Reno Gabrini: A Family Affair (8 page)

“Those are the shortened versions,” Chap said.
 
“I have the complete editions too.
 
You can have them all, complete with the date
and time sequence, for two hundred thou.”

Jimmy frowned.
 
“Are you crazy? I don’t have that kind of dough!”

“But your old man does,” Chap quickly retorted.
 
“And you are going to get it for me, Jimmy
Mack.
 
Because, guess what?
 
I’ll not only go to your wife: she’s
beautiful, by the way.
 
But I’ll go to
your old man himself.
 
He may not take
too kindly to a son, an irresponsible son if those photos are any indication,
running any company of his.
 
Especially a
son in charge of raising his only grandchild.”

Jimmy’s heart was hammering.
 
His career was about to skyrocket.
 
It took years, but he was finally winning his
father’s confidence.
 
Now this?
 
He looked at the man at his table.
 
“Who are you?”

“That’s about as important as what color is this
table.
 
I want the money.”

Jimmy exhaled.
 
“By when?”

“Twenty-four hours.”

Jimmy’s eyes stretched.
 
“That’s impossible!”

“You’d better make it possible.
 
Because that’s all you get.
 
On the back of that last photo is a
number.
 
Call it when you’re ready.
 
If you call after this time tomorrow, you’ll
be out of time.”
 
Then Chap smiled.
 
“Yeah,” he said.
 
“Reno Gabrini is supposed to be getting a key
to the city.
 
He might not like the look
of those images splattered all over the gossip pages of his city.
 
He might not like it at all.
 
And your cute little wife?
 
She might not want to be your wife after she
sees what you’ve really been up to.
 
But
what do I know, right?
 
I’m just the
messenger.”
 
Then Chap smiled again,
stood up, and left.

Jimmy put those photos and that phone in his pockets,
and leaned back with anguish in his eyes.
 
He thought about Val.
 
And
Madison.
 
Val would leave him, and try to
take Maddie with her, declaring him unfit to be around her.
 
Then he thought about Reno.
 
Just the idea of his father seeing those
photos brought on even more despair for Jimmy.
 
Because he knew, if his father ever saw what he’d just seen, he would be
a dead man walking.
 
And then, when his
father took a second look, he wouldn’t be walking at all.
 
Just dead.

“He’s asleep?” Trina asked when Reno entered their
master bedroom.
  
It was only one in the
afternoon, but Dommi had given them both such a scare that it drained them of
all their energy.
 
Trina was lying across
their king-sized bed.

Reno fell across the bed beside her.
 
“He’s asleep,” he responded.

“It was amazing the way he drove that car,
Reno.
 
I’ll never tell that hellyun to
his face, but I was impressed.”

Reno smiled too.
 
“Guess who he said taught him how to drive?”

“Somebody taught him?” Trina looked at Reno.
 
Then she caught herself.
 
“Of course somebody had to teach him, what am
I saying?
 
But who?
 
Jimmy?”

“Hell no.
 
Jimmy knows better than that.”

“Then who?”

Reno exhaled.
 
“Sal.”

When Trina heard it, she smiled.
 
And then laughed.
 
“Why didn’t I think of him?
 
I’ll bet Sal was a man-child too, when he was
a kid.”

“He was,” Reno admitted.
 
“But that shit ain’t funny to me.
 
Because Dominic is
my
man-child.
 
Sal was out of
line.”

“Oh, Reno, you know how Sal is.
 
He treats our children as if they’re his
own.”

“I understand that.
 
And I appreciate that.
 
But he
needs to know the boundaries.
 
I’ll be
having a little conversation with that joker.”

“Be nice, Reno.”

“And give Sal a heart attack?
 
Never!”

Trina laughed.
 
Then she exhaled, as their problem in the
other wing of their penthouse returned to their attention.
 
“That boy is going to be the death of us
yet,” she said.

“I think I died a few times when I was chasing his
ass up the Strip,” Reno said.

Trina shook her head.
 
“Can you imagine?
 
What was he thinking?
 
What kind of mind would even think to do
something that idiotic?”

“He’s a lot like I was when I was a kid,” Reno
admitted.
 
“But he’s like ten times more
daring.
 
He’s me on steroids.”
 
A distressed look appeared on Reno’s
face.
 
“He’s going to be stone cold.”

“You used to say that about Jimmy.”

“I still say that about Jimmy.”

Trina looked at him.
 
“How so?
 
He’s settling down to be
a wonderful young man.”

“I’m a wonderful full grown man.
 
But that doesn’t mean I’m not stone
cold.
 
I am.
 
And unfortunately,” Reno said, with pain in
his voice, “my sons are going to follow in my footsteps.”

Trina turned on her side, toward him.
 
Reno was still lying on his back.
 
She flapped her arm across his stomach.
 
He placed his hand on her arm.
 
“What do you propose to do about it?” she
asked.

“I’m getting Jimmy out of Vegas.”

“You mean with that New Hampshire job?”

Reno nodded.
 
“Yeah.
 
The pace is slower
there.
 
There’s less chance for him to
turn gangster there.
 
He still can turn
if it’s in him, I know, but the opportunities to exercise that thug in him
won’t be as prevalent there as they are here.
 
Besides, Charles Sinatra will be one state away, over in Jericho, Maine.
 
He’ll keep tabs on him for me.”

“I like Charles,” Trina said.
 
“He’s rough like his brother Mick, but he’s
smooth too.
 
Mick is just rough.”

Reno laughed.

“And the way they call Charles
Big Daddy Sinatra
,” Trina said with a smile of her own.
 
“When his wife told me that was his nickname,
I couldn’t believe it.
 
He’s no old coot.
Why are they calling him Big Daddy?
 
But
when she said it was a derisive term for the townspeople, a kind of play on the
big brother analogy because Charles owned a lot of the town’s businesses and
property, I got it.
 
But his wife says
everybody calls him that now.
 
Even she
does every now and then.
 
It’s like they
took what some meant to be a bad term and made it affectionate too.”

“Charles is a very moral man,” Reno said.
 
“That’s what I like about him.”

“I agree,” Trina said, nodding her head.
 
“He and Mick are like night and day.”

“But they’re both tough,” Reno said.
 
“I respect them both to the fullest.
 
But Big Daddy is different.
 
He’s moral, but he’s tough as nails too.
 
I need a strong man like him in charge of my
son.
 
You know how Jimmy can be.”

“But doesn’t Big Daddy have his hands full with his
own sons and those two adopted daughters of his?”

“He does,” Reno admitted.
 
“But he’s onboard.
 
He said it will be his honor to watch after
my son.
 
And I’ll intervene should Jimmy
still try to get off the reservation.
 
But that’s the only chance I see for him.
 
Between Charles and myself, we just might
save Jimmy.”

“What about Dommi?” Trina asked.
 
“You can’t ship him off to New
Hampshire.”
   

“No,” Reno said with a smile.
 
“He’ll steal a ship and come back.”
 
Then his look turned serious again.
 
“I’m going to have to teach him, Tree.
 
I saw it today.”

“Teach him?
 
Teach him what?
 
How to drive?”

“How to be a wise guy and get away with it,” Reno
said.
 
“Right now, he’s just a little
thoughtless thug who doesn’t get away with shit.
 
If I don’t do something, he’ll be in prison,
or sleeping in his grave, before he’s eighteen.”

Trina stared at Reno.
 
There was a time when she would have
objected.
 
Dommi still could be changed
into this good little boy who grew up and went to college, got married, and
lived a quiet, suburban life. But after today, she knew better.
 
She saw it too.
 
“But how can you teach him to be a wise guy
without condoning that kind of lifestyle, Reno?”

“Hell if I know,” Reno admitted, rubbing the back of
his hand across his eyes.
 
“But that’s
what it’s come down to.”
 
He began
unbuckling his belt, and then unbuttoning and unzipping his pants.
 
Trina pulled out his penis, and began to rub
it.
 
“I’ve got to teach him or that boy
is going to get out in this world ill-equipped to handle his own nature.
 
My old man didn’t teach me.
 
I had to figure it out for myself.
 
It nearly cost me everything.”
 
Reno closed his eyes and began to groan at
Trina’s touch.

Trina saw his distress.
 
And she felt it.
 
She also felt his joy as she rubbed him.
 
He began to grow bigger in her
well-experienced hand.
 
“I don’t know if
teaching will work,” she said, “but I know this: you’ll do right by him.
 
And Jimmy too.
 
As for that little girl of ours and our
little granddaughter?
 
They’re spoiled
princesses already.”

“I wish I had all girls,” Reno said.

Trina smiled.
 
“I called the school and spoke to Sophie before you came in here.
 
She wanted to know why Dommi didn’t have to
go to school today, and she did.
 
When I
told her Dommi’s school hadn’t started yet, but her school had, she still
didn’t believe me.”

Reno smiled.
 
“That’s my girl.
 
She’s a show-me
woman.
  
Ah
,” he added, as Trina moved down and put her mouth on it.
 
“Just like her mother.
 
Oh,
Tree
!

And Trina was giving him the kind of head that made
him want to jump out of his own skin.
 
Her lick, her suck, the way she went all the way down on him was the
kind of turn-on that turned him completely up.
 
And when she began to move her mouth up and down along his shaft, he
didn’t do as other men did and place his hand on her head to guide her.
 
Trina needed no guidance.
 
He didn’t move a muscle.
 
He just laid there.
 
And allowed her direction to move him.

And when his pre-cum was coming at an alarming rate,
and he was so enthralled with her mastery that he was on the verge of cumming
in her mouth, he pulled out.
 
He laid on
his side, and began undressing her.

“Now it’s your turn,” he said, when her clothes were
removed.

He opened her legs and moved in between them.
 
Trina knew to lay still too as his tongue
took her there.
 
He had a way of eating
her that made her toes tingle and her breasts tighten.
 
There was no better lover than Reno.

And he loved her.
 
He ate her ferociously.
 
He ate
her with his affection showing in the movements of his tongue, until the
throbbing of his penis, and the pulsations of her vagina, became too much.
 
He knew time was running out.

He eased on top of her.
 
When he guided his penis inside of her, and
they both looked at each other as that feeling of first entry thrilled them to
the roots of their hair, they smiled.
 
But as he pushed in further, and further still, all smiles were gone.
 
And the full force of those sensual feelings
took over.

They embraced each other and settled down to a long,
slow fuck.
 
They made love like a married
couple with no more points to prove, but determined to prove every point all
over again.
 
Reno pumped into her and
Trina felt him gliding across her womanhood, puncturing her with every stroke,
until she was raising her legs, wrapping them across his back, and preparing
for her climax.

It came hard.
 
Like a ton of bricks on her chest.
 
She could barely breathe, but it was a great breathlessness.
 
Because it made her cry out.
 
It made her feel every inch of his rod as it
slid up and down and then pounded her.
 
Reno did not let up.
 
And as her
orgasm sizzled, his ejaculation spilled out and covered her.
 
And now they both were in the throes of a
passion that kept them tight, uptight, and disjointed all at the same
time.
 
Reno kept stroking.
 
Reno kept pouring and pounding.
 
And they came.
 
They came in each other’s arms.