MOB BOSS 6: THE HEART OF RENO GABRINI (Mob Boss Series) (27 page)

Now
only Dommi was left.
 
And soon, Reno was
certain, Dommi’s life would be required too.
 
He was Reno’s son, after all.
 
He
was Reno’s boy.
 
And no child of Reno’s
got out of this life alive.

He
heard Sal walk over to Trina and remove the tape from Trina’s mouth.
 
But he couldn’t move.
 
He heard Trina murmuring and Sal murmuring
and both of them scrambling around.
 
But
he couldn’t move.
 

Until
Trina screamed a blood-curdling scream.

“
REENOO
!”
 
She screamed his name as if his name was agony itself.
 
And that scream, that
pain
, caused Reno to finally look up.
 
He could barely hold up, but he looked
up.
 
When he did, his heart nearly rammed
through his chest and his hand froze in his hair.
 
His mouth flew open, stunned and bewildered.

“He’s
breathing, Reno,” Trina was saying as she continued to realize it was
true.
 
Sal was already calling 911.

He’s
breathing, Reno,” she said with more and more hope in her voice.
 
“He’s breathing!”

And
Reno didn’t think to get up and walk.
 
He
crawled to the sofa so fast it seemed like he ran there.
 
When he realized there was a pulse.
 
When he realized there was a hope no matter
how slim, he placed his arms beneath his unconscious, bloody son and lifted him
into his arms.
 
He was going to carry him
all the way to that hospital if he had to.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Two months later

Tony Tufarna
stood behind the podium in Manassas, Virginia and concluded a drawn-out speech
on renewable sources of energy.
 
As soon
as he finished his speech, he received word that he had to leave now.
 
Tony knew not to question it because it was
Jake Mumford, his head of security and the man who traveled with him everywhere
he went, who was whispering in his ear.
 

Tony
notified his host at the small event that he would not be able to take
questions, and then he and Munford left by the side exit.

“What
couldn’t wait for me to answer a few questions?” Tony asked this as they
hurried across the parking lot to a waiting SUV.
 
The driver/guard was holding the front
passenger door open and was doing his job by constantly looking around to
ensure that the area remained secure.

“The
office phoned,” Munford said.
 
“Secretary
Bennick has called an afternoon staff meeting for all senior staff.
 
That’s you.
 
We have to get back.”

“Wonderful,”
Tony said sarcastically, and began removing his suit coat.
 
“That ass-wipe never has anything of any
value to anyone to say.
 
But he loves to
call meetings. He loves to hear himself talk.
 
And we all show up like the whores for power we are and laugh and applause
as if no smarter guy had ever been created.”

“He
takes all the heat when things go wrong.”

“Yeah,
that’s the good part,” Tony said with a smile.
 
“Thank-you, Mun, for getting me to look on the bright side.”

The
driver/guard stood aside as Tony climbed onto the front passenger seat.
 
“Remind me to bring up that land rights amendment
again,” he said to Munford as he did.
 
“Congressman Aikens is up my ass about it again.
 
He wants an answer yesterday.”

“I’ll
remind you,” Munford said as he got into the backseat, just behind his
boss.
 

Both
doors were closed and the driver/guard got behind the wheel and took off.

“What
time is this meeting anyway?” Tony was asking as he pulled out his cell
phone.
 
“Do I have time for lunch?”

“I
doubt it,” a voice that Tony knew wasn’t Munford’s said from the back of the
SUV.
 
When Tony realized who that voice
belonged to, he quickly turned around.
 
Reno was seated in the third row of the vehicle.

Tony
turned all the way around when he saw Reno’s face.

“How
did you?
 
What are you?”

But
his words fell flat because Munford immediately pulled his gun and pointed it
at his boss’s head.
 
“Turn back around,”
he ordered his boss.

 
Tony could not believe what he was
seeing.
 
He knew Reno wanted to try
something, and he had Reno tailed for nearly a month after their encounter.
 
Every report he received was that Reno was a
broken man.
 
Reno was done for.
 
Reno knew not to mess with a man who worked
in the president’s administration.
 
Tony
was an untouchable.
 
Tony was king.
 
Tony thought Reno understood that.

“Turn
back around,” Munford said again.

Tony
looked at Reno, who sat there quietly in his triumph.
 
“What is this about?” Tony asked him.

Reno
took a moment to speak, as if he was deciding whether to even bother.
 
Then he looked back at Tony Tufarna.
 
“It’s all about you, Tony.
 
Yes, it’s about money for Munford and the
rest of your detail.
 
Good, spendable
money.
 
They’re guaranteed two million
each and plausible deniability for their cooperation.
 
But that’s not really what it’s about.
 
This right here is all about you.”

Tony
stared at Reno.
 
He never took Reno to be
a stupid man.

“You
do realize what will happen to
 
you once
the administration finds out that I’ve been kidnapped, don’t you, Reno?
 
You do realize that you’ll never see the
light of day again.
 
Don’t you, Reno?”

But
Reno wasn’t thinking about Tony’s explanation of the consequences.
 
Fuck the consequences, Reno wanted to
say.
 
But he didn’t say a word. He just
stared back at Tony.
 
Because he knew
exactly what Tony was going through.
 
He
knew Tony was blindsided just like Reno was blindsided two months ago.
 
He knew Tony was doing calisthenics with his
brain the way Reno had done when Tony had his family bound and gagged on that
sofa.
  
But Reno had plotted and schemed while
he was thinking until there were no plots and schemes he could think of.
 
He would not hit back until Tony was
comfortable again.
 
He would not even
attempt to show his hand until Tony’s people were certain he was so broken that
he wouldn’t dare attempt any payback.
 
He
would not do anything resembling revenge until Tony, like Reno himself had been
before his life changed, was relaxed.

Reno
had planned this day to the last detail.

That
was why anger began to boil up in him at the mere thought of finally being in
the same space with Tony Tufarna again.
 
Anger began to take hold of him at just the thought of being anywhere
near the very man who decimated his family and his business and his very life
right along with it.
 
And he could barely
contain himself.
 

“Turn
your ass around,” he said harshly.

When
Reno said it in such a harsh tone, Tony looked him up and down.
 
He wanted to set him straight, to remind him
of exactly who he was dealing with, but he had more smarts than that.
 
He turned around.

And
the SUV, with Reno’s people following a little further back, continued to drive.
 

The
driver drove slowly, obeying all speeding laws as Reno’s people had instructed
him, and he was careful to stay on the route they would have been expected to
take had they been heading back to DC under normal circumstances.
 
Tony kept trying to ask questions, and kept
insisting that the president would send out the Calvary if he didn’t show up at
the White
 
House within the next hour,
but he may as well had told it to the tires on the SUV they rode in.
 
Because Reno wasn’t trying to hear it either.
 

It
was late afternoon when they arrived at their destination.
 
Although it was on the route back to DC, it
was well off the beaten path in a small cottage down a long, dusty dirt
road.
 
Reno’s security came out of the cottage,
and under armed guard Tony was escorted inside.
 
He was given the best seat in the house: the sofa.
 
And Reno sat in the flanking chair.

“Oh,
I see,” Tony said as if he wasn’t fazed at all.
 
“You’re supposed to pull a Tony Tufarna on me?
 
Is that what you’re supposed to do?”
 
Tony smiled.
 
“You can’t hurt me, Reno.
 
Unlike
you, I don’t take people to heart.
 
I
never have.”

Munford
pressed the remote control and the flat screen TV on the living room wall came
on.
 
It was a live shot of a big, quiet home.
 
Tony’s home.
 
Reno stared at Tony as Tony stared at the screen.

“Nice
house,” Tony said, refusing to reveal anything.

Reno
picked up the telephone on the table beside his chair without looking away from
Tony.
 
“Now,” he said, and then hung up.

As Tony
believed would happen, the house, almost immediately after Reno hung up, went
up in a ball of fire.
 
Reno watched as
Tony tried with all he had not to appear disturbed.
 
But he was.
 
Reno knew hidden fear like he knew the back of his hand.
 
Tony, he knew, was mortified.

But
Tony continued to play the game.
 
“Good,”
he said with a crooked, nervous smile.
 
“I didn’t like that house anyway.”

Reno
nodded to Munford and Munford pressed the button on the remote control
again.
 
Another live feed appeared on the
flat screen TV.
 
This one was a picture
of a bakery on a street in Kentucky.
 
A
very familiar bakery to Tony.
 
Reno
stared at Tony.
 
Tony’s jaw tightened.

People
came in and out of that bakery for what seemed like forever.
 
Nothing happened.
 
Then one person in particular, a woman Reno
knew was Tony’s woman, came out of the bakery.
 
Reno picked up the phone then.

“No!”
Tony shouted and lurched at Reno.
 
The
guards slammed him back down.

“Now,”
Reno said into the phone’s receiver.
 
And
within a moment’s time, a young man appeared on screen and walked up to Tony’s
woman as if he was simply walking by.
 
Only this young man turned back around, pulled a gun, and shot her in
the back of her head.
 
She didn’t see it
coming.
 
The young man then put his gun
back into his pocket and walked out of view as casually as he had come into
view.
 
The woman fell to her knees, and
then onto her face.
 
And that was the end
of Tony’s façade.

He
looked at Reno.
 
The fear was now all
over his face.
 
“You heartless
sonafabitch!” he screamed.

“Oh,
that’s fucking rich,” Reno couldn’t help but reply.
 
“Coming from you, that’s really fucking
rich.”

“Fuck
you!” Tony yelled back.
 
“I didn’t go
this far with you, Reno.
 
I didn’t go
this far with you!”

But
Reno smiled.
 
And nodded, once again, to
Munford.
 

Munford
pressed the remote control button again.
 
Another live feed.
 
This one
outside a daycare center.
 
Tony’s heart
pounded as he tried to stand up, but the guard forced him back down.

“You
wouldn’t,” he said to Reno.
  
“You
couldn’t!”

But
Reno picked up his phone.
 

“You
can’t,” Tony said.
 
“Reno, no.
 
Please no. Reno, please no!”