Mob Boss 4: Romancing Trina Gabrini (3 page)

“When I slide over to that door and unlock
it,” he whispered in her ear as his father and Vito laughed and talked, “I want
you to run for your life.
 
You can’t tell
anybody what happened here, or they’ll track you down like they said.
 
Just run.”
 
And then he looked into her eyes and mouthed the words, “
I’m sorry
,” with eyes that would have
been touching to Nell.
 
But right now she
couldn’t stand the sight of him.

But when she nodded her head, as if she
accepted his apology and fully understood why he had to do what he was doing to
her, his body betrayed him.
 
To his
horror he came.
 
Right inside of her.
 
His body shuttered as he poured into
her.
 
And he knew it was now or
never.
 
They would be ready to take their
turn.
 
They would be ready to rape her
until she was unconscious, and possibly worse.

He moved fast.
 
He began to shout as if he could hardly contain his joy, all the while
sliding her body toward the exit door.
 
He then, very slyly, unlocked the door as he shouted and continued to
pound her as if he was still in the throes of his cum.
 
His father and Vito, as he had hoped, were
enjoying it, laughing as he pounded her.
 
But as soon as they thought he was in the apex of his enjoyment, Reno
slid his penis out of Nell, kicked open the door, and then pushed her outside.

Nell didn’t hesitate.
 
As soon as she realized she was no longer
confined to the tiny storeroom and was actually outside of the restaurant, she
took off running.
 
She stumbled as she
ran, but she didn’t fall.

“What the fuck!” Paulo yelled and rushed to
the door.
 
He ran out into the alley, his
dick dangling, to see if there was a chance he could catch that black
bitch.
 
But Nell was already gone.

Paulo went back inside and slammed the
door.
 
Vito had already grabbed a crowbar
that was against the wall and had Reno cornered, because he was just as angry
as Paulo.
 
Paulo, however, was worse than
Vito.
 
He was a man many in Jersey
considered the personification of ruthlessness.
 
And the idea that it was his son who had two-timed
him?
 
His own
flesh and blood?
 
Ruthlessness
didn’t fully capture how Paulo really felt.

“You think you’re a bigger man than me, Reno?”
Paulo asked, coming toward his son, his eyes wild with anger.
 
“You think you’re gonna defy me and there be
no retribution?
 
You’re that
got
damn crazy now, Reno? You’re that
got
damn crazy now?”
 

And Paulo cold cocked his son so hard that
Reno’s body buckled and he dropped to his knees. Then Paulo Gabrini, like the
cruel gangster he was known for, began kicking and stomping his own son,
yelling at him for defying him and ruining his good time.
 

Vito tried to stop him.
 
“You’re taking it too far, Paulo!” Vito was
yelling.
 
But Paulo snatched away from
his best friend and continued to beat down his own son.

Then Paulo grabbed the crowbar from Vito’s
hands, fell down on top of Reno, and was just about to slam that piece of iron
across his son’s handsome face.
 
Paulo
was in that zone.
 
There was no reasoning
with him now.

And Reno knew it.
 
He had to fight back. Father or no father, he
couldn’t lay there and let the man kill him.
 
He had to fight back.

As soon as Paulo raised the crowbar over his
head and began to bring it down toward Reno’s face, Reno’s brute strength stopped
Paulo’s arm movement.
 
They
struggled
father and son, but by force of will alone, Reno
was able to flip his father off of him and reverse position.
 
Now Reno was on top of his father, and the
crowbar was in Reno’s hand.
 

And he was ready to kick ass.
 
Reno was so angry all he could see was
red.
 
He was ready to kick his own
father’s ass.
 
He lifted the crowbar over
his head and was about to slam it into his father’s
face
.

But he stopped, with that crowbar in
midair.
 
His powerful, muscular arms were
shaking for control as his veins were exposed.
  
He couldn’t do it.
 
Tears were in
his eyes as he stared down at his father.
 
He wanted to kill him.
 
He wanted
to take him away from this life once and for all. But this was his father.
 
This was the man he loved above any human
being alive.
 
And he couldn’t do it.
  
He couldn’t lay a hand on his own father.

Reno stood up, his legs straddling his
startled father.
 
He wiped the blood that
was trickling from the side of his mouth, and then tossed the crowbar across
the room.
 
It clanged against a shelf
hard, and then hit the floor hard.
 
And
Reno backed up, and then walked out.

“Yeah, you better get your ass back to
Jersey!” his father yelled, as Vito helped him stand.
 
“You’d better get your
ass.
. . back. . .
Reno
!” Paulo
called.
 
He couldn’t lose Reno!
 
He was his eldest, his best boy, the only
human being he ever trusted.
 

“
Reno
!”
he yelled again.
 

But Reno didn’t look back.

Nell left Crane that same night.
 
She packed up her small apartment and went to
live with her grandmother three towns away.
 
She would stay away from her hometown for nearly two years after that
night, until she found out that Paulo Gabrini had left Crane within a month of
her departure, and Mr. Clauson was back in charge.
 

Reno left Crane that same night, too.
 
As he walked out of that supply room he heard
his father ordering him back to Jersey.
 
He heard his father agonizingly calling his name.
 
But Reno kept on walking.
 
He didn’t heed that call.

Instead of catching a plane back home to
Jersey as his father had ordered, Reno took a bus to Vegas.
 
He didn’t have the stomach for the kind of
violence his father was leading him toward.
 
He couldn’t dream of harming somebody just for the sport of it,
especially when they hadn’t done a thing to him.
 
He wasn’t that person and wasn’t going to
become that person.
 
He wasn’t cut out
for the mob life.
 
He saw it even then.
 

That was why he headed to Vegas.
 
It was about time, he decided at the ripe
young age of nineteen, to leave behind the shadow of a father he now hated
almost as profoundly as he loved, and make his own way.

CHAPTER ONE

Seventeen Years Later
   

Reno couldn’t get there fast enough.
 
He couldn’t wait on the elevators in the PaLargio
Ballroom so he took the stairs two at a time, all the way up to the third
floor.
 
He slung open the stairwell door,
ran down the marbled corridor, and entered the suite that had been occupied by,
literally minutes before, ShoShawna Shanks.

“What you mean she’s gone?” he immediately
asked his cousin Sal Luca, who was in the suite.
 
Reno’s wife, Katrina “Trina” Gabrini, along
with the bridesmaids, was in there, too.

“I meant just what I said,” Sal replied.
 
“She’s gone.
 
Split.
 
She took off.
 
Got the hell out of Dodge.
 
She’s gone, Reno.”

“But the wedding’s in ten minutes!
 
What the fuck you mean she’s gone?
 
How could she just walk her crazy ass out of
here and nobody tell me a
got
damn
thing?”

“I called and told you as soon as I found
out,” Sal pointed out.
 
“As soon as I
walked up here and Trina told me, I called you.
 
Trina didn’t call you, I called you.
 
She was too busy trying to call Shanks.”

Reno looked at Trina, who was slated to be the
maid of honor, and that sparkle of excitement that had been in her eyes all
week was gone.
 
And he could just kick
Shanks ass for putting his wife through this.
 
And when Tommy found out.
 
Geez.

He ran his hand through his thick crop of
brown hair and ruffled his expensive hairdo by that one act alone.
 
He then unbuttoned his white tuxedo and
placed his hands on his hips.
 
“Is it
true?” he asked Trina.
 
“Shanks really pulling this bullshit at this late hour?”

Trina ran her hand across her smooth forehead
and batted her eyes.
 
She was so upset
she couldn’t speak right now.
 
She just
nodded her head.

“I don’t believe it,” Reno said, shaking his
own head.
 
“Even with crazy-ass Shanks
pulling this stunt, I don’t believe it.
 
And how could it happen with all you ladies here?
 
You just stood here and let her walk out and
not do a
got
damn thing?”

“And what were we supposed to do?” Winifred,
one of the bridesmaids, unwisely asked.

Reno looked at her.
 
She was a pretty, dark-skinned young lady
with an up-do.
 
“Who the
fuck are
you?” he asked her.

But Winifred didn’t back down.
 
“I’m Shawna’s best friend.
 
Who the
fuck are
you?”

Another bridesmaid, who knew Reno’s
reputation, immediately touched Winifred on the arm.

“You think you’re big and bad?” Reno asked
her.
 
“Think you’re Shanks because you’re
her friend?
 
Think you can go toe to toe
with me?”

“I didn’t say I could go toe to toe with you,”
Winifred replied.
 
“But I can give as
good
as I get.
 
How about that?”

This girl offended Reno on every level.
 
“How about you get the fuck out of my hotel
and get the fuck out now?
 
How about
that?
 
That goes for all of you.
 
Get out.
 
Now!”

The bridesmaids, many of whom knew Reno’s
bombastic rep well, immediately began hurrying for the exit.
 
They couldn’t wait to leave.

When they were gone, Trina’s rising
frustration took spilled.
 
“You didn’t
have to talk to that girl like that.”

“Oh, but she can talk to me any kind of
way?
 
Fuck that girl!
 
I wanna know what’s happened here.
 
Where’s Shanks now?”

“I don’t know.
 
She answered her cell phone once, but she said for me not to call
anymore.
 
She said she couldn’t do
it.
 
And she left.”

Reno began moving around in the luxurious
suite.
 
He was shaking his head.
 
“You should have done something, Tree.”

But this angered Trina more.
 
“Like what was I supposed to do?
 
She’s a grown-ass woman.”

“You should have stopped her.”

“Stopped her?
Oh, really
now?”
 
Trina folded her arms.
 
“And how do you figure I could have done
that?”

“By calling me or calling Tommy!”
Reno yelled.
 
“That’s how!”

“And what were you and Tommy going to do?
 
Tie her up and drag her down to that
altar?
 
You sound like a fool, Reno!”

“Don’t you talk to me that
way.
”

“I’ll talk to you any way I damn well please!”