Reno and Trina: In the Shadows of Love, Book 12 Read online

  RENO AND TRINA

  IN THE SHADOWS OF LOVE

  (The Mob Boss Series)

  By

  MALLORY MONROE

  Copyright©2015 Mallory Monroe

  All rights reserved. Any use of the materials contained in this book without the expressed written consent of the author and/or her affiliates, including scanning, uploading and downloading at file sharing and other sites, and distribution of this book by way of the Internet or any other means, is illegal and strictly prohibited.

  AUSTIN BROOK PUBLISHING

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  THE AUTHOR AND AUSTIN BROOK PUBLISHING.

  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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  INTERRACIAL ROMANCE SERIES

  BY BESTSELLING AUTHOR

  MALLORY MONROE:

  THE SINATRAS OF JERICHO COUNTY

  SERIES IN ORDER:

  BIG DADDY SINATRA

  THERE WAS A RUTHLESS MAN

  BOOK ONE

  BIG DADDY SINATRA 2

  IF I CAN’T HAVE YOU

  BOOK TWO

  BIG DADDY SINATRA 3

  THE BEST OF MY LOVE

  THE PRESIDENT’S GIRLFRIEND

  SERIES IN ORDER:

  THE PRESIDENT’S GIRLFRIEND

  THE PRESIDENT’S GIRLFRIEND 2:

  HIS WOMEN AND HIS WIFE

  DUTCH AND GINA:

  A SCANDAL IS BORN

  DUTCH AND GINA:

  AFTER THE FALL

  DUTCH AND GINA:

  THE POWER OF LOVE

  DUTCH AND GINA:

  THE SINS OF THE FATHERS

  DUTCH AND GINA:

  WHAT HE DID FOR LOVE

  FOR THE LOVE OF GINA

  BOOK EIGHT

  THE MOB BOSS SERIES

  IN ORDER:

  ROMANCING THE MOB BOSS

  MOB BOSS 2:

  THE HEART OF THE MATTER

  MOB BOSS 3:

  LOVE AND RETRIBUTION

  MOB BOSS 4:

  ROMANCING TRINA GABRINI

  A MOB BOSS CHRISTMAS:

  THE PREGNANCY

  (Mob Boss 5)

  MOB BOSS 6:

  THE HEART OF RENO GABRINI

  RENO’S GIFT

  BOOK 7

  RENO GABRINI:

  A MAN IN FULL

  BOOK 8

  RENO AND TRINA:

  GETTING BACK TO LOVE

  BOOK 9

  RENO AND SON:

  DON’T MESS WITH JIM

  BOOK 10

  MOB BOSS ELEVEN

  THE WRONG ONE

  BOOK 11

  THE GABRINI MEN SERIES

  IN ORDER:

  ROMANCING TOMMY GABRINI

  ROMANCING SAL GABRINI

  TOMMY GABRINI 2:

  A PLACE IN HIS HEART

  SAL GABRINI 2:

  A WOMAN’S TOUCH

  TOMMY GABRINI 3:

  GRACE UNDER FIRE

  SAL GABRINI 3:

  HARD LOVE

  SAL GABRINI 4:

  I’LL TAKE YOU THERE

  TOMMY GABRINI 4:

  DAPPER TOM BEGIN AGAIN

  SAL GABRINI 5:

  UNTIL YOU COME BACK TO ME

  ADDITIONAL BESTSELLING

  INTERRACIAL ROMANCE

  FROM MALLORY MONROE:

  DANIEL’S GIRL (ROMANCING AN OLDER MAN)

  ROMANCING MO RYAN

  ROMANCING HER PROTECTOR

  ROMANCING THE BULLDOG

  INTERRACIAL ROMANCE

  FROM

  BESTSELLING AUTHOR

  KATHERINE CACHITORIE:

  LOVERS AND TAKERS

  LOVING HER SOUL MATE

  LOVING THE HEAD MAN

  SOME CAME DESPERATE:

  A LOVE SAGA

  ADDITIONAL BESTSELLING

  INTERRACIAL ROMANCE:

  A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP

  YVONNE THOMAS

  AND

  BACK TO HONOR:

  A REGGIE REYNOLDS

  ROMANTIC MYSTERY

  JT WATSON

  ROMANTIC FICTION

  FROM

  AWARD-WINNING

  AND

  BESTSELLING AUTHOR

  TERESA MCCLAIN-WATSON:

  DINO AND NIKKI:

  AFTER REDEMPTION

  AND

  AFTER WHAT YOU DID

  Visit

  www.mallorymonroebooks.com

  for updates and more information on all of her titles.

  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

  EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  “Will you stop worrying for two minutes?” Carlo was getting annoyed by the constant doubt. He said it was big, he said he wasn’t wasting anybody’s time, but Palameri was still complaining.

  “This better be good, that’s all I have to say about it. Dragging me down in this dungeon. This better be good.” Palameri followed Carlo down the steep stairs of a damp basement that reeked of wet clothes and piss. The sound of running water, from too many leaks, and the dim lighting made Palameri angry that he had agreed to come down to this piss hole without removing his expensive shoes first. But he was down there now.

  “Interrupting my dinner,” he continued to complain. “Do you realize who’s waiting for me at this very hour?”

  Carlo didn’t have to guess. “A dame,” he said confidently. “Who else?”

  “A beautiful dame. That’s what you fail to understand. A beautiful, ready, willing and able dame. This shit better be good.”

  Carlo was fuming as they made it down the stairs. He couldn’t wait to show that asshole how good it was. He was on the lowest rung of the totem pole, nothing more than a doorkeeper if you asked him, while Palameri got to have his name on all of their businesses and got to play the boss. But after tonight they were going to know his name. After tonight, nobody was going to relegate him to second banana ever again.

  They walked across the uneven basement floor until they were in front of a closed door. “Nothing else worked,” Carlo said as he unlocked the door. “But this can’t lose.” He smiled at Palameri, certain he was going to be thrilled beyond measure, and then he opened the door.

  But as soon as the door flew open, a kid who couldn’t be any more than six-seven-or eight, a cute, biracial-looking kid with thick, curly hair and big, innocent eyes, was wielding a pipe almost as big as he was and swung it at Palameri, grazing him on the arm.

  “Why you little punk!” Palameri yelled as Carlo took the pipe from the little boy’s little ha
nd and pushed him down. Palameri then grabbed the kid and slapped him violently across his small face, the boy’s head snapping backwards, and then Palameri threw him even more violently against the wall in the small, damp room.

  Palameri grabbed his aching arm. He was so angry he could barely contain his rage. “Who the fuck do you think you are, you little ass wipe?”

  But if Palameri thought the child’s failed ambush would force him to cower, he was mistaken. The boy piped up. “I’m Dominic Gabrini, Junior,” he said defiantly. “And my daddy is going to kick your ass when he finds out you slapped me! My daddy is going to put you in a cement grave and stomp on you until the cement dries!”

  Carlo was grinning. The kid had to have heard his old man say something that gangster. But Palameri was stunned. He didn’t hear the threat. He was too busy digesting the name. He looked at Carlo. “Did he just say . . . Did this punk kid just call himself Dominic---”

  “Gabrini, Junior,” Carlo said. “That’s right, boss. You heard him right.”

  Palameri was still shocked. “Are you telling me, are you saying to me that this kid, this kid we have in our possession, that this kid?”

  Carlo was ginning. “It’s his kid. This pipe wielding fool is Reno Gabrini’s son.”

  Now it was Palameri’s time to grin. He looked at Dominic as if he was looking at a million dollars. “I’ll be damned. I’ll be damned, I’ll be damned!”

  Carlo was pleased that Palameri had finally caught up to his excitement. “I told you I did it,” he said. “Didn’t I tell you?”

  But Palameri was too amazed to congratulate anybody. He was shaking his head. “Reno Gabrini’s son. We’ve got Reno Gabrini’s son! We’ve got the bargaining chip of the century---”

  “And for pennies on the dollar,” Carlo added.

  “He wouldn’t give us the time of day.” Palameri’s eyes now displayed a bitterness that ran deep. “He treated us as if we were beneath him. As if he didn’t have time to so much as stand in the same room with the likes of us, or breathe the same air. But now,” Palameri added, his headshake becoming a nod, “we have the upper hand. He has to come to us now. That fucker has to grovel and beg and bow down to us!”

  Then Palameri settled himself back down as the gravity of it struck him in a way that made him feel invincible. He couldn’t believe his good luck.

  “He’ll have to get involved now,” Carlo said. “When people hear what I did, when I finally get the credit I deserve for doing what none of their asses had the balls to do, he’ll have to help us. He won’t have a choice anymore.”

  Palameri agreed. “The war that Reno Gabrini was too good to commence, and refused to help us fight, is now going to be his war, and his fight.” Then he looked at Carlo. “Does he know it’s us?”

  “No. Hell no! I handled it perfectly. Nobody knows.”

  Palameri patted Carlo on his back and then squeezed the back of his neck affectionately. “You did it right this time, boy. You did it this time.” He squeezed the back of Carlo’s neck with one hand, and then, suddenly, the front of his neck, his throat, with the other hand. And all affection was gone. He was no longer congratulating his partner in crime. He was killing him. He was squeezing the life out of Carlo’s body until a stunned shitless Carlo Minatare dropped like a sack of flour in front of Dominic’s bed.

  Dominic shoved his little body back against the wall, horrified. He looked from Carlo’s dead body, back up to Palameri.

  But Palameri didn’t look concerned at all. He looked satisfied. He pulled out a handkerchief and began wiping his hands. “He did it right this time,” he said to Dominic. “But I can’t trust him to keep his mouth shut. He’s not smart enough to know when to shut it. That’s where he was wrong. That’s where he did it wrong.” He smiled at Dommi. “You’re my ace in the hole, boy. Your daddy is going to beg me to release you. When I get finished with Reno Gabrini everything he has, everything he is, everything he would have ever hoped to be is going to be mine. When I get finished,” he said, grinning this time, “your daddy will be finished.” Then Palameri’s smile turned to a cold stare. “I was beneath him. Now I rule his world.”

  Palameri kicked Carlo’s body until it was outside of the room, and then he picked up the pipe Dominic had once wielded. “Be scared, little boy,” he said as he pointed that pipe at him. “Those monsters your mama told you to fear, are right now upon you and there’s nothing you can do about it. Be very scared.” Palameri then laughed, stepped out, and closed and locked the door behind him.

  Dominic’s once defiant face was now a mask of anguish, and his smooth eyebrows were knitted. When they first snatched him, and he realized something terrible was happening, he had promised himself he would never cry no matter what. His daddy told him to never let a bastard see him cry. But that was before he saw a man killed with another man’s bare hands. That was before that killer said he was going to hurt his daddy. Remaining unshaken was too much to ask. He was shaken. He was scared. He broke down.

  “Mommy!” He cried into the darkness. “Daddy!” He cried even louder. “I want my Mom and Dad!”

  But it was only an echo boomeranging right back to his own heart. Because nobody was in that room. Nobody was in that basement. And nobody in Palameri’s spear of influence gave a damn about who or what some child of Reno Gabrini’s wanted. It wasn’t about him. It was all about them.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Four Days Earlier

  “Well, well,” Shaun said with a smile. “Look who just walked into these hallowed halls.”

  Monty looked up from the receipts he had been reviewing, and looked toward the entrance. Trina Gabrini was being escorted to a table. “Yeah, so? She’s a regular.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since forever. Since she bought that clothing store, Champagne’s, around the corner. She comes here a lot.”

  They were in McHale’s restaurant, a quaint joint with a mainly business clientele, sitting at the bar. Shaun Connors looked Trina Gabrini up and down as she made her way to a table across the room from where he and Monty sat. “She’s hot,” he said. “Her ass alone would be worth the price of admission. The man has taste, I’ll give him that. But is she my taste?” Shaun moved his head from side to side, as if his opinion could go either way. “She’s not my usual type, that’s for sure. But I’d love to give her a try. I’d love to see what the great Reno Gabrini finds so alluring about her.”

  “You saw that magazine?” Monty asked him. “Didn’t mention me or you or none of the rest of us. It was all about Reno. They claim Reno’s the most powerful man in Vegas.”

  “Yeah, I heard,” Shaun said, still staring at Trina.

  “We’re businessmen too,” Monty continued. “What makes him more powerful than we are? I own a piece of damn-near five casinos around this town, and I own this restaurant when people want to get away from the noise of the Strip. And you used to own a good chunk of Vegas too, before things went south on you. But they don’t even mention us.”

  “Fuck’em,” Shaun said. “Who the fuck cares about some magazine?” Then he smiled. “What I want to do is give that allure a test.” His look turned hard. “I want to test it.”

  Monty looked at him. “You want to test it? Test what?”

  “All of that power Gabrini supposedly has.”

  Monty smiled. “That’s ridiculous. How do you test a man’s power?”

  “By testing just how much control he has over Mrs. Gabrini,” Shaun said, as he rose from his bar seat. “A man who can’t control his own wife, and her natural lusts, is vulnerable.”

  “Forget about it, Shaunnie,” Monty warned his friend. “A lady like that, you can’t come at her with some lame line. You can’t come at her any kind of way.”

  “I never do,” Shaun said with a wink and a smile as he grabbed his glass of wine, swallowed down the last gulps, then looked at himself in the mirror over the bar. He was a tall, well dressed black man with a bald head and a well-maintained bod. And g
reat looking too, if he had to say so himself. He was also younger than Gabrini by a good decade. Another advantage he intended to exploit. He straightened his tie, buttoned his suit coat, and left the bar.

  Trina was on her iPhone, texting her assistant about a schedule conflict she noticed while reviewing her daily manifest, as Shaun approached her. Because Reno had drilled into her year in and year out about always being aware of her surroundings, she saw him coming when he first started heading her way. Tall, good looking, thinks he’s God’s gift. She knew the type a mile away. He was going to hit on her. Not because she was some sensual magnet that he couldn’t bear to resist, but simply because she was Reno’s woman. For no other reason than that. He wanted to see if he could snatch a piece of what belonged exclusively to Reno. Trina was so accustomed to men trying to use her as the prize in their pissing contest with her husband that she now found them more amusing than annoying.

  Shaun, however, didn’t try to be amusing. He didn’t come with smiles and cute lines or any of the tricks of the trade. He came with a complaint. “Your staff is rude,” he said to her.

  Trina hadn’t expected him to come at her that way. She was surprised, but she wasn’t unguarded. This still could be a con. Just a more sophisticated one. “Excuse me?” she asked.

  Up close, Shaun was even more impressed with her. It wasn’t just her beauty, although she had considerable beauty, but it was her command presence. There was something special about this lady. And, to his surprise, it wasn’t just because she was Reno’s. “You are Katrina Gabrini, yes?”