Reno and Son: Don't Mess with Jim (The Mob Boss Series) (20 page)

“But you said one of your people were
involved?”

“Ridgeway claimed one of my business
partners was the money man behind the whole scheme.”

“Which partner?” Tommy asked.

“Nicky Minnelli.”

“Nicky?” Tommy and Sal said the name in
unison.
 
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
Sal added.
 
“Nicky Minnelli two-timing
you?”

“That’s what Ridgeway claims,” Reno said.

Tommy frowned.
 
“But what would be his motive?”

“Ridgeway says he’s some drug lord.”

“That’s bullshit,” Sal said.
 
“Nicky don’t have the balls to lord it over
anybody!”

“I’m just telling you what the man
said.
 
We got nothing else but what he
said.”

“The same man who pulled a gun on Tree?”
Sal asked.

“One in the same.”

“And I’m sure you took care of one in the
same.”

A stormy look appeared in Reno’s eyes.
 
Sal and Tommy both caught it.
 
“What is it?” Tommy asked.

“He’s been taken care of,” Reno said.

“Yeah, but why are you acting like
something happened?
 
What went wrong?”

“Nothing went wrong,” Jimmy said.
 
“We handled it.”

Sal looked at Jimmy and frowned.
 
“Whatta you mean we handled it?
 
What the fuck you got to do with it?”

“Just don’t worry about it,” Jimmy
said.
 
“I took care of it.”

 
Sal
and Tommy both looked at Reno.
 
Astounded.
 

“Tell me it ain’t true, Reno,” Sal begged.

Reno didn’t want it to be true either.
 
He ran his hands through his hair.

“Are you telling us,” Sal said, still in a
state of disbelief, “that Jimmy . . . that you let Jimmy. . .?”

Reno nodded his head.
 
“It couldn’t be helped.”

“But that was his stepfather,” Tommy said.

“It couldn’t be helped,” Reno said again.

But that only angered Sal more.
 
He jumped up from his seat. “What the fuck do
you mean it couldn’t be helped?” He grabbed Reno and wanted to manhandle him,
but Reno was never so far gone that he would allow another man to handle
him.
 
They grabbed each other and began
to fight so violently that they both crashed into the cocktail table and fell
over it.
 
Val screamed for them to stop,
as Tommy hurried to grab Sal and Jimmy hurried to grab Reno.
 

“How could you allow it, Reno?”
 
Sal was screaming, even as Tommy held him in
his grasp.

“I didn’t allow fuck!
 
It happened before I had a chance to allow
it!
 
You think I wanted it?”

“You should have stopped it.
 
You should have seen it coming and stopped
it!”
 
Sal was enraged.
 
Reno and Tommy both felt the pain.

“It’s not Pop’s fault, Uncle Sal,” Jimmy
was saying.
 
“It was my decision.”

But Jimmy might as well have been
invisible.
 
This was all on Reno, as far
as Sal was concerned.
 
Reno was the man
here.
 
This was on him.
 
“How could you, Reno?
 
How could you let it happen?
 
He’s our future.”
 
Sal was beside himself with anguish.
 
“He’s the one who was going to get out of
this unscathed.
 
Remember that?
 
He’s our future, Reno.
 
Now our future fucked too!”

Trina heard the commotion and came hurrying
up front, tying her bathrobe, and she immediately knew what the fuss was
about.
 
Not because her table was broken,
or Tommy was holding Sal back and Jimmy was holding his father.
 
It was the look of pure shock on Val’s face,
as Val stared at Jimmy, that made Trina know exactly what had just transpired.
 
They found out about Jimmy’s role in Fred Ridgeway’s
death.

She looked to Tommy, the one who was
usually the most level-headed, but he was a goner too.
 
He released Sal and walked to the window,
looking for his own way to escape.
 

FOURTEEN

“Val, wait!” Jimmy hurried out of the
penthouse behind her.
 
He grabbed her arm
just as she was about to step onto the elevator.
 
He pulled her back.
 
The guards guarding the penthouse were in the
hall in force, staring at the two young lovers.

“It’s not what you think,” Jimmy said to
her.

But Val was still too stunned.
 
“He was your stepfather,” she said.
 
“He was the man who raised you.”

Jimmy pulled her further away, out of
earshot of the guards.
 
“I know that,” he
said.
 
“But he was also the man who tried
to kill my mother.
 
He was also the man
who was involved in your kidnapping.
 
What about that man?
 
Am I
supposed to let him walk away scot-free?”

“But your father could have handled it.”

“No,” Jimmy said, shaking his head.
 
“No.
 
Everybody keeps putting those burdens on my Dad.
 
Everybody keeps acting like this shit don’t
affect him, when I know it does.
 
And I’m
tired of it!
 
You were my woman, he was
my stepfather.
 
This was on me.
 
I had to handle this.”

Val frowned.
 
She’d never seen this side of Jimmy.
 
She didn’t know what to think, what to believe,
what to feel!
 
“I’m going home.”

“Not yet, Val.
 
Give us a little more time to figure this
out.
 
Now that my uncles are here---”

But she interrupted him.
 
“I can’t be a part of this, Jimmy.
 
I can’t!”
 
She broke free of his hold.
 
“I
won’t be a part of this.”

Jimmy’s heart dropped.
 
He could feel her resolve.
 
She wanted out and she didn’t care what he
said at this point.
 
She wanted out.
 
“I’ll come with you,” he said.

But she wasn’t interested in that solution
either.
 
“No,” she said firmly.
 
Then she touched his face.
 
“I’ve got to have time to think.
 
I need some time alone . . .
 
I need some time.”

Jimmy knew it would one day come to
this.
 
Decision time.
 
Every woman who ever loved a Gabrini man had
to one day face it.
 
Would the woman stay
with them, or leave them.
 
This was Val’s
decision time.
 
He nodded his head.
 
“Okay,” he said.
 
“But you’ve got to let one of Dad’s men drive
you at least.”

“No,” she said.
 
“I’ll get a cab.
 
I need time alone.
 
I want it.”

“Val.”

“Please, Jimmy.
 
Don’t battle me on this.
 
You said yourself they weren’t after me.
 
They were just trying to get your father’s
attention.
 
And they have his
attention.
 
So keep me out of this.
 
I don’t want any parts of this!”

She was shaking and Jimmy wasn’t sure if it
was from fear, anger, confusion, or all three.
 

“I need time to think,” she continued.
 
“Please respect me enough to leave me alone
right now.”

Jimmy’s heart pounded.
 
He knew how close he was to losing her.
 
If he insisted on her staying with him, or
insisted on him going with her, it would probably tip her over.
 
She’d never come back.
 
“Will you at least phone me later?”

Val nodded.
 
“I will.”
 

Jimmy pulled her into his arms, but he
could feel the distance already.
 
And
then she got on the elevator, and left.

As soon as those elevator doors closed,
Jimmy turned to Emmett, one of Reno’s men.
 
“I want you and one more man to follow her.
  
Wherever she goes, you go.
 
Stick to her like white on rice, but don’t
let her know it.”

But Emmett was resistant.
 
“We take our orders from Reno.
 
What does Reno say?”

Jimmy grabbed the guard and slammed him
against the wall so hard that it took his breath away.
 
He didn’t have time for this!
 
“What do you think he says, motherfucker?
 
Now you follow her!
 
You got it?”

Emmett was as embarrassed as he was
hurt.
 
“Yeah, I got it,” he said.

Jimmy released him.
 
“Anything happens to her,” he added, “and you
may as well put the bullet through your own brain.”

Emmett knew Jimmy meant it too.
 
They always knew he was going to eventually
become just as ruthless as his old man.
 
If not more so.

Emmett looked around at the men on
duty.
 
Because of the complex security
system Reno had in place, there were only a precious few men who had
flexibility and could leave posts as the need arose.
 
So his pickings were slim.
 
“Mike, come with me,” he ordered another
guard, and they both hurried downstairs.

Jimmy exhaled, and reentered the penthouse.

Inside, Trina and Reno were side-by-side
and slouched down on one sofa, with Trina’s head on Reno’s shoulder and Reno’s
arm around Trina’s waist.
 
Sal and Tommy
were seated on the sofa directly across from theirs, with Tommy leaned back,
with his legs crossed, while Sal was leaned forward, with his hands clasped.
 
Jimmy could hear a pin drop when he walked
back in.

Trina looked up.
 
“Where’s Val?”

“She left.”

“She left?” Reno was floored.

“Before everybody jump down my throat,
there was no way she was going to stay.
 
I wanted to take her home.
 
I
insisted on it.
 
But she didn’t want me
to go with her.
 
She said she needed to
be alone and she needed to think.”

“Decision time,” Sal said.

“Right,” Jimmy said.

Reno looked at him.
 
“But you put a man on her.”

Trina looked at Reno.
 
“Why would you need to do that?
 
I thought Fred said they only used her to get
Jimmy involved and to get him in the door.”

“That’s what he said,” Reno agreed, “but
that doesn’t mean we take his word for it.”
 
He looked at Jimmy again.
 
“Did
you put a man on her?”

“Emmett and Mike are on it,” Jimmy said as
he sat in the flanking chair.
 
“They
didn’t want to do it, without consulting you first, but I got the point
across.”

“
You
got the point across?” Trina asked, looking sidelong at Jimmy.
 
“And what point is that?”

Jimmy didn’t hesitate.
 
“I made it clear to them that if I tell them
to do something, it’s as good as Pop telling them to do it.”

Sal and Tommy couldn’t believe their
ears.
 
Did Jimmy just make himself equal
to Reno?
 
Astounded, they looked at their
cousin.
 
Was Reno going to go for
that?
 

But Reno was already staring at his
son.
 
And he knew he had to set him
straight.
 
He was convinced that if Jimmy
ever stopped fearing him, there would be no man alive who could rein him
in.
 
“You did right to insist they
accompany your lady,” he said to Jimmy.
 
“And you were right to let me know about it.
 
But you’re out of your
got
damn mind if you think your word and mine are the same.”

Sal and Tommy exhaled.
 
No
,
they realized.
 
Reno was not going for that
.

“You’re my son,” Reno continued.
 
“You’re my son.”
 
He repeated this with feeling, because he
loved Jimmy with all of his heart.
 
“But
there’s no place on this planet where you’re my equal, Jimmy.
 
Never will that happen.
 
Do you understand me?
 
What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Trina, certain Reno was on the verge of
losing it, touched him on the arm, to calm him down.
 
But Reno was not ready to be comforted.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?”
 
Reno continued.
 
“Just because you iced your step-daddy you
suddenly think you’re my equal?
 
You
suddenly think you’re as big a man as I am?
 
Are you kidding me?
 
It don’t take
balls to kill a man, James.
 
Any
motherfucker walking the streets can ice somebody.
 
It takes balls to know when
not
to kill him!”

Jimmy saw the anger in his father’s eyes,
and it angered him.
 
“What’s with
you?
 
I can’t do anything right in your
eyes.
 
First, I’m a sissy because I’m not
tough enough.
 
So I toughen up. You
wanted me tough, so now I’m tough.
 
Now
you’re saying I’m too tough!
 
What am I
supposed to do, Pop?
 
I’m following in
your footsteps, I thought that was what you wanted.
 
What’s so terrible about that?”

But that lack of understanding was the
point to Reno.
 
“The fact that you don’t
know what’s terrible about it,” he said, “is what’s terrible about it.
 
The fact that any sane human being on the
face of this earth would want to follow in my fucking footsteps is the problem,
Jimmy!”
 
Reno could hardly contain his
emotions, and everybody in the room realized it.
 
“You don’t want to follow a man like me, what
are you talking?
 
You’re better than I’ll
ever be, and I’ll be damned if you’re going to forget that!
 
Because Sal is right.
 
You’re our future.
 
And our future can’t be fucked.
 
It can’t be!”

Jimmy’s heart slammed against his chest
when Reno said that.
 
He felt the impact
of those words.
 
And Sal and Tommy felt
it too.
 
This was a man thing for
them.
 
This was a Gabrini man thing.
 
They were forced to walk unsavory paths.
 
They were forced to have blood on their
hands.
 
They were forced to live lives of
quiet desperation every day since the day they were born.
 

Not Jimmy too.

Trina stood up, unable to bear the
implications.
 
She had two other children
who would someday walk Jimmy’s path.
 
She
had two other children who would someday bear the Gabrini brand. She had two
other children she had to continually pray for and hope for and believe
in.
 
She went to them.
 

And the room, filled with these powerful
men of honor, was weighed down because of that power.

“Val, is that you?” It was her father’s
voice and she was glad to hear such a familiar, wonderfully bland voice.
 
After the kind of awful experience she’d had,
bland was good.
 
Bland was a welcomed
relief.

“What are you doing here?” She closed her
front door and began heading around her foyer with a big smile on her face.
 
But when she saw her father sitting in her
living room, in one of two chairs from her kitchen, with a tall white woman
standing beside him, she stopped in her tracks.
 
The woman, a person she’d never seen before in her life, was holding a
gun to her father’s head.
 
Two other men
were in the room also, and one immediately hurried over and looked out of the
window.
 
Then he shook his head and stood
behind Val.

The woman nodded and the man pushed Val
further into the living room.
 
“Jimmy
didn’t come with you?”

Val was too confused to answer the woman’s
question.

“Did you hear me, child?
 
I said did Jimmy come with you?”

“No,” Val finally responded.
 
“What are you doing?”