Reno and Trina: In the Shadows of Love, Book 12
Read Reno and Trina: In the Shadows of Love, Book 12 Online
Authors: Mallory Monroe
RENO
AND TRINA
IN
THE SHADOWS OF LOVE
(
The Mob Boss Series)
By
MALLORY
MONROE
Copyright©2015
Mallory Monroe
All rights reserved. Any use of the materials
contained in this book without the expressed written consent of the author
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AUSTIN
BROOK PUBLISHING
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This novel is a work of fiction. All
characters are fictitious. Any similarities to anyone living or dead are
completely accidental. The specific mention of known places or venues are
not meant to be exact replicas of those places, but are purposely embellished
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INTERRACIAL
ROMANCE SERIES
BY
BESTSELLING AUTHOR
MALLORY
MONROE:
THE SINATRAS OF JERICHO COUNTY
SERIES IN ORDER:
BIG DADDY SINATRA
THERE WAS A RUTHLESS MAN
BOOK ONE
BIG DADDY SINATRA 2
IF I CAN’T HAVE YOU
BOOK TWO
BIG DADDY SINATRA 3
THE BEST OF MY LOVE
THE PRESIDENT’S GIRLFRIEND
SERIES IN ORDER:
THE PRESIDENT’S GIRLFRIEND
THE PRESIDENT’S GIRLFRIEND 2:
HIS WOMEN AND HIS WIFE
DUTCH AND GINA:
A SCANDAL IS BORN
DUTCH AND GINA:
AFTER THE FALL
DUTCH AND GINA:
THE POWER OF LOVE
DUTCH AND GINA:
THE SINS OF THE FATHERS
DUTCH AND GINA:
WHAT HE DID FOR LOVE
FOR THE LOVE OF GINA
BOOK EIGHT
THE MOB BOSS SERIES
IN ORDER:
ROMANCING THE MOB BOSS
MOB BOSS 2:
THE HEART OF THE MATTER
MOB BOSS 3:
LOVE AND RETRIBUTION
MOB BOSS 4:
ROMANCING TRINA GABRINI
A MOB BOSS CHRISTMAS:
THE PREGNANCY
(Mob Boss 5)
MOB BOSS 6:
THE HEART OF RENO GABRINI
RENO’S GIFT
BOOK 7
RENO GABRINI:
A MAN IN FULL
BOOK 8
RENO AND TRINA:
GETTING BACK TO LOVE
BOOK 9
RENO AND SON:
DON’T MESS WITH JIM
BOOK 10
MOB BOSS ELEVEN
THE WRONG ONE
BOOK 11
THE GABRINI MEN SERIES
IN ORDER:
ROMANCING TOMMY GABRINI
ROMANCING SAL GABRINI
TOMMY GABRINI 2:
A PLACE IN HIS HEART
SAL GABRINI 2:
A WOMAN’S TOUCH
TOMMY GABRINI 3:
GRACE UNDER FIRE
SAL GABRINI 3:
HARD LOVE
SAL GABRINI 4:
I’LL TAKE YOU THERE
TOMMY GABRINI 4:
DAPPER TOM BEGIN AGAIN
SAL
GABRINI 5:
UNTIL YOU COME BACK TO ME
ADDITIONAL BESTSELLING
INTERRACIAL ROMANCE
FROM MALLORY MONROE:
DANIEL’S GIRL (ROMANCING AN OLDER MAN)
ROMANCING MO RYAN
ROMANCING HER PROTECTOR
ROMANCING THE BULLDOG
INTERRACIAL ROMANCE
FROM
BESTSELLING AUTHOR
KATHERINE CACHITORIE:
LOVERS AND TAKERS
LOVING HER SOUL MATE
LOVING THE HEAD MAN
SOME CAME DESPERATE:
A LOVE SAGA
ADDITIONAL BESTSELLING
INTERRACIAL ROMANCE:
A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP
YVONNE THOMAS
AND
BACK TO HONOR:
A REGGIE REYNOLDS
ROMANTIC MYSTERY
JT WATSON
ROMANTIC
FICTION
FROM
AWARD-WINNING
AND
BESTSELLING AUTHOR
TERESA MCCLAIN-WATSON:
DINO AND NIKKI:
AFTER REDEMPTION
AND
AFTER WHAT YOU DID
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“Will you stop
worrying for two minutes?” Carlo was getting annoyed by the constant
doubt.
He said it was big, he said he
wasn’t wasting anybody’s time, but Palameri was still complaining.
“This better
be good, that’s all I have to say about it.
Dragging me down in this dungeon.
This better be good.”
Palameri
followed Carlo down the steep stairs of a damp basement that reeked of wet
clothes and piss.
The sound of running
water, from too many leaks, and the dim lighting made Palameri angry that he
had agreed to come down to this piss hole without removing his expensive shoes
first.
But he was down there now.
“Interrupting
my dinner,” he continued to complain.
“Do you realize who’s waiting for me at this very hour?”
Carlo didn’t
have to guess.
“A dame,” he said confidently.
“Who else?”
“A beautiful
dame.
That’s what you fail to
understand.
A beautiful, ready, willing
and able dame.
This shit better be
good.”
Carlo was
fuming as they made it down the stairs.
He couldn’t wait to show that asshole how good it was.
He was on the lowest rung of the totem pole,
nothing more than a doorkeeper if you asked him, while Palameri got to have his
name on all of their businesses and got to play the boss.
But after tonight they were going to know his
name.
After tonight, nobody was going to
relegate him to second banana ever again.
They walked
across the uneven basement floor until they were in front of a closed
door.
“Nothing else worked,” Carlo said
as he unlocked the door.
“But this can’t
lose.”
He smiled at Palameri, certain he
was going to be thrilled beyond measure, and then he opened the door.
But as soon
as the door flew open, a kid who couldn’t be any more than six-seven-or eight,
a cute, biracial-looking kid with thick, curly hair and big, innocent eyes, was
wielding a pipe almost as big as he was and swung it at Palameri, grazing him
on the arm.
“Why you
little punk!” Palameri yelled as Carlo took the pipe from the little boy’s
little hand and pushed him down.
Palameri then grabbed the kid and slapped him violently across his small
face, the boy’s head snapping backwards, and then Palameri threw him even more
violently against the wall in the small, damp room.
Palameri
grabbed his aching arm.
He was so angry
he could barely contain his rage.
“Who
the fuck do you think you are, you little ass wipe?”
But if
Palameri thought the child’s failed ambush would force him to cower, he was
mistaken.
The boy piped up.
“I’m Dominic Gabrini, Junior,” he said
defiantly.
“And my daddy is going to
kick your ass when he finds out you slapped me!
My daddy is going to put you in a cement grave and stomp on you until
the cement dries!”
Carlo was
grinning.
The kid had to have heard his
old man say something that gangster.
But
Palameri was stunned.
He didn’t hear the
threat.
He was too busy digesting the
name.
He looked at Carlo.
“Did he just say . . . Did this punk kid just
call himself Dominic---”
“Gabrini,
Junior,” Carlo said.
“That’s right,
boss.
You heard him right.”
Palameri was
still shocked.
“Are you telling me, are
you saying to me that this kid, this kid we have in our possession, that this
kid?”
Carlo was
ginning.
“It’s his kid.
This pipe wielding fool is Reno Gabrini’s
son.”
Now it was
Palameri’s time to grin.
He looked at
Dominic as if he was looking at a million dollars.
“I’ll be damned.
I’ll be damned, I’ll be damned!”
Carlo was
pleased that Palameri had finally caught up to his excitement.
“I told you I did it,” he said.
“Didn’t I tell you?”
But Palameri
was too amazed to congratulate anybody.
He was shaking his head.
“Reno
Gabrini’s son.
We’ve got Reno Gabrini’s
son!
We’ve got the bargaining chip of
the century---”
“And for
pennies on the dollar,” Carlo added.
“He wouldn’t
give us the time of day.”
Palameri’s
eyes now displayed a bitterness that ran deep.
“He treated us as if we were beneath him.
As if he didn’t have time to so much as stand
in the same room with the likes of us, or breathe the same air.
But now,” Palameri added, his headshake
becoming a nod, “we have the upper hand.
He has to come to us now.
That
fucker has to grovel and beg and bow down to us!”
Then
Palameri settled himself back down as the gravity of it struck him in a way
that made him feel invincible.
He
couldn’t believe his good luck.
“He’ll have
to get involved now,” Carlo said.
“When
people hear what I did, when I finally get the credit I deserve for doing what
none of their asses had the balls to do, he’ll have to help us.
He won’t have a choice anymore.”
Palameri
agreed.
“The war that Reno Gabrini was
too good to commence, and refused to help us fight, is now going to be his war,
and his fight.”
Then he looked at
Carlo.
“Does he know it’s us?”
“No.
Hell no!
I handled it perfectly.
Nobody
knows.”
Palameri
patted Carlo on his back and then squeezed the back of his neck
affectionately.
“You did it right this
time, boy.
You did it this time.”
He squeezed the back of Carlo’s neck with one
hand, and then, suddenly, the front of his neck, his throat, with the other
hand.
And all affection was gone.
He was no longer congratulating his partner
in crime.
He was killing him.
He was squeezing the life out of Carlo’s body
until a stunned shitless Carlo Minatare dropped like a sack of flour in front
of Dominic’s bed.
Dominic shoved
his little body back against the wall, horrified.
He looked from Carlo’s dead body, back up to
Palameri.
But Palameri
didn’t look concerned at all.
He looked
satisfied.
He pulled out a handkerchief
and began wiping his hands.
“He did it
right this time,” he said to Dominic.
“But I can’t trust him to keep his mouth shut.
He’s not smart enough to know when to shut
it.
That’s where he was wrong.
That’s where he did it wrong.”
He smiled at Dommi.
“You’re my ace in the hole, boy.
Your daddy is going to beg me to release
you.
When I get finished with Reno
Gabrini everything he has, everything he is, everything he would have ever
hoped to be is going to be mine.
When I get
finished,” he said, grinning this time, “your daddy will be finished.”
Then Palameri’s smile turned to a cold
stare.
“I was beneath him.
Now I rule his world.”
Palameri
kicked Carlo’s body until it was outside of the room, and then he picked up the
pipe Dominic had once wielded.
“Be
scared, little boy,” he said as he pointed that pipe at him.
“Those monsters your mama told you to fear,
are right now upon you and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Be very scared.”
Palameri then laughed, stepped out, and
closed and locked the door behind him.
Dominic’s
once defiant face was now a mask of anguish, and his smooth eyebrows were
knitted.
When they first snatched him,
and he realized something terrible was happening, he had promised himself he
would never cry no matter what.
His
daddy told him to never let a bastard see him cry.
But that was before he saw a man killed with
another man’s bare hands.
That was
before that killer said he was going to hurt his daddy.
Remaining unshaken was too much to ask.
He was shaken.
He was scared.
He broke down.
“
Mommy
!”
He
cried into the
darkness.
“
Daddy
!”
He cried even
louder.
“I want my Mom and Dad!”
But it was
only an echo boomeranging right back to his own heart.
Because nobody was in that room.
Nobody was in that basement.
And nobody in Palameri’s spear of influence
gave a damn about who or what some child of Reno Gabrini’s wanted.
It wasn’t about him.
It was all about them.
