MOB BOSS 6: THE HEART OF RENO GABRINI (Mob Boss Series) (13 page)

Reno
finally returned to the living room after what seemed like hours of phone
calls.
 
He looked so tired, with his hair
even messier than it normally was, with his suit coat off and his shirttail
hanging out, that Trina wanted to tell everybody to leave right now and give
her husband a break.
 

But
they couldn’t leave.
 
Jimmy was in
trouble.
 
Reno hadn’t told her what
exactly was going on yet, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out
that whatever it was, it involved Jimmy.

“You
two come with me,” Reno ordered, pointing to Cooper and Ashley.
 
But Jimmy stood up even faster than they did.

“Come
with you where?” he asked his father.

“Downstairs,”
Reno replied.

Trina
stood this time.
 
“Downstairs?” she
asked.
 
In the basement
, was what she knew he meant.
 
That basement where many of Reno’s “problems”
were dealt with.

Reno
gave her that knowing look that told her to back off.
 
This was not the time for her to get into it
with him about his methods or procedures.
 
And she heeded his warning.

He
headed for the front door.
 
Lou and Artie
made their way to the sofa and motioned for Cooper and Ashley to follow suit.

Reno
opened the door and allowed Lou and Artie to escort Cooper and Ashley out of
the penthouse.
 
But Jimmy came up behind
them.

“I’m
going too,” he said strongly as he proceeded to head out of the door.

But
Reno pulled him back.
 
“Not tonight,
pal,” he said to his son.

Ashley
looked back at them. “Why can’t he go?” she asked, but Lou pulled her by the
arm, holding it so tightly that she knew to shut up.
 
The guards put Ashley and Cooper onto the
waiting elevator, and left.

Reno
then closed the penthouse door, with he and Jimmy inside.

“You
wait here with your mother,” he said.

“She’s
not my mother,” Jimmy said boldly.
 
He
hated the man he was tonight, but he felt he couldn’t continue to let his father
treat him as if his feelings didn’t matter.

Reno
didn’t like the man his son was tonight either, but he didn’t have time to tell
him so.
 
“Okay, fine,” Reno said.
 
“Don’t wait here with your mother.
 
Wait here with my wife.”
 
Then he opened the door to leave.
 
But Jimmy moved up to him, as if he was Reno’s
equal.

“Jimmy,”
Trina said in a nervous, warning voice.
 
Don’t do it, Jimmy
, she wanted to say.

But
Jimmy wouldn’t back down.
 
“Where are you
taking them?” he asked his father.

Reno
looked at his son and then shut the door again.
 
“That’s none of your business.”

“Those
are my friends!
 
It is my business!”

Reno
frowned.
 
“Who do you think you’re yelling
at?
 
You think I’m going to allow those
two assholes to set up my son and I just sit back and let them?”

“Set
me up?
 
What are you saying?
 
They didn’t set me up!”

“You don’t
know what they did!
 
Your mouth is so far
up that girl’s cunt you wouldn’t begin to know what they did.”

Jimmy
moved into Reno’s face as if he wanted to fight his father.
 
Reno looked down his son’s growing muscular
frame and then back up again.
 
“What you
gonna do?” he asked him.

Trina
began moving toward them.
 
“Reno,” she
said warningly, with a voice of concern.
 
She knew Reno’s temper.
 
She knew
what he was capable of.
 
“He’s upset
right now, Reno.
 
He doesn’t mean it.”

“No,
Tree, I want to know what the fuck he’s gonna do.
 
He’s so big and bad.
 
He’s so tough.
 
You got in my face, what you gonna do?
  
Hun, punk?”
 
Reno said this as he got even closer to Jimmy.
 
“No fucker gets in my face unless he plans to
back up every inch of every step he took to get here.
 
Now what you gonna do?”

Jimmy
could hear his heart pounding, but he wasn’t backing down.
 
“If you lay a hand on Ashley, then I’ll . . .
I’ll. . .”

“Then
you’ll what?” Reno asked, moving even closer still to his son.
 
“Then you’ll what?”

Jimmy
started to back up, but he couldn’t.
 
“Then I’ll kick your ass, that’s what!” he roared.

But
as soon as he uttered those words, Reno roared back.
 
Only his roar was with action, not
words.
 
He slammed his fist so hard into
Jimmy’s face that Jimmy fell straight down onto his butt.

“Reno,
no!” Trina screamed, but Reno was in the zone and she knew it.
 
There was no stopping him now.

Reno
grabbed his son by the catch of his t-shirt and slung him back on his feet,
then slammed him against the wall.

“The
day you think you’re a badder motherfucker than I am, is the day you leave this
earth.
 
You understand me, boy?
 
You don’t ever,” Reno said, pulling him off
the wall and then slamming him back against it, “speak to me that way.
 
Not ever!
 
Do you hear me?
 
I’ll touch that
bitch if I wanna touch that bitch and you’re not gonna do a
go
tdamn thing about it!
 
You just keep your ass right here with my
wife until I get back.
 
And I mean keep
it here!
 
Do I make myself clear, James?”

Jimmy
knew his father’s ruthlessness. He knew he would be fighting Mount Everest if
he tried to battle him.
 
He knew one day
they would do battle.
 
If he was ever
going to be his own man and stand on his own two feet they had to do battle.
 

But
this was not that day.

“Yes,
sir,” he said with no affection at all.

Reno’s
anger subsided when he saw that bitterness in his son’s eyes.
  
It broke his heart to have to go there with
his child, but what could he do?
 
Jimmy
was becoming another Reno.
  
Jimmy now
had that kind of fearless, and therefore reckless swag that could get him dead
before he was twenty.
 
And the thought of
it scared Reno shitless.
 
That was why he
was so tough on his son.
 
He had to make
certain that in this life Jimmy Gabrini, who feared no man, always feared him.

Reno
looked at Trina, who looked almost distraught, which pained him even more.
 
And then he left.

Trina
looked at Jimmy.
 
He just stood there
like some wounded animal.
 
She knew it
was coming, so she went to her stepson.
 
And pulled him into her arms.
 

The
tears that Jimmy had fought so hard to suppress in front of his father,
suddenly broke free.
 

Reno
slapped Ashley so hard across her face that her fake eyelashes flew off.
 
Cooper, who sat across the room and was held
down by two of Reno’s men, screamed for him to leave his sister alone.
 

But
Reno ignored him.

“I
want the real story this time,” Reno said as he towered over Ashley.
 
“Not the bullshit story, but the real
story.
 
Now who paid you?
 
Who is he?”

They
were in the soundproof basement of the PaLargio.
 
Ashley was seated in a chair in front of
Reno, and Cooper was seated across the room, guarded by Lou and Artie.
 
Both siblings had tears in their eyes, but
Ashley’s eyes were almost swollen shut from Reno’s beating.
 
Cooper could not believe that his best friend’s
father could be this heartless.
 
He’d
heard all of those rumors about Reno Gabrini being Mafia, but Jimmy insisted to
him that it wasn’t true.
 
And he had
foolishly believed Jimmy.

“I
told you nobody paid me anything,” Ashley declared again.
 
“Lamar overdosed on those drugs!”

“Bullshit!”

“It’s
the truth!”

“It’s
bullshit!” Reno said again.
 
“That boy
didn’t O.D. on shit and you know it!”

“He
did overdose!” Cooper shouted across the room.
 
“Ask Jimmy! Jimmy saw him!”

“Was
that before or after somebody stabbed Lamar three times?” Reno shouted
back.
 
“Or are you saying he stabbed himself
three times?”

Ashley
glanced over at Cooper.
 
Cooper looked at
Reno.

“What,”
Reno asked, “you think we’re fucking novices here?
 
You think we wouldn’t check that body
out?
 
You’d just tell us he overdosed and
we’d just believe it?”

Cooper
hesitated.
 
He already knew they were in
over their heads.
 
He already knew
it.
 
“He was stabbed?” He asked this as
if he was attempting to convince Reno of something that was inconvincible to
Reno.

“Oh,
yeah,” Reno said.
 
“You didn’t
know?”
 
Then he looked at Ashley.
 
“I’ll bet sis here knew all about it.
 
He was stabbed multiple times.
 
Probably happened four or five hours before
she bothered to call my son.
 
All of the
stab wounds were in his back, you see, because whoever did it were reasonably
sure my son wouldn’t bother to turn him over and check him out that way.
 
And they, unfortunately, had read him
right.
 
But they hadn’t read me at all.”

Cooper
swallowed hard.

Reno
shook his head.
  
“No, Coop, drugs didn’t
kill that young man.
 
Man killed that
young man.”
 
Then Reno looked at
Ashley.
 
“Several men, in fact.
 
Professional men.”
 
Reno squeezed her reddening cheeks and then
lifted her head to his face.
 
The pain
for Ashley was excruciating.
 
“Now you
listen here you little tramp.
 
You tell
me who those men are and you tell me now, or I’ll snatch your tongue out of
your throat and ram it up your ass!
 
Who
paid you?
 
Who tried to frame my son?”

She
still remained defiant.
 
Reno therefore
pulled out a switchblade knife and flicked it open.
 
As soon as Ashley realized what he was about
to do, her shell cracked.

“I
don’t know who they were,” she cried.
 
“He was already dead when they brought him to our house.”

“When
who brought him to your house?”

“Some
men.
  
We never saw them before.
 
They had already killed him.
 
He was already dead.”

“Who
did they work for?” Reno asked her.

But
she wouldn’t say.
 
Cooper looked at his
sister.
  
He couldn’t believe it.

“Tell
him, Ash,” he insisted.
 
“Tell him what
you know!”

It
pained Ashley to say it, but she knew she had no choice.
 
“Eddie,” she said.

Reno
frowned.
 
“Eddie?
 
Who the fuck is Eddie?”

Ashley
swallowed hard.
 
“Eddie Dreeson.”

Reno
stared at her.

“You
know him boss?” Lou asked.

“I
know him,” Reno said, but he was still staring at Ashley.
 
“How do you know him?” he asked her.

“I
know him.
 
What difference does it make
how?”

Reno
slapped her again.
 
“Contrary to popular
belief,” he said, “I’ll hit a bitch.
 
Now
you answer my questions, girl, before I kick your ass too.
 
What’s the relationship?”

“Tell
him, Ash!” Cooper yelled.

“I’m
his girlfriend,” she said.

Reno
knew it.
  
He knew a whore when he saw
one.
 
“So Eddie’s men dumped the body at
your house?”