Reno Gabrini: When His Woman Cries Read online

  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  EPILOGUE

  RENO GABRINI 16:

  WHEN HIS WOMAN CRIES

  BY

  MALLORY MONROE

  Copyright©2017 Mallory Monroe

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  AUSTIN BROOK PUBLISHING

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  This novel is a work of fiction. All characters are fictitious. Any similarities to anyone living or dead are completely accidental. The specific mention of known places or venues are not meant to be exact replicas of those places, but are purposely embellished or imagined for the story’s sake.

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  Reno Gabrini was on the phone. And it was a contentious call. But the large group of assistants in his always chaotic office weren’t cooperating. They were as loud and as busy as they usually were, even though he’d already told them to pipe it down. He already told them he couldn’t hear himself think for crying out loud. But the volume had turned up once again. Now he could barely hear the agent on the other end of the phone.

  He grabbed a thick file from his desk and angrily threw it across the room at the conference table where most of his aides were sitting. The papers in the file flew wildly all over the huge office, and didn’t even reach the table, but the young aides got the message. Those who were on their cell phones talking to vendors stopped talking, and those typing reports on their laptops stopped typing. And suddenly you could hear a pin drop. Everything stopped. All was quiet. Except Reno.

  “Are you out of your fucking mind?” he yelled at the agent on the other end of the phone. “I can’t accommodate that big of an entourage! I’ve had performers five times the star that bitch is and I didn’t give them one extra suite. You’re telling me she needs twenty? What the fuck you think I’m running here? Some half-ass hourly motel? The PaLargio is always booked to near- capacity. Always! There’s no way in hell I’m giving up that much space just to book her.”

  “She requires twenty additional rooms, Reno. That’s her demand. You either meet it, or the deal is off.”

  Reno frowned. “Then the deal is off, motherfucker! Who the fuck you’re trying to scare? She’s the one who needs a residency at the PaLargio, not the other way around. Her broke ass is the one who needs those big pay checks I’m willing to shell out. You tell her if she wants to pay for twenty additional rooms, she can help herself. But she only gets one suite, a suite for herself, if she wants to perform nightly at the PaLargio. How many she packs in that suite is her business. But that’s all she’s getting from me. And she has until close of business today to accept, or I’m calling the deal off myself.”

  “Reno, be reasonable!” There was desperation and sympathy in his voice. “You know how these prima donnas are. She’ll pull out for the principle of the thing if you don’t at least meet her halfway.”

  “Close of business today,” Reno said again. “One room. Contract remains as agreed. End of discussion.” And Reno threw the phone on the hook.

  His staff continued to stare at him and wait for the all-clear. His temper, once unleashed, always gave them palpitations. He talked to superstars like they were nobodies. His aides, all young and ambitious and thrilled to be working this close to a mogul like him, knew they didn’t stand a chance.

  When Reno realized they were sitting there staring at him as if they were afraid to move, he frowned. “What the fuck are you looking at? Get your asses back to work!”

  And they all, without hesitation, got back to work.

  Reno reached into his drawer, pulled out his high blood pressure medication, and popped two pills. He grabbed the bottled water on his desk and drained it down. Losing an A-list performer didn’t sit well with him any day, but especially nowadays. He was in the fight of his life just to keep the PaLargio afloat. The only reason he was even agreeing to offer these residencies to major stars was because of the financial success he’d been having with Bobby Swann’s run. But that success, and the fact that it only doubled Reno’s workload, was coming at a steep price.

  He leaned back in his chair and began thinking about just how steep that price was becoming, and what it was already doing to his marriage, when his secretary announced that his security chief had arrived.

  Luigi Spanelli, called Luggi by most, entered the now-loud and busy office. He was newly promoted from second-in-command to detail chief and was cautious not to ruffle Reno’s feathers. But he was confident enough in his standing with Reno to be able to speak his mind with an assurance that he wouldn’t be rebuffed. What he had to tell Reno was going to test that assurance.

  He walked around Reno’s desk until he was standing beside the boss’s chair. Reno, in shirtsleeves, remained leaned back and calm on the surface, but his heart was pounding.

  The chief bent over so that no additional ears heard their conversation. “We’ve got a location, Boss.”

  Reno looked at him. “You found him?”

  “We found him.”

  “What about my wife?”

  She’s with him, sir.”

  Reno jumped from his seat. “Where?” He grabbed his suitcoat off of the back of his chair.

  Luigi respected this response, and he knew it was the exact wrong one. “I think you should let us handle it, Boss.”

  “I don’t give a fuck what you think! Nobody’s handling this but me. Where?” Reno began putting on his suitcoat.

  “It’s docked on the Hampton end of the marina. It’s called Pride and Joy. But you really need to let us handle this, Boss. You don’t want to
do something you might not be able to live with later.”

  “He’s trying to take my wife away from me,” Reno said as he pulled down the sleeves of his dress shirt beyond the hem of his coat sleeves. “How the fuck you think I’m living now?” And Reno left, without looking back.

  The valet staff in front of the PaLargio already had his Porsche ready to go, and Reno handed a fifty to the young man who drove it up. Then he got in behind the wheel, put on his sunglasses that hung over the visor, and sped off. The valets high-fived each other, noting how cool the boss was.

  If they only knew.

  The last thing in this world Reno Gabrini felt was cool. He felt scared, and uncertain, and angry as hell. He kept hitting his steering wheel as he drove, he was so angry. Some jacked up bullshit artist trying to pull this shit on him? And Trina was going along with this bullshit? His Trina? Reno still didn’t believe it. He would have to see it with his own two eyes to believe any parts of it. And even then, he thought sadly, he probably still wouldn’t believe. That was how far gone he was with Trina. That was how crazy that motherfucker had to be to even think about taking Trina away from him.

  He drove so fast to that marina even the cops didn’t try to chase him. They knew Reno’s car by heart. They knew he would fight tooth and nail if they even thought about ticketing him for speeding, and just might report them to their superiors, whom they knew were all crooked cowards anyway. They didn’t want the drama.

  But drama was what Reno knew he was about to get when he arrived on the Hampton side of the marina. The yacht named Pride and Joy was just where Luigi said it would be, and Reno stopped his car curbside. He looked around, at the rarefied air of all of those blue-blooded rich guys with their fancy yachts and sailing suits, thumbing their noses at the ordinary people and doing who-knows-what inside those vessels. Maybe they, too, were doing it with another man’s wife.

  Reno pressed the code that unlocked his glove compartment and then another code that allowed his weapon, a Glock 43, to fall into his hands. He grabbed the ten-round magazine, shoved it in, and then got out of his car. He got out, with his gun by his side, ready to handle his business.

  But business handled him.

  As soon as he stepped out of his Porsche, and began walking toward the dock that led to the Pride and Joy, a hissing sound was heard that stopped Reno in his tracks. But before he could react at all, the yacht, to Reno’s shock and horror, exploded. He couldn’t believe it. It blew the fuck up!

  Reno was lifted up and knocked backwards, and completely over his car, as his gun flew one way and his body flew another. All he saw was darkness as he began sliding off of the car. All he could feel was wooziness and indescribable pain. And then, as he slid off of the car, he felt as if he was floating. Only he wasn’t floating down to the ground, but the pavement was floating up, to him, and then it seemed to rush up and slam against the side of his face. It slammed with a wham that knocked him unconscious.

  But somehow, someway, Reno could not go gentle into that good night. He didn’t have to rage, as Dylan Thomas suggested, against the dying of the light. All he had to do was wake up. Somehow he managed to wake up. But when he stood, and looked at the carnage, he could barely believe his eyes. And as those millionaires all raced out of their own yachts, some still pulling up their own pants, Reno’s knees buckled, and he fell again.

  But then he realized the problem. His brain was like cottage cheese, but he remembered Trina. Trina was on that boat! And he had to go and get her. He had to save Trina!

  Realizing what he had to do forced him back up. And he ran. He ran toward to the wreckage that the fireball wrought. He was wobbly, but he ran. He had to save her. He had to save her again. He was going to run into that fire and save her if it cost his life doing so. But suddenly too many hands started reaching for him. Too many hands of the security team he forgot had tracked them down to begin with, had run even faster. And held him back.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Two Weeks Earlier

  “Where’s Mommy?”

  “Sit down, Sophie.”

  “But where’s Mommy?”

  “She’s still in bed. I peeked in and she was still asleep.”

  “Then wake her up.”

  “Daddy said we’re never to go in and wake up Mommy when she’s asleep. She works really hard. She deserves her rest. Now sit down.”

  Sophia Alexandria Gabrini, called Sophie by her friends and family, called Lexie by her father, took a seat at the kitchen’s center island and watched her older, preteen brother prepare breakfast for them both.

  Her brother, Dominic Gabrini, Junior, called Dommi by all who knew him, stood beside her chair and poured cereal into a bowl. A big mixing bowl. Then he drowned it with nearly a quarter of a gallon of milk. The same way he drowned his own bowl of cereal earlier.

  But Sophia’s big, hazel eyes stretched wide. “I can’t eat all of this,” she exclaimed. “Why didn’t you use the bowl Mommy uses?”

  “Because I didn’t want to,” Dommi responded. “How’s that? Just eat the food.”

  “And all of that milk! I can’t see the cereal in all of that milk.”

  “Just eat it, Sophie.” Dommi sat the milk container on the countertop and moved behind her chair. “I ate that much and it didn’t bother me. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. You’ll be a hunchback old lady if you don’t eat your breakfast.” He began removing the barrette off of her ponytail, entangling it.

  But Sophie jerked away from his grasp. “Ouch!” she cried. “What are you doing?”

  “I gotta fix your hair for school. I gotta do this. Jimmy will be here any minute.”

  “Why can’t Mommy fix it?”

  “Because she’s sleep,” Dommi replied in an exasperated voice. “I already told you she was sleep. How many times do I have to tell you she’s sleep, Sophie? Ay yi yi! Just let me do this here!”

  Sophie hated it, but gave in. She ate what she could of her super-bowl sized cereal and allowed her stupid brother to remove her barrette, brush her long, thick, wavy hair with his hands, and put the barrette back on. Only he put it on crooked, and half of her hair had not been captured.

  But after breakfast, and after Dommi put his baby sister’s Princess Tiana book bag on her back, and his Harry Potter book bag on his own back, Jimmy still had not arrived.

  “What are we going to do now?” Sophie asked her brother as they stood in the foyer. “We need to tell Mommy. She’ll be angry if we miss school.”

  Dommi, and his always-calculating mind, thought about it. Their mother would be upset if they missed school and would probably yell at him, but his father would be livid if he woke up his mother and would probably beat the tar out of him.

  That was why, instead of waking up their mother, he made the executive decision to leave their penthouse inside the PaLargio and go downstairs, to their father. And although Sophie went along with it, even she knew that Reno, who hated when they went anywhere near that casino, was not going to be pleased. Not with them. And certainly not with their mother.

  But both of her parents already told her time and time again that if they were not around, and Jimmy was not around, and their uncles Tommy, Sal, Mick, and Big Daddy, or their wives were not around, then Dommi was in charge. She didn’t understand why. Dommi was stupid to her. But she did as she was told.

  She allowed him to take her small hand, and lead her onto the elevator.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Reno’s in the casino. Pass it on.”

  “Reno’s in the casino. Pass it on.”

  “Reno’s in the . . . oh. Hey, Jimmy.”

  Jimmy looked at Sam, the youngest and only female member of his pit crew, and smiled. He saw what they were doing. He saw how each one of his pit bosses were grabbing any team member passing by to notify him that the boss was lurking around. “What were you going to say? My Dad’s in the house?”

  “Yes, sir,” the embarrassed young woman replied. “We were told to pass i
t on.”

  “Why?” Jimmy asked, although he already knew why. He just wanted to see what the kid was made of.

  “It’s just a way of warning each other to be on our best behavior, sir,” the young pit boss replied honestly.

  Jimmy laughed. Made of mush, that’s what, he thought. “Okay, you passed it on. Now get back to work.”

  “Yes, sir,” the young woman said with nervous gratitude in her voice, and hurriedly left Jimmy’s side.

  Jimmy was the floor manager inside his father’s casino, the pit boss supervisor, and was becoming almost as feared as his father.

  Almost.

  But their warning, nonetheless, did encourage him to seek out his father for himself. He searched the massive room. Old ladies with oxygen tanks and old men in Hoverounds were the dominant visitors this early in the morning, but that didn’t mean the place was empty. It was, even with that crowd, half-filled already. It therefore took several seconds before he spotted his father sitting near a back wall, talking with Bo Jackson, a young, good-looking, African-American smart mouth with whom Jimmy had a complicated relationship. They met after Bo was caught running one of the best cons ever inside Reno’s casino, and Reno, out of admiration alone, made Bo his chief con-catcher. Jimmy still wasn’t sure if that was a good idea, but his father seemed to just love the kid. Jimmy headed in that direction.

  “It’s a con,” Bo said. He stood next to Reno’s chair and was informing the boss of the latest game. “But it’s a weak con. I saw through it as soon as it started.”

  “How do you know it just started?”

  “Because it’s weak. It was too easy to discover. No way that shit was going on any longer without my knowledge. Not here. Not ever.”

  Reno liked the kid’s confidence. “How much am I out?” he asked him.

  “Thirty grand.”

  Reno frowned. “Shit.”

  “Could have been a whole lot worse, Boss. Thirty grand? I can live with that.”

  Reno looked at Bo. “You can live with it? I’m sure your ass can! It’s not your money he’s stealing.”