Then Eddie shook his head. He was really enjoying this, it seemed to Jimmy. And Reno, to Jimmy’s dismay, was just standing there enjoying it too. Why didn’t he just shoot that motherfucker and get it over with, Jimmy wanted to know? He had answers they needed, but fuck it. They would just have to get their answers somewhere else.
But Reno knew better. He knew there was no-where else. This was it. Eddie was all they had right now. So he allowed him to have his fun. He allowed him to do his thing. Because he knew the game like the back of his hand. He knew there was nothing like being hit by a man you thought wouldn’t hit you. It had a way of making you cut out the crap and get serious.
But Eddie didn’t see the danger. He kept on talking. “But your boys were just full of bluster. Just full of talk. Because they didn’t do a gotdamn thing. Because y’all need me. I’m no fool. I know you and your goons need me, Reno.”
“But you’re missing the point, Mr. Dreeson,” Reno said.
“Oh, yeah?” Eddie said with a smile.
“Oh, yeah. Because there’s a difference between my goons and me. A big difference. Do you know what that difference is, Mr. Dreeson?”
“No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”
“The difference between my goons and me, Mr. Dreeson, is me.” Reno said this and immediately shot Eddie in the leg, causing Eddie to release a scream of agony that could have busted somebody’s eardrums.
Jimmy unfolded his arms and stood up from the wall. He hadn’t expected that. But neither had Eddie, who had fallen out of the chair and was now on the floor holding his leg, and screeching in pain.
Reno bent down to him. Jimmy was amazed at how calm his father remained.
“Now,” Reno said as Eddie continued to moan with pain, “let’s start over. We got off to a very bad start. Why did you get Ashley and her brother to set up my son?”
“I didn’t get her to do shit,” a suddenly more cooperative Eddie said. “We were trying to wait for the ring.”
“The ring?”
“We were trying to wait for him to marry her. Then we knew we would get a big payday.”
Reno wanted to look at Jimmy. He wanted him to hear for himself that Ashley Cooper wasn’t the angel he took her for. But he had a job to do. He had to forget that Jimmy was standing there, and do his job.
“What changed?”
“I’m bleeding here, Reno. I’ll bleed to death if you don’t staunch this blood flow.”
“I’m not staunching shit until you tell me what’s going on here. Now what happened that made you and Ashley decide not to wait on some marriage that she thought was going to happen?”
Eddie held his hand tighter over his leg wound and leaned his head back. The pain was still just as excruciating. “She had dinner with you and your wife,” he said to Reno. “She knew then you wasn’t about to let her marry your son. So we had to go to plan B. We had been approached a few weeks back.”
“Approached by whom?”
“This guy. I don’t know his name. Some guy. He said Tony Tufarna would pay top dollar to get the goods on Jimmy Gabrini. I didn’t know who the fuck Tony Tufarna was, but I assumed he was Mafia. I asked what was top dollar.”
“And what did he say?”
“Two hundred thousand. Reno, I’m bleeding here!”
Reno placed his gun on Eddie’s hand, which caused it to press into the wound and force Eddie to scream out again. “Don’t fuck with me, Dreeson. Tell me why he wanted to get the goods on my son.”
“He didn’t say why,” Eddie said as sweat began to pour down his face. “He just said he wanted to get your son and he wanted us to set it up. He said it had to be elaborate. He said if that boy of yours was anything like you, Ashley had to be the one to lure him. But me and Ash, we knew we would need help. So we got her brother on board.”
Jimmy’s heart dropped.
“Her brother?” Reno asked.
“I promised to give him twenty thousand when we got paid. He jumped at the opportunity.”
Reno knew Jimmy hated hearing all of this, but he kept going. He had to get his answers. “Who killed the guy in the trunk?” he asked Eddie.
“They did. He was already dead when my guys brought him to Ashley’s house. That blood and vomit they put on the floor, and those drugs, didn’t belong to that guy at all. It was all stagecraft.”
“So you expect me to believe that you allowed a man you never saw before to bring a dead body and drugs into your girlfriend’s house and trusted that the guy would pay you like he said?”
“He paid me. Part of it anyway. I had to meet the dude and he paid me.”
“Meet what dude?”
“Tufarna’s right hand man. Marcasi.”
It was Sal’s time to unfold his arms and push away from the wall.
Reno, too, was stunned. “Marcasi? Ritchie Marcasi?”
“Yeah,” Eddie said. “You know. Dirty. He said he’s your brother-in-law.”
Sal looked at Reno. Reno looked as if he was ready to jump out of his own skin. That damn Dirty again!
But Reno had more questions. “Dirty said he worked for Tony Tufarna?”
“That’s what he said, yeah. He gave me fifty thousand up front. Said the rest was guaranteed as soon as they arrested Jimmy Gabrini. He didn’t even have to be convicted. Just arrested. But Jimmy was more gifted than I thought he was. I thought I could put a light tail on him after they loaded the body in his trunk in case Coop had a change of heart. I figure any son of yours would be too stupid to realize he was being tailed. After they arrived at the location, I was going to put Ash and Coop in my car and we would take off. The cops, some cops Mr. Tufarna apparently owned, were supposed to be there in hiding, and make the arrest. But that boy of yours spotted our tail and lost us. Then that silly-ass Ashley and her punk-ass brother let him call you. Then it all went sideways after that.”
Eddie let out another scream of pain. “Now will you please get me some help?” he pleaded.
But Reno wasn’t through with him yet. “Where did you meet Dirty?” he asked.
“I’m dying here, Reno!”
“Where did you meet Dirty?” Reno yelled back.
“At the Pocca Club,” Eddie said between gritted teeth.
Reno frowned. “What the fuck is the Pocca Club?”
“It’s a hangout, what you think it is? It’s where nobody ask no questions and nobody give no answers. Dirty hangs there sometimes.”
Reno stood erect. Then motioned to Sal, his head nodding toward the door.
Sal went to the door and opened it. Lou and Briggs, a burly white man, and two other big guys came in. Reno ordered Briggs and his men to get a doctor in to look at Eddie’s wound, but to keep Eddie downstairs in one of the hotel rooms until his story could be checked out. Then he turned to Lou.
“Find Dirty,” he said to him.
“Dirty?”
“That’s right. Seems like my brother-in-law has been busy. Contact me when you find him. Nobody lays a hand on him. That’ll be my job.
Lou smiled. “Yes, sir, boss,” he said and followed Briggs as his men carried Eddie out of the soundproof room.
Sal walked over to Reno, and Jimmy followed.
“You think Dirty’s that crazy?” Sal asked him.
“Must be if he’s still trying to fuck with me.” Reno hated that it was going in this direction because he knew what he had to do.
“But how would Dirty know Tony Tufarna?”
“He used to bartend for Tony when Tony ran the PaLargio. He and Tony, they go way back.”
“But I’m still not buying it. Who would trust Dirty to pass along fifty grand to anybody?” Sal asked. “A guy like that asshole would skip town easily.”
“Unless Tony is doing better than I thought,” Reno said. “Unless Tony’s got such a wide net now that Dirty can’t go anywhere even if he wanted to.”
“And he knows it.”
“He knows it,” Reno said, nodding. “The slimy motherfuck
er!”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It was after eleven before Reno and Trina managed to get to bed. Reno was on his side, and Trina was on her back. Both were naked and exhausted. But even in his exhaustion, Reno managed to have his hand wedged between Trina’s toned, brown thighs, rubbing her folds.
“I knew Dirty was a lowlife,” Trina said as she ran her fingers through Reno’s hair. “But I still thought after what you did to him for hitting Fran would straighten him up. At least to where he wasn’t thinking about messing with a Gabrini again.”
“I was thinking the same way,” Reno admitted. “But Dirty’s always had the capacity to amaze.”
Trina’s eyes fluttered slightly as Reno’s pussy massage had her tinkling with increased intensity. “What about Fran? She know Dirty had a hand in trying to set up her nephew?”
“I called and told her,” Reno replied. “Just in case she had any misguided ideas about getting back together with that prick. But she was even more angrier with him than we are. Said when she gets back from Europe she was going to kick his ass.”
“She’d better get in line,” Trina said, and then she groaned. “Oh Reno!” She said this loudly when he moved his fingers in deeper. She could feel her pussy saturating his digits.
“You like that?” Reno asked as he watched her eyes and pushed a third finger inside of her.
“Yes,” Trina said, her eyes closing.
“If you like that,” Reno said, poking her harder and harder, “then you’ll love this.”
He pushed open her thighs with his hands, got between her legs, and began to mouth-fuck her. Her hands latched onto the back of her pillow as her body began to arch and rock with every lick and suck and taste. Reno had her thighs as wide apart as they could possibly go, and he held her not-completely-healed ass in the palm of his hands, as he put it on her. She was so wet, and so ready that Reno was getting a hard-on just watching her squirm. He was going to enjoy fucking her tonight, he thought, as he ate her. Despite all the shit going on around them, he was going to enjoy this.
Briggs opened the door to the hotel room, and Jimmy stepped inside.
“What’s up, Jimbo?”
“Where is he?”
“Where’s who?”
“Where’s Eddie, Briggs?”
“He’s in the bedroom. Why?”
“How’s he doing?”
Briggs looked at Jimmy. “Doc bandaged him up. Said he’ll live.”
“I want to talk to him.”
“Negative,” Briggs said.
“Dad don’t mind. I need to talk to him, Briggs.”
“About what? What could you possibly need to talk to that small-time hustler about?”
Jimmy swallowed hard. “Ashley and Coop,” he said.
Briggs looked at Jimmy. He realized just how badly he probably needed to talk to Dreeson. He nodded his head. “Okay. But don’t get him too upset. Your father may need more information and we don’t want him to get stubborn again.”
“Thanks, Briggs,” Jimmy said as he went into the bedroom of the suite, and closed the door.
Eddie was lying in the bed, his leg bandaged on top of the covers. Jimmy walked up to him.
“What the fuck you want?” Eddie asked irritably. His swag was gone.
“You said you and Ashley were playing me.”
Eddie snorted. “Ashley was playing your ass. I was just giving her pointers.”
“But she was your woman?”
“She was one of them.”
“So what you’re saying is that she never loved me. That’s what you’re saying, right?”
“Loved you? That’s what you’re concerned about? Whether or not Ash loved you? That girl could barely stand the sight of you! You were just a rich jock whose only claim to fame was that you were your father’s son. If Reno wasn’t your old man she wouldn’t have given some punk like you the time of day. But you had money. And we planned to get as much of it as our grubby little hands could get. Ashley was determined to do that. And would have too, if she could have stayed out of Reno’s eyesight. But Reno took one look at her and she knew the gig was up. She knew we had to move on Tufarna’s offer after that. Love, young blood, had nothing to do with it. You were just a cash cow in her eyes. In mine and Cooper’s too,” Eddie added.
Jimmy stared at Eddie. How do you respond when you hear that your woman and your best friend were both playing you for all they could get? How was a man supposed to handle that? Was he supposed to let the dude that knew he was a chump and a punk continue to walk around free and clear to tell everybody? Was he supposed to live with that ridicule?
Then Jimmy thought about Reno. What would his father do if he was humiliated like this? Then he thought about what his father did with ShoShawna Shanks. He thought about that vividly. He remembered the thrill he felt when he saw his father handle his business. Whatever ShoShawna Shanks had done, his father was making sure she didn’t do it again. He didn’t stand around and think about it. He did it. And that was when Jimmy decided the time for thinking was over for him too. He had to do it. He had to set this piss-ass straight.
Trina was on her back against the bed’s headboard and her legs were wrapped around Reno’s neck as he held her by the catch of her ass and pushed his dick deeper and deeper into her cunt. He was sucking her breasts as he fucked her, and her body was responding as if she could barely handle the intense sensations that rippled from the top of her frame to the bottom.
For the longest time they were able to maintain a steady rhythm that made both of them feel as if there was no better sex anywhere. Reno’s mouth couldn’t stop sucking Trina’s breasts, turning them red and wet with his love. He loved this woman. He wanted his manhood to prove just how much he loved this woman. And he stroked and he stroked. Their bodies moved in unison as he stroked. Sweat began to pour from his body as he fucked her.
But just when they thought they were within strokes of cumming, and just when they thought they were right near that edge of tipping over, the phone began to ring.
“Don’t stop,” she begged as her hands held onto his hair and her stomach pushed in and out with every thrash he put on her.
“Oh, Tree,” he replied as he didn’t think he could stop even if he wanted to.
But that phone wouldn’t stop ringing, and Reno knew there was too much going on for him to ignore it.
“Fuck!” he said loudly as he held Trina up with one hand, and grabbed the phone from the nightstand with the other hand.
“Speak now or hang the hell up!” Reno barked.
It was Sal. “Put on your pants, Casanova, and get down here to Dreeson’s room.”
“Why would I wanna do that?”
“It’s Jimmy, Ree. Get down here now.”
Reno’s heart began to pound. He hung up the phone.
“What’s wrong?” Trina asked him.
But he wasn’t about to worry her. Not yet. “Probably nothing,” he said, and then kissed her on the lips. “But I’ve got to go and check on it.”
Trina felt robbed when Reno’s dick slid out of her. She felt suddenly void and empty. But she was more concerned by that distressed look on his face. She watched him closely as he got out of bed and threw on a pair of pants.
The elevator door slid open and Reno, in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, hurried off and ran down the corridor to the room near the end of the hall. Briggs opened the door as if he saw him coming, and Reno hurried inside.
Sal was already there and was standing in the bedroom staring at Eddie’s lifeless form. Reno stopped in his tracks when he saw him.
“What the hell happened here?” he asked.
Briggs came in behind him. “Jimmy wanted to talk to him. I didn’t see the harm, since he was involved in this, so I let him. Then I heard the gunshot.”
Reno’s heart dropped through his shoe. The very thing he feared most for his son, that his son would be tainted with the same blood Reno was now tainted with, had come true. He should have seen it
coming. A boy who would pull a gun on his own father wasn’t somebody to take lightly. But he didn’t see it coming. He didn’t. Reno ran his hand through his hair, and closed his tired eyes.
Jimmy was playing a one-man game of basketball when Reno entered the PaLargio’s private gym. He walked up to his son, his face a mask of distress, but his son kept shooting hoops. Finally, Reno intercepted the ball and forced Jimmy to look at him. And as soon as he did, Reno saw it. He saw that hollow look that he’d seen in the eyes of many a badass when they believed they had nothing to lose. Jimmy, to Reno’s horror, had crossed that line.
“He deserved it,” Jimmy said in a voice that to Reno sounded shrill and sanctimonious.
“Oh, yeah?” Reno replied. “Says who? You?”
“Yeah, me. And you too. I didn’t do anything different than what you do all the time. He deserved it.”
“Eddie Dreeson was the scum of the earth, but who the hell are you to snuff him out?”
“He humiliated me!” Jimmy yelled, pointing angrily at his father. “He slept with my woman! You wouldn’t let a man live who slept with Tree.”
“I would if Tree wanted his dick up her ass.”
Jimmy chose to ignore that. “You did it to ShoShawna Shanks,” he said. “I saw you! She wasn’t even armed when you shot her. So don’t try it, Pop. I only did what you do all the time.”
Reno jacked his son up by the catch of his shirt. “You ain’t me!” he said forcefully. “You hear me? You’re better than me. You and Dommi, you guys are better than I’ll ever be!”
Then Reno just stood there, his son still in his face, his heart hammering in despair. “How could you kill a man, Jimmy, and think there’s nothing wacked about that? How could you do it?”
He looked deep into his son’s big eyes. The emptiness there terrified Reno. “You get on your knees,” he said to his son, “and you beg God’s forgiveness for what you’ve done. I have to do it every day I’m alive. Every single day, Jimmy. Yeah. Every single day. That’s the part of being me that you don’t get to see.”
MOB BOSS 6: THE HEART OF RENO GABRINI (Mob Boss Series) Page 13