Page 37 of Trina Gabrini: Bring Him Back Home to Me

Reno knew it was monster behavior. He knew it! “That was the kind of man I was back then, Trina. They were plotting and planning to take the PaLargio away from me, and my life right along with it, and I wasn’t allowing that. I killed every motherfucker that moved. Yes I did. I took them all down.”

Trina’s stomach was churning. “But how did you do it?”

“I bombed the place,” he said. “I blew it up.”

“But you didn’t know the children were inside at the time, right?”

Reno didn’t answer that. Which Trina knew meant he knew.

“Unfortunately,” he said, “Moose and his daughter Lydia weren’t there. They were in New Mexico checking out a boatload of cocaine they wanted to ship overseas, I later found out.”

Trina couldn’t believe what he was saying. Was this some kind of a sick, perverted joke?

But Reno’s bright blue eyes, filled with unshed tears, had no joke in them. “And that wasn’t all,” he said.

Trina couldn’t believe it. “What do you mean that’s not all?”

“Because my strike on the Vatelli compound didn’t happen after that fake will bullshit with Lydia, but it happened sometime after that, I was never blamed for what happened to their family. It wasn’t my m.o. They were certain I wouldn’t take out little kids.”

Trina was certain of it too. But he was telling her that was exactly what he’d done. The babies were fair game too!

“So I was never blamed,” Reno said again. “Moose was in a tussle with a rival gang, with Billy Stallini’s gang, and they were blamed. They killed Billy, his underboss, his senior capos, and every single member of their families.”

Trina frowned. “Children too?”

Regret filled Reno’s eyes. But he nodded his head. “Their children too, yes.”

“Oh Reno!” Trina looked devastated. “And what did you do about it?”

“What was I gonna do about it, Tree? Tell them no, you got the wrong thug? I did it? Don’t go for Billy ad his, come instead for me and mine? They wanted the PaLargio and I wasn’t giving it up. They wanted me and I wasn’t ready to die. I meant business. Moose never again came for me.”

“Until now,” Trina said.

Reno hated to admit that too. “Until now, that’s right.”

“Back then, he never once thought it was you?”

“He was certain it wasn’t me. But what happened to his family shook him to his core. He had a daughter that was still missing thanks to my old man. And after what I did to his family and his retaliation on Billy Stallini’s family, he went underground for years. He came back strong, but never like he was even after the war he had with me earlier. He gave up on trying to take what wasn’t his. I never heard another peep out of Moose Vatelli.”

“Until now,” Trina said again.

Reno nodded, again, with regret in his eyes. “Until now.”

“Is that why you left me? Because you didn’t want me to know about what you did?”

“Yes! Only two people on this earth knew about what I did.”

“Tommy and Sal?”

Reno nodded. “And that’s it. I couldn’t even bring myself to tell Uncle Mick. And the only reason Tommy and Sal knew was because I told them that Moose and his sons were plotting to try another takeover of the PaLargio. They put two and two together after my hit, and they confronted me about it. That’s the only reason they knew. But I had to leave you, Tree. I failed to take out Moose and Lydia the first time around. I knew I had to get those bastards this time around or it would begin again and never end. I had to handle it once and for all.”

But Reno could tell Trina was still thinking about those innocent children. Reno couldn’t believe that he was so hard back then either. “A part of me was still my father’s son back then, Trina,” Reno said in what sounded to her like justification. “The PaLargio was all I had. It was my identity back then. And I wasn’t allowing any motherfucker on the face of this earth to just snatched it away from me. And I knew Moose Vatelli and my intel was spot on. If he came for the PaLargio the second time, it wasn’t going to be with some fake will or shit like that. It was going to be with weapons. He was going to take me out and everybody around me. I couldn’t sit around and let that happen.”

It still sounded like justification to Trina.

“It was the wild, wild west back then,” Reno continued. “There was no honor among thieves. We were all just thieves. They were armed, I was double-armed. That was my mentality back then. And it’s still my mentality, Tree. If I don’t do it to them, they’re gonna do it to my family. And I’m not sitting back and letting that happen.”

But Trina was staring at him as if he was a stranger to her. And she had to know. “If the PaLargio was threatened that way today, would you do it all over again, Reno?”