MOB BOSS 6: THE HEART OF RENO GABRINI (Mob Boss Series) (21 page)

“Yes,
I am.”

“No,
you are not.”

Jimmy
immediately gritted his teeth and pulled a gun from his pants belt as if he was
a thug from way back.
 
Trina let out a
gasp of shock when Jimmy took that gun and put it to his father’s temple.
 
Sal, Lou, and Artie all moved to react,
pulling their own weapons.
 
But Reno
motioned for them to stand down.

“It’s
okay,” he said, waving them off, his stark blue eyes never leaving his son’s
wild eyes.
 

Trina’s
heart was pounding as she looked on.
 
She
was frozen where she stood.

“Put
the gun away, Jimmy,” Reno said calmly.

“I’ll
blow you away from here,” Jimmy said, his hand trembling but his face showing
nothing but raw determination.
 
“I tell
you I’ll do it!”

“You
aren’t going to do anything, boy,” Reno said.
 
“Now put the gun away.”

“You
never believe me.
 
But I’ll do it, I
declare I will!
 
You did it to ShoShawna
Shanks, and I’ll do it to you.”

He
did it to Shanks, Reno thought.
 
What
would he know about that?
 
What the fuck?

“Put
it away, Jimmy,” Sal said, “before somebody gets hurt.”

“I
want him to try it,” Jimmy said, still staring at and pointing his gun at his
father.
 
“Try it, motherfucker!
 
Try to hurt me like you hurt Ashley.
 
Try it!
 
You killed Ash and Coop as if you put a gun to their head the way I have
one to yours.
 
You didn’t have to detain
them.
 
You knew they didn’t have the
information you was looking for.
 
But you
kept them anyway!
 
We begged you to let
them go, but you kept them anyway!
 
You
killed them.
 
You can blame that bomb all
you want.
 
But in my eyes, you killed
them!”

Tears
began to appear in Trina’s eyes as she watched father and son.
 
As she watched Jimmy cross over from that
innocent boy to this confused young man.
 
He was so filled with grief he could barely maintain any composure.
 
It was only then did she know what Reno
seemed to know all along: that Jimmy wasn’t about to harm his father.
 
He was only trying to finally get his
attention.
 
If you would have listened to me
, his every move seemed to say,
then this would have never happened
!

He
finally dropped the gun to his side.
 
Sal
loved Jimmy but he wasn’t taking any chances.
 
He removed the gun from the young man’s hand.

Reno
stood toe to toe with Jimmy.
 
Trina’s
heart was hammering.
 
Any other man who
would have pulled a gun on Reno would be dead.
 
But this was his son.
 
A very
confused, grief-stricken, embittered son.
 
Reno opened his arms.
 
Jimmy,
broken, fell into them with uncontrollable sobbing.
 

Then
Trina cleared the room.

CHAPTER TEN

Reno,
Sal and Trina were sitting in the dining room at the elongated table.
 
Dominic was in Trina’s lap playing with a
toy, and Reno sitting next to them with his arm around Trina’s waist.
 
Sal was seated across from them sipping from
a bottle of beer and still trying to make sense out of what was happening.
 

“I
spoke with Tommy,” he said.

Reno
looked at him.
 
“Oh, yeah?
 
How’s he doing?”

“He’s
having some trouble with some females in Seattle.
 
You know the story.
 
They can’t deal with the fact that he picked
Grace instead of them.”

“Too
damn bad,” Reno said.

“That’s
what I said.
 
But he’s handling his
business.
 
But even Tommy hasn’t heard
anything about Tufarna and what he’s up to.”

“I’ve
never seen anything like it,” Reno said, shaking his head.
 
“I got nothing.
  
Now I’m waiting for them to deposit Dreeson
downstairs so I can get what I can get out of him.”

Sal
frowned.
 
“What’s taking them so long
anyway?”

“They’re
going around the world to get around the corner.
 
On purpose.
 
To make triple sure they don’t have a tail.
 
I would rather Tony think his boy Eddie’s
holed up in one of the safe houses.
  
I
have activities around a few of them in particular to try and make that very
point.
 
But Briggs and his guys should be
here within the hour.”

Sal
shook his head.
 
“The games you have to
play just because you’re Paulo Gabrini’s son, and Paulo’s been dead for years.”

“Tell
me about it,” Reno said.
 
“I’ve never
been in the mob one day of my life, but because my old man was a boss, they put
it on me.”

Sal
smiled.
 
“You’re like the gunslinger from
those old cowboy movies, Reno.
 
Everybody’s trying to establish themselves by gunning for you, even
though you’re nothing more than an innocent, law-abiding citizen.”

“Innocent?”
 
Trina said.
 
“You must be joking!”

Sal
and Reno both laughed, but then they thought about the circumstances and eased
back up.

“Hey,
Tree, that reminds me,” Sal said, leaning forward.
 
“What’s that girl’s name again?
 
The one that was in your office the other
day?”

“Who?
 
Gemma?”

“That’s
her!
 
Gemma with a G.
 
Who is she?”

Trina
smiled inwardly.
 
Sal was always railing
about Italian girls and how they and they alone were the only beautiful females
in his eyes.
 
She knew all along he was
blowing smoke.
 
“She’s a friend of
mine.
 
She’s also my new business
partner.”

“But
what does she do for a living?
 
Anything?”

“She’s
a lawyer.”

“And
a very good one,” Reno added.

“You
know she’s good if Reno sometimes uses her services,” Trina added.
 
“That’s how I met her.”

“She
married?”

Reno
looked at Sal.
 
“What’s it to you?”

“It
ain’t nothing to me.
 
What you asking
for?
 
I’m just making a little
conversation here.
 
Can’t I make a little
conversation?”

“No,
she’s not married, Sal,” Trina said with an amused look on her face.
 
“She’s not even dating right now.”

“A
looker like her?
 
Why not?”

“Because
she gives as good as she gets and many men can’t deal with that.”

“I
can deal with it,” Sal said before he realized he had said it.
 
“I mean, if I happen to ever be her man,
which I’m not, and won’t be, but I’m just making what you call a rhetorical
point.”

Reno
laughed.

“What’s
so funny?”

“Your
lovesick ass.”

“Lovesick?
 
Over her?
 
Go fuck yourself Reno!”

Trina
looked over by the entrance of the dining room as she and Reno both
laughed.
 
Jimmy, to her surprise, was
standing there.

“Hey,
bud,” she said, and Reno and Sal looked too.

“Hey,”
Jimmy said and began walking toward the table.

“Feel
better?”

“A
little,” Jimmy said as he sat down beside his father.
 
“I got in a few minutes of sleep anyway.”

“That’s
better than nothing.”

“I
guess so,” Jimmy said.
 
Then he looked at
his father.
 
“Have they identified the
bodies yet?”

Reno
hated that he had to go through this upheaval, but when Jimmy agreed to put a
dead body in his car, he brought it on himself.
 
“Yes,” he said.
 
“And their mother
has been notified.”

Jimmy
squeezed his eyes shut briefly, and then opened them again.
 
“It’s awful,” he said, “but I was still wrong
to point that gun at you.”
 
He looked at
Reno.
 
“I’m sorry, Dad.
 
You didn’t deserve that.”

“I
deserved it, all right.
 
And more.
 
And someday somebody may very well put a gun
to my head.
 
But it won’t be my son.”

“Don’t
say that, Dad,” Jimmy said with distress in his voice.
 
“Nobody’s putting any gun to your head.”

“That’s
the gun I gave you, isn’t it?”

Jimmy
nodded.
 
“Yes, sir.”

“What
did I tell you when I gave it to you?”

“That
I wasn’t supposed to think about pulling it out unless it was to protect Ma and
Dominic.”

“Was
putting it to my head a way of protecting our family?”

Jimmy
had to smile about that.
 
“No, sir.”

“Don’t
try it again.”

“I’m
sorry,” Jimmy said heartfelt.
 
“I really
hate that I did that.”

Reno
squeezed his shoulder.
 
“You were
distraught.
 
It’s a hellava thing you
witnessed over at the house.
 
But what’s
done is done.
 
You have to learn to move
on, son.”

“You
didn’t kill them,” Jimmy said as if it was a revelation to him.

Trina
and Reno looked at him.

“The
man who tried to frame me killed them.
 
I
know that now.
 
You were just trying to
protect me.
 
You couldn’t let them go
free.”

“Don’t,”
Reno said with a frown on his face.

Jimmy
didn’t understand.
 
“Don’t what?”

“Justify
my behavior,” Reno said, and Sal looked at him.

“What
do you mean?” Jimmy asked.

“It
can’t be justified,” Reno said.
 
“You
hear me?
 
You and Tree were right.
 
I should have let them go.
 
They were kids for crying out loud!
 
But I didn’t and now they’re dead.
 
Nothing I can do about that now.
 
It’s another blot against me, I guess.
 
But now I have to make sure the same fate
isn’t visited upon you or Tree or Dominic.
 
That’s all I can do now to make this right.”

Reno’s
cell phone rang.
 
He answered it right
away.
 
“Reno,” he said.
 
Then listened.
 
Then he said that he was on his way and hung
up.
 
He stood up.

Sal
stood up too.
 
“The package is
delivered?”

Reno
nodded.

“I’m
going too,” Jimmy said, standing also.
 
But Reno was already shaking his head.

“No
way.”

“But
why not?”

“You
aren’t getting caught in this shit, that’s why not.
 
Now you stay here with your brother and my
wife---”

“No!”
Jimmy exploded.
 
“I have to be
there.
 
I have to find out why Ashley and
Cooper did what they did.
 
I have to know
if this man was really her boyfriend.
 
I
have to know, Dad.
 
For myself, I have to
know.”

Reno
stared at Jimmy.
 
He was trembling with
rage and despair and love and hate.
 
His
emotions were all over the place.
 
He was
trying to decide if he was going to hate his father for the rest of his life
the way Reno once had to decide about his own old man.
 
And Reno knew right then and there that
trying to shield a man like Jimmy from that part of life Reno himself could
barely stomach, wasn’t going to work.