They looked around in the sky and along the highways and byways too, searching for more attacks, but there was no further incoming. There were no further attacks. And although the SUVs that were in the front of the convoy had no idea where the ambulance had gone, Monk got on the horn and ordered them to keep going to the PaLargio. The threat appeared neutralized.
Even though the threat was over, Reno was taking no chances. He did not slow down, not even for a red light, until he was turning into the side driveway at the PaLargio. His guards stepped aside as the security gate opened and Reno drove into the tunnel that took them to his private garage. When the gate slammed shut, Reno slammed on brakes, turned off the ignition, and hurried to the back to Trina.
The chief surgeon, badly shaken by that ambush, was already checking her vitals. But all looked okay.
“I’m fine, Reno,” Trina kept saying when she saw the distressed look on his face. “I’m fine.”
She reached out her hand for him, and he grabbed it.
Frankie and Mick looked at each other. They could hardly believe how close they came.
Tommy and Sal could hardly believe it too. Who wanted Trina this bad, was what they were couldn’t stop wondering about, and why did they want her? What on earth had she done?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Reno was downstairs, inside his penthouse, talking with two detectives from the Vegas PD. Trina was upstairs in their bedroom being attended by her physician. At least that was what he told the cops. Truth was the chief surgeon left shortly after they arrived at the PaLargio. That man couldn’t get away from them and their drama fast enough. And although an entire medical staff was on call in a suite one floor down from the penthouse to attend to Trina, he knew she was fine. But he wasn’t about to subject her to any interrogation by those cops.
That was why Reno was purposely disingenuous with them when it came to his wife. “I have no idea who could possibly want to target her, and for a second time at that,” he told them as he poured himself a drink at his full-size bar. “She hasn’t an enemy in the world. Not one solitary enemy. And who knows? Maybe they were targeting the guy she was with. And thought he was in that ambulance too. Ever thought of that?”
The detectives stood there looking at Reno as if they knew he was full of shit. Katrina Gabrini was the wife of the most powerful man in all of Vegas. Why would somebody be targeting her lover, or whatever Douglas was to her, when they had Reno Gabrini’s wife in their crosshairs? “Surely it has occurred to you, Mr. Gabrini, that your wife would more likely be the target than some random guy?”
“No, it hasn’t occurred to me at all,” said Reno. “Not really.” Then he drank his entire shot of whiskey and sat the glass down firmly on the countertop. He was done with them. “In any event, gentlemen,” he said, “I am tired. My wife justgot home after an arduous ordeal, and she’s tired too.” His soft blue eyes turned hard and undeniably hostile. “Show yourselves out.”
He hated their guts. That was what his eyes were telling them. Then they looked around in that living room and saw Sal Gabrini, who tried to play the legit businessman but had mob written all over him. And his big brother Tommy Gabrini, who was slick with his shit with his smooth, laidbackDapper Tomact, but he wasn’t fooling them either. He would always beBackdoor Tommyto them. Even Frankie “The Monk” Paletti, who ruled Jersey with an iron fist, was there.
And if that wasn’t enough mob power in one room, the king of the mob himself, Mick Sinatra, was in the building. Which made them know what time it was. Because not one of those men was the kind of man anybody with any sense would want to fuck with. Not one of them. That was why they heeded Reno’s unspoken advice, closed their little notepad, and left.
“Fucking cops,” Reno said bitterly after they left, as he made his way from around his bar. “Don’t give you a chance to piss before they’re all up in your face with that bullshit. Like I’m gonna do their jobs for them. Like I’m gonna tell them what’s going on.” He was heading for the stairs.
“Reno?”
It was Mick. Reno looked at him. “Yeah?”
“What the fuck, Reno?” Mick was getting irritated, which wasn’t a good thing. Even Reno knew not to get Mick started. “What are you doing?”
“I’m headed upstairs to check on my wife.”
“You think I got time to wait around for you to check on your wife? We’ve got to talk to Trina, and we’ve got to talk to her now.”
“It’s not just her life on the line,” Sal added. “It’s all of us. And our children. We gotta know the threat. We’ve gotta knowwhat’s going on so we can do something about it. We got the whole family here, and they all wanna see her and talk to her and make sure for themselves that she’s okay before they head back to their own lives. But we can’t let them go anywhere until we find out who’s behind these attacks. We gotta talk to her first.”
Reno wasn’t ready for that conversation yet. He was too afraid of where it might lead. He opened his suit coat and placed his hands on his hips. He even looked over at Monk, to see if he had any support from him for delaying the inevitable, at least for a little longer.
Monk was grazed by a bullet during that ambush and had his arm in a sling, but he still hung around. That was the kind of devoted friend he was. He wore that always-present fedora hat on his head that made him look like some Humphrey Bogart, old-style gangster, and he was leaned against the wall as if he was buried in his own thoughts. But Reno knew better. Monk Paletti was an observer. He saw and heard everything! Sometimes you wouldn’t know he was in the room, and you’d think you could plot against him like he had no clue what was about to go down, until he jumped out of the bushes and strangled your ass. But even from across the room Monk’s woman-like, big pretty eyes made clear whose side he was on. And it wasn’t Reno’s. They needed to talk to Trina.
Reno was exhausted, and didn’t want to deal right then, but he knew it too. And he finally gave the nod for them to escort him upstairs.
But he stopped them before they entered the double doors of his master bedroom. “If she can’t take it,” he said, “don’t push it. I know it’s inconvenient, and I know we’ve got to know the threat, but she comes first. From here on out, she comes first.”
They all understood what was happening. All of that guilt from neglecting Trina and taking her for granted practicallytheir entire marriage was whipping his butt. All of them knew because all of them had been guilty, at one time or another and with varying degrees, of that very same thing.
They reassured Reno they wouldn’t press, and then they all went into the bedroom.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Trina was seated in their king-sized bed with her back against the headboard. Her parents were seated in the room too, talking quietly with Big Daddy Sinatra, but they understood they had to leave when Reno walked in and asked Trina if the guys could ask her some questions. At least her parents, who were so relieved that their daughter was okay, understood they had to leave the room. To their ever-loving appreciation, Reno and Trina kept them as far away from everything mob-related as they could. But Big Daddy, who was the actual head of the Gabrini and Sinatra clans even though the world assumed it was his younger brother Mick, wasn’t about to leave. He wanted to know what was going on.
After Trina’s parents left the room, and the men walked in, Tommy closed and locked the doors. Reno sat on the bed beside Trina, while the rest of them sat around the room. Even Monk, who usually stood, sat down too. He’d heard what Javon Douglas said about Trina’s past, which he didn’t believe either. He had to hear it for himself.
