Page 42 of Trina Gabrini: Bring Him Back Home to Me

They got up, when they realized the entire front side of the penthouse had been blown to bits, and they ran behind the family for the back exit.

The problem was the distance.

When Reno renovated the penthouse, it expanded the floors of the PaLargio to forty-six. Which meant they all had to run down forty-six flights of stairs. It seemed like an impossible task.

But Sal grabbed up his baby, and Tommy grabbed up his little girl GiGi, and TJ grabbed Destiny’s child from her, and they all ran anyway. They had no choice. That last explosion could cause far more deadly damage than what their improvised explosive devices could even dream of causing. They had to run.

They were Gabrinis, so nobody was crying or panicking, but every single one of them was scared.

Reno was especially afraid that there would be an army of men waiting at the bottom of that long haul down. That was why he bogarted his way through the family members to get beyond Jimmy and Dommi to the front of the line. When he hurried past Trina, he squeezed her arm, but he kept on moving.

Trina just shook her head. She didn’t know how Reno did it. She and everybody else were already feeling drained, and they were just getting started. But he was bouncing off the walls with energy. But what they didn’t know was that Reno knew he had no choice.

But when the lights went out in the stairwell, plunging them into darkness, and then the roof inside the stairwell began to collapse with big chunks falling down and barely missing them, panic set in. Especially since they couldn’t see where the chunks were falling from. Some of the younger family members began screaming. “We’re gonna get trapped, Daddy!” Reno could hear Sophia crying out.

“No we aren’t!” Trina yelled back. “Just keep moving.”

“Keep running!” Reno was yelling back up at all of them. “Don’t stop running! Keep going!”

And they kept on running.

Through the darkness. Through the still-falling debris. Through the agony of not knowing if it was even plausible to run down forty-six flights of stairs without collapsing before they got anywhere near the exit. They kept going.

Remarkably, they made it to the eighteenth floor, all on the verge of near-collapse, when they finally got some relief.

Firefighters appeared rushing up the stairwell towards them with bright lights. Some of the younger set cheered because at least now they could see where they were going. At least now they could avoid any falling debris. The firefighters led them down.

And once they got outside, and after most of them had moved across the street far away from the PaLargio, they all were astonished. The entire hotel and casino was being evacuated. Thousands of people were hurrying out and clogging up the Strip.

But Reno just stood there, in the middle of the street, looking straight up. It was so horrific that Trina went over to Reno and held his arm. Jimmy went over and held his other arm. Because they knew he was devastated. Because the top floor of the PaLargio that he built to the luxurious palace it was today, the floor where he and his family resided, was consumed in fire.

The things he did for the right to own that palace.

Now look at it.

Reno, so outdone, fell to his knees.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Reno and Trina sat up in bed surrounded by their children. They were at their suburban mansion near Sal and Gemma’s house, the home they rarely visited, still trying to recover.

The TV was on, with what seemed like around-the-clock coverage of the PaLargio fire, and one reporter ended her segment this way: “I can only imagine how Reno Gabrini is feeling tonight after seeing his beloved penthouse go up in smoke. And there was a gun battle, and then a small explosion before the big explosion? What in the world is going on at the PaLargio?”

Trina grabbed the remote. “You bitch,” said Trina as she was turning off the TV. “That’s what’s going on at the PaLargio. You.” Then she tossed the remote onto the nightstand. “Some people can be so insensitive!” she added.

But every one of their children knew exactly what that reporter meant. They were asking themselves that same question too.

But they didn’t want to discuss it anymore than their parents did. They wanted to forget. They wanted to keep going.

“Now that the penthouse is gone, at least for now,” said Carmine, “where are we going to live Daddy?”

We’re going to live here,” Jimmy responded. “In our home.”

“Which is fine by me,” said Sophia. “I was never that big on living in a hotel anyway.”

“Me either,” said Jimmy.

“Since both of you are grown and can live anywhere you want to live,” said Carmine, “I see your complaints as moot points. But by virtue of my age, I’m not allowed to make my own decisions even though I’m as capable, if not more capable, than everybody in this room.”