MOB BOSS 3: LOVE AND RETRIBUTION Page 3

  “They’re both waiting for you.”

  Trina’s heart dropped. Because she knew this was just the beginning. She looked at Reno. The anguish in her eyes broke his heart.

  “Go to the ballroom, Carmine,” he ordered. “Get a hold of Dirty and also tell Lee Jones I want to see him. Bring them both here.”

  Carmine glanced at Trina. He hated pulling Reno in like this, he hated it, but what did she expect him to do? He left.

  Reno walked up to Trina, placed his hands on her toned, bare arms. She was already shaking her head.

  “You can’t, Reno.”

  “I have to, Tree,” he said, his heart filled with as much despair as her eyes displayed. “I don’t have a choice, sweetheart. She’s my sister. She’s in trouble. What else am I gonna do?”

  “But she shot Vito Giancarlo’s son. He’s not going to let somebody kill his child and there be no retribution.”

  Reno began rubbing her arms. “I know. That’s why I’ve got to go to him--”

  “No, Reno--”

  “I have to, Tree. I’ve got to go to him and beg that man’s forgiveness. I’ve got to do it for my sister’s sake.”

  “And if he wants blood for blood?”

  Reno’s chest heaved in and out. He could hardly believe he was being forced down this road again. “I can’t let it be my sister’s blood,” he said.

  Trina’s heart fell through her shoe. Because she knew he’d do it. Reno Gabrini would sacrifice his own life to save his sister. He’d leave this earth today if it meant his family would be spared. She desperately hated and desperately loved that quality about Reno.

  Tears filled her eyes. “I’m going with you,” she said.

  But Reno was already shaking his head. “You know better than that. I need you to stay right here, Tree, with Ma and Franny. I need you to be strong for me.” His eyes glistened. He looked at her arms, and then back into her eyes. “I’ll leave Dirty here, to supervise and beef up security, and I’ll tell Lee to keep his eyes wide open too. But I’m counting on you, Tree. To be strong. Will you do that for me?”

  Tears dropped down her cheeks. She angrily wiped them away. “It’s so unfair, Reno,” she cried. “It’s so not fair!”

  Reno pulled her violently into his arms, his eyes tightly shut as he held her. What did they want from him! Just two weeks back and shit like this goes down? He could hardly contain his rage, his despair. But he had to. For Trina.

  He pulled back from her, his hands still gripping her arms.

  Trina rubbed her hand across the lapel of his robe. “I’ll let you go this time,” she said, tears falling anew, “but you’d better come back to me, Dominic Gabrini. I’ll kill you if you don’t.”

  Reno smiled. Wiped away her tears with his thumb. “I’ll be back,” he said in his best Schwarzenegger imitation. And then his look turned serious. He lifted her chin, looked her dead in the eyes. “I’ll be back, Katrina,” he promised.

  And she smiled, as if his saying it made it so.

  She fell, once again, into his warm, strong, powerful arms.

  He would be back, she decided.

  Because he had to.

  TWO

  The next morning, the limo carrying Reno and Carmine drove through the electronic gates of the family compound in Somers Point, New Jersey. When the limo stopped at the steps, however, Reno just sat there.

  Carmine looked at him. “What is it?” he asked. “She’s waiting inside.”

  “Bring her here,” Reno ordered.

  “Here? In the car?”

  “Bring her here,” Reno said again. “Along with the boyfriend.”

  Carmine didn’t understand why. Did he think the house was bugged or something? But Reno was the boss. He got out, and went inside to get the twosome.

  Reno picked up the car phone, called Luigi Drago, an east coast mob boss everybody called the Drag. Because he was one of Vito Giancarlo’s closest friends, Reno was using him as a go-between.

  “Tell me something good, Drag,” Reno said into the phone.

  “I talked to him Dominic. He’s upset obviously. Man just lost his son.”

  Reno closed his eyes. He’d lost a child before too. But he couldn’t dwell on the tragedy of it. He had his sister to think about. “What did he say?” he asked him.

  Drago sighed. “He’ll meet with you.”

  Reno sighed relief. “Thank God.”

  “He doesn’t blame you. Of course he’ll meet with you.”

  “And what about my sister?”

  “What about the woman who murdered his son?”

  Reno’s jaw tightened. “Yes.”

  “He wants to see her too. He’s her godfather. He’ll forgive her, Reno.”

  “I can’t take that chance, Drag. I can’t expose my sister like that. I’ll come see him on her behalf. And if he feels a need to exact his revenge on me, then so be it. But I don’t want a hair on MarBeth’s head touched.”

  “He’s her godfather, Reno, same as yours. We’ll have to hope that connection will be enough. He’s waiting for you, Reno. Take care.”

  “Yeah, thanks, Drag.” And Reno killed the call.

  When he looked toward the house, he saw MarBeth and Joey Laster headed down the steps, with Carmine following behind them. How Carmine could put up with that shit was a mystery to Reno. Some guy touch his wife and be sleeping around with his wife was a dead man. Plain and simple. But Carmine allowed it and was now walking behind his wife and her boyfriend as if he was the third wheel. Him. Not boyfriend. Him. It sickened Reno just looking at it.

  And that damn MarBeth, Reno thought as she piled into the car and sat across from him. She looked haggard to Reno, as if she’d aged ten years in a day, and her good looks, which were debatable to begin with, were gone.

  Joey Laster sat next to MarBeth, while Carmine, amazingly to Reno, sat next to Reno. If this was love, as Carmine had claimed was his motivation, then Reno wanted no parts of it.

  But before Reno could say a word, MarBeth, known for her big mouth, beat him to the punch. “I know you hate me right now, Reno, I know you do. But it’s not like you think. It was self-defense, I declare it was.”

  “MarBeth?” Reno said calmly, doing all he could to maintain his cool, but his sister kept going.

  “He was going to kill Joey, wasn’t he, Joe? He had the gun and he had that gun locked and loaded and ready to blow Joey’s head off, I declare he did. Oh, you should have seen it, Reno, it was like out of a movie.”

  “MarBeth?” Reno tried again.

  “I didn’t know it was Vito Giancarlo’s son. I didn’t even know he had a son. I mean, I knew he had one, but I never knew he was out here selling drugs and doing all that crazy stuff he was doing. I didn’t---”

  “MarBeth,” Reno said angrily this time, “I’m this close to slapping the shit out of you so shut the fuck up!”

  MarBeth jumped defensive. “You look here, Reno Gabrini,” she shot back. “Carmine and Dirty might let you talk to them that way, but you won’t talk to me like that. I told you it was self-defense. What more you want me to say?”

  “Tell it to Vito, all right? Walk your cheating motherfucking ass up to Vito Giancarlo and tell him you’re sorry you murdered his child but it was self-defense. See how far that gets you.”

  And just like that, MarBeth changed. Tears came to her big, blue eyes. “What are we going to do, Reno? Joey says they wanna kill me. He says they wanna shoot me down like a dog in the streets, Reno.”

  Although she infuriated him no end, Reno’s heart went out to his sister. “You fucked up, Mar,” he admitted. “But I’ll see what I can do.”

  MarBeth was hopeful. “You’re going to go see him, Reno? He’ll forgive you anything. If you tell him it was self-defense, he’ll believe you. If you tell him I had no choice but to defend myself---”

  “Who is this?” Reno asked her, his eyes riveted on Joey Laster.

  “Who? What?” MarBeth asked. She was so caught up in her own calamity
that she didn’t realize Reno had moved on. “Oh. This Joey, Reno.”

  “Your boyfriend?” Reno asked, unable to hide his disgust.

  “He’s a friend of mine,” MarBeth replied, glancing at Carmine.

  “What’s your problem,” Reno asked Joey, “selling drugs to little kids?”

  “I don’t,” Joey started, but Reno cut him off.

  “Beat it,” Reno said.

  “Whatta ya’ mean ‘beat it,’ Reno? He’s with me.”

  “Not anymore, he’s not. Beat it,” Reno repeated. Carmine leaned over and opened the door.

  Joey was floored. “But I thought. . . I thought you were going to provide the protection for us.”

  “Who the hell is us?” Reno snapped. “I protect my sister and my sister only. Your ass is on your own. Now beat it.”

  Terror gripped the young man. “But I can tell,” he said. “I can go to the cops and tell what happened.”

  Reno looked at him. “Not if you like your legs and arms and eyes and brain. If you don’t care for those particular body parts then fine, go to the authorities. If you care to keep those particular body parts with yourself, then you’d better zip it and keep it zipped.”

  Joey stared at Reno. He knew about Reno Gabrini. He knew he wasn’t the man you wanted to cross. He got out of the car.

  “Joey, wait!” MarBeth screamed but Joey wasn’t thinking about her. He was running for the gate.

  MarBeth looked at her brother. “Asshole,” she said.

  “Keep her in the car,” Reno said to Carmine. “Take her straight to the airport, get her on our private plane. If Vito is gonna do a hit it’ll be here at this compound and it’ll be during my meeting with him.”

  Carmine looked at him. “So you think he’s gonna retaliate?”

  Reno exhaled. “If I know Vito, and I do, I’d say yeah. You can depend on it.” He glanced at MarBeth. Loved and hated her all at once. But she was his sister, his responsibility. “Keep her safe, Carmine,” he said, and got out of the car.

  As Reno got out of the car, a second limo pulled up behind the first. The chauffeur, who was also one of Reno’s bodyguards, got out, opened the back passenger door, and Reno got in. Carmine closed the door of the first limousine and looked at MarBeth. Bitterness was in his eyes.

  “I hope you’re happy now. Got your brother involved. This shit can kill him, can destroy him all over again. But you don’t care.”

  MarBeth looked out of the window, her face as blank as her good judgment. “Got that right,” she said.

  Carmine frowned. “I don’t believe you, MarBeth. You have the nerve to be upset with Reno? Why? Why would you be upset with a man who came all this way to help your sorry ass? He didn’t have to come. He could have said to hell with your foolishness and let Vito take care of you. So why in the world would you be angry at him? Because he kicked your boy toy to the curb? Is that it?”

  MarBeth didn’t respond, but by that cloudy look that suddenly came over her already drained face, Carmine knew he had hit a nerve. But he also knew MarBeth. She was no sucker for love. She wasn’t going to be all torn up because another one of her boyfriends was shown the door. Something else was going on here. He couldn’t say what, but something on a far deeper level was at work here. And it hurt him to his core.

  He stared at his wife, couldn’t take his eyes off of her, as the limo pulled off and made the fast trek to the airport.

  Something was wrong. Reno felt it as soon as he entered Vito Giancarlo’s study and saw the big man sitting on the leather couch. Reno walked over, sat beside him. He looked awful to Reno, as a man in mourning should, but he also looked enraged. Reno could see it just beneath the surface of that bulldog, jowly face of his.

  “Hello, Reno.”

  “Hello, Godfather.” Reno almost never called him by that name. Mainly because he didn’t really respect Vito Giancarlo. But also because if he had had a say in the matter, he would have never chosen a man like that to be any godfather of his. But on a morning like this, he was depending on that very connection.

  “I take it you came to offer your condolences.”

  “It’s an awful thing,” Reno said, refusing to lie. Eddie Giancarlo was bad news from way back, a street level drug dealer, and the world, not to mention all of the kids’ lives he ruined, was better off without him. But Reno was no cold-blooded mobster. He believed in God for crying out loud. Yet times like these he felt cold. As cold, as heartless, as ice.

  Vito, however, was praising his son. “Eddie, he was a good kid, you know? Behind all of that rough exterior, all of the drugs and hookers, which I never condoned – you know that, Reno. But he was a good kid.” Vito looked up at Reno with a surprisingly vulnerable look, as if he wanted Reno to confirm it too.

  “Whether he was a good kid or a bad kid, Vito,” Reno said, “he was your kid. And it’s just awful what happened.”

  Vito looked at Reno a few seconds longer, with an odd look that could have been hate or something worst, before he nodded. “Yeah. Awful.”

  Reno waited for Vito to bring up MarBeth. When he didn’t, he decided to get to the point himself. “MarBeth didn’t know it was Eddie, Vito. She thought she was defending her friend.” And then Reno added: “When Eddie pulled the gun.”

  “She says he pulled a gun,” Vito replied, “but that’s not what I’m hearing.”

  “Come on, Vito. MarBeth wouldn’t have iced your son for no reason, now you know that. She didn’t know it was him.”

  “What you jumping all over me for? I didn’t say she did know. I’m grieving here, Reno, and excuse me if I don’t give a fuck what MarBeth knew or didn’t know. My boy’s gone. My child, Reno! That’s all I know.”

  Reno exhaled, nodded his head. “It’s awful, Vito.”

  Vito settled back down. “What you want from me, Reno?”

  “I want hands off MarBeth. I want to beg your forgiveness---”

  “Ah, beg, what you mean beg? You’re my godson. MarBeth is my goddaughter. No godson of mine will beg any man!” He settled down again. “Where’s MarBeth? Why isn’t she here, Reno? She’s afraid of me?”

  “No,” Reno said. “But I am.” He looked at Vito.

  Vito frowned. Looked at Reno. “You are? What are you talking, Reno? How can you say something like that to me? I knew you when you were first born, how can you fix your mouth to say something like that to me?”

  “I need your assurance, Vito, that my sister, who is my responsibility now that Pop’s gone, will not be touched for what happened. It was awful, and I’m sorry, but I can’t let you harm my sister.”

  “MarBeth is a big mouth and a general pain in the ass, you know that Reno. But she’s my goddaughter. I don’t go around putting hits on my godchildren. MarBeth is safe.”

  Although Reno closed his eyes in relief, although he and Vito hugged in solidarity, as if it was all settled now, Reno left the Giancarlo compound feeling oddly unsettled. Something wasn’t right. He still felt it in his bones. Vito was going to hit the family compound, if he hadn’t hit it already.

  He jumped in his limo and told his chauffeur/bodyguard to floor it. He wanted to get to that plane and get himself and MarBeth as far away from Jersey and Vito Giancarlo as quickly as they could fly away.

  “Want more eggs, Ma?” Trina asked Belle Gabrini as they sat around the dining room table in the PaLargio’s penthouse, and ate breakfast. Francine was also at the table, but she was too hung over to eat.

  “I hate eggs,” Belle said as she ate the last of the eggs on her plate. “But I love eggs,” she added. Trina smiled, she was by now well acquainted with Belle’s dementia. Francine, however, who was drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette, rolled her eyes.

  “Want some more?” Trina asked her mother-in-law.

  “I want Dominic. Where’s Dominic?”

  “He had to go to Jersey, Ma,” Trina said, “but he’s on his way back. He called me from the plane.”

  “The plane? What plane? You’re the h
azel-eyed one, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Then Belle Gabrini frowned. “I want Ritchie. Where’s Ritchie? They call him Dirty, that’s not his name. Why they call him Dirty?”

  Trina looked at Francine. “Where’s Dirty, Franny?”

  Francine looked at Trina as if she smelled something acrid. “How should I know? Probably still in the casino gambling. That’s all he’s good for anyway.”

  “He’s not here, Ma,” Trina said.

  And then the front entrance into the penthouse opened and men, all with guns, began to rush in. And all three ladies reacted differently: Francine dove under the table. Trina hurried to grab her mother-in-law and sling her under the table too, but a bullet that could have been meant of Trina, hit Belle Gabrini before Trina could reach her. As soon as Trina saw Belle immediately slumped over, she ran.

  She ran into the kitchen, down the long, back hall that led into the back entrance of the master bedroom. She heard one man yelling to “get her,” and she heard footsteps running up the back hall. Her heart was hammering, her mind was attempting to shut down, but she knew she had to survive. These men just put a bullet through the head of Reno Gabrini’s own mother, so she knew what they were capable of doing to her.

  She reached into the nightstand drawer, pulled out Reno’s Glock revolver, and took off through the bedroom’s front entrance, down the front hall, and toward the livingroom/dining room area. All she could think about was getting Francine from under that table and getting the hell out of there. Just the thought of Ma Belle had her in a state of panic, and made her want to forget the danger, but she knew she couldn’t forget it. They killed Reno’s mother. They weren’t about to spare her.

  As soon as she ran into the livingroom, pointing the gun down toward the floor with both hands on the pistol, she saw two of the men in the dining area. One was dragging an hysterical Francine from under the table and the other one was making sure Ma Belle was dead. She heard that one say, “gotta get her,” as he checked her pulse. And just like that she understood what she faced. She hadn’t fired a gun in years, not since she managed a nightclub in her hometown of Dale, Mississippi and was forced to carry heat, and only then she fired it at a shooting range. But there was no longer any options. It was kill or be killed.