Reno and Son: Don't Mess with Jim (The Mob Boss Series) (23 page)

“You know who they are,” said a woman’s
voice.
 
“Come on in.”

Jimmy was pushed forward by the man behind
him, and was escorted, at gunpoint, into the living room.
 
Then he was searched.
 
The man behind him grabbed his cell phone out
of his pocket, and tossed it aside, and he continued to pat him down.
 
He was searching for weapons.
 
He found none.
 
“He’s clean,” the man said.

Marcy Davenport was standing there, near
the back hall, and another man was standing beside Val.
 
Val, to Jimmy’s consternation, was bound,
hands and feet, to a small chair that sat in the middle of the living
room.
  
Another chair, an empty one, sat
beside her.
 
She looked so mortified it
broke his heart.
 
But he couldn’t
concentrate on that.
 
He had to focus on
her captor.
 
On this woman from his
father’s past.

“You must be Marcy Davenport.”

“You must be Jimmy Mack.
 
Reno’s oldest child.”
 
She stared at him, her gun at her side.
 
“Yeah,” she said, nodding her head.
 
“I can see the resemblance.
 
Amazing.
 
You look almost like a white man.
 
Considering how black I’m sure your mother was, that’s saying
something.”

“So you have me now,” Jimmy said.
 
“You can release Val.”

Marcy smiled. “You hear that boys?
 
He comes in here telling me what to do.
 
Just like his father.”
 
Then she frowned. “Sit his ass down, and tie
him up too.”

The man who had escorted him in pushed him
further toward the empty chair beside Val.
 
Then he pushed Jimmy down into the chair to prepare to tie him up.
 
Jimmy knew it was now or never.
 
If they tied him up, he would not be able to
save Val.
 
And that wasn’t an option for
Jimmy.

As soon as the man reached for the rope,
turning his body away from Jimmy ever so slightly, Jimmy raised up quickly,
grabbed the rope from the man and slung it around his neck.
 
But he didn’t stop there.
 
He remembered how his father handled an
ambush.
 
He remembered how Reno used that
lookout driver as a human shield.
 
So he
immediately placed the man in front of him, as a shield, to take the gunfire
that was certain to erupt.
 
But Jimmy
didn’t stop there.
 
He then placed his
own body in front of Val, to shield her too.

As Jimmy expected, the second man started
firing his weapon in response to the sudden move, but he was hitting his own
man.
 
Jimmy then dropped the rope and
grabbed the wounded man’s gun before he could drop it, and with the wounded man
still as his shield he got into a gunfight with the second man, a fight Jimmy
won.
 
The second man dropped dead on the
spot.
 

Marcy was firing her weapon too, but unlike
the second man, she had the good sense to hide behind the wingback chair in the
room.
 
And when she saw that both of her
men were hit, with one dead and the other one good as dead as Jimmy’s human
shield, she also had enough good sense to know she had to press her
advantage.
 
She was firing away, firing
at Jimmy, causing him to recoil behind the wounded man he was holding.
 
But she was running away too, to a backroom
in the house.

“She’s headed for the back,” Jimmy yelled.
 
He wasn’t sure if his Uncle could even hear
him, given that the phone was across the room, but he yelled it anyway.
 
“The bomb is in the back!”

Marcy ran down the hall, to where Jimmy was
certain was the bomb, and he started firing, attempting to take her down.
 
But she was moving too fast and he wasn’t a
good enough shot.
 
So he slung the
wounded man away from him and aimed his shots.
 
But it was no good. She disappeared into the bedroom.
 

He knew time was all but out.
 
All she had to do was detonate.
 
“She’s in the room with the bomb,” he was
saying out loud, praying his uncle could hear him, but he couldn’t wait on
that.
 
He got on his knees as he
attempted to free Val.
 
But the knots
were too tight and time was his enemy.
 
Val’s eyes were horrified, and he couldn’t so much as free one of her
hands.
 
He kept looking back, at the room
Marcy had disappeared into, as he kept trying to free her.
 
His only hope was that Marcy would save
herself and wouldn’t blow the whole thing up.
 
He kept nervously, anxiously, desperately trying to untie Val, but not a
knot would loosen.

Outside, Tommy, Buddy and the men with
Tommy were jumping out of the car and running toward the house.
 
Reno and Sal turned onto Val’s street and
sped toward her house.
 
But just as they
were approaching it, the end came.
 
The
entire house exploded in a burst of red hot, rolling flames.
 
The impact alone threw Tommy and Buddy back
on their heels, and then down to their knees.
 
Sal slammed on brakes, causing the car to swerve wildly before coming to
a stop, and he and Reno jumped out of the car.
 
They tried to run toward the house, but it was too late.
 
There was no house.
 
Just flames.
 
Just smoke.
 
Just wreckage.
 

Reno tried to run toward the fire anyway,
to save his son, but Tommy tackled him and pulled him back.
 
And wouldn’t let him go.
 

“Jimmy,” Reno yelled.
 
“Jimmy!”

Then Reno, realizing the futility of his
cries, dropped to his knees, his heart pounding as if it was pounding outside
of his body.
 
Sal placed both hands over
his head, unable to bear the sight.
 
And
Tommy stood there, his heart momentarily stopped, as he held onto Reno and
stared at the horror.

It was over.
 
Jimmy was gone.
 
Val was gone.
 
Marcy wasn’t interested in saving herself.
 
She lost her child, and she wasn’t leaving
this earth until she was certain that Reno would lose his.
 
And lose his in the same spectacularly
gruesome way.
 
Nicky died in an
explosion.
 
Jimmy died in an explosion.

“Oh, my God,” Sal cried through his
tears.
 
“This is unbearable!
 
Oh, my God!”

Reno knew it too.
 
He thought he was still calling Jimmy’s
name.
 
Not a sound was coming from his
mouth, but he thought he was screaming his son’s name.
 

But then, Sal stopped all movement.
 
He even removed his hands from his head.
 
He knew it wasn’t true.
 
He knew his grief was playing tricks on him
and had him seeing things that were not there.
 
But it looked so real!

He began walking, toward the wreckage.
 

Tommy looked at his brother.
 
He saw that otherworldly look on his
face.
 
“What is it?”

Reno looked up too.

Sal pointed.
 
“Tell me I’m not seeing things,” he
said.
 
“Tell me I’m not so stricken that
I’m boat-shit crazy now.”

Reno and Tommy followed Sal’s gaze and
looked toward what used to be the side of Val’s house too.
 
And like a ghost coming out of the ashes,
Jimmy was walking through the smoke.
 
Reno was so stunned that he had to hold onto Tommy to stand up.
 
But he stood up.
 
Because it wasn’t a mirage.
 
Because Sal wasn’t boat-shit crazy.
 
It was Jimmy.
 
It was Jimmy.
 
And he wasn’t
alone.
 
He was carrying Val.
 
She was still tied down to a chair, but he
was carrying her and the chair.
 

Reno grabbed Tommy’s arm.
 
He still couldn’t believe it.
 
Was he hallucinating?
 
Was this some bad joke?

But he wasn’t.
 
And it wasn’t.
 
Because Sal was running toward his nephew,
and Tommy started running too.
 
And they
touched Jimmy.
 
You can’t touch a mirage.

Reno started running too.
 
He became so excited that he tripped over his
own two feet, and fell on his face.
 
And
then he started crawling toward his son.
 
His heart was too weak.
 
The shock
had taken him from unspeakable grief to unspeakable joy.
 
And he made it up to his son, and touched him
too.
 

He looked at Val as Tommy and Sal attempted
to free her from her bounds, and touched her too.
 
But his eyes went back to his son.
 
To jimmy.
 
To his man.

“He saved me,” Val was saying.
 
“He killed both of those men and carried me
out of that house.
 
She was going to kill
herself and take us with her,” she added.
 
“But Jimmy wouldn’t give up.
 
Jimmy wouldn’t allow it.”

Reno looked at her.
  
And finally he came back to himself.
  
He frowned, and then stood up on his
feet.
 
“What are you talking? Of course
he wasn’t going to allow it.
 
He’s a
Gabrini.
 
He’s a Gabrini man.”

And Jimmy stared at his father.
 
He’d never felt more like a Gabrini than he
did at that moment in time.
 
Because he
knew now it wasn’t about the toughness.
 
It wasn’t about doing it to them before they did it to you.
 
It was about the love.
 
It was about looking out and protecting those
they loved.
 
It was about family.

Jimmy moved closer to his father, and
pulled him into his arms.

EPILOGUE

The plane landed at the Vegas airstrip and
Reno and Trina got off and hurried across the tarmac.
 
But when Reno saw that a limo was waiting for
them, with Boz, his security chief, holding open the door, he was pissed.

“Why did you bring this slow-ass car,
Boz?
 
You know what time it is!”

“Stop worrying, boss,” Boz said with a
smile.
 
“We’ll make it.”

“What about the clothes?” Trina asked.

“They’re inside,” Boz said.

Trina and Reno got in, Boz closed the door,
got into the front passenger seat, and then the driver took off.

“Slow my ass,” Trina said with a smile as the
limo seemed to be flying away from there.

And they both began to dress.
 
Trina put on her above-the-knee gold-colored
dress, and Reno put on his blue tux.
 
Trina had already freshened her makeup and her hair on the plane, and
now felt, properly clothe, that they were finally getting somewhere.

Reno exhaled too.
 
They were scheduled to arrive in town nearly
four hours ago, from a trip they took to France to finalize the deal on opening
a PaLargio there, and even then they knew they were going to be pushing
it.
 
But the call came in, at the very
last minute, that a deal had been reached, and Reno wanted Trina to sign the
paperwork too.
 
She was an equal partner
in the PaLargio, and he wanted the investors to fully understand that.

But their return flight, once stateside,
was delayed by weather.
 
Now they were
really up against it.
 
But at least they
were on their way.
 

Reno looked at his wife.
 
“You look beautiful, by the way,” he
said.
  
“Even with your homemade
hairstyle.”

Trina laughed.
 
She had an appointment with her stylist this
morning, when she was to arrive back in town, but the delay knocked all of that
out the window.
 
So she had to do it
herself.
 
It wasn’t fancy, but it was its
usual neat elegance, Reno thought.

He reached over to Trina and they held
hands as the limo drove on.
 

“What a life,” Reno said, thinking about
his life. “This time, four months ago, I thought Jimmy had died in that
explosion.
 
And I thought I was going to
die right then and there too.
 
Now look
at us.”
 
He looked over at Trina, at the
woman he loved, and a feeling of great affection swept over him.

“That’s why you never give up,” Trina
said.
 
“God is able.
 
He’s able to change things.”

Reno agreed.
 
“Now that’s the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth.”

“And Marcy Davenport.”
 
Trina said that name and shook her head.
 
“I knew the woman had issues, major issues,
but I thought she was beyond what happened with Nicky.
 
At least the part about hating you so much.”

But Reno shook his head.
 
“She was never getting over that.
 
Every year, on his birthday, she’ll call me
cussing the shit out of me.
 
‘I waited at
his grave all day long,’ she’d say to me.
 
‘You never showed up.
 
What kind
of father are you?
 
What kind of man are
you?
 
I hate you,’ and on and on she’d go.”

“But you go to Nicky’s grave all the time.”

“And I used to tell her that.
 
I told her she goes to his grave once a year,
on his birthday, but I go damn near every month.”

“But she doesn’t believe it because it’s
not on his birthday?”

“Right.
 
Crazy thing is, I used to go on his birthday.
 
I used to.
 
But every time I went she made a scene.
 
She would show her natural ass.
 
So I stopped it.
 
I was only doing
it to appease her grief anyway.
 
But you
can’t appease some people.
 
They can’t
handle it.”

“Like Marcy.”

“Absolutely like Marcy,” Reno said.

“We’re here,” Boz said as the limo pulled
up to the small Pentecostal church.

Boz got out, opened the door, and Reno and
Trina hurried out and into the church.

And they were waiting for them.
 
The pastor up front, with Jimmy and his
groomsmen, two of whom were Tommy and Sal.
 
Reno walked Trina to her seat at the front pew, and then he walked up to
his son and stood beside him.

“About time,” Jimmy whispered and
smiled.
 
“I was about to replace you with
Uncle Sal.”

“I got your time right here,” Reno
whispered back.
  
“And I’ll dropkick you
if you even think about replacing me.
 
I’m your old man.
 
Nobody replaces
me.”

Jimmy laughed.
 

Then Sal leaned over to Reno.
 
“About time,” he said.

Trina took a seat beside Grace Gabrini,
Tommy’s wife, who she was surprised had made it.
 
The family knew that she and Tommy were
having major issues, but she apparently thought enough of Jimmy to show up
anyway.
 
Trina squeezed her hand in
appreciation.
 

She also hugged Gemma Jones, her business
partner and Sal’s old lady, who was looking radiant, Trina thought.
 

Trina’s parents were also there.
 
Her mother held Dommi’s hand, who was also
dressed in a tux, and her father held Sophia in his arms.
 
Sophie was staring at everybody as if they
were aliens from another planet.
 
But at
least she was quiet with her awe, Trina was happy to see.

And then the music started and the audience
rose.
 
And Valerie Wellstone, soon to
become Valerie Gabrini, began that long, familiar walk up the aisle.
 
Her father, who was walking her up that aisle,
was once strongly in opposition to the marriage.
 
But after Jimmy risked his own life to save
his daughter’s life, and actually succeeded in saving her, his opinion
completely flipped.
 
The Gabrinis were
not the Huxtables, he knew that without a doubt, but they were men of
honor.
 
And he would prefer that his
daughter marry a man who would risk his life for her, rather than a man who
would merely love her.
 
The man who
merely loved her might fall out of love.
 
The man who would risk his life for her
wouldn’t be able to.
 

Val, too, had had her doubts about hitching
her wagon to Jimmy’s.
 
Not because she
didn’t love him completely, because she did.
 
But it was mainly because of the burden he had to bear for being his
father’s son.
 
That was the hurdle she
had the hardest time clearing.
 
But after
that day at her house, after he was so bound and determined to save her, she
knew it wasn’t a hurdle at all.
 
It was a
leap.
  
A leap of faith.
 
A leap she was just as bound and determined
would be worth every step.

And as she and Jimmy joined hands and
prepared to repeat their vows, Reno looked at his wife.
 
He looked at Trina.
 
She was crying, of course, and so were her
parents.
 
Then Reno looked at Tommy and
Sal.
 
They were crying too.

But Reno couldn’t shed a tear.
 
He was too busy smiling to think about
crying.
 
He was too amped-up and
joyous.
 
This was one of the happiest
days of his life.
 
He looked at his son,
who looked back at his father and was smiling too.
 
It was as if they had a secret.
 
Jimmy knew that his father was proud of him
now, and Reno knew Jimmy was going to make it.
 
He knew it now just as certainly as he knew his name.
 
Jimmy had the right stuff to survive.
 
Reno was sure of it now.
 
Reno knew that if this young, strapping black
man was the future of the Gabrinis, then the Gabrinis were going to be just
fine.