Trina frowned. Her weary eyes stared into his weary eyes and she frowned. “I’m very upset with you, Reno,” she admitted. “I don’t like the way you handled this situation, I don’t like it.” Then she exhaled. “But I get it. Because it’s not just about me, is it? I’m fearless, I can get out there and do my thing and Reno’s just overreacting. That’s how I think. But if something happens to me what will it do to Dommi, and to Jimmy, and to my parents? And to you? Oh my goodness!”
She had to take a moment, to compose herself. Then she continued. “And poor Ashley,” she said. “If I would have followed your orders, those men may not have harmed Ashley.” Trina had to fight the tears. With everything within her, she fought the tears. But thinking about Ashley, thinking about the anguish she was putting her husband through, broke her. The tears came again, with a vengeance.
Reno held her even tighter. And she held onto him tighter too. He kissed her hair and rocked her and held onto her as if his life depended on it. Then he placed his hands on the side of her beautiful face and lifted it. They were now face to face. “I’m not asking you to be what you’re not, Tree. I would never do that. But you’re my wife, you and our children are my responsibility, and you have got to listen when it comes to your security. Somebody has to be the leader of this family, somebody has to lead, and it’s not going to be you. I give you your cherished freedom, Tree. It keeps me up nights as it is, but I understand how important that is to you. But there are limits to how far I can go. When I give you a direct order to keep Security with you at all times, especially when I’m out of town, I expect you to follow that order. And if you can’t follow it, then you need to walk out that door right now. Because my heart can’t take it, Tree. I’ll be a dead man if you keep fucking around with me like this. It’ll kill me if something happens to you!”
Reno squeezed his eyes to prevent more tears. Trina didn’t have such self-control. Her tears shed freely. He laid her head on his chest, and held her again. But then his expression changed. It went from a deep anguish, to what looked like deep distress. “I am so sorry, Tree,” he said as he kissed her on the top of her head, his voice sounding as if it was pained.
But Trina shook her head even as he kissed it. “Don’t be,” she insisted. “You were trying to get my attention. I understand that.”
But she misunderstood his apology. “I’m so sorry you married a man like me,” he clarified. “I’m so sorry I brought children into my world. They deserve better than this. You deserve better.”
Trina lifted her head and looked at him. His big blue eyes, it seemed to her, looked tortured. “You listen to me, Dominic Gabrini,” she said. “I may not be good at taking orders, and I may be that stubborn mule you keep insisting I am. But I’ll never regret loving you. I’ll never regret marrying you. I don’t’ care what you say, I’ll never regret that. Women would die to be in my shoes. Kids would die to have a father like you. Even with all of your baggage, they would gladly carry your bags. You know why?”
Reno was staring at her so hard his eyes looked as if they were glass about to shatter. And there was no way he could respond with words. He shook his head.
“Women and kids would gladly trade places with me and our children because they know a wonderful, caring, compassionate man when they see one. You can be brutal,” she said with a degree of distress on her own face, “but you have to be sometimes. I understand that. It’s hard with a personality like mine, but I understand it.”
Reno kissed her on the lip, the only way he could thank her for saying that. “Oh, sweetheart,” he said heartfelt, as he gently rubbed her wild hair back in place. “You don’t understand the evil that men do. I understand it because sometimes I have to do it too. I understand it perfectly. I underestimated my enemies, yes, I did. And I’ll have to pay for that. But you underestimated me, Tree. And every time you do, you’ll have to pay for it too.”
Trina rubbed his own wild hair. He was such an attractive, adorable, brutal, tough, get-on-her-last-damn-nerve man. And she couldn’t love him more. She kissed him back. And then kissed him again. And he began kissing her. Only his kisses stopped being chaste in a hurry, and became rough and urgent and desperate like a storm.
They weathered the storm with passion. They held each other and kissed as if kissing was going out of style. They kissed circularly, and tongue-kissed, and teeth-kissed, and kissed until their heads were moving right and then left and then right again, and they kissed their cares away. Reno rubbed her bare ass with soothing rubs and kissed her with hard kisses until his dick became so hard that the urgency overtook the ecstasy. He guided his dick into her pussy without even prepping her. Because he was on the tip of cum. But it didn’t matter. She was already soaking wet from their kisses alone.
And he couldn’t take it slow. This wasn’t that kind of fuck. He rammed her hard, and fucked her fast, and they continued kissing as she felt every loving inch of his fullness; every thrust of his rod.
The house was empty. Silence rolled around the air like tumbleweed in a ghost town. Except for that one sound, that whining of the bedspring, as Reno Gabrini fucked his wife long and hard and desperate and lovingly. Especially with love. Especially with all of his sweet, kind, brutal love.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Sal Gabrini’s plane had already landed when Reno’s plane arrived in Atlantic City. They were waiting, Sal and thirty men strong, as Reno un-boarded and made his way across the chilly airstrip. A warm feeling came over Reno when he saw his cousin standing there. With his double-breasted suit, his matching imported shoes, and his hair slicked back, Sal Luca either looked like the most sophisticated of businessmen, or, as Reno suspected, an out-and-out Mafia Don he always insisted he wasn’t, but always looked and behaved as if he absolutely was.
“Salvatore Luciano,” Reno said as he approached his cousin. “I’m glad you could make it.”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Sal said as the two cousins shook hands. On their best day they didn’t get along. They were too much alike. But whenever Reno needed Sal, or Sal needed Reno, they would drop everything and go. No questions asked. Their love for each other and loyalty to each other trumped everything.
Sal shook his head. “Hell of a thing, Reno,” he said.
“Yeah,” Reno agreed. “Hell of a thing. You schooled the men?”
“The men have been briefed,” Sal said, nodding his head. “They know the deal. They know what’s got to be done.”
Reno had that look of uncompromising determination in his eyes. A steely, cold, hard look. When Reno was like this, Sal knew there was no turning back.
And he was right. Reno could not have been more determined. “How many in all?”
“Thirty,” Sal said. “We can get more if we need more.”
“Thirty is good. They’re packing?”
“Hell no. Not here. We pick up on our way. Just in case we had company out here.”
“Good thinking, Sal,” Reno said, nodding.
Sal considered his cousin. “You’re ready for this?”
“I’m ready,” Reno said. “I’ve been ready.” Then Reno exhaled. “It has to be,” he said with regret now in his eyes.
“So what are you saying, Reno? All in?”
“All in. Nobody gets out of this alive, Sal. Nobody in Tush’s organization. Nobody in Taft’s organization. Nobody in Lazio’s.” Then Reno exhaled again. “I’ll take care of Lazio.”
“It’s a damn shame,” Sal said. “I thought Laz had more sense than that. Tush and Taft, forget about it. Those fuckers were born with stupid up their asses. The fact that the goons they handpicked to send after Trina ending up shooting the wrong female proved that. But Laz? I never took him to be that dumb.”
“He’s hurting for money. He decided I was the cash cow and he wanted some of my milk.”
Sal laughed. “He actually believed killing your wife would make you give him something? You’ll give him something, all right. A bullet in the brain, that’s wha
t you’ll give him. Stupid motherfucker!”
“He lost it,” Reno said. “Had to if he believed that shit.” Then Reno squeezed Sal’s massive bicep. “We’ll meet back here,” he said. “And remember, Sal,” he warned his cousin, “nobody gets out of this alive.”
“What you telling me that for, Reno?” Sal asked with some irritation. “No mercy. I got it.”
No mercy. Reno hated the sound of that. But it was what it was.
He got in one car with three other men, and Sal and the other twenty-seven men got in the remaining line of SUVs. And they all headed out. In Reno’s eyes a small army of mighty Navy Seals could not have been more determined.
Lou Lazio was asleep in the comfort of his own bed, and in the comfort of his own home when he felt an uncomfortable sensation up his nose. He swatted at his nose, and was about to turn over toward his wife to continue his peaceful rest, when the sensation grew into a hard press against the side of his face. He opened his eyes. When he saw Reno Gabrini standing there, a monster could not have been more frightening.
Lazio jumped with a start, but Reno’s gun against the side of his face held him back down. Lazio’s wife remained asleep, but she didn’t matter. Reno only had eyes for Lazio.
“What are you doing?”
“Hello, Laz.”
“It wasn’t me,” Lazio pleaded even before Reno accused him of anything. “Reno, it wasn’t me. You got the wrong guy.
“You gave the order, Laz.”
“But I was just joking around with those fools! You know how stupid they are, Reno! It was just a joke!”
“You gave the order to go after my wife. When I give an order like that, it’s on me. I’m more responsible for that order than the executioners. I hold you more responsible than the executioners.”
His hard-sleeping, snoring wife began to stir.
“Please don’t shoot me, Reno,” Lazio begged. “I knew your father. We go back too far! You just met that woman compared to how long you’ve known me!”
Reno couldn’t believe it. “That woman?” he asked. “Are you referring to my wife, Laz?”
When Lazio’s wife finally opened her eyes and saw Reno standing there, she sat up startled. Reno immediately pointed the gun at her. “Lay your ass back down!” he ordered. And she quickly complied.
Reno turned his gun back on Lazio. “Were you referring to my wife, Laz?” he asked him.
“We go back a long way, Reno. That’s all I’m saying. We go back a long way.”
“Yeah, we do. But you ordered the murder of my wife. That changes everything. When you want my wife dead, I don’t give a fuck about how long we go back. We could go back to babyhood and I wouldn’t give a fuck. I mean my wife, Laz? Seriously?”
Then Reno cocked his gun. Lazio squinted and covered his face. But Reno moved the point of his barrel from Lazio’s face, to Lazio’s wife’s face, and fired.
The blood spilled out onto Lazio, and Laz jumped out of bed. But to Reno’s shock, to his utter amazement, Laz didn’t break down or try to manhandle Reno. Laz nodded and smiled, as if he was relieved.
“That’s right, Reno,” Lazio said. “That’s how you do it. I ordered your wife’s death, now you took care of mine. That’s right, Reno. I would have done it the same way. Now we’re even, right? Now you can go on and live your life, and I can go on and live mine. We’re even now, Reno. It’s over.”
It’s over, Reno thought. Was this asshole for real? And what kind of man would allow another man to murder his wife and act relieved it wasn’t him? If somebody harmed a hair on Trina’s head they wouldn’t rest until Reno had them sleeping in their grave. But this guy was relieved? What kind of perverted piece of trash was he dealing with, Reno wondered.
But he didn’t ponder it long. He slung Lazio by the catch of his pajama top and dragged him out of the bedroom, down the hall, and into his younger son’s room, a kid in his early twenties. But the kid was no innocent either. He was one of his father’s star henchmen.
One of Reno’s men already had the son held at gunpoint.
This was when it got real to Lazio. Because Reno didn’t delay. He shot the young man, point blank range, straight through the head. Lazio screamed out then, and fell to his knees.
But the nightmare wasn’t over. Reno dragged the grieving Lazio to the next bedroom, where his oldest son, who was Lazio’s second-in-command, was in bed, held at gunpoint by another one of Reno’s men.
Lazio started begging now. He fell on his knees again and started begging for Reno to take him and spare his oldest child. “Think about Jimmy Mack!” he begged. “What if somebody did this to Jimmy?”
But Reno was beyond empathizing with beasts like Lazio. They didn’t give a fuck about his family, or they never would have tried to harm his wife. They had to know what harming Trina would have done to a man like Reno, who was nothing like them until they cornered him. Then he was worse than they could ever be.
Reno was at his worse as he shot Lazio’s oldest son, at point blank range, right where he knew would be a fatal blow. And the son, who had jumped up in defiance, dropped like a sack of potatoes.
Lazio fell against the bedroom wall and slid down to the floor. He was in unbearable agony. “Not my oldest boy,” he said in inconsolable pain. “Not Marlie. You killed my heart, Reno. You should have killed me. Why didn’t you kill me?”
Reno looked at him with the sharpest, most focus blue eyes Lazio had ever seen. It chilled Laz to his bones. “Why do you think?” Reno asked. “Because I need your ass to see what fucking with my family will get you. I need all those asses out there, who think they can harm my family and get away with it, to see what’s in store for them too.”
Reno settled back down. “That’s why I haven’t killed you yet. But you make a good point. It should have been you. You’re right about that, Laz. You’re absolutely right about that. So what am I waiting for, right? Let’s include you.”
“Reno, wait,” Lazio said. “I don’t wanna be included. Let’s not include me”
Reno smiled. “What happened to take me instead of my sons? What happened to that ounce of selflessness, Laz? Having a change of heart?”
“Killing me won’t matter,” Laz assured him. “You killed my family, Reno. You killed my sons! Isn’t that enough?”
Reno’s smile left. “Enough? Isn’t that enough? You would have killed my wife if those morons you sent to ice her weren’t so stupid, and you think it’s enough? Fuck you, Laz! Fuck you!”
Reno shot him. He shot him repeatedly. He shot him through the heart, the brain, the stomach, anything, everything, everywhere. He kept shooting a dead man until it wasn’t a kill anymore, but an overkill. He riddled his body with bullets. He was making a statement. By the number of his bullets alone, he was sending a signal to all the other fools out there who somehow believed that Reno Gabrini, Reno Gabrini, had softened, had weakened, and was capable of being rolled.
He finally stopped shooting, but only after Louis Michael Lazio had long since departed this earth.
By the time Reno made it back to the airstrip, had gotten the report of a successful mission from Sal, and was back on his plane making the long journey back home, he went into the bathroom, closed the door, and proceeded to puke his heart out, into the commode.
He was a drained man by the time his plane touched down in Vegas. But when the door dropped open, and he stood on the top of the steps ready to descend, he was stunned to see Trina, on the tarmac, waiting for him. His heart soared as she began running to him even as he hurried down the steps. They embraced at the bottom step.
“Oh, Reno,” Trina said as her face buried in his hair. “You came back to me in one piece.”
Then they kissed. When they stop, she looked at him. “Hope it’s over, Reno,” she said.
Reno placed his hand on the side of her face. “So do I, babe. So do I.”
Then Trina smiled. “Let’s go home. You look like you could use a backrub.”
“A front rub t
oo,” Reno said.
Trina shook her head, knowing full well what he meant. “You’re a mess, you know that, don’t you?”
“I’m your mess,” he said. “And I still want that front rub.”
Trina laughed. “Is there ever a time when you don’t want some? Ever, Reno?”
What he’d just experienced in Jersey, and all of the carnage, flashed in front of him. He blinked. “There’s a time or two,” he said, “when it slips my mind.”
Trina understood that too. She hugged him, to give him that warmth again, and then began walking him to the car.
Yup, she thought, as they walked arm in arm. He was a mess all right. But her mess.
EPILOGUE
Fran stood up from the chair in the lobby when Reno stepped off of the elevator. She was shocked. “You okay?” she asked him, staring at him.
Reno looked at her as if he was irritated by her concern. “I’m fine,” he said. “Let’s just do this.”
They began heading for the exit. But Fran couldn’t stop staring at her big brother. She had expected him to be running like some crazy man, but he wasn’t even in a hurry. Fran couldn’t understand it, and she couldn’t stop watching him as they walked out of the PaLargio.
Jimmy was waiting for them outside, standing next to Reno’s Porsche.
“Want me to drive, Dad?” he asked nervously as his father made his way around to the driver’s seat. “I can drive for you.”
“No, I got it,” Reno said, getting in the car as the valet held the door open.
Jimmy looked at his aunt Fran, stunned. Fran shook her head and got in the car’s backseat. Jimmy sat up front with his father.
The drive was slow and steady, as Reno observed all speeding laws. Jimmy couldn’t believe it. He kept looking at his father. Reno was dressed in his usual tailored suit, this one dark blue, and with his reading glasses still on his face, he looked like the most conservative of men. Conservative? His father? “Dad?” Jimmy asked.
RENO AND TRINA: GETTING BACK TO LOVE (The Mob Boss Series) Page 16