And he was curious enough, and felt he had skin in the game enough, to go and see for himself.
Reno sat in Trina’s hospital room and held her hand. She was hooked up to all kinds of monitors, but her color was returning and she was looking better than she looked at the house. That helped Reno to relax a little more.
“The doctor said you’re going to be just fine,” he told her as he sat beside her.
She nodded her head and placed her fingers between his fingers. She looked okay, but her spirits seemed low.
“What’s the matter, sweetheart?” he asked her.
Trina started to tell him that nothing was wrong, but then she shook her head. “Roller coasters,” she said.
Reno’s heart began to pound. He knew what she meant. “Tired of the ups and downs?”
She looked at him. Her hazel eyes looked troubled. “We were having such a good time. Tommy was in town and Jimmy Mack was like a little kid and I felt so wonderful. It was such a nice start to our Christmas. And to end up here. Like this.”
“Don’t you worry about that, darling. We’ll still have a wonderful Christmas.”
“So Bob said I could go back home today?”
Reno hesitated. “They want to keep you overnight for observation.”
“Oh, Reno, no! Not on Christmas!”
“Just overnight, babe,” Reno said, squeezing her hand. “Then you’ll come home. I know how you feel---”
“You can tell them to let me go now. They’ll do whatever you say. You can hire doctors to be at home with me.”
“But the equipment won’t be there,” Reno pointed out. “I can’t take that chance that something could happen and they don’t have what they need to save your life. I can’t do that.”
“Nothing’s gonna happen,” Trina insisted. “I wanna go home, Reno.”
“I know you do. And I want you home. But not today. You’re staying here overnight and I’m staying here with you.”
Trina shook her head. “No! Not you too, Reno. I’m not ruining your Christmas, too.”
Reno smiled. “You aren’t ruining anybody’s anything. Besides, we already voted on it.”
“You voted on it?”
“That’s right. And I’m staying, Tommy’s staying, and Jimmy Mack’s staying, too. We’re going to bring Christmas to you.”
Trina thought about it. She had dreaded the idea of being alone anyway. Then she smiled. “Wasn’t Tommy upset when he found out that you and I were his Christmas gift?”
Reno laughed. “How did he say it? ‘ Hell nall!’ Yeah, your boy was highly pissed.”
Trina laughed. “He’s a good guy, Reno. I’m glad he was our gift.”
Reno squeezed her hand again. “You’re my gift, babe, and don’t you ever forget that.”
Dirty had followed Fran inside the hospital, and at a safe enough distance, into the maternity ward. That surprised him. That more than likely meant that Trina was the patient, not Reno. But damn, he thought as he stood near an unlocked supply closet should he need a fast hideaway. Trina couldn’t ben any more than five months. Which meant there had to be some problems with the baby. Which meant Reno was undoubtedly by her side freaking the hell out.
But that realization spooked Dirty. There was no way he was going to get into any confrontations with a bastard like Reno Gabrini, not if he valued his life. Just the thought of it made him almost turn around and leave.
But then he saw Reno, with Fran and Tommy beside him, walk out of the maternity ward and head for the elevators. Dirty immediately thrust himself into the supply closet to get out of sight. But he looked on with envy as the threesome waited at the elevators.
Tommy looked dapper as usual, Dirty thought, in his yellow cardigan and hyper-expensive trousers. Dirty wondered where the black chick was. He couldn’t recall a time when Tommy came to Vegas without some black female on his arm. Even when he was still with Shanks and before Shanks stood him up at the altar, he would always bring some black chick to town with him. Which disgusted Dirty no end. Of all the Italian ladies Tommy could have, he always had to go and dredge himself up a nigger. Even when they were kids Tommy preferred that brown sugar. And she had to be hot too. That was always Dapper Tom. He always had to have the best.
It was no surprise to Dirty, however, that Reno looked the opposite of Tommy. There was never a strand of hair out of place on Tommy Gabrini and never an unpolished shoe or wrinkled suit anywhere near Tommy’s body. Even the yellow cardigan he sported today looked brand new.
But Reno? His hair was always a mess from his constant need to ruffle it, and although his clothes were just as expensive as Tommy’s, he wore them as if he’d just thrown them on. Dirty had never met a man like Reno, who could look so unshaven sometimes but still be the best looking man in the room. Years ago he used to be big time jealous of Reno and Tommy. Dirty would be breaking his neck to impress the ladies, spending every dime he had to get up their asses. All Reno and Tommy had to do was show up, and the ladies were at their feet. It was so unfair to Dirty back then. And even now, as he hid out in some musky closet like the chump Reno always took him for, it was still unfair to him. Some guys had all the luck, Dirty thought.
But when they stepped onto the elevator, and Fran was with them, Dirty saw another option. Some guys got all the breaks, he thought, and maybe he was one of those guys. He viewed their absence as a break. He viewed their absence as a chance to go onto that ward and have a little talk with Trina. She was always the sensible one. If anybody could get Reno to stand down and give Dirty another chance, it was Trina. It wouldn’t be easy, she was a bitch sometimes too, but it might be the only option he had left. He couldn’t approach Fran. But if Trina set something up, maybe Fran would go along with it. And as Dirty searched around and found some old scrubs in a bin, he knew it was a long shot. But as he slipped on a pair of those scrubs, he also knew it might be the only shot he had left.
He left the supply room, and headed for the maternity ward.
Although Jimmy Mack was in the room with Trina, the curtain had been pulled around Trina’s bed to allow the nurse to check her vitals. Jimmy sat on the opposite side of that curtain strolling through his cell phone’s text messages. Many girls were texting him and wishing him a Merry Christmas, and even more were inviting him to this Christmas party or that one. But he didn’t respond to any of them. After what he went through in Crane, Georgia with one girl in particular, he wasn’t interested in hitching his wagon to anyone right now. He enjoyed hanging out with his old man and Trina. Even in this hospital room.
What he didn’t know was that Dirty was outside of that hospital room. Dirty, in fact, was searching each room on the maternity ward in an effort to find Trina’s. And then, after spotting the Gabrini name on the whiteboard outside of one of the rooms, he moved to open the door. He nearly tripped up, however, when a nurse came out of the room just as he was about to go in. He kept walking past as if he hadn’t been about to enter at all.
But then he doubled back after the nurse walked away, looked around at the near-empty Christmas day ward, realized that no-one was paying him any attention, and then slid inside.
And there was Trina. The curtain had been drawn around her, but the nurse had pulled the front end open as she left so that Trina was now visible to anyone walking into the hospital room. And anyone walking in, was visible to her.
Dirty closed the door. And hurried to her side. “I need your help, Tree,” Dirty said with desperation in his voice.
Trina frowned. “What are you doing here, Dirty?” she asked him. Jimmy immediately jumped up and slid the curtain back. To his amazement, Dirty Marcasi was standing at Trina’s side. He hurried toward him.
“Stay out of this boy,” Dirty said, but he was backing up as he said it. “This is between me and Tree.”
But Jimmy would have none of it. It would be different if it was Fran that Dirty was trying to talk to. That would be between husband and wife. But this was Reno’s wife he was tryin
g to talk to and Jimmy knew his father well enough to know that he would have Jimmy’s hide if he allowed Dirty anywhere near Tree.
That was why he didn’t delay. He slammed Dirty against the side wall. Trina sat up and grabbed the telephone, but Reno’s phone number was in her cell phone’s memory. No way did she know it by hard. And her cell phone was back at home. She, instead, started pressing the emergency button next to her bed.
“What are you doing,” Dirty yelled as he and Jimmy scuffled. “What are you doing, you black motherfucker!”
Dirty thought he had the upper hand, but Jimmy slammed him back against the wall.
“I can talk to my sister-in-law if I want to!” Dirty was yelling. :I just want to talk to her!”
“Talk to me!” Jimmy demanded. “Why you need to talk to the woman in the room? Talk to the man! Talk to me, punk!”
Dirty couldn’t believe how strong the kid was. And how much, to his horror, he reminded him of Reno! He fought back hard, but Jimmy was too strong. So Dirty tried one of his tried and true, “dirty” maneuvers, a technique that always got him out of rough spots in the past. He tried to head-butt Jimmy. But Jimmy saw it coming and weaved to the left, missing the blow.
Then Jimmy, a fast learner, head-butted Dirty, causing blood to suddenly gush out from Dirty’s forehead.
“Got dammit!” Dirty screamed. “What’s wrong with you, boy?”
The door opened and the nurse entered. She immediately began backing up.
“Go and get my husband,” Trina demanded.
“What’s going on in here?” the nurse asked, looking not at Trina, but at Jimmy just as he did a takedown of Dirty.
“Get my husband!” Trina demanded again, terrified that Dirty might harm Jimmy.
But the nurse’s attention was still on the two men. “You can’t do that sort of thing in here!”
“Shut the fuck up and get my husband!” Trina yelled. “He’s in the cafeteria!”
The nurse looked at the two men rolling on the ground as they knocked over Trina’s tray of food. She knew who they were. She knew all of the mob ties associated with the Gabrini name. And she was terrified of doing anything to upset these people. She ran to get Reno.
Reno was standing in line with Tommy and Fran when the nurse entered the cafeteria. They had decided to get some breakfast and take it upstairs. Fran had thought it silly, given that Reno could easily call for his own restaurants to bring food in, but Reno didn’t want that. That would mean extra people would have to be called to work, away from their families on Christmas day, just to accommodate them. He would never be that kind of selfish, thoughtless boss. This cafeteria food would have to do.
But when the Nurse told him that his wife was calling for him, and that two men were in her room fighting it out, he and Tommy took off running so fast that they left Fran and the nurse reeling.
They took the stairs, two to three at a time, until they were back on the maternity ward and busting into Trina’s hospital room. Jimmy, by this time, was on top of Dirty, holding him down. Reno looked at Trina, saw that she was all right, and then he looked at his son.
“Good job,” he said to Jimmy as Jimmy stood up.
“I wouldn’t let him get away, Pop.”
“Damn right,” Reno said as Dirty scrambled to stand up, too.
“I told that fool I was just coming to talk to you, Reno,” Dirty insisted.
“Quit lying,” Trina replied. “You came to talk to me and Jimmy Mack wouldn’t let you.”
“No, now, Tree,” Reno said. “Let’s take Dirty at his word. Let’s assume he came to talk to me. So that’s why you’re here, Dirty? To talk to me?”
Dirty was less certain now. “Yeah,” he said. “Man to man.”
Reno wanted to puke. They would be one man short, he wanted to say. But he held it in. “Tommy, Jimmy,” he said to his cousin and son. “Give us some space,” he said. “And lock the door on your way out.”
Dirty’s heart pounded when Reno said that. Tommy hesitated, too. He had been a cop for many years for crying out loud, a police captain at that. In addition to the restaurants he owned, he also owned a security firm that worked closely with law enforcement to this day. He had no business condoning the kind of shit Reno was down with. But he also knew that Reno didn’t bring Dirty to this hospital to intimidate Trina. Reno didn’t make Dirty beat up on Fran. Tommy thought of what he would do had he been in Reno’s shoes, and it amounted to the same thing Reno was about to do. Which was what Jimmy had concluded too.
They headed for the exit.
“And Jimmy,” Reno said. Jimmy turned around. “Find a wheelchair. Mr. Marcasi here is gonna need one.”
Jimmy looked at Dirty. Dirty’s heart pounded against his chest. “Yes, sir,” Jimmy said, and left.
“Now Tree,” Reno said, “I want you to turn over and keep your eyes focused on that curtain over there.”
“Why can’t I see it?” she asked. “Dirty deserves what he’s about to get and I want to witness it. Why can’t I?”
“Because I said so,” Reno shot back. “I don’t want any baby of mine witnessing anything like this.”
“Your baby hasn’t even been born yet, Reno.”
“I’m not talking about that baby,” Reno said. “I’m talking about you. Turn your ass around.”
Trina had to smile at the way Reno could be so loving, and yet so ruthless at the same time. But she turned her ass around.
And Reno didn’t delay. He beat Dirty’s ass. Dirty tried to fight back, and tried to pretend to be so sorrowful that a monk couldn’t have been more apologetic. But Reno would have none of it. He beat, kicked and stomped. He thought about how horrific Fran looked after her beating, and he put an even worse beating on Dirty.
Reno should have hated it. It was Christmas for goodness sake! He should have abhorred the drama he always couldn’t shake. But he didn’t hate the beating he was putting on Dirty. All he had to do was think about how Fran looked, and the nerve Dirty had even approaching Trina, and any regret disappeared. It was all about payback with Reno.
And then, when there was not a part of Dirty’s body that wasn’t in pain, Reno stood up, his arms exhausted from the pounding he’d just put on Dirty. He unlocked the door. And then Jimmy strolled in with Dirty’s transportation.
The wheelchair was rolled to a different floor and stopped against the wall in the corridor. Dirty was blood-soaked and nearly unconscious as Jimmy Mack left him there, looked around, and then walked away. Jimmy Mack wasn’t a violent man, but he understood where his father was coming from. You had to protect your own. That was what it meant to be a Gabrini. And as Jimmy walked away, he realized just how much of a Gabrini he was beginning to become. He was Reno’s son. Make no mistake about that.
Dirty certainly realized it when Jimmy had held him down and wouldn’t let him leave that hospital room. He was the reason why Reno caught him. If it wasn’t for Jimmy Mack, Dirty would have gotten away. Now he was in more pain than he’d ever suffered in his entire life. And if he couldn’t pay back Reno, he was going to pay back that boy of his. Jimmy Mack would get his. And Reno would feel the same intensity of pain Dirty was feeling today. Reno got him today, but Dirty’s day was coming. It was coming!
Then Dirty managed to smile that sinister smile of his. They didn’t call him Dirty for nothing, he tried to say.
But then the pain of Reno’s beating returned, and he moaned.
EPILOGUE
Four Months Later
“What do you mean it’s coming now?” Reno asked as the limo that had been on its way to Spring Valley made a U-turn and started heading back to Vegas.
“It’s coming now,” Trina said again, as the contractions that had just started were already changing.
“But that’s not possible, Tree. How can it be coming now? Your contractions just started! Your water didn’t break!”
“It doesn’t have to, Pop,” Jimmy offered, and Reno, flustered, looked at him. “Seventy-five perc
ent of the time women are well into labor before their water break. They could dilate more than nine centimeters before their water break.”
“And you know this how?” Reno asked him.
“I read about it.”
“It’s not gonna wait, Reno!” Trina complained. “I’m telling you it’s ready to pop out now.”
“But it can’t pop out now!” Reno said to her. “It can’t be ready already, Tree!”
They were in the backseat of the limo. Reno and Trina were on one side, Tommy and Jimmy were on the opposite seat. Trina’s contractions started just after the limo left the Vegas city limits in a slow drive to take Tommy back to the airstrip in Spring Valley, where his private plane waited. Tommy had been in Spring Valley on business all day, and stopped by to see the Gabrinis before he was to fly back to Seattle. Now Trina, to his shock, was in actual labor.
“It’s not gonna wait!” she yelled again.
“But it has to wait!” Reno yelled back.
“It’s not gonna wait, Reno!”
“Oh, Lord,” Tommy said, looking around at the near-deserted highway that surrounded them. “What are we going to do? We don’t know nothing’ about birthing no babies!” It was a line straight out of Gone With the Wind, but he felt it was amply applied here.
Reno pressed the intercom button. His face was even more flustered than Tommy’s. “Step on it, Lonnie,” he ordered his driver. “The baby’s coming sooner than we thought.”
“The baby’s coming now, Reno!” a distressed looking Trina declared.
“The baby’s coming now, Lonnie!” Reno yelled to his driver, which picked up even more speed. “But how can the baby come now?” Reno asked Trina. “They said you could be in labor for hours! Nobody told me about no two-minute baby!”
A MOB BOSS CHRISTMAS: THE PREGNANCY (MOB BOSS SERIES) Page 14