Reno and Trina: In the Shadows of Love, Book 12

BOOK: Reno and Trina: In the Shadows of Love, Book 12
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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
and/or her affiliates, including scanning, uploading and downloading at file
sharing and other sites, and distribution of this book by way of the Internet
or any other means, is illegal and strictly prohibited.

 

AUSTIN
BROOK PUBLISHING

 

IT IS ILLEGAL TO UPLOAD THIS BOOK TO ANY FILE SHARING SITE.

IT IS ILLEGAL TO DOWNLOAD THIS BOOK FROM ANY FILE SHARING SITE.

IT IS ILLEGAL TO SELL OR GIVE THIS
eBOOK
TO ANYBODY ELSE

WITHOUT THE WRITTEN CONSENT OF

THE AUTHOR AND AUSTIN BROOK PUBLISHING.

 

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
or imagined for the story’s sake.

 

VISIT

www.mallorymonroebooks.com

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for
more information on all titles.

 
 
 

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

 
 

Visit

www.mallorymonroebooks.com

for
updates and more
information on all of her titles.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER
ONE

CHAPTER
TWO

CHAPTER
THREE

CHAPTER
FOUR

CHAPTER
FIVE

CHAPTER
SIX

CHAPTER
SEVEN

CHAPTER
EIGHT

CHAPTER
NINE

CHAPTER
TEN

CHAPTER
ELEVEN

CHAPTER
TWELVE

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN

CHAPTER
FOURTEEN

CHAPTER
FIFTEEN

CHAPTER
SIXTEEN

CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN

EPILOGUE

 
 
 
 
PROLOGUE
 

“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.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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