Reno snatched the phone out of Trina’s hand. “Who took Dommi?” he asked Fran with urgency in his voice.
“I told her not to tell you!” Fran cried.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Reno blared so loud that it startled Val. “Where’s my son?”
“It’s not my fault, Reno!”
“Where’s my son?” Reno screamed. “Where the fuck is my son?”
“He was in Daycare, okay?” Fran said. “I took him with me for a little drive. I didn’t plan on going to see Pac.”
“Fran, where is Dominic? Your ass better tell me now where is Dominic?”
Jimmy and Trina were staring so hard at Reno that they could barely breathe. Not until Fran told him what they were praying she would tell him.
“Fran,” Reno warned, trying to maintain his calm, “tell me where he is.”
“I don’t know!” Fran yelled. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you! Pac took him!”
Reno’s heart rammed against his chest. “Where are you?”
“It’s not my fault---”
“Where are you, Fran, tell me where are you and tell me right now.”
“I’m at Pac’s cousin’s place. On Fleismann. Second trailer on the right.”
Reno killed the call and began hurrying for the exit.
“Where’s Dommi?” Trina asked, hurrying with him.
“She don’t know,” Reno said, then looked back at Trina. He saw the terror on her face. He saw the anguish. He placed his hand around her waist and hurried her out of the house.
“Is everything okay?” a stunned Val asked Jimmy.
“I hope so,” Jimmy said, hurrying behind his parents. “I’ll call you,” he added.
Val walked out onto the porch and watched as first Reno’s Porsche and then Jimmy’s car backed out of the driveway and then burned rubbed speeding away from there.
Wow, she thought. “Who’s Dommi?” she asked aloud, as she watched them leave.
CHAPTER NINE
Fran and a small group of women were standing in the middle of the trailer park when Reno’s Porsche turned onto Fleismann, the park’s main street. Jimmy’s car was right behind his father’s. When Fran saw the cars, she hurried up to Reno’s.
Reno and Trina got out before Jimmy had even come to a stop.
“Tell me what happened?” Reno asked as soon as he stepped out. Trina hurried beside him.
“I took Dommi with me for a drive. I didn’t plan to see Pac at all. But his cousin called and asked if I could bring her a few dollars. She needed some gas money so she could go to work. So I came over here. Pac was here. We talked---”
“Fran!” Reno yelled as Jimmy came up. “What happened to my son? Don’t tell me any fucking thing other than what happened to my son!”
“We fell asleep, okay? Dommi first, in the living room, and then me and Pac in the bedroom.”
Just the fact of his son in this hellhole of a place made Reno want to slap the shit out of her. She knew the rules. She knew better than this.
“When I woke up,” she said, “Pac and Dom were gone.”
“And you don’t know where he took him?”
“No!” Fran cried. “I looked everywhere!”
“But he was in Daycare,” Jimmy said. “Why did you take him out of Daycare, Aunt Fran?”
“I wanted to spend some time with him. I missed him.”
“You better hope nothing happens to my boy,” Reno said to his kid sister as he pulled out his cell phone.
“Pac won’t hurt him!” Fran insisted. “What are you talking about?”
“What about the cousin?” Trina asked, her face a mask of fear. “Where is she?”
“She went to work just after I got here. She needed a few dollars for gas.”
“Boz,” Reno said on the phone. “I need manpower. Major. I’m here on Fleismann. Gotdamn trailer park, right.” Then he looked at Fran. “Does this asshole have your car?”
“No,” Fran replied.
“And you searched this park and couldn’t find him?”
“I knocked on every door,” Fran said.
Jimmy looked at her. “Well damn, Aunt Fran. How long has he been missing?”
“How should I know? Probably three hours now.”
Trina frowned. “Oh, Fran!” she said with nothing but disappointment in her voice.
“That’s what she’s saying. He’s on foot. I’m going to drive around, see what I can see.” He handed his phone to Fran. “Describe that asshole to Boz,” Reno ordered her. She took the phone and did as he ordered.
Trina and Jimmy gathered around him. “Should we call the cops, Pop?” Jimmy asked.
“No. The cops will only get in the way. If he so much as touch a hair on my son’s head, I don’t want his ass arrested. I want his ass dead.”
“I know that’s right,” Trina agreed.
“There he is!” Fran yelled with joy in her voice and Reno, Trina, and Jimmy looked at her.
“Where?” Reno asked.
They looked in the direction she pointed. And near the entrance into the trailer park, the muscular young man they called Pac Man was standing there, talking to some other muscle man, with Dommi standing beside him. As soon as they saw him, all four Gabrinis took off running to him, with Trina outrunning them all.
“Mommy!” Dommi said as soon as he saw his family, and he broke away from Pac and ran to his mother, nearly falling three or four times. Trina swept him up into her arms.
“Is he okay?” Reno asked as he ran up to mother and son and rubbed his son’s curly hair.
“Yes,” Trina said with tears in her eyes, refusing to let go of her death grip on her son. “Yes, thank God. Yes!”
Then Reno looked at Pac, and Pac looked at Reno, and Pac took off running.
“Go left, Jimmy!” Reno yelled as he took off after Pac.
Jimmy took off in the opposite direction, with all three men running toward the backside of the trailer park. But it was the older man, Reno, who caught up to Pac first. He had grabbed him by the catch of his collar and was slinging him against the fence, by the time Jimmy made it back there.
“We just went for a walk!” Pac yelled. “What are you doing?”
Reno was in Pac’s face. “That’s my son,” he said.
“We went for a walk! Fran was sleep and we went for a walk. I was hanging out at the store with some friends or I would have been back here!”
“Why didn’t you call her asshole? Why didn’t you let her know where you were?”
“Call her for what? I didn’t do anything!”
Jimmy couldn’t believe it. “You took Reno Gabrini’s son without permission, and you didn’t think it was a big deal? You’re dumber than I thought you were!”
Reno was so upset he didn’t know what to do. Then Pac had the nerve to smile.
“What, y’all think I was a perv or something? I don’t even like kids!”
That did it. Reno balled up his fist and knocked Pac so hard across his face that it rocked him sideways. And he and Jimmy got busy. They beat that smile off of Pac’s face. They remembered all the times Pac beat on Fran, and they beat him for that too. They knocked him to the ground, and then sideways, as they kicked him senseless. And they would have done more. A whole lot more. But they heard her cry.
“Stop!” they heard Fran crying, and looked and saw her running toward them. When she got there, she fell on her knees at Pac’s side. “Stop it!” she cried again, breathlessly, and then she pulled Pac’s head up onto her lap.
Reno couldn’t believe it. That woman was actually crying over that motherfucker. She was crying! Jimmy looked at Reno, amazed that Fran could be that foolish. But Reno could only shake his head.
“Let’s go son,” he said. “They deserve each other.”
Jimmy kicked Pac one last time, to Fran’s consternation, and then he and his father left.
By the time Reno got into his Porsche, Trina was already sitting on the passenger seat. She was holding Dommi
so tight against her chest that it broke Reno’s heart. That asshole, he thought. But Fran was worse. Reno looked around the trailer park. All of the poverty and struggling. And this was what she wanted? This was what she brought his son around?
“Fran stays away from Dom,” he said. “Her ass can’t take my son anywhere else.”
Trina was still too thrown to speak, but she nodded her agreement and held her son even tighter. Reno wasn’t telling her anything she hadn’t already told herself.
When they returned to the PaLargio, Reno had a now sleeping Dommi in his arms and Trina at his side. A tired Jimmy Mack was bringing up the rear. But Lee Jones, Reno’s Chief Operating Officer and one of his closest friends, was waiting for them as soon as they entered the lobby. And he had bad news.
“What is it?” Reno asked him, repositioning his son in his arms.
“The press wants a statement.”
“A statement? About what?”
“It seems one of our former board members was found dead today, Reno.”
Trina’s heart began to pound. Jimmy moved beside his father.
“Who?” Reno asked.
“Bridgette Baranski,” Lee said, and Trina looked at Reno. She couldn’t believe it.
“Bridgette?” Reno asked.
“They found her today. Bridge of all people. I’m still shocked myself. Who would want to harm her sweet soul?”
Reno looked at his wife. Trina immediately took her son from his arms and began walking away, toward the elevators.
“Tree,” Reno said, knowing what she had to be thinking. “Tree!” He called after her again, but she kept on walking.
“What’s wrong, Reno?” Lee asked, puzzled by Trina’s response. Jimmy looked at his father, puzzled too.
Reno opened his suit coat and placed his hands on his hips. His abs were tight, his chest was hard, but he looked physically and emotionally drained. “What happened to her?” he asked his COO.
“Don’t know yet.”
“Well where did it happen?”
“At some motel in Phoenix.”
“A motel?” Reno asked. “But she lived in Phoenix, didn’t she? Why would she be at some motel?”
“They don’t know. The cause, the motive, everything is still under investigation.”
“Get a team out there,” Reno ordered. “A very discreet team. Let them find out what they can find out.”
“Will do. What about the press release?”
“No statements,” Reno said, and ran one hand across his face. Then he exhaled. “She came to see me yesterday.”
Jimmy looked at his father.
Lee was staring at him too. “You saw Bridgette yesterday?”
“Yes. The day before that too. We had lunch.”
Now it was Lee’s time to exhale. “Do I need to be concerned about anything here?” he asked his boss and friend.
“She accused me of fathering her two-year-old,” Reno admitted.
“She what?” Jimmy found himself saying before he realized he was saying it.
“So,” Reno said to Lee, “you know how that goes.”
Lee nodded. “No press releases, got you. I’ll keep you posted,” Lee added, patted Reno on the shoulder, and then walked away.
Reno looked at Jimmy. “You know it’s not true, right?” he asked him.
Jimmy, however, looked concerned. “I know,” he said. “I mean, I guess. But Mom,” he said. “Does she know?”
Reno nodded. “She knows,” he said. Then he attempted to smile. “Don’t worry,” he said. “It’s going to be all right.”
“She’s been through so much, Pop. It’s like . . .”
Reno considered his son. “It’s like what?”
“When is it going to end? For Ma, I mean. She’s been through so much.”
“Yes,” Reno agreed. “I know.”
Jimmy looked at his father, for reassurance. But Reno was looking just about as concerned, and uncertain, as he was.
But when he left his son’s side and made his way upstairs, to the penthouse, he was certain of one thing.
“It wasn’t me,” he declared as soon as Trina came out of Dommi’s bedroom and started heading for their own. “I had nothing to do with it, Tree.”
Trina kept walking.
“Trina, listen to me. Trina!” Reno grabbed her arm and turned her around. “Listen to me. I said I had nothing to do with what happened to that woman.”
“Then who did it, Reno? She accuses you of fathering her son yesterday, then she turns up dead today? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“But I didn’t kill her!”
“Did you order it?” Trina asked.
“No, Trina, I didn’t order it, all right? Hell no!”
“But you said you were going to handle it.”
“I was. I am! I’m having her investigated.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes, that’s all.” Then he frowned. “What do you mean is that all?”
Trina hesitated, and then folded her arms. Reno, exhausted, leaned against the wall in the hallway. He ran his hand through his hair. “I didn’t father her child, Trina, and I had nothing to do with her death. Nothing.”
Trina stared at him. She knew it too. “Okay,” she said.
“You’re still traumatized after that craziness with Fran,” Reno said. “You need some rest.”
Trina exhaled. Then nodded. “I guess so,” she said. Then she shook her head.
“What babe?”
“It’s just. . . It’s life with Reno Gabrini,” she said. Then she tried to smile but couldn’t pull it off. “Never a dull moment.”
Reno tried to smile too, but he couldn’t pull it off either. Because it didn’t sound like a compliment to him. It sounded like an indictment.
And later that next day, after a full day of meetings with investors in Los Angeles, and a long flight back to Vegas, he realized that it was.
He returned to a penthouse that felt bare before he realized it was. Jimmy was there, lying on the sofa flipping through a magazine, but something was missing. A presence. An essence. Trina?
“Hey, Pop,” Jimmy said. “How was your trip?”
“Sit up,” Reno said. “Where’s Trina?” he asked his son.
Jimmy sat up. He hated to be the one to tell him. But he had to tell him. “She left,” he said. “She went to Dale. She took Dommi with her.”
Reno suddenly felt hot, and his heart began to hammer. “She left?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“What do you mean she left? She left me?”
“No! I mean . . . She said she needed time to think. She said she loved you very much, and she does, Pop, you know that. But she need some time away, to get some rest and to think things through.”
“What things?” Reno asked, but even Jimmy knew that had to be a rhetorical question.
Reno continued to stare at Jimmy, but he no longer saw his son. He saw all of the hurt, the pain, the danger he put his wife through, year in and year out, just because he fell in love with her. Just because he selfishly married her. Now she was coming to her senses and taking time to think this thing over. To make sure all of the downside was worth the upside. And just the thought of her coming back with a guilty verdict, with a no, caused Reno to feel panicky. He wanted to run out of that apartment. He wanted to fly to Dale and get his wife and son back right now! He didn’t want her to have an opportunity to change her mind about their life together.
But he didn’t panic. He didn’t order his pilot to stand ready. He couldn’t. Because he knew it was for the best. It was the worst thing for him, but it was the absolutely best thing for Tree. And that was what kept him grounded, and in place. For the sake and the love of Tree.
“Contact Boz,” he finally said to Jimmy. “Find out how many men he had on the security detail that followed her to Dale, and then tell him I want him to double that number.”
Jimmy nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Then Reno just stood
there, as if he had much more to say but couldn’t find the words, and then he began to head for his bedroom.
“Pop,” Jimmy said, rising to his feet. When Reno turned around, looking so lost, Jimmy’s heart sank. “You okay?” he asked him.
Reno thought about it. Then he smiled a smile that had nothing to do with joy. “No,” he said. “But Trina is.”
Jimmy nodded. “Right,” he said, with a determined look in his own eyes. “Mom and Dommi first.”
He and his father exchanged a lingering look, as if they both knew that Reno had been selfish about it, and then Reno kept on walking. He disappeared into his bedroom.
CHAPTER TEN
“That’s my bey-bey,” Cecil Hathaway said to Dommi at the breakfast table, but Dommi wasn’t amused.
“But I’m not a baby,” he said as he played with his muscle man instead of eating his bowl of cereal. “I’m three years old. A baby is one, or not even that.”
Cecil glanced at Earnestine, who was also seated at the table. “Somebody’s in a foul mood this morning,” she said with a smile, as she sipped her coffee. They were in Dale, Mississippi, in the kitchen, and Dommi and Tree both seemed downright depressed. Especially Tree, who wasn’t even pretending to eat. Her food, and her coffee, just sat there.
Cecil glanced at Earnestine again. She drain the last of her coffee and then began to stand up. “Come on, Junior,” she said to her grandson. “You can help Nana in the garden.”
This interested him. “I can plant seeds?” he asked.
“Yes, you can,” Earnestine said, and Dommi smiled and stood up.
When she took him by the hand and they both began walking toward the backdoor, Dommi looked back at his mother. Then he broke away from Earnestine, ran over to Trina, and threw his arms around her. Trina hugged him back, smiling greatly.
Then she placed her hands on the side of his pretty face, a face that was looking more and more like Reno’s. “Everything’s fine, you hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Don’t you worry about a thing. Everything’s just fine.”
Then she kissed Dommi and let him go.
Once he and Earnestine were gone, Cecil crossed his legs and looked at his daughter. “We don’t have much time,” he said. “That boy is sticking to you like white on rice. Like your protector. So tell me what’s going on, Katrina.”
RENO AND TRINA: GETTING BACK TO LOVE (The Mob Boss Series) Page 10