MOB BOSS 3: LOVE AND RETRIBUTION Page 4

  What, she wondered agonizingly, would Reno do?

  She started shooting. She wasn’t interested in dying today. And she kept shooting, killing first the man with Francine, and then shooting at the man who suddenly turned from Ma Belle and was about to shoot her. She dived and then rolled, to avoid his shots, but he was down, hit by her second bullet.

  “Run, Franny!” she yelled, thinking about Reno, thinking about how he would blame himself when he found out his mother was dead. They weren’t taking his sister too.

  “Run!” she yelled again and Francine did just as she said. But before she could even make it out of the dining room, she was gunned down too. Shot in the back by the man who had followed Trina in the bedroom and was now coming back up the back hall.

  He shot at Trina too, who dived behind the chair, but not before a bullet whizzed past her ear, just missing her, and she knew her nightmare wasn’t anywhere near over yet. She started firing again, hitting him this time, his gun flying from his hand as he fell like a sack of potatoes to the floor.

  “Trina!” Francine cried and Trina crawled to her, thanking God she wasn’t dead. She held Francine in her arms as she pulled out her cell phone to call 911. The part of Trina’s brain still working knew that, given all of the commotion, somebody already had to have surely dialed 911, but she wasn’t taking any chances. Everything seemed so upside down. Where was security, she wondered? Where was Dirty? Where was Reno? She wanted Reno! Tears began to pour from her eyes.

  But just as she thought this nightmare could not possibly have any more twists, it did. The barrel of a gun was placed against the side of her head. She thought there was only one man running down the back hall after her, but now she realized there had been two. And he was locked and loaded and ready to take her away from here.

  “You’re the one we wanted, anyway,” he said. “So drop it and drop it now, bitch.”

  She dropped her gun. And suddenly everything became real to her. Not surreal the way it had been. Real. Belle Gabrini was dead. Francine was shot. She had killed two people. And it was as real as the death that clung to the air.

  Time was real again. It at first felt like this nightmare had been dragging on for two or three hours, only to now realize it was more like two or three minutes. And it was about to end here and now, with her brains splattered all over their beautiful marbled floor.

  And just as she looked down, just as she was thinking about that floor, she heard the gunshot, and it was the loudest of all the shots that had been fired that morning, inside the PaLargio.

  And as blackness overtook her, all she could think about was Reno. And it wasn’t rational anymore. It wasn’t deliberate anymore. It was unreal. It was raw and bare and emotional. Just feelings. Just blackness. Just lifelessness.

  And she found herself praying, as it all shut down, that Reno, of all people, would not be the one to find them.

  THREE

  MarBeth wanted to confront Reno as soon as he boarded the plane in Jersey, but Carmine had already reminded her how Reno was. He wouldn’t tell her anything if she came on too strong. Give him a chance to decompose, Carmine advised, and then go talk to him.

  It took all MarBeth had to heed her husband’s advice, but she heeded it. Her brother was an odd fish and always had been, somebody who everybody turned to because he was the strongest of them all. But that strength came at a price, and often he had to be alone, to come down from whatever height he had just reached, and MarBeth would give him that time.

  Reno was settled in his seat in the back of the private jet for nearly an hour, trying to relax on the flight back home. He had already phoned Trina. She had said that she, Ma, and Francine were doing fine. They were just getting up and would be sitting down to breakfast soon. She was thrilled to know that Reno was heading back, and he was thrilled that soon he would be seeing her face again.

  “Take care of yourself,” he had said to his wife. “And don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

  Trina had laughed. “So if you would do it, then I can do it?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Reno said with a smile. “Let me rephrase what I said. Be a good girl, a nun even, that’s what I mean.”

  “Bye, boy,” Trina had said with a laugh and Reno, laughing too, had killed the call.

  That was an hour ago. MarBeth looked at Carmine.

  “I’m going to talk to him now,” she said. “He should have been decomposed by now.”

  “I don’t know, MarBeth. He looked pretty pissed to me when he got on this plane. You might wanna wait until we land in Vegas.”

  “Land in Vegas?” MarBeth said. “You must be joking! This is my life we’re talking about and I have a right to know what Reno and Vito decided.”

  Carmine’s cell phone began to ring. “If he tells you off, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  MarBeth shook her head, she really had no respect for Carmine, and made her way all the way to the back of the plane.

  Reno had expected her sooner than this, so he wasn’t surprised by her visit. She sat on the seat across from him.

  “What happened, Reno?” she asked. “Did he forgive me?”

  Reno didn’t say anything. But MarBeth wasn’t about to let that be the end of it

  “Reno, did he forgive me?” she asked again.

  Reno hated that whine in her voice. “Yeah,” he said

  “And you believed him?” Again, no response from Reno. “You believed him, Reno?”

  Reno looked his sister dead in the eyes. “No,” he admitted, and she slumped down in her seat.

  Carmine came running to the back of the plane, his face as white as a sheet.

  “What is it?” Reno asked and MarBeth looked too.

  “There’s been a hit,” Carmine said, breathing heavily, his cell phone still in his hand.

  “I knew it!” Reno yelled.

  “Not at Somers Point, Ree,” Carmine said.

  Reno’s heart began to pound, because he knew, if he would allow himself to go there, that there was only one other place. “Where?” he asked.

  “The PaLargio,” Carmine said and Reno jumped from his seat and snatched the phone from Carmine’s hand.

  “Who is this?” Reno asked anxiously into the phone.

  “It’s me, Ritchie.”

  “What the hell’s happened, Dirty?” Reno asked. “Where’s my wife?”

  “They hit us, Ree,” Dirty said, breathing heavily too. “They got Ma. They got your mother---”

  “My mother?” Reno asked, frowning.

  “What about Ma?” MarBeth asked, standing too.

  “What the hell are you talking about, Dirt?” Reno asked.

  “They got her,” Dirty was saying in a crying voice. “The paramedics pronounced her dead on the scene. Ma’s dead, Reno!”

  Reno couldn’t believe it. He started shaking his head. His mother? Dead? Was this fucker out of his mind?

  “That ain’t possible,” Reno irrationally proclaimed. “How can you say that?”

  “Say what, Reno?” MarBeth asked. “What’s happened to Ma and Franny?”

  “She’s dead, Reno,” Dirty said. “I’m telling you she’s dead. She got it right between the eyes.”

  Reno again started shaking his head. “It can’t be.”

  “What can’t be?” MarBeth said anxiously.

  “Ma,” Carmine said to his wife. “She’s dead, MarBeth.”

  MarBeth, too, started shaking her head. “No,” she said. “Noooo!” she screamed. Carmine ran to her, pulled her into his arms.

  “This can’t be happening, Dirt, tell me this isn’t happening.”

  And then he thought about Trina. And his heart suddenly stopped. He held the phone with both hands. “What about my wife?” he asked with a nervous quiver in his voice. “Where’s Tree?”

  “It was so bloody, Reno.”

  “My wife, where’s my wife?” Reno was about to jump out of his own skin.

  “She and Franny were rushed to the hospit
al,” Dirty finally said.

  “But they’re still alive, right?” Reno asked.

  “Yes,” Dirty said, and that one word resuscitated Reno.

  “But it’s bad,” Dirty continued. “Real bad. It was like a bloodbath in that penthouse, Reno.”

  A bloodbath? And his mother was in it? His baby sister? His wife?

  Trina was in that penthouse? Was in that bloodbath?

  Reno lost all control and dropped the phone. He would have fainted, would have died where he stood, had Carmine not released MarBeth, and grabbed him.

  As soon as the doors to the hospital in Vegas flew open and Reno, Carmine and MarBeth hurried through, Dirty came running down the hall. The hospital was overrun with security, but they were men Reno didn’t recognize. He had so many questions about how this could have happened at the PaLargio of all places and how Dirty wasn’t hit when all three of the women were, but those were the least of his concerns right now.

  “They killed Ma, Reno!” the always dramatic Dirty was yelling as he came. “They killed Ma! And Franny’s fighting for her life.”

  “Where’s Tree?” Reno asked.

  This stopped Dirty cold. “Tree?” he asked as if he was offended. “I’m telling you that Ma’s dead and that my wife, your own baby sister, is fighting for her life, and all you can ask about is some Tree? Some black bitch?”

  Reno took his fist, slung it across Dirty’s jaw, and knocked his brother-in-law to his knees.

  “Reno!” MarBeth yelled, getting down to help Dirty. “His wife’s fighting for her life.”

  “That’s the only reason why I didn’t take his,” Reno said. “Now where’s Katrina?” he asked the downed Dirty again.

  “This way, Reno,” Dr. Cabrew, one of Reno’s private physicians, said as he approached the group.

  “Dr. C,” Reno said, relieved to know that he was taking care of Trina, and stepped over Dirty heading toward the doctor.

  “How is she?” Reno was asking as the doctor escorted him down the hall.

  “She’s traumatized, of course, it was quite a scene, Reno. We’ll want to keep her for a few days, run tests and observe her, because she did, at one point, pass out. But she’ll be fine.”

  “Oh, thank God,” Reno said so heartfelt that the doctor glanced at him, to make sure he was going to be all right.

  When they entered the room, and Reno saw that Trina was not only all right but wide awake in bed, looking completely all right, his heart swelled, and he hurried to her.

  “Reno,” she cried, sitting up and reaching her arms out to him as if they would fall off if he didn’t grab them. He hurried to her and grabbed them, and her, into his own arms.

  He pulled back, looking her all over. “Are you really okay, Tree?” he asked.

  “I’m okay, Reno, but Ma and Franny---”

  “I know,” he said, pain all over his face. “Franny’s still hanging in there, though.”

  “She’ll pull through, I know she will.” Then she frowned. “It was a nightmare, Reno. Just terrible. But I thought about you, and what would you do. And that’s how I was able to do it.”

  Reno was smoothing down her hair, still looking her over as if his first perusal might have missed something. “To do what, sweetheart?”

  Trina looked at him, her bright hazel eyes as big as those old Kennedy Fifty Cents. She had that look he always had when he had to go there too. His heart dropped.

  “What did you do, Tree?” he asked her nervously.

  “I had to do it, Reno. I had to shoot three of them.”

  Reno’s heart dropped through his shoe. Trina’s death would have been the worst possible outcome, the absolute worst. This, the fact that she, too, now had blood on her hands, was the second worst.

  Tears came into his eyes.

  “I had no choice, Reno,” she said, tears appearing in hers too. “I know you hate it, I hate it too. But I had no choice.”

  He nodded, pulled her body against his, her head now lying on his chest, his hand on the side of her head. “I know, babe,” he said.

  “It was like it always is with you. They brought the fight to me and I had to fight back. It was kill or be killed. They had already shot Ma Belle.”

  Reno closed his eyes. He grieved for his mother on the plane, but that pain, that ache, was still there.

  Trina continued. “So I ran down the back hall into our bedroom, grabbed your gun, and ran up the front hall. I wanted to get them before they hurt Franny. And I did. I shot both of those guys. But then there was this third guy, the one who had followed me into the bedroom. He shot Franny before I could shoot him. But I did shoot him, I did get him.”

  Then she paused, as if re-living that horror scene all over again. She frowned. “I thought that was it, Reno. I thought he was the last one. But he wasn’t. There was this other guy, came up from behind me. And he put that gun to my head.”

  Reno pulled her back. “To your head? He got that close to you?”

  Trina nodded. “He was going to kill me. I heard him cock the gun, his hand was on that trigger, he was going to take me out like they did Ma, Reno. He said I was the one they wanted anyway.”

  This stunned Reno. “You?” he asked. “He said they were after you?”

  “That’s what he said. He would have killed me, I felt the barrel of that gun, I smelled that barrel. He would have killed me if Tommy wouldn’t have killed him first.”

  Reno wasn’t sure if he heard her right.

  “Tommy showed up,” she said. “And he shot that man. They said I passed out after that.”

  Reno was stumped. What in the world was Tommy Gabrini, his cousin and closest friend, the man he turned to when he left all behind seven months ago, doing at the PaLargio?

  And as soon as he thought about it, as soon as he tried to make some sense out of it, Tommy Gabrini came walking into Trina’s room.

  “Hello, Reno,” he said, and Reno turned around. And there was Tommy, looking his usual dapper self in his always perfectly tailored Italian silk suit and imported dress shoes. His tall, lean, athletic body, and his not-a-strand-out-of-place blondish brown hair that framed his gorgeous face, often made even Reno wonder how a guy could be that freakishly good looking. And the relief that washed over Reno was like a tension breaker. As soon as he saw his cousin it felt as if a load was lifted. It now felt as if he wouldn’t have to bear this unbearable burden alone.

  “Tommy,” he said like an exhale and hurried to him, hugging him. Tears were once again in Reno’s eyes, as he looked at his cousin; as he touched his face, touched his arms.

  “It’s me, Reno,” Tommy said with that rakish smile of his. “Not a ghost.”

  “What are you doing here, man?”

  “My firm does some security work for the college, for UNLV, remember?”

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  “I had a series of meetings over there. When they were done I thought I’d swing by and surprise you and Tree. I had no idea you had gone to Jersey.” Then he smiled again. “I had no idea I would be the one surprised.”

  “Oh, man,” Reno said, looking back at Trina, who still looked stunned. “You just don’t know how wonderful it is that you dropped by. Isn’t this guy something, Tree?” He patted his expensive coat lapel. “You’ve got the knack, boy, you hear me? You’ve got the knack!”

  And Tommy did. Always had a knack for showing up right on time. It was that way when they were younger, it was that way today. But Reno was no idiot, either. He’d considered the possibility. If it had been anybody else coming with that I just happened to be in the neighborhood line, Reno would have been suspicious. But not with Tommy. He trusted Tommy above any man alive.

  Reno sat on the bed beside Trina, looking at her and back at Tommy and they both couldn’t stop smiling. They knew it was forced gaiety. They knew it was their way of suppressing the too-tragic-to-even-think-about major matters, in favor of smiling at the minor ones. But they grabbed that little light in their darkness, in the f
orm of Tommy Gabrini, and grabbed it full throttle.

  And although Tommy didn’t make it there in time for Reno’s mother, and his sister was in seriously bad shape, he had come in time to help Trina.

  And in Reno’s book, if he was honest, and he was, there could not have been a more critical time to come.

  Tommy gladly agreed to stay with Trina while Reno made his way over to ICU to check on Francine. She was hooked up to a ventilator, her head wrapped in bandages, and Reno just stood there, staring at his sister, silently praying for her recovery.

  Dirty, her husband, was seated against the wall, crying uncontrollably, with MarBeth and Carmine holding vigil with him. When Reno finished his prayers he sat beside Dirty and held vigil too. But eventually he looked at his brother-in-law and waited for him to stop crying what Reno saw as nothing more than tears of guilt.

  Dirty eventually turned Reno’s way, but he was still crying. “I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose Franny,” he said.

  “Where were you?” Reno asked pointblank.

  Dirty and MarBeth both looked at Reno. “What?”

  “Where were you,” Reno repeated as if he were sounding out each word. “When this all went down, when your wife was taking a bullet in the head, when my mother was being gunned down like a dog in the street, where the hell were you?”

  But MarBeth quickly objected. “How can you worry about something like that at a time like this, Reno?”

  “Shut the fuck up, MarBeth!” Reno shot back. “I’m talking to Dirty, not you.” Then Reno looked at Dirty again. “Where were you?”

  Dirty swallowed hard, fear in his eyes. “I was in the PaLargio, where you think?”

  “Where in the PaLargio?”

  “What you mean where? In the PaLargio!”

  “The casino?”

  Dirty wanted to hem and haw, he wanted desperately to say no way, but Reno was nobody’s fool. All he had to do was go to the PaLargio and check out the video.