Reno and Son: Don't Mess with Jim (The Mob Boss Series) (17 page)

Fred’s heart started pounding.
 
He looked at Jimmy.
 
“You can’t let him do this, Jimmy.
 
I’m your stepfather for crying out loud!
 
I raised you!
 
I claimed you as my own when he didn’t even want you!
 
You have to stop him!”

Jimmy knew Fred was lying.
 
He knew Reno didn’t know he existed until he
was seventeen years old.
 
But desperate
men always lied.
 
And Fred was reeking of
desperation.
 
And if Jimmy knew his
father, and he did, Fred was right to be afraid.
 

Any other time and Jimmy would have come to
Fred’s rescue.
 
Any other time he would
have tried to convince his father that he couldn’t kill the man who raised
him.
 
But that man had no problem coming
to the Gabrini home and attempting to kill Trina.
 
That man had no problem associating with
people who terrorized Jimmy’s girlfriend and kidnapped her as if she was
nothing more than collateral damage for his own purposes.
 
And Jimmy was tired of it.
 
He was tired of these people gunning for his
father, time and time again, when his father was just trying to live in peace
and harmony and keep his family safe.
 
But they kept coming for him.
 
They kept dredging up all of that past shit and coming for him.
 
And Jimmy had had it.

But Fred was begging now.
 
“You know how he is,” he was saying.
 
“He doesn’t give a damn about you!
 
He kills for the sport of it.
 
He hurts people because he can.
 
But you can’t let him hurt me, Jimmy.
 
You know me!
 
You know what kind of man I am!
 
You have to stop him.”

And Jimmy buckled.
 
He gave in.
 
He took the gun out of his father’s hand.
 
“No, Pop,” he said warily.
 
“This is one dead man you are not going to
have to give penance for.”
 

Then Jimmy turned to Fred and shot him, pointblank,
between the eyes.
 
Reno jumped to his
feet as Fred slouched over, dead on the spot.
 
“This one,” Jimmy said, “is on me.
 
This burden,” he added, “I’m carrying.”

Reno’s heart fell through his shoe.
 
He looked at Fred Ridgeway.
 
Not that he didn’t deserve it.
 
He did.
 
He was the one who would have killed Trina without batting an eye.
 
Reno would have had to take him out.
 
He could not have let that stand.
 
But then Reno looked at his twenty-two year
old son.
 
And he was devastated.
 
Because now, he knew, if he’d never known it
before, that Jimmy was him.
 
That all of
the sins, the pain, the blood that soaked Reno’s hands like an oil slick, was
going to pass on to Jimmy.
 

It was inevitable, Reno knew it was.
 
But he had hoped and dreamed that his son
could somehow stay away from the Gabrini brand.
 
But now he was branded too.
 
Now
James Maxwell Gabrini, better known as Jimmy Mack, was Reno’s son through and
through.

Reno took the gun from Jimmy’s hand.
 
“Get upstairs,” he said.

But Jimmy was still staring at Fred.
 
There might have been regret in Jimmy’s eyes,
but Reno didn’t see it.

“Didn’t you hear me?
 
I said get your ass upstairs.”

“I wanna stay down here with you, Pop.”

“I don’t give a fuck what you wanna do!”
Reno’s heart was breaking.
 
“I said get
upstairs.”

“Why I got to go up there?
 
What am I supposed to do when I get up
there?”

“Comfort your woman.
 
Sleep, eat, drink.
 
I don’t give a fuck!
 
Just get out of here!”

Jimmy knew his father was shielding
him.
 
He knew his father was determined to
not even let his own men know that it was Jimmy who did this deed.
 
But Jimmy did it so Reno wouldn’t have to,
and he didn’t care who knew it.
 
Reno
wasn’t going to bear these burdens alone ever again.
 
He hugged his father, and then he reluctantly
left the dungeon.

Reno dropped down into the chair.
 
He felt as if he had taken that bullet
himself.
 
Jimmy had just killed his own
stepfather.
 
He had just killed the man
who raised him.
 
And this was only the
beginning.
 
It was one thing to knock off
some random guy who did you wrong.
 
That
was terrible enough.
 
But Fred Ridgeway
was family to Jimmy.
 
Jimmy went there
when he didn’t have to go there.
 
Reno
knew this was only the beginning.

And not only that, they had a big-ass problem
on their hands, a problem by the name of Nicky Minnelli.
 
Not because Nicky was some major badass they
couldn’t handle.
 
But because Nicky was a
man Reno trusted and depended on.
 
But if
Ridgeway was to be believed, Nicky was also a man who had sent a killer to
Reno’s front door.
 
He was also a man who
had caused Reno’s son to give up his normal life, and embrace the Gabrini
normal.

This shit just got serious, and nobody knew
it better than Reno.

He didn’t hesitate.

He pulled out his phone, and called Tommy
and Sal.

TWELVE

After looking in on his children, Reno
walked along the corridors of the huge, eerily quiet penthouse, and headed to
his own bedroom.
 
Trina was in bed, and
had finally dozed off, but by the time he showered and got in bed behind her,
she was wide awake once again.

“I thought I told you to get some sleep,”
he said.

“I did get some sleep.”

Reno got under the covers and began moving
his naked body against her.
 
He was
surprised when he felt material against his penis, rather than her naked
body.
 
He frowned.
 
“What’s with the gown?”

“It’s not a gown,” Trina replied, “it’s one
of your shirts.”

“Take it off.”

Trina was already lifting it over her head
and removing it from her now naked body.
 
She tossed it onto a chair.
 
“Better?”

Reno pushed against her, felt her familiar
tight ass, and then placed his dick in that warm slit between her butt
cheeks.
 
“Better,” he said.

“Jimmy and Val okay?
 
Are they still asleep?”

“Yeah, they’re still sleep.”

“While you and Jimmy were downstairs with
Fred,” Trina said, “Val wanted to go home.”

“Not tonight.”

“I told her.
 
I told her you guys needed to get a better
understanding of what was going on first.
 
Then when Jimmy came back, they wanted to go downstairs to his
apartment.
 
But I wouldn’t allow that
either.
 
Where were you anyway, when you
sent Jimmy back up?”

Reno remained downstairs, in the dungeon,
and waited for his men to take away Fred’s body.
 
He didn’t want Jimmy to have to experience
that too.
 
Besides, Val needed him and Reno
needed time to think.

“I was still downstairs,” he said.
 
Then he changed the subject.
 
“I looked in on Dommi and Lexie.
 
They sleep so peacefully, Trina.”

“I know,” Trina said with a smile.
 
“Both of them will sleep through a hurricane,
I’m telling you.”

“I so want them to have peace in their
lives too.
 
I don’t want them to ever
have nights like this.”

Trina didn’t want it either.
 
Lord knows she didn’t.
 
But she also knew they would.
 
They were Gabrinis.
 
They would.

But as they laid there, Trina began to feel
Reno’s uneasiness in a starker light.
 
He
was accustomed to having to make awful decisions, and she was sure Fred
Ridgeway was one of those decisions, but she felt as if there was an even
heavier sense of burden on Reno.
 
A
devastatingly heavier burden.
 
She turned
her body around, so that she could eyeball him, and suddenly they both were
laying on their sides, facing each other.
 
But when Trina saw Reno, she realized just how right she was.
 
He looked as if he’d just lost someone near
and dear to him.

“Reno, what’s wrong?”

As soon as she asked, tears began to well
up in his big, blue eyes.

“Oh, baby, what is it?” Trina was
super-concerned now.
 
Reno rarely showed
tears, but when he did, it always broke Trina’s heart.
 
“Tell me, Ree.
 
What happened?”

Reno looked at her, at her beautiful face,
at her smooth, dark skin.
 
At
her
.
 
“Tommy and Sal’s coming,” he said.

Instead of being warmed by that fact, Trina
felt a sense of dread.
 
If Reno had to
call in his cousins, there was trouble.
 
Major trouble.
 
“You called them?”

“Yep.”

“Because of Nicky Minnelli?”

“Because something’s wrong.”

“Not just a double-cross?”

“No.
 
That’s bad enough, but no.
 
I
can’t say what it is, but I know something’s wrong.”

“What can I do?”

Reno looked at her.
 
“Call your folks and send a plane to get them
to Vegas.
 
I don’t trust anybody but
family right now.
 
Give the nannies some
time off and let your folks and Fran watch the kids.”

“Okay,” Trina said, nodding her head in
agreement, but she knew him.
 
That wasn’t
why he had tears in his eyes.

“Are you going to tell me what else is
bothering you?”

Reno hated to even think about it.
 
But he knew he had to.
 
“Jimmy,” he said, but he couldn’t immediately
continue.
 
The tears began to roll down
his face.
 
Trina placed her hand on the
side of his face, and her touch alone eased the pain.
 
It couldn’t eliminate it, nothing could do
that, but it eased it.
 
“Jimmy did the
job,” he finally said.

But Trina didn’t get it.
 
She frowned.
 
“He did the job?
 
What do you
mean, Reno?”

“Jimmy did the job,” he said again, and
looked at her.
 
“The Fred Ridgeway job.”

And as soon as he said that name, she got
it.
 
She went from a look of puzzlement,
to a look of pain.
 
“
Oh, Reno
.”

“It wasn’t my choice, Tree.
 
I was going to handle it myself.
 
But Jimmy, he . . .”

“He what?”

“He took the gun out of my hand and before
I could even react, he did it himself.
 
He shot Fred Ridgeway, Tree.”

Trina closed her eyes.
 
She opened them again, but the pain was still
there.

“He shot him,” Reno said, comforted that he
always had her to talk to.
 
He needed to
unload.
 
“He said he was doing it for
me.
 
He said he didn’t want me to have to
bear that burden too.
 
I was so
stunned.
 
I was so . . .”

“Oh, baby,” Trina said, and was about to
pull Reno into her arms, but Reno turned onto his back.
 
He refused to be comforted.

“You didn’t fail him, Reno,” she said.

But Reno knew better.
 
“I’m his father.
 
Jimmy is my flesh and blood.
 
If it wasn’t for the fact that he’s linked to
me, he wouldn’t get in these predicaments.
  
And this wasn’t his first time either, Tree.
 
You remember Eddie Dreeson and what happened
there.
 
He let his emotions take control
and he gets crazy with it, Tree.
 
That’s
on me. That shit ain’t on him!
 
I caused
that!
 
The fact that my old man was the
monster he was brought that shit on me, and the fact that I’m who I am is
bringing it on my children.
 
On my son.”

Trina stared at Reno.
 
“So what are you going to do about it?”

Reno shook his head.
 
“It’s on me, Tree,” he said, with anguish in
his voice.

“So it’s on you.
 
What the fuck are you going to do about it
then?”
 
Reno looked at her.
 
Trina was getting angry herself.
 
“You’re the reason, you say.
 
It’s all because of you.
 
So I figure the only answer is for you to
leave us.”

Reno couldn’t believe what he was
hearing.
 
He leaned up on his elbow.
 
“Leave you?”

“That’s the answer, Reno.”
 
Tears welled up in Trina’s eyes.
 
“The only answer is for you to abandon us and
stop being our children’s father.
 
The
way you’re talking you think they’ll be better off without you anyway.
 
You think that’s the answer, don’t you?
 
Well I sure as hell don’t!”

Trina frowned, her heart breaking.
 
But she knew she had to go hard on this.
 
She knew she had to impress it upon
Reno.
 
“We’ll be devastated if you leave
us, Reno!
 
You won’t be making it better,
you’ll be making it worse!
 
We’ll die
without you!
 
You hear me?
 
We love you and we’re proud to be
Gabrinis!
 
So you stop that motherfucking
talk right now.
 
You stop it!
 
You’re my husband and you’re the father of
all of our children.
 
And I’ll kill your
ass myself if you even think about leaving us!”

Reno grabbed Trina and pulled her into his
arms.
 
He kept pulling until he had her
on top of him.
 
He bear-hugged her and
she bear-hugged him and they both sobbed in each other’s arms.
 
This was why he loved her so completely.
 
Not just because she loved him back, but
because she accepted him and his awful background and all of those awful
decisions he always had to make.
 

“Oh, Tree,” he said.

She stopped hugging him and looked at him,
the tears still in her eyes.
 
“Promise me
you’ll never leave us because you think we’re better off without you,
Reno.
 
Promise me.”

Reno smiled a loaded, weary smile, and
moved hair out of Trina’s gorgeous face.
 
“I promise,” he said.
 
“I promise
it’ll take death itself to ever get me away from my family.”

Trina smiled a genuinely happy smile.
 
And hugged him again.

But, of course, Reno wasn’t about to just
let her hug him.
 
He began kissing
her.
 
And the longer she laid naked on
top of him and they kissed, the bigger he became beneath her.
 
And soon he was rubbing her ass, and then
fingering her.
 
And then, as soon as she
was wet enough, he put it in her.

“Leave you,” he said as he began to move
inside of her, “and give up pussy like this?”
 

He kissed her longer and began fucking her
harder, with his dick pushing into her with so many deeper and deeper shoves
that she felt on fire with his love.
 

“Give this up?”

They were both feeling the magnitude of his
strokes.
 
It was urgent now.
 
He was doing her so hard that her little body
was feeling the explosion every time he shoved into her.
 

“Give you up?”
 

He was asking this over and over as he
fucked her; as he kissed her longer and harder.

“Not a chance,” he finally added between
kisses, when she allowed him the privilege to come back up for air.
 

Not a chance.