Reno's Gift (Mob Boss Series) Read online

  Reno grabbed Lefty by his blood-stained collar and sat him upright in the chair. “I’m going to ask you one more time,” Reno said. “Why did you go to the mayor’s house? Why? You knew I was following you, didn’t you?”

  “No! I didn’t know anything!”

  Reno kneed him in the groin, causing Lefty to grab his penis with both hands and bend over. “Stop lying to me, Lefty!” Reno sat him back upright. “I’ll kill your ass if you keep lying to me! Now why did you pretend to go to the mayor’s house, and as soon as I drove off, why did you drive off too? Why?”

  When he didn’t immediately respond, Reno kneed him again.

  Lefty let out another howl of pain, bent over again, and then decided he had no choice but to surrender. He’d always heard that Reno Gabrini was a sadistic bastard if you crossed him. He wouldn’t let up until he got every ounce of blood out of you.

  “She told me,” Lefty said, and Tommy and Sal also looked at him, “that you would probably find out that I paid Ollie to ram your car, and that you’d in all likelihood come to the Smoke-N-Gun and confront me about it. She said if you did, that I was to tell you that I don’t know the name of the person who paid me, and that I was to meet her that next night. Which is what I told you,” he added, wiping more blood from his nose.

  “But if you acted like you believed me, and claimed that you’d be back tomorrow night then, I was to immediately get in my car and drive to that address. I didn’t know the mayor lived there, I declare I didn’t!” Then he calmed back down. “She said you would more than likely be following me, so I was to wait at the gate until you drove off. Then I was to drive off.”

  “Why?” Reno asked, completely confused. “Why would she tell you to do something that lame?”

  “I don’t know why! How should I know why? She’s your damn sister, not mine!”

  Reno, Tommy, and Sal all looked at Lefty with shock on their faces. What did he just say?

  “What?” Reno asked. “Belle Patrone told you she was my sister?”

  Lefty looked at Reno. “Who the fuck is Belle Patrone?”

  Reno glanced at Tommy and Sal. Tommy began walking toward him. “Who told you to drive to that house?” Tommy asked as he headed their way.

  Lefty realized a shift in the room. The seriousness was now elevated and they were now surrounding him. “You didn’t know?” he asked Reno.

  “Know what?” Reno asked him, his face a mask of confusion.

  “That your sister paid me to ram your car,” Lefty said. “Your sister Fran was behind the whole thing.” He laughed. “You didn’t know?” he asked again.

  But Reno’s head was filled with possibilities. Fran? That couldn’t be! He looked at Tommy and Sal. Their minds were racing too. And then all three of them, as if by kinesis, reached the same conclusion at the same time. Fran was babysitting Dominic. Fran had the baby.

  Reno took off out of that house like a bat out of hell. Tommy took off right behind him.

  “Don’t worry,” Sal yelled as they ran. “I’ll take care of this fucker here!”

  Then he looked at Lefty. “How much did she pay you?” he asked him.

  Lefty was still in severe pain. “Couple thousand,” he replied.

  “Tut, tut, tut,” Sal said, shaking his head. “That’s going to be the toughest two grand you ever made in your life.”

  “Where are you, Jimmy?” Reno yelled into his phone as Tommy drove his Bentley as fast as he could along the winding Vegas roads.

  “I just dropped Grace off at Champagne’s. I was heading back home.”

  “Get to Fran’s house as fast as you can get there! Get Dommi from her!”

  “What’s wrong, Pop?”

  “Just do it, Jimmy!” Reno yelled. “Just fucking do it!”

  But Tommy was driving so fast, they made it to Fran’s house first. Reno jumped from the car while it was still running and ran inside so fast that he had to hold onto the doorknob to keep from slinging himself to the floor. Tommy ran in, just as fast, after him.

  But it was all too late.

  There was no sign, no sign at all, of Dominic nor Fran.

  Trina, Gemma, and Grace were opening up the just arrived boxes of new summer sportswear when Reno and Tommy walked into the boutique. Trina, especially, knew something was wrong. One look at Reno’s sunken face told her that something was very wrong.

  She walked toward him with a slow, almost prodding walk. She only had eyes for him. “What happened?” she asked him.

  As Grace went to Tommy, and Tommy pulled her into his arms, Reno placed his hand on either side of Trina’s small arms. Her big hazel eyes glistened with fear. He would have preferred an assassin’s bullet than to tell Trina anything like what he was about to tell her.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked him. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  Reno rubbed her arms. Tears were in his eyes.

  “Is it Jimmy?” Trina asked. “Has something happened to Jimmy?”

  “Jimmy’s okay,” Reno said in a voice Trina didn’t recognize. It almost sounded hoarse and too low to be Reno’s voice.

  “Then if Jimmy’s okay, then why . . . Then . . .” It dawned on her like an elephant suddenly discovered in a room. The unspeakable. She began to shake her head. “Dommi?” she asked, with disbelief in her voice. “Something happened to Dommi?”

  Reno fought back the tears. “We don’t know where he is, Tree,” he said.

  “What do you mean you don’t know? He’s with Fran! She picked him up this morning. What are you talking about, Reno?”

  “Fran took him,” Reno said. “And I don’t know where.”

  Trina’s heart dropped. She remembered the last time they took a child from Reno. And what happened to that child. “I don’t understand,” she said. “Fran’s his aunt. Why would she . . . I don’t understand, Reno.”

  Reno tried to pull her into his arms, but she fought the pull. “You go get my child. Don’t just stand here, why aren’t you out getting our child, Reno?” She hit him and pushed him. “Go get Dommi! You can’t let it happen, Reno.”

  Reno gathered her in his arms. She crumbled against him. “What happened to Nicky can’t happen to him. I told you that. I told you. . . Call Fran. Have you tried to call her?”

  Reno nodded his head. “We don’t know where she is, Tree. We’ve tried everywhere and everybody and everything we could try. Nobody knows where she is. Nobody knows where she took Dommi.”

  And it proved too much for Trina. She lost her balance, and began feeling the pull to the earth, and then it all went black.

  TWELVE

  Tommy and Grace sat on the living room sofa, with Tommy’s arm around Grace’s shoulder, and Jimmy Mack sat beside them. Sal and Gemma sat on the bar stools in front of the bar counter, with Sal smoking a cigarette and Gemma flipping through her smart phone’s numerous text messages. It had been a long night, with everybody exhausting their contacts, creating new contacts, and generally asking anybody with any knowledge of Fran or Belle or Lefty or even Ollie if they knew anything at all.

  Nobody knew a damn thing.

  Sal tapped the ash off of his cigarette. “Damn shame,” he said. “When I get a hold of Francine again I’m going to choke the life out of that bitch. And if she hurt that boy. . .” Sal shook his head. That was the unspeakable part of the entire horror. He remembered MarBeth and how she turned on the family. Not Fran too!

  “Sal,” Gemma said as she continued to go through her text messages.

  Sal looked at her. “What sweetheart?”

  Whenever he used an endearment toward her, something inside of her leaped with elation. But she kept it tamped down and never showed such feelings. Trying to get all excited over a relationship that was definitely going no-where would be like getting excited when a stranger won the lottery. It was nice for them, but what exactly was it going to do for her?

  She looked at him. His blue eyes never looked her dead on. They always seemed to be watching her, but also the room a
t the same time. “Who’s Nicky?” she asked.

  Sal hesitated. Tapped his ash in the ashtray again. “Nicky,” he said, “was one of Reno’s kids from a previous relationship.”

  “He was killed, wasn’t he?”

  Sal nodded. “Oh, yeah. It was. . . one of the worst times of our family’s life. Some of Reno’s enemies did the kid in, and it nearly did Reno in. We had him on suicide watch there for a minute. And his marriage to Trina, forget about it. That was over.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “Because it’s the true. It was over! Reno left her, left the PaLargio, left it all. Tommy had to all but wrestle him to the ground to get him to come to Seattle, come to his family. And then eventually he regained his good sense and went back to Tree. But it was touch and go for a long time there. Nobody gave that marriage a chance in hell of surviving that. But it did.”

  “Trina fears what happened to Nicky could happen to Dommi.”

  “But it won’t,” Sal said firmly. “I’ll kill Fran and every piece of shit motherfucker who aided and abetted her before that happens. Fran’s not stupid. She knows not to fuck with us.”

  Gemma stared at Sal for a moment longer, then went back to reviewing her text messages. Only she didn’t really see a word on the screen. Because she believed Sal. He would actually kill somebody if they did him wrong. She’d been around criminals a good portion of her career. She started just out of law school as a public defender. But the idea of falling for a guy who played for keeps gave her some pause. And, she also had to admit, excited the hell out of her. She looked at Sal again, as he puffed on his cigarette, and her eyes trailed down to the bundle between his legs. Yes, she thought. Salvatore Luciano Gabrini, flaws and all, just might be the total package.

  In the back of the house, in the master bedroom, Reno sat in the wingback chair at Trina’s bedside, while Trina lay in the bed on the doctor’s (and Reno’s) orders. Reno was slumped in the chair as he held her hand and fought sleep. His eyes were partially closed. Trina just lay there, staring at him. His hair was piled around his face in a thick, soft, messy bunch, and his five o clock shadow made him look even more worn than he actually was. It shouldn’t have been possible, because he was extremely worn, but it was.

  Trina attempted to smile. “You look worse than I feel,” she said as their fingers interlaced. “You’re the one who need to be in bed.”

  “You’re the one who fainted.”

  Trina didn’t need to be reminded of that. She looked away from Reno. “Fran won’t hurt Dommi,” she said.

  Reno nodded, but didn’t open his eyes. “I know.”

  Trina looked at him. “Then why did she take him? Why won’t she let us know where she is, and where our child is?”

  “I think it’s me she’s after, babe.” He opened his eyes. Trina could see unshed tears still in his big, weary blue eyes. “Just like MarBeth was.”

  “Don’t say that,” Trina implored. “She has no reason to want to hurt you. What have you ever done to her except love her and take care of her and pay all of her bills?”

  An anguished look came onto Reno’s face. “And kill her husband,” he added.

  Trina looked at him. “Dirty?”

  “Yeah. She and one Dirty were still married when I offed him.”

  “But they were separated. He beat the shit out of her and they remained separated.”

  “But he was still her husband. She loved him at one time, and for all I know could have still loved that asshole.”

  “So you think she might have taken Dommi to avenge Dirty’s death?”

  “It’s crossed my mind. A thousand other things have crossed my mind too. But yeah, that’s something I’m thinking about. And then there’s Bruno Lucci.”

  “What about him?”

  “Belle says he’s been making noises about getting his revenge for my part in getting him locked up for a decade.”

  “So what does that have to do with Fran?”

  “Bruno and Dirty were friends there for a while.”

  Trina finally understood. “So you think Bruno might have recruited her to bring you down. You think the two of them might be working together?”

  “Yeah. No. Fuck, I don’t know, Tree,” he said as he stood to his feet. He began roaming he room with one hand on the back of his neck and the other hand in the pant pocket of his once pristine, but now badly wrinkled suit. He, in fact, slung his suit coat off and tossed it in a chair. His shirttail was already hanging out.

  “I should kick her ass just for taking us through this shit,” he said as he roamed. “She knows how close-knit a family we are. She knows how Dommi gets when he doesn’t see us. If she was angry with me, she should have taken her anger out on me, not my child!” Then he placed his hand on the side of his head. “How could she do this to me? How could my own sister do this to me!”

  The bedroom door opened quickly. Reno and Trina both looked. It was Tommy and Grace.

  “They’re here, Reno,” Tommy said and Reno, without saying another word to Trina, hurried out of the room. Tommy hurried behind him.

  Grace came in and closed the door. She smiled as she moved toward the bed. “Feel any better?” she asked her.

  “Who’s here?” Trina asked Grace.

  Grace knew she would. She sat in the chair Reno had been sitting in. “Reno wants you to rest, Tree.”

  “I am resting. Who’s here?”

  “Three men.”

  “But who are they?” Then Trina realized who. “Do you know their names?”

  Grace shook her head. “I heard Tommy call one of them Big Joe or something like that.”

  “I know who you mean. Big Mo. I know him.” Then she nodded her head. “Good. That’s good. You bring in guys like Mo, that means Reno’s pulling out all the stops.”

  “He’s the best at what he does?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “So he knows how to track people down?”

  “I doubt it. But he sure as hell knows how to mow’em down,” Trina said, and Grace’s heart grew faint. How in the world, she wondered, would she ever get used to this?

  Trina looked at her. She could sense her anguish. “Time, Grace,” she said to her. “It’ll take time.”

  “But you’re completely used to it?”

  “No. Of course not! Every time there’s upheaval it’s strange and unsettling. But you have to love your Gabrini man so much that you’re willing to face days like this. Awful, dark, cold, scary days like this. Because you know, as long as there is breath in his body, that your man will do everything in his power to make this right. Nobody messes with Reno, or Tommy, or Sal Gabrini without there being serious retribution.”

  “Reno says Tommy’s a lover, not a fighter.”

  “And he is. Until you cross him.”

  Grace stared at Trina. One day she was going to be just as certain and unyielding about Tommy. But she would be a liar if she pretended she was there already. She wasn’t. Not by a longshot.

  “Let me get this straight,” Sal said to the three mobsters who were now in Reno’s study. “You guys, not one of yous, heard nothing at all?”

  Big Mo Mooney, Johnny Lugar, and Brian Capino were seated in front of the desk. Tommy and Sal were seated on the front edge of the desk. And Reno was standing upright against the side wall, watching quietly. Jimmy Mack stood beside him.

  “Nothing,” Big Mo said. “We got nothing. If Fran’s been slinging money around, then Lefty Gromes is the only somebody she’s been slinging it to. There’s no chatter on Fran Marcasi. Nothing.”

  “What about Belle Patrone?” Tommy asked.

  “Belle either,” Johnny Lugar said. “Nobody’s seen any change in Belle at all. I’m telling you, Reno,” Johnny said, looking over at Reno, “nobody’s heard a word. Fran taking your kid is like, whatta you call, out of the clear blue sky.”

  “Maybe it’s a kidnapping plain and simple,” Brian Capino said and everybody looked at him. “I mean think about it. Ma
ybe there’s no chatter because Fran and Fran alone planned this. She don’t have kids of her own, Dirty’s dead, so who knows? Maybe she decided that Little Dommi should be hers. She could be on a flight to Denmark for all we know.”

  “Denmark you dunce?” Sal said.

  “I’m just saying, Sal, damn. I got a right to my opinion.”

  “But it’s a dumb opinion,” Sal said. “Why would Fran pay somebody to nearly kill her brother and sister-in-law if all she had to do was grab the kid and hop a flight?”

  Brian couldn’t answer that one. He decided to move on to another theory. “Is Lefty Gromes telling the truth,” he asked. “That’s the real question here. Maybe he’s working with Fran. Maybe they teamed up.”

  “And maybe Martians live in your head,” Sal suggested.

  “I didn’t come here to be insulted,” Brian shot back.

  “Then why don’t you use your brains, Brian?” Sal said. “Why would Lefty implicate her if he was working with her? Answer that wise guy. Besides, after Reno and Tommy left I worked that guy over pretty good. And, trust me, I still know how to work guys over. He didn’t hold nothing back. He don’t know no more than what he knows, which is what he told us already.”

  “This shit is wacked,” Big Mo said. “Somebody take the kid of one of the most powerful men in Vegas, and we don’t know no more today than we knew yesterday? Nobody’s connected to nobody, nobody’s dropping cash in any big amounts, nothing.”

  “What about Bruno Lucci?” Reno asked, and everybody looked at him.

  “Bruno?” Johnny asked.

  “Yeah, Bruno,” Reno said as he shoved away from the side wall and walked over to his desk.

  Jimmy followed. He stood beside Reno as Reno sat on the desk’s edge beside Tommy.

  “What about him?” Johnny asked.

  “He’s been slinging dough around,” Reno said. “What are you picking up on him?”

  “You’re joking, right?” Johnny asked him.

  “Does he look like he’s joking?” Sal asked Johnny. “His kid has been kidnapped by his own sister and you, crazy fuck that you are, think he’s joking?”