Reno Gabrini: For His Lover (The Mob Boss Series Book 14) (22 page)

“I can’t get through, boss,” Nark said to Reno as he
frantically tried to reach the detail in charge of Trina’s security.

“GPS them!” Reno yelled, nearly standing as he moved as far
up in the backseat as he could move.
 
Their driver was driving wildly, causing them to bump around with every
sharp turn, to get where they needed to go.

Jimmy did as his father had ordered and pulled up the
dashboard monitor, and punched in the tracker.
 
“They’re no longer at the fashion show,” he said.
 
“They’re on the move, Dad!”

“Where?” Reno asked frantically.

“They stopped,” Jimmy said, surprised himself.
 
“They stopped on some fucking side street!”

“Damn! Damn! Damn!” Reno yelled as he hit the back of the
front seat.

“Turn right,” Jimmy yelled to the driver, terrified for his
mother, as he looked at the tracker and gave the driver directions.
 
“And then another left!”

“I’m on it, boss,” the driver said to Jimmy, and drove even
faster, if that were even possible.

And then Nark’s cellphone rang.
 
“It’s them,” Nark said and answered quickly,
placing the call on Speaker.

“Where the fuck are you?” Reno yelled.

“A car just swiped Cousteau’s limo,” Reno’s man said into the
phone.
 
It was obvious that he was
running.
 
Then, before Reno could yell
for them to get his wife, that it’s a trap, they heard him say two more words
only: “Everybody okay?” he asked.

And then gunfire erupted.

“God, no,” Jimmy said, and turned and looked at his father.
 
But Reno was too stunned to speak.
 
He was listening for his wife’s voice. He was
listening for his wife’s scream.
 
He was
listening for anything that would let him know that Trina survived.

But all he heard was even more gunfire.

And then silence.
 
Scary silence.

His driver was driving as fast as he could.
 
Nark was yelling for somebody from the
security detail to answer him.
 
And Reno
was in shock.
 
He should have seen this
coming.
 
But his stupid ass didn’t. His
stupid ass allowed his wife, the mother of his children, to come to New York,
to have some fun, and to die.
 
He let his
wife walk right into an ambush!
 
Because
of his own stupid ass.

 
He didn’t know what
to do.
 
He didn’t know what to say.
 
Every man he had in New York was on that
detail.
 
He didn’t have any more.

And suddenly he was exhausted.
 
Suddenly lifting his arms felt like lifting
weights.
 
He leaned back, as his SUV
continued to careen wildly to get there, and covered his face with his hands.

They arrived at the scene of the ambush within minutes.
 
The limo was gone, but the SUV, with its
doors wide open, was still there.
 
And
Reno’s men, all five of them, were dead.

“Geez,” Jimmy said, his hand in his hair, as they all jumped
out of the Town car.
 
“Who would do
this?
 
Who would do this, Dad?”

But Reno wasn’t interested in answering anybody’s
questions.
 
All he knew was that his wife
was missing, and he had to find her.
 
All
he knew was that whoever had her was a sadistic murderer who killed his
innocent men.
 
He took a couple of their
guns, and felt the sting of their loss.
 
Jimmy took a couple guns too, as did Nark.

“RIP motherfuckers,” Nark said sadly.

Then it hit Reno.
 
“The
backup,” he said.

“The what up?” Nark asked, but Reno was already running
toward the SUV.
 
He remembered that it
had a backup tracking system, but only if Trina wore the necklace that
contained the chip.
 
He told her to.
 
Whenever she went out of town, he told her to
wear it.

He jumped into the SUV.
 
The keys were still in the ignition, the truck was still cranked, and he
pulled up the backup screen.
 
If her
location appeared, she obeyed him and wore the necklace.
 
The co-ordinances appeared.
 
She wore it.

And as soon as Reno saw where her location was tracking, he
took off.
 
He didn’t wait for Jimmy to
get onboard, he didn’t wait for Nark or anything or anybody.
 
He couldn’t.
 
He didn’t feel he had a second to waste.
 
He took off.

Jimmy agreed, and was glad to see his father taking charge
again.
 
“Follow my Dad!” he ordered the
driver, and the driver, Jimmy, and Nark jumped back into the Town car.
 
And they followed Reno.

The tracker led them to a wooden, dilapidated warehouse near
the Garment District.
 
As soon as Reno
approached the warehouse, and saw the guards outside, he knew he had to
improvise.
 
If these fuckers were as
ruthless as their blatant ambush suggested, there was no time to waste.
 
So he didn’t.

He drove up to the warehouse as if he was going to stop and
ask for directions, and then, as soon as the guards began to head his way, he
floored it.
 
The SUV careened wildly into
the wooden building, crashing all the way through, as the guards pulled their
weapons and began firing.
 
Reno ducked
and dodged as his windshield exploded, from the impact of the gunfire, into
shards of glass.
 

Nark, Jimmy, and their driver jumped out of the Town car,
took cover, and began firing back, forcing the guards to defend from without
before they could go inside, after Reno.
 
But Jimmy also remembered what his Uncle Tommy taught him. He taught him
to always have a backdoor plan.
 
Somebody, Uncle Tommy told him, had to surprise those motherfuckers.

That was why, while the gun battle ensued, Jimmy ran behind
cars and anything else he could run behind, and made his way around back.

Reno, inside the building, jumped out, only to be thrust into
a gun battle of his own.
 
He shot one
guard in the lobby.
 
Another on the
stairs.
 
And then, realizing Trina was
most likely up those stairs, began heading that way.

But he met resistance there too.
 
Alberto Serrantz came out of an open room
upstairs firing.

Reno frowned.
 
“Motherfuck,” he said when he saw him. He knew that guy.
 
It was Albie. It was the dude who used to
drive for and protect his old man.
 
Now
this fucker was on their team?
 
Reno had to
take cover, but made it his mission to kill that turncoat. And he did.
 
Alberto took one in the heart, and slumped
over dead against the railing.

And then he heard the voice he had been dying to hear.
 
“
Reno
?”
Trina yelled.
 
“
Reno
!”

Reno ran even faster up those stairs again.
 
He couldn’t run faster if his life depended
on it.
 
But he knew he couldn’t just bust
in the room.
 
He knew there was some
trap.
 
When he got upstairs, he got
bait.
 
He grabbed Alberto’s dead body,
dragged it up to the open room, and pushed it in.

The gunfire erupted immediately, as if the gunmen thought it
was Reno himself.
 
But Reno came in after
they had nearly emptied their clips, and he rolled onto the ground firing.

He could only take a cursory view of the room, and what he saw
scared him.
 
Zell was firing two guns his
way, firing wildly and madly, while Jean Paul Cousteau was lifting Trina, and
the chair her hands and feet were tied down to, over the banister.
  
Reno knew he had to act fast.
 
And he did.

Zell was the first one in view, and the greatest obstacle, so
he took her out. It took several shots, but he took her out.

And then he shot Cousteau.
 
But Cousteau had already hoisted the chair on top of the banister.
 
When Reno shot him, he was just pushing it
over.

Reno’s heart dropped through his shoe.
 
“
Noo
!”
he screamed as the chair, and Trina, began falling off of the banister.
 
Reno ran over to the banister and flung
himself over, reaching as he did.
 
But he
missed everything.
 
All he felt was
air.
 
He thought he was missing
everything!

Until, at the last possible second, he caught Trina’s
ankle.
 

His hand on Trina’s ankle was all that stopped her from
completely going over.
 
It stopped her
midair.
 
It stopped her from certain
death.
 
But Reno had a precarious
hold.
 
It wasn’t firm, it wasn’t
tight.
 
But he still held onto that ankle
with a death grip.

The gun battle outside was still raging on, and he could hear
the gunfire. They were still defending the outside territory so that Reno could
defend indoors.
 
But that left him
defenseless.
 
He had to hold up Trina,
the chair she was tied to, and her entire body weight with his one hand.

But he held on.

The veins of his arms felt as though they were popping, but
he held on.
 

“I’ve got you, baby,” he said to his wife. “You know I’ve got
you!”

But Trina was so flustered she could hardly think
straight.
 
She looked down, and saw how
far her drop would be, and looked up at Reno hanging nearly completely over the
banister.
 
She knew it was no use.
 
“Reno, don’t fall!” she begged.
 
“The family needs you!
 
If you can’t hold on, let go.
 
Don’t you fall too!”

Reno was so far over the banister that only his shoe, pushed
against the under hang, prevented him from toppling over.
 
But he wasn’t about to let go.
 
He would die before he let go.

“Just hang in there, baby,” he said to Tree.
 
He was almost out of breath.
 
“Just hang on!”

Trina was in tears.
 
Because she knew Reno.
 
She knew,
if Reno lost his grip, he would jump off of that banister and die with
her.
 
She knew it as certain as she knew
her name.
 
“I’ll kill you, Reno,” she
yelled angrily, “if you fall too!
 
You’ve
got to let me go.
 
Please, let me go and
take care of our family!
 
Please, Reno!”

Jean Paul was still down, but he wasn’t dead.
 
His daughter was dead, and she was dead at
Reno’s hand.
 
Seeing her caused him more
pain than the bullet lodged in his gut.
 
He witnessed his daughter’s death.
 
He witnessed their entire plan go up in smoke just like his own life was
about to go.
 
The end was near and he
felt it.
 
They all were going to die at
the hands of a Gabrini.
 
First
Jeneen.
 
Then Zell.
 
And now him.

But he couldn’t allow it.
 
He was a proud man.
 
He was Jean
Paul Cousteau!
 
He could not die and let
their deaths go unpunished.
 
He couldn’t
let those damn Gabrinis get away with it again!

He began to crawl.
 
He
was bleeding, his life was leaving him, but he had to get his revenge.
 
And he was about to get it by ending the life
of two Gabrinis for the price of one.

He saw Reno’s predicament.
 
He saw that Reno was hanging by a thread too, just like his pitiful
wife. Jean Paul was dying, and bleeding profusely, but he began moving over,
toward the banister, toward where that one shoe, that expensive Italian leather
shoe, was holding Reno and Trina up.

Reno was pulling as hard as he could.
 
His gold chain fell from around his
neck.
 
His shades clipped onto the front
of his dress shirt, fell too.
 
But not
Trina.
 
She wasn’t going to fall.
 
He was going to pull Trina up if it killed
him.
 
And he was trying with all his
might.
 
But he didn’t have enough
leverage.
 
And he was about to lose the
little he had when Jean Paul crawled to him, grabbed his shoe, and tried
bitterly to push it away from the under hang.

But Jimmy Gabrini ran into the room just as Jean Paul was
succeeding in dislodging Reno’s shoe.
 
And Jimmy shot him.
 
He shot him
repeatedly.
 
So there could be no
doubt.
  
So there would be no second
wind.
 
Jimmy shot him dead.

But Jimmy didn’t rest on his laurels.
 
He saw the peril his parents were in and ran
with all he had to that banister.
 
He ran
and wrapped his arms around his father.
 
He was terrified, but he was determined.
 
With the mighty strength of his now muscular upper body, with all the
strength he had, he pulled Reno up.
 
And
Reno, with Jimmy’s help, pulled Trina, and that chair she was tied to, up and
over the banister.

All three collapsed to the floor.

It was only then did Reno realize the gunfight outside had
ended, and Nark and his driver had run into the building and was yelling up if
they were okay.

“We’re okay!” Jimmy yelled back down.
 
“We’re okay.”

Reno and Trina both looked at each other with that look of
great terror and great relief, but then they both looked at their son.

Reno and Trina were in tears when Reno pulled Jimmy, his
hero, and Trina, and that damn chair, into his exhausted arms.