Mob Boss Eleven- The Wrong One (The Mob Boss Series Book 11) (23 page)

Owen
swallowed hard again.
 
“He wanted to make
sure that the guy who’s going to open up that new hotel across from his
mother’s Bed and Breakfast was so grieved and so torn up by events that he’d
change his mind.
 
He was obsessed with
it.
 
He saw that new hotel as the
beginning of his end for him.
 
He was
certain that if the PaLargio opened, his future plans would be over.
 
And he had big plans for that B & B.
 
Major plans.
 
And he saw the PaLargio as too much competition standing in his
way.
 
He figured he couldn’t kill the
owner.
 
A smart cop could implicate
him.
 
But he could kill the owner’s wife
and get away with it.
 
Especially if he
found somebody else he could pin it on.”
 
Owen was crying now.
 
He could
sense impending doom.
 
“That was the plan
anyway.”

“But
she didn’t die.
 
My wife didn’t die.”

Owen
nodded.
 
“I know.
 
But the plan was for her to die.
 
Joe went to Vegas and rented an apartment
there.
 
He asked around about the owner’s
wife.
 
He followed her.
 
Then he found out she was tight with the
owner of a trucking company, and he was a trucker with a lot of experience, so
he saw it as fate.
 
He saw it as a way to
create a plausible alibi.”

“How
would that give him an alibi?”

“He
can say that the owner of the trucking company hired him to find some
shooters.
 
That she betrayed his
wife.
 
They wouldn’t want him.
 
They’d want the big fish.
 
He asked around and asked around and then he
got an interview, and then he got the job.
 
He was well experienced, so that was easy for him.
 
He knew he had to act before the paperwork on
the new PaLargio was finalized.
 
So he
discovered that the woman was going to a trucking convention, he called in sick
and followed her there.
 
They talked,
although she didn’t realize that he worked for her, and she mentioned the fact
that she was heading to Vegas next.
 
He
asked if she was going to hit the casinos and she said no.
 
She was going to some nightclub called
Scrolls and she was going with the wife of the owner of the PaLargio.
 
Bingo.
 
He felt as if he had just struck gold.
 
Then he followed her to Vegas.
 
He
already had an apartment there.”

“But
how could he point the finger at her?”

“Because
we couldn’t start shooting until she made some kind of movement that he could
claim proved that she was in on it.
 
She
wasn’t in on shit, but we had to wait until she got up to use the restroom, or
did something.
 
Then she bent down, to
pick something up from the floor, and that was when I called it.
 
It was time to strike.
 
So we did our job.
 
We did what Joe paid us to do.”

Reno
nodded his head, and then stood up.
 
Owen, still in pain from that pistol whipping, looked up at Reno.
 
Reno began walking around him.
 
Owen followed his every step.
  
But when Reno continued to walk around him,
he became too anxious to remain silent.

“What
are you doing?” he asked Reno.

“I’m
sparing your life,” Reno said.
 
He walked
around him one more time.
 
And then
another time.
 
“Okay,” he said.
 
“It was spared. Now payment for what you did
to my wife has come due.”

“No!”
Owen screamed as Reno grabbed him by the catch of his shirt and all but dragged
him to the largest washing machine in the Laundromat.
 
He opened the huge door, and despite protests
and struggling from Owen, tossed him inside.
 
Then he slammed the door shut and locked it.

Because
of the round, see-through door of the machine, Reno could see Owen’s body
scrunched in the confined space, and his face pressed hard against the mirrored
door.
 
Then Reno found some detergent,
poured it into the top dispenser, put the money in, and turned the machine on.
 

Owen’s
body began to go around and around and around.
 
The water was filling up.
 
The
suds were coming in force.
 
And Owen was
screaming and kicking and fighting.
 
But
the blades began to cut into him.
 
And
soon, the white of the soapsuds turned red.
 
And then there was no more banging, and no more fight.
 
Because it was over for Owen.

It
was a horrible death.
 

Reno
was not a man who took satisfaction in killing.
 
But he took satisfaction in this.
 
Because he saw Owen’s eyes.
 
Owen
had seen the terror in Trina’s eyes when that first bullet sailed into her body
and he didn’t give a fuck.
 
Now Reno saw
his terror.
 
And he didn’t give a fuck
either.

He
left.
 
The machine began to overflow like
a river of red blood.
 
But Reno didn’t
look back.

Aaron
Grubb got out of his pickup truck with his beer can still in his hand.
 
He didn’t see the rental car because it was
behind his house in the woods.
 
Talk
about seclusion, Sal thought, as he and Tommy sat in that hidden car.
 
But they could see Aaron. They phoned
Reno.
 
Reno’s phone was on vibrate.
 

“He’s
home,” Sal said.

“About
time,” Reno said.

Aaron
stood on the porch of his single-wide, rundown trailer, drank the last of his
beer, and then tossed the can in the yard with the other beer cans in the
yard.
 
Then entered his home.
 
As soon as he turned on the light in the
pitch dark room, Reno greeted him.

Aaron
nearly pissed in his clothes when he saw that he had an intruder, but he had no
time to react.
 
Because Reno gave him no
time.
 
All he needed was for that light
to come on and he could I.D. that face.
 
Owen was the front shooter.
 
He
was the one who argued with Trina and led the massacre.
 
But Aaron was the back shooter and was right
there with him, and even got off more rounds from what Reno could see on that
video.
 
For Owen it was a job.
 
For Aaron it was a sport.
 
He enjoyed it more.

And
Reno had a good time with him.
 
He threw
him to the floor and began kicking him like a dog.
 
Then he got on top of him and began beating
him down.
 
He spared no aggression. He
punched and punched and punched himself into exhaustion.
 
He beat him so decisively that Aaron was
nearly unconscious by the beating alone.
 

Then,
when he had no strength to take another swing, he stood up.
 
And pulled out his gun.
 
“You picked the wrong one, Grubb,” he
said.
 
“The absolute wrong one.”
 

And
then Reno riddled Aaron’s body with bullet holes.
 
Aaron jerked and jerked, fighting against his
own fate, until he had no fight left.
 
And was gone.

Reno
stood there.
 
Staring at Aaron’s lifeless
body.
 
Thinking about how powerful he
must have felt when it was Trina on that floor, fighting for her life, and
almost fading away too.
 
Reno shot him
again, and then again, and then again.
 
As insurance.
 
There would be no
heroics this time. There would be no surgeries that could repair this man.
 
They came to a gunfight with a knife.
 
Sal was right.
 
They were fools.

Reno
stepped over Aaron Grubb, and got out of there too.

When
they returned to Vegas, after notifying the Vegas crew that all of the business
had been handled and the threat was gone, Jimmy and Val returned home.
 
Gemma and Sal returned to their home.
 
And Trina was able to go out onto her bedroom
balcony for the first time since that night, and take in fresh air.

When
Reno and Tommy arrived at the penthouse, Reno found her out there.

He
sat down beside her, and took her hand.
 
Trina continued to stare up into the clouds.
 
It was a nice day.

“I
heard you took care of it,” she said.

“You
heard right,” he said.

“Not
one of those wonderful individuals alive?”

“Not
one,” Reno said.

There
was a time when that would have broken Trina’s heart.
 
Not this time.
 
She nodded. “Good,” she said.

“Grace
wasn’t involved at all.
 
It was all a
scam cooked up by the leader of this ragtag to throw us off.
 
They wanted disruption.”

“Of
course,” Trina said.
 
“Although, in
Grace’s case, they may have succeeded.”

“What
do you mean?”

“Grace
left.”

Reno
looked at her.
 
“She left?”

“She
took the baby and headed back to Seattle.”

Reno
frowned.
 
“But why wouldn’t she wait on Tommy?
 
Jimmy didn’t tell her we were on our way?”

“Yes.
 
He told her.
 
But I believe that’s why she left.”

Reno
let out a harsh exhale.
 
There were
always casualties.
  
The one you
expected, and the ones you never did.
 
“How long ago since she left?” he asked Trina.

“Not
long.
 
She’s probably still at the
airport.”

Reno
jumped up, ran back into the penthouse, down the hall, and into the guestroom
Tommy was sharing with Grace.

Tommy
was standing there.
 
With the letter in
his hand.
 
Reno hurried in, and then
stopped.

“She
wants space,” Tommy said.
 
“She’s asking
for time to think, and to decide.”

“To
decide what?” Reno asked.

Tommy
looked at Reno.

Reno
exhaled.
 
He knew what.
 
Then he remembered.
 
“Tree says she didn’t leave all that long
ago.
 
They may still be at the airport.”

Tommy
looked at Reno and started to run. He started to take off after her and his
child and smother Grace again.
 

But
he couldn’t do it.
 
Not this time.
 
Not with his precious baby girl
involved.
 
Not if he loved them.
 

He
would give her space.
 
Eventually he
would go to her and do everything in his power to make their marriage work and
keep his family intact.
 
But it was going
to take time this time.
 
For the sake of
his wife.
 
For the sake of his
daughter.
 
He was going to have to give
her real, hard time.

EPILOGUE

“On
your march,” Buddy Wellstone said, his hand in the air.
 
“Get set,” he added, as his hand began to
come down.
 
“Go!”

And
they were off.
 
They were in the backyard
of Reno and Trina’s new home in Vegas, a three-acre mansion not far from Sal
and Gemma’s estate, and it was their first Saturday in the new place, and the
inaugural year of the brand new Gabrini Games.

And
the sack race was the first of the games.

Jimmy
and Val, in a sack together, were the fastest out of the gate.
 
They were hopping like they were born to
hop.
 
But Sal and Gemma, in a sack
together, were right on their heels.
 
Trina’s parents were in a sack too, but they were practically walking
rather than running.
 
They had no hope of
winning.
 
They were just happy to be
there.

Trina
and Dommi were hopping in their sack together, but it was obvious they weren’t
going to catch the leaders.
 
But Reno,
with his baby girl Sophia in his arms, and Tommy, with his baby girl Destiny in
his arms, brought up the rear.
 

But
not for long.
 
Their competitiveness came
bursting through and they hopped pass Trina and Dommi as if the twosome was
standing still, causing Trina to scream not fair and Dommi to beg his mother to
run faster.

“You’re
too slow,” he said, with his competitive juices flowing too.

“You
aren’t exactly a bullet yourself,” Trina replied to her son, as she laughed and
hopped and pushed her completely healed body to the max for the first time in
weeks.

 
Jimmy and Val won the race, with Sal and
Gemma a close second, and Tommy a close third.
 
Reno could have competed for third, but when he saw his wife and son
struggling, he eased up and allowed them to pass him. He even waited on his
in-laws, who eventually made it up to him, and allowed them to finish ahead of
him too.
 

It
was an odd feeling to Reno.
 
He was dead
last, and Sal was going to give him grief about it, but because his wife was
her old self again, and he had finally found the kind of home befitting his
beloved family, he felt like the clear winner.

After
the race, they all sat around the picnic tables that the caterers had set up
around the lawn, and feasted on a hearty meal.
 
Reno sat at the head of the table, and Trina sat opposite him, at the
other end of the table.
 
They ate and
laughed and enjoyed the bright Vegas afternoon.
 

Reno
looked at Sal and Gemma.
 
Lucky
bastards.
 
Gemma didn’t have any of the
scars of that hellish night at Scrolls, thanks to that fateful decision she
made to stay home and prepare for her court case, and for that Reno was
grateful.
 
He couldn’t explain it, but he
loved Gemma with a love that was almost as strong as his love for Trina and
Sophia.
 
She was special.
 
And although he’d eat nails before he
admitted it to Sal’s face, he was pleased Sal found her. They made the perfect
couple.
 
And they both deserved a
break.
 
It was temporary.
 
They were Gabrinis after all.
 
But at least their new marriage was off to a
positive start.

Reno
looked at his oldest son.
 
He was laughing
and feeding Val, and Val was laughing and feeding him, and although they had a
rocky start to their marriage, they were doing so much better now.
 
Val was a good girl, despite that little
seductress routine she tried to pull on him, and Jimmy was fortunate to have
her.
 
But they were going to have to work
at staying together.
 
Because even he
could see they had their issues.
 
And
given their youth, it was not going to be easy.
 
But he was praying for them.

And
Tommy.
 
Reno’s eyes wandered to the man
who was his best friend in this world.
 
He and Tommy had an unbreakable bond, and he hated what he was going
through right now.
 
He and Grace were not
on the mend.
 
They were working on it,
and sharing custody of Destiny, but they still had a long way to go.
 

Sometimes
Reno wondered if they would ever get there.
 
Grace wanted out, he believed.
 
The trauma she’d gone through in their short marriage, and that shooting
she endured just after the birth of her first child, spooked her.
 
Reno believed she wanted out, but she didn’t
have the heart to tell Tommy that.
 
Because she knew, like everybody knew, that Tommy still wanted her.
 
And Tommy still believed he was going to keep
her.
 
But to his credit, Reno thought, he
was giving Grace the space to make up her own mind. Once and for all.
 

But
it was ironic to Reno.
 
Of all the
Gabrini women, he always suspected that it would be Val, not Grace, who would
be the one to cave.
 
Simply because Val
was so young and so unaccustomed to their way of life.
 
Grace wasn’t exactly born into this lifestyle
either, but she had been with Tommy long enough to know what to expect.
 
But yet, Val was by her husband’s side and as
happy as a lark.
 
Grace was back in
Seattle, running her company, and making up her mind.

But
speaking of Gabrini women.
 
Reno looked
at Trina.
 
The Gabrini queen mother.
 
His woman.
 
And his heart swelled with love and pride and gratitude.
 
She came so close.
 
The doctors said she came closer than they
could imagine.
 
But she made it through.
 

He
looked at her gorgeous brown face, as it radiated elegance and natural beauty
in the Vegas sun.
 
She wasn’t done
yet.
 
Not on his life.
 
She still had a lot of living and loving and
caring to do, and he was going to make certain she did it in style.
 

She
stood up, with Sophie in her arm, and went behind Dommi’s chair to help him
clean up the food he had just spilled.
 
Reno stared at that curvaceous body he knew so well.
 
He was getting a hard-on just looking at that
body, and thinking about the pleasure it always gave to him.
 
And when she completed assisting Dommi, and
looked up before heading back to her seat, he made eye contact with her.
 
He didn’t make a gesture.
 
He didn’t so much as nod his head.
 
But it was enough.
 
He stood up, and headed into the house.

Trina
handed little Sophie to her mother, and headed in the house too.

“Reno?”
she called out when she entered.
 
When
she got no response, she headed upstairs.
 
At the end of the hall were the double doors of the master suite.
 
She opened those doors.
 
And there was Reno.
 
Naked as a jaybird, and lying on the bed.

Trina
smiled.
 
He had been going easy on her
since her recovery, but she knew that was going to change.
 
She sensed that it was about to change right
now.

“Lock
the door,” he told her.
 
“Dommi will come
knocking soon.”

Trina
locked the door.
 
“Okay, so,” she said
playfully, “what is this about?
 
You
wanted to see me, right?”

“You’d
better get naked and get your ass in this bed,” Reno warned her.
 
“Or else.”

“Or
else what?”

“One,
two, three,” Reno said, slowly counting.

“You
didn’t tell me what you would do if I didn’t obey you.”

“Four,
five.”

“Reno!”

“Six.”

Now
Trina was worried.
 
And she began to take
off her clothes with an auctioneer’s speed.
 
She threw off her blouse and bra, stepping out of her shoes as she did.

 
“Seven, eight.”

She
pulled down her jeans and panties.

“Nine.”

She
stepped out of them with such a swift kick that they went sailing across the
room.
 
And then she sailed to the bed
herself and jumped into it.
 
And on top
of him.

“Ten,”
he said, wrapped his arms around her, and looked at her.
 
He began to rub her behind.
 
“You just saved yourself a very serious ass
whipping,” he said.

Trina
laid her head on his chest.
 
By the way
he was rubbing her ass, she was the one feeling whipped.

Reno
moved one of his hands between her legs and began to massage her.
 
She looked up at him.
 
He kissed her long and lovingly.
 
They closed their eyes and relaxed to the
kiss as the world around them became concentrated in their one room.
 

And
everything slowed down.
 
It was the heart
of the matter for both of them. Reno rubbed her ass, and her back, with one
hand, and continued to massage her internally with the other hand.
 
And their hearts could not have felt more
certain.
 
They were in love, they were in
lust, they were happy.
 
Genuinely
happy.
 
Tomorrow might be tough
again.
 
Tomorrow might bring even greater
challenges for them to face.
 
But they
were going to face them together.
 
And
they felt unbeatable together.

Reno
laid her onto her back, moved down between her legs, and began licking and then
eating her.
 
She closed her eyes and
lifted her chin as she felt the force of his tongue deep within her.
 
Reno had the kind of sensual power that
always reassured her.
 
He was going to
give her the sex of her life.
 
And he
never failed to deliver.

Like
now.
 
He was eating her so hard and
licking her so lovingly that she began to move around on the bed and wrap her
legs around his naked body so tightly that he became immovable.
 

But
that didn’t make him ease up.
 
He pulled
her closer and ate her even harder.
 
She
moaned her feelings because it felt so wonderful, and even though it felt as if
she couldn’t take it, she did.
 
She
wanted it almost as badly as he wanted to give it.
  
And he gave it.
 
Repeatedly. He pulled out all the stops and
put it on her good.
 
Her vagina was red,
and already inflamed, by the time he sat up, and put his dick inside of her.

“
Aaah
!” she said with clenched teeth when
she felt the full force of his penis going in.
 
She grabbed onto him and he grabbed onto her and they made long,
passionate love.
 
Reno’s buttocks were
squeezing hard as he pushed with greater and greater force into her, and her
vagina was encircling his shaft with a tightness that made the friction feel
like fire.
 
His tight ass pushed out and
in, out and in as he fucked her long and hard.
 

Trina
held on, and enjoyed his sex, until crossing over took on an entirely different
meaning.
 
Because she crossed over.
 
Reno took her to the land that time forgot.
 
Time had stood still.
 
Because all she could think about was this
man she had in her arms.
 
This big,
strong, beautiful man who fathered her children, who loved and protected her,
who made her feel as if she was the most beautiful, most desirable, the
luckiest girl in the world.
 

And
she was.
 
When they came, and she felt
that surge of release that always elevated her cum, she knew just how lucky she
was.
 
Just how fortunate.
 

She
was in tears as she held onto Reno Gabrini.
 
The right one.
 
The absolute right
one for her.