Sal’s mouth moved down on her. He licked her slowly, and lovingly, and sucked her with the kind of affection she craved. And when it seemed as if she was almost ready to cum, he stopped just in time, entered her, and made long, slow, passionate love to her.
Sal wrapped Gemma in his arms as he made love to her. For the longest time, he made love to her. They kissed, and hugged, and pumped together as the feelings kept them drowsy and happy and in a state of near-cum for nearly half an hour. It was more than a release for them. It was a demonstration of their love for each other.
And when they came, it felt electric. Sal strained as he poured into her. Gemma placed her hands on the sides of his face and kissed him, hard, as he poured into her. It was a powerful cum for both of them. They came together. Sal and Gemma. As if they were meant to be. Because, to both of them, they were.
When they were fully satiated, and neither had any more to give, Sal rolled off of her and pulled her into his arms. It took mere minutes before they were both asleep.
They slept, undisturbed, the entire night through.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
FOUR DAYS BEFORE THE ARREST
The meeting of the dons took place at Slappey’s, an old factory that later housed an old fire station. Both were long since abandoned.
Sal arrived with Reno, along with ten of their men, and the three dons arrived with their considerable security details as well. The dons got out of
their respective cars and, along with Sal and Reno, went inside the old station. All five men stood in the middle of the room. They understood the meeting had to be short and sweet. They understood a gathering that lasted too long would be a gathering that got the attention of the wrong people: law enforcement.
“Our apologies for what happened at the Chamber,” said the leader, Don Vecoli. “And we know who is said to be responsible.”
They didn’t name names in case there was a bug somewhere, but it was understood of whom they spoke.
“Have you spoken to him?” asked Sal.
Vecoli shook his head. “Not a word. He will not respond to my requests. He will not respond to any of our requests.”
“But why is he targeting Reno’s wife?” Sal asked. “What have you heard, Don Vecoli?”
“I have heard only that he is involved. Why he is involved? I have heard nothing.”
“He attempted to assassinate my wife Sunday night,” Reno said. “I want to be clear here. I cannot let that stand. I’m not going to let that stand.”
Vecoli glanced at the dons, but Reno and Sal could see it was only a formality. He would have the final word. “No,” he said. “You cannot.”
“I need your reassurances that this fight is between him and myself, and it’ll remain between him and myself. I need to know you won’t intervene. I don’t want a war with any of you. I have no beef with any of you. But I’ll run through all of you, and I’ll show no mercy, to get to him.”
Vecoli looked at Sal Luca. “I’ll be right beside him,” Sal said, “showing no mercy either.”
Vecoli expected as much. Sal’s syndicate was the largest in town. He ruled the Midwest. And Reno was no slouch either. “I knew your father when he ruled the East,” Vecoli said to Reno. “He was a good man, but a very difficult man too. When word came that you flew the coop and refused to live as he wanted you to live, I began my admiration of you, Reno. You are first and last an honorable man.” Then Don Vecoli extended his hand to Reno. “We will not interfere,” he said. “You have our word.”
Reno and Sal both were surprised by Vecoli’s unambiguous agreement. But it didn’t mean shit, they both also knew, if the other two dons didn’t agree. But when the other two extended their hands as well, and Reno shook them, it was as if a burden had been lifted. Now he was free to pursue Pump Futarda without preconditions.
Reno and Sal Gabrini: Fire with Fire Page 9