MOB BOSS 3: LOVE AND RETRIBUTION (15 page)

“Vito, Reno, who else?”

But Reno was shaking his head. “Vito says he had nothing to do with it.”

“And you believed him? What’s the matter, Reno, losing your touch?”

“But why Vito? Because of what happened to Eddie?”

She smiled. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Kidding about what?”

“Reno, tel me you know.”

This girl talked in riddles, he thought. “Know what?”

“About Eddie.”

“What the fuck about Eddie? Get to the point, Marce!”

“You don’t know. I’l be damned. You don’t know.”

“You’re talking in circles, Marcy. I don’t know what?”

“Vito puled a Partanna on you.”

Reno was stumped. He stared at her. “A Partanna? Frank Partanna? What does that dead fucker have to do with this?”

“When Frank pretended that his son was dead so his son could run his underground operation. Remember that? It’s the same with Vito and his son.”

“What? Get the fuck out of here!”

“It’s true! He knew they were going to have that drug drop. The surprise was that MarBeth would pul out a gun, and she was the one who did the shooting. That smal-time hood Joey Laster was

supposed to do the shooting but with blanks in the gun. But that idiot Joey left the gun in the car and MarBeth did the shooting instead. But it was blanks, Reno. MarBeth didn’t kil anybody.”

Reno didn’t know what to even think. He stared.

Marcy laughed. “I figured that out as soon as I heard about Eddie getting iced. I knew it was a scam because of what happened with Partanna. I thought you’d see right through it too.”

“But Vito couldn’t plan a hit that fast after Eddie’s shooting. Not that fast.”

“Why the hel not?”

“What you mean why not? Because he had to breach my security, that’s why not! Because he had to pay off my top people.”

Marcy shook her head. “Reno, Vito Giancarlo breached your security months ago, when that war started with Frank Partanna, didn’t you know that? Your people been his people for months. Al he had to do was say the word. And he had to say it. Word had already gotten out that MarBeth kiled Eddie. He couldn’t let her get away with that without a hit back, or everybody would know it was a Partanna.”

Reno could hardly believe it. Had he been that off base? Had he been outsmarted that badly?

Marcy laughed. “And your dumb ass actualy thought I was the mastermind, that I could have hit the PaLargio.” Her smile left. “I hate your ass, you got that right. But I wasn’t about to be your sacrificial lamb the way our son was.”

Reno didn’t know if she was teling the truth or teling a pack of lies, and the fact that he didn’t know, didn’t have a clue, was a problem.

Reno didn’t know if she was teling the truth or teling a pack of lies, and the fact that he didn’t know, didn’t have a clue, was a problem.

He left the safe room, ordered his men to give her some cash and take her back where they got her from. And then he stood there, both hands in his hair, wondering what in the world was going on here.

NINE

They sat on the patio, Reno and Trina sharing a lounger, and Tommy and Shawna side by side in chairs. Everybody had a drink, except Shawna, and everybody had an opinion on what to make of

Marcy’s claim.

“I’m not buying it,” Trina said. “Eddie Giancarlo not dead? It’s too incredible, Reno.”

“We thought Pags was dead, too,” Shawna reminded her, “but Frank Partanna puled it off. He fooled everybody.”

“But that’s my point,” Trina said. “Everybody saw it before. You can’t pul a stunt like that twice.”

“What do you think, Tommy?” Reno asked him.

Tommy just sat there, his legs crossed, his glass of wine resting on the arm of his chair. Then he exhaled. “We’ve got to talk to Vito.”

Reno nodded. “Agreed.”

“But the question is,” Tommy went on, “is Marcy Davenport a trustworthy individual? That’s the question.”

“Wel is she, Reno?” Shawna asked. “You’re the only one around here with any intimate knowledge of her.”

Tommy glanced at Trina. Trina, however, couldn’t care less about any of Reno’s past romantic entanglements. She knew her worth to him.

“About some things, yeah,” Reno said.

“What about this thing?” Tommy asked. “What about Vito hitting the PaLargio and Eddie not being dead? What about Vito breaching your security months ago? You believe al of that shit?”

“Yes. No. Hel, I don’t know, Tommy,” Reno said, standing up and beginning to move around. “I don’t know. That’s what’s driving me insane. I have to know if what Marcy said was true. I have to be absolutely certain.”

“How can you be absolutely certain?” Shawna asked. “There’s no absolute proof in this game. Is it more likely than not that Vito Giancarlo hit the PaLargio, regardless of whether or not Eddie is alive or dead? I stil say it has to be Vito, since you’re so certain it wasn’t Marcy.”

“It wasn’t Marcy. I looked into her eyes.”

“You looked into her. . .” Shawna shook her head, her irritation showing. “Excuse me, Reno, but what the heck does that mean?”

“Shawnie,” Tommy said.

But Shawna would not back down. “No, I need to know because let’s face it, Reno, your judgment of late hasn’t been al that stelar, I’m sorry but it’s true. And where I come from looking into somebody’s eyes and determining her soul is about as nuts as looking into somebody’s ears and determining her thoughts. Come on, Reno, you looked into her eyes? Seriously?”

“Marcy didn’t hit the PaLargio, al right? She’s been through enough. I’m not taking her through any more wild goose chases because you had a bright idea. I have to be absolutely certain this time, Shanks, and I mean absolutely certain.”

“Then you can forget it,” Shawna said, “because there’s no absolutes here.”

Reno, however, stood firm. “I’m not kiling a man, or ordering a hit on a man, based on a maybe.”

“Then you’re a dead man because they’l kil you on one. Or even less than a maybe.”

“Shawna’s right, Reno,” Trina said.

Reno looked at Trina, surprised. “So you say we hit back? You’re teling me that I should hit Vito?”

“I know you have reservations,” Shawna said.

Reno looked at her. “Reservations? Is that what you cal it? Besides the fact that Vito Giancarlo has the kind of manpower and connections that can crush us, hel yeah I have reservations! If we hit, and this is a big if, I’m not doing this half-cocked like we did with Frank Partanna and Pags. I’ve got to know more. I’ve got to be sure.”

Shawna stood up too and walked over by the rail. She leaned against it. Tommy watched her. She was getting frustrated fast. But not because she disagreed with Reno. She understood he was making sense. But it seemed to Tommy that she just wanted to get this over with. That last job, where her error caused her to take casualties, was haunting her stil.

“Why don’t we just let it die,” Tommy said. “No more bloodshed. Let it be.”

Reno was shaking his head, but Trina spoke up before he could. “He can’t do that,” she said.

Both Reno and Tommy looked at her. “Why not?” Tommy asked.

“Because they kiled his family, his mother no less. You expect him to just forget something like that? Every mobster this side of Jersey wil be gunning for Reno if he doesn’t get Vito.”

“But Vito is big, Tree,” Tommy said. “The kind of hit we can execute isn’t going to cripple an organization like that. He’l hit back. Then what?”

“We aren’t talking about crippling him. We’re talking about taking him out, him and his boy if that fucker is stil alive.”

Reno stared at his wife. She had changed. What he feared most after that attack was coming to past. She was forced to shed blood and now the strangeness of that shedding was beginning to seem less strange to her. His heart plunged.

Tommy, too, was alarmed. He looked at Reno. Reno was stil staring at Trina.

He walked over to her. “Come on, babe,” he said, extending his hand. Trina was surprised that he was ready to cal it a night this early, but she didn’t dispute him. She stood and took his hand.

“Cal Carmine,” Reno said to Tommy. “I want him to get MarBeth here before we make any moves. I think Dirty can handle security for his own wife.”

“But you’re going to make a move?”

Reno looked at his cousin. “They kil your mother, nearly kil your sister, would have kiled your wife,
your
Shawna. What would you do, Tommy?”

Tommy’s heart squeezed at the thought of losing Shawna. “I’l cal Carmine,” he said.

Reno was taking a cel phone cal from Lee Jones by the time they made it into the bedroom. He laid across the bed going over business details regarding the PaLargio while Trina showered and brushed and put on a silk nightgown. Reno didn’t finish his phone conversation, however, until after she had gotten on top of him and straddled him. She smiled, pretended to be riding a horse, as he kiled the cal.

“Ride me, Reno,” she said jokingly.

“I’l ride you al right,” Reno replied half-heartedly. She had on no panties underneath her gown and she knew he was feeling the pressure of her vagina against his stomach, something that always used to get him going. But he seemed unable this time to put aside the fact that a lot of unknowns lay ahead of them.

She stopped bucking. “What’s wrong?” she asked him. “Everything okay at the PaLargio?”

“Yeah, everything’s fine.” Then Reno pinched his temple.

“Then what’s wrong?”

Reno stared at her, placed his hand on her chin and then released it with a playful snatch, although his eyes had no play in them. “I’m a little concerned, Tree.”

“About Vito?”

“About Vito. Of course about Vito. But about you too.”

This surprised Trina. “Me?”

“Yeah, you. Since when you sanction retaliation? You hate that shit.”

“I didn’t say I loved it. I said you couldn’t let Vito or whoever it was get away with it.”

“I can’t alow it, Tree. I can’t alow you to become me.”

A hardness came into Trina’s eyes. “It’s too late for that now, isn’t it?” she said, which surprised Reno. “They put us in this position, Reno.”

“No, they didn’t. They didn’t put us anywhere. They put me in this position, not us. And I’l be the one to get us out of it.”

“We’re in this together.”

“No, we aren’t. I want you to understand that, Tree. No, we aren’t. You’re stil innocent---”

“Innocent? How can I be innocent? I kiled two people, Reno!”

Reno grabbed her by her bare arms. He shook her. “You’re innocent, you hear me? You’re not what you was forced to do. You’re not that and you wil never be that, do you understand me, Tree?”

Tears were in Reno’s eyes. “Tel me you understand that.”

Tears came in Trina’s eyes too, and she nodded, laid her head down on his chest. He wrapped her into his arms.

“I understand,” she said.

And she did.

It was after eleven by the time Tommy made his way up the stairs to his bedroom. He had been on the phone with Sal Luca about his restaurants, and with his security people about numerous other cases, including final preparations for the transporting of Carmine and MarBeth to Seattle. Francine was stil too il to travel, stil in ICU, and therefore it was decided that Dirty, her husband, would stay in Vegas with her. But since MarBeth may stil have a target on her back, and Reno wanted her out of harm’s way, Tommy ordered Carmine to get her safely to Seattle.

Now al Tommy wanted to do was get some sleep.

He changed his mind, however, when he entered his bedroom and saw Shawna lying on top of his bed. She was stark naked, on her stomach, her lithe, toned, beautiful brown body so gorgeous, so

aluring to Tommy that suddenly getting sleep was the last thing he wanted to get.

aluring to Tommy that suddenly getting sleep was the last thing he wanted to get.

He removed his tie as he walked toward the bed. “Hey,” he said.

“What took you so long?” she asked.

Tommy was surprised. He sat on the edge of the bed, stared at her, tried her. “Missed me?” he asked her.

Shawna hesitated. He could see the fear in her eyes. “Yes,” she said.

He smiled, placed his hand on her butt. “I miss you every time you’re away from me.” He began rubbing her in a slow, caressing rub.

She felt a tingle deep within her vagina as he caressed her. “Even after you dumped me?” she asked him.

“I didn’t dump you,” Tommy said, unbuttoning his shirt with his free hand. “I gave you an ultimatum.”

“You gave me an ultimatum, and then you dumped me.”

“I want to give you something else tonight,” he said, his hand sliding between her legs and rubbing against her womanhood. She sighed.

“What do you want to give me?” she asked, barely able to keep her eyes opened.

“My love,” he said and looked at her. Normaly this was the time when she shut down. Any talk of affection turned her off. But not tonight.

“Your love in the form of what? Your dick?”

“That too,” Tommy said, his fingers moving between the lips of her vagina and scratching her there.

She groaned.

“Do you want some dick, Shawnie?” he asked as his fingers slipped deeper inside of her, moistening her with every rub, making her feel the anticipation of the heat as much as the heat itself.

She nodded. “Yes,” she said, her voice a whisper. “I want some dick.”

Tommy stood up, removed his shirt, unbuckled and unzipped his pants, and then stepped out of both his trousers and his briefs.

Shawna looked down, at his long, stiffening rod, at his lean but muscular thighs, at his tanned, athletic body that stil turned her on in ways that sent shivers down her spine. She reached out, and took possession of his penis, and began a slow, gentle massage.

Tommy stood there, as she fondled him. And when she placed his penis into her warm, sweet mouth, that mouth he loved, his penis began to harden to such an extent that he knew he wasn’t going to last much longer.

He got in bed on top of her. She was stil on her stomach as he straddled her. Then he took his engorged dick, rubbed it across her buttocks, and then slipped it, big and hard, into her vagina. His movements were slow and steady as her tightness had him going in but barely out. He squeezed her smal, brown ass as he gyrated her, as he continued to move in and barely out, in and barely out, and she squeezed the sheets of the bed as she felt the intensity. This was Tommy, her gold standard, the man she loved above any other human being, and that fact along made her want to cry.