MOB BOSS 6: THE HEART OF RENO GABRINI (Mob Boss Series) (19 page)

“And
they found him already?”

“They
found him a few minutes ago.
 
They’re on
their way to try and pick him up now and take him to the safe house.
 
Then they’ll call me.”

“Will
they take him to the same house where you have Ash and Coop?”

“Hell
nall,” Reno said.
 
“I don’t play
that.
 
It’s a different one.
 
Ashley was a pawn.
 
She and Coop don’t know shit.
 
Once we have Eddie under our guard, I’ll let
them go.
 
But this Eddie is the key.”

Trina
was always amazed at how many houses Reno really owned.
 
From what she’d discovered over the years, he
had safe houses all over the country.
 
Or, as he once called them, emergency houses.
 
“You think Eddie can tell you what’s going on
and why they targeted Jimmy?” Trina asked him.

“If
he knows he’ll tell us.”

“Don’t
let them kill the man, Reno,” Trina found herself saying.
 
The idea that there could be a mob war, or
something equally as bad, worried her.
 
Everybody changed when there was a war.
 
Nobody, especially not Reno, remained the same.

“If
he gives up the goods, he has nothing to worry about.”

“And
if he doesn’t?”

Reno
didn’t respond to that.
 
Trina knew
better than to ask him something like that.

She
wanted to tell him her good news, that she had signed the lease, but now was
not the time.
 
Which was another reason
why she hated these mob wars.
 
“Sal’s
here,” she said instead.

“Yeah,
that’s why I’m heading back.
 
To pick him
up.
 
I’ll call for him when I get
there.
 
Oh, and tell Lou to have the
Bentley ready.
 
I need the space.
 
Jimmy’s coming with me too.”

“Jimmy?”
Trina asked with fear in her voice.

“Don’t
worry,” Reno said.
 
“He’s been up my ass
about seeing that girl and I promised him he could. I’m going to take him to
see her.
 
He can stay there with her and
Coop while Sal and I go and interrogate Eddie.
 
After I talk to Eddie, then I hope to let Ash and Coop go.
 
That should satisfy Jimmy.”

“I
wish he wasn’t involved in this at all.”

“So
do I,” Reno said with a frown on his face.
 
“God knows so do I.”

CHAPTER NINE

Reno’s
Bentley roared through Vegas heading for the outskirts of town.
 
Sal Luca sat on the front passenger seat, and
Jimmy Mack sat on the backseat.

“And
you haven’t heard a thing?” Reno asked Sal.

“Nothing,”
Sal said.
 
“Not one word.
 
And I checked around too.
 
Most of the wise guys I know thought that
fucker was dead.
 
Some of them thought he
killed himself after you took the PaLargio from him.”

“Get
your facts straight, Sal,” Reno said irritably.
 
“I didn’t take shit from Tony.
 
He
lost it.
 
I bought that place fair and
square.”

“Nobody
said you didn’t.
 
It was just a figure of
speech, damn, Reno.
 
Maybe Jimmy’s right.
 
You’re overreacting to everything.”

Reno
glanced at his son through the rearview mirror on the windshield.
 
If they’d been through what Reno had been
through in this life, they’d be overreacting too.
 
Reno had lost one son behind some crazy man
seeking revenge, he wasn’t about to lose another one.

He
turned onto Lexington and headed for the house at the end of the cookie-cutter,
suburban street.
 

“And
what about this Eddie Dreeson?” Sal asked.
 
“Nobody never heard of him either.
 
Where did he come from?”

“He’s
a small time hood,” Reno said.
 
“Deal in
stolen goods mostly.
 
A nobody.
 
This alliance with Tony was supposed to be
his big payday.”

“Yeah,
we got his payday alright,” Sal said, and he and Reno bumped fists.
 
They used to bumped heads most of the time,
especially when Sal was disrespectful to Trina early on, but few men, in Reno’s
opinion, were better than Sal at sniffing out thugs.

Reno
pulled into the driveway of the small, block house at the end of the
street.
 
Jimmy, so excited to see his
friends again, was already unbuckling his seatbelt.

“How
much was the payday?” Sal was asking.

“Two
hundred Gs,” Reno replied.

“Well
damn,” Sal said.
 
“How a punk like Tony
Tufarna get to toss that kind of dough?”

“He’s
got to have a backer,” Reno said as he killed the engine.

“You
mean like wise guys?”

“Hell
yeah,” Reno said.
 
“Who else would be
targeting me?”

Sal
lifted his eyebrows.
 
“You got a point
there,” he said as he unbuckled his seatbelt and got out of the car.

Jimmy
was out first, followed by Reno and Sal.
 
All he could think about was Ashley, and if she was okay after the
beating his father had put on her.
 
The
idea of it still angered Jimmy.
 
And if
she had any bruise on her at all, he thought as he moved ahead of his father
and Sal, then somebody was going to answer to him.
 
He knew it was all bluster and no bite.
 
But he couldn’t help how he felt.

And
just as he was about to run up the steps to the front door of the house, that
same house exploded with such an explosion that it threw Jimmy back against his
father.
 
Reno immediately grabbed him and
threw him to the ground, covering his son with his own body.
 
Sal, too, was thrown to the ground as the
once peaceful house went up in a blaze of smoke and fire.

As
soon as the ringing subsided somewhat in Reno’s ears, and he was able to regain
his senses, he jumped to his feet.
 
Sal
and Jimmy, too, were getting to their feet.

“Get
in the car!” Reno ordered Jimmy.

But
Jimmy wasn’t trying to hear that.
 
“Ashley’s in there,” he was saying.
 
“Ashley!”
 

He ran
toward the house, but Reno pulled him back.
 
Even Sal had to come over and help keep Jimmy back.
 

“I’ve
got to help her!” Jimmy was screaming.
 
“What are you doing!
 
Ashley’s in
there!
 
I can’t let her die like this!
 
I can’t let her die!”

Jimmy
broke free from both men, with his torn shirt the only thing left of him in his
father’s hand.
 
He began running up what
was left of the steps.
 
He began running
to get to his beloved Ashley.

But
then a second explosion rocked the little that remained of the house, and
rocked him back onto his butt. Reno and Sal then hurried over and pulled an
even more devastated Jimmy back from the fire.
 

And
they all just knelt there, as neighbors began to run out of their own homes
too.
 
They all were unable to believe
what they were viewing.
 
Especially Reno,
Sal, and Jimmy, because they knew the truth.
 
Ashley and Cooper and all of Reno’s people who manned the safe house,
could not possibly have survived a blast like that.

The
doors to Trina’s office barged open and a small army of guards, led by Lou and
Artie, hurried in.
 
Trina, who was
sitting behind her desk on a conference call with the agent to one of the
PaLargio’s biggest stars, stood to her feet.

“You’ve
got to come with us now, Tree,” Lou said as he walked toward her desk.

“I’ll
call you back,” Trina immediately said and clicked off the telephone.
 
“What’s wrong?”

“There’s
been a breach.”

“The
safe house?”

“Yes,
ma’am.”

“What
kind of breach?”

Lou
exhaled.
 
“An explosion.”

Trina’s
heart dropped.
 
“What about Ashley and
her brother?”

“I
don’t know the details like that, ma’am.”

“But
Reno’s heading to that safe house,” she said, beginning to panic.
 
“And Jimmy and Sal Luca are with him.
 
What about them?”

“They’re
all okay.
 
That I know. They’re shaken,
but okay.
 
They’re answering questions
from the authorities now, but then Reno’s heading home.”

Trina
began to think.
 
The idea of Reno exposed
like that!
 
“Get him a full escort coming
back in,” she ordered.

“I
offered that, ma’am,” Lou said, “but he declined.”

“I
don’t give a damn what he declined!” Trina blared.
 
“You get an escort for my husband and you get
it now!”

Lou
nodded his head.
 
Trina was right.
 
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
 
“Right away.
 
But right now you have to come with me.”

Trina
didn’t hesitate.
 
“To where?” she asked
as she began hurrying toward him.

“The
penthouse.
 
Reno ordered me to make sure
you and the baby stay right there, under guard, until he gets here.”

Trina
wasn’t about to defy that order.
 
Just as
she was hoping Reno didn’t defy hers.

“Move
that motherfucker and move him now!” Reno screamed into his car phone.
 
He was flying up Las Vegas Boulevard with Sal
on his front passenger seat and Jimmy in the back.
 
Four SUVs were escorting them in: two in
front of the Bentley, two in the back.
 
Trina, to Reno’s surprise, had insisted upon it.

“Number
ten is gone,” he continued.
 
“Burned down
to the ground.
 
So move him.
 
We’ve got a super-ass breach and I don’t know
how deep.”
 

Briggs,
one of Reno’s men, was on the other end of the phone.
 
“Take him where, boss?” he asked.
 
“To another one?”

“No.
 
If they knew about this one in Vegas, they’ll
know about the others in Vegas.”
 

Then
Reno thought about it.
 
“Take him to the
basement, Briggs,” Reno said and Sal, surprised, looked at him.
  
But Reno kept talking.
 
“Don’t use any new people,” he ordered.
 
“If they haven’t been with us for years,
don’t use them.
 
If there’s somebody who’s
been with us for years that you don’t trust, don’t use them.
 
Don’t take any fucking chances, Briggs!
 
We can’t afford another fuck-up.”

“Yes,
sir,” Briggs could be heard saying loud and clear over the phone.
 
Then Reno killed the call.

“
Got
dammit!” he yelled as he rammed his
palm against the steering wheel. “That fucker killed those two kids!
 
How could he kill kids!”

Then
he thought about Jimmy, and looked at his son through the rearview mirror on
his windshield.
  
Jimmy had begged him to
release Ash and Cooper.
 
Trina had begged
him.
 
Now this.
 
But if Reno expected emotion from Jimmy, he
didn’t get it.
 
Jimmy was staring out of
the side window, as if he was in a trance.
 

“Who
the fuck would target them, though?” Sal wanted to know.
 
“Tony Tufarna?”

“It’s
crazy.
 
Tony’s no idiot.
 
He had to know those kids didn’t know shit.”

“But
he killed them anyway?”

“Because
it wasn’t about them,” Reno said, driving faster, hitting his steering wheel
again.
 
“It was about me.”

Jimmy
looked at his father.

“You?”
Sal asked.

“Me,”
Reno confirmed.
 
“He was sending a
message to me.”