Reno Gabrini: For His Lover (The Mob Boss Series Book 14) (19 page)

“Yeah?” he yelled.

The double doors opened.
 
It was Dommi in his pajamas.
 
But
because he knew better than to step foot in his parents’ bedroom without permission,
and he had the memories of all of those spankings to prove it, he remained at
the door.
 
“I miss Mommy,” he said to his
father.
 

“So do I, Dommi,” Reno responded without looking away from
the TV.
 
“Now go back to bed.”

“But we can’t sleep.”

“Close your eyes and count your blessings,” Reno said.
 
“You’ll fall asleep.”
 
Then he thought about what Dommi said.
 
“Who’s
we
?”
he asked and looked at his son.
 
He’d
better not have brought some stranger into their home.

Sophia came from behind her brother.
 
“I’m we, Daddy,” she said.

Reno looked at his two young children.
 
He knew Dommi was trotting out his cute
little sister for sympathy votes.
 
Dom
was that kind of kid.
 
But even with that
knowledge, Reno’s heart swelled.
 
They
looked so preciously pitiful to him.
 
So
starved for his affection.
 
He
exhaled.
 
“Come on,” he said, and both
smiled grandly and ran to his bed.
 

The children jumped into the bed, with either on each side of
their father, and all three watched the movie.
 
But when Dommi and then Sophia snuggled against Reno and began laughing
at a comical funeral scene in the movie, and laughing uproariously, Reno began
to ease up too.
 
And he began laughing
too.
 
He pulled his children in his arms
and they had a ball doing something as simple, and remarkable, as watching late
night TV.

“Where’s your lunch box, Lexie?” Reno asked as he stood at
the front door and gave his children a final check.

“Oops,” Sophia said and hurried back into the kitchen.
 
She had on her backpack.
 
She had on the little skirt set she wanted to
wear.
 
But food?
 
It was the last thing on her mind.
 
But not on Reno’s.
 
This was his job whenever Trina was away, and
he always strived to get it right.

“I’ve got my lunchbox, Daddy,” Dommi reminded his
father.
 
“And my backpack.
 
And everything else I’m supposed to have.”

“She just forgot, Dommi,” Reno reminded him.
 
“It’s not the end of the world.”

“But she’s always forgetting something,” Dommi
responded.
 
“She’ll forget her body if it
wasn’t on her head.”

Reno looked at his son and smiled.
 
Then he laughed.
 
“What you just said cannot possibly be
right.”

Dommi frowned, and thought about what he said.
 
And then Sophia returned with her little Disney
lunchbox with pictures of Elsa and Anna from the movie
Frozen
, in tow.

“Ready?” Reno asked her.

“I’m ready,” Sophia said and she and her brother, followed by
their father, hurried out of the penthouse.

After dropping them off at their respective schools, and
praying to God that He protected them, he made his way to work.
 
Back to the PaLargio.
 
Thinking about how much he enjoyed being with
his children last night and how much more enjoyable it would have been had
Trina been there.
 
They needed more nights
like that as a family, and he determined to make it happen.
 
But then his cellphone rang, and it brought
him back to earth.

 
“The raid is underway,
boss,” Josiah “Josie” Supino, his security chief, said breathlessly, as if he
was running.

“Damn!” Reno said, hitting the gas of his car.
 
He would have preferred to be there when they
first arrived but, as usual, they outsmarted his ass.
 
“Make sure everybody is at their stations,”
he ordered Josie.
 
“Nobody says anything
without our lawyers present.
 
Is Vic
there?” Vic was Victor Vereen, one of Reno’s attorneys.

“No, sir, not yet.”

“Call him.
 
Tell him to
get his ass there stat.
 
Get every lawyer
on my payroll there!
 
I’m on my way.”

“But that’s the thing, boss,” Josie said.
 
“It’s not us.
 
They aren’t going through the PaLargio’s books.”

Reno frowned.
 
“What do
you mean they aren’t checking our books?
 
Then what books are they checking?”

“They aren’t raiding the PaLargio.
 
They’re raiding Champagne’s.”

Reno couldn’t believe it.
 
“My wife’s boutique?
 
What the
fuck for?”

“But that’s the crazy part, boss.
 
They aren’t raiding her main location.
 
They’re raiding her smaller store here inside
the PaLargio.
 
Like they don’t know what
they’re doing.”

“Those fuckers know exactly what they’re doing,” Reno said angrily.
 
“What the shit you mean?
 
They’re raiding her PaLargio location to
rattle my ass.
 
To make sure I have a
ringside seat.
 
This is probably just the
beginning.
 
Have my people at their
stations just in case.”

“Yes, sir.
 
But why are
they doing this at all, boss?
 
Has
anybody figured that out?
 
And if they
wanted to rattle you, wouldn’t they begin at the PaLargio itself?
 
Not at some tiny boutique?
 
Why start at Champagne’s?”

“I can’t answer any of your questions,” Reno said.
 
“So stop the fuck asking them!”

“But what I mean is, they have to have a reason, don’t
they?
 
They can’t just raid Champagne’s
unless they have probable cause.
 
Did
anybody tell you what they might be looking for?”

“No,” Reno admitted.
 
“That sorry-ass inside man didn’t tell me Champagne’s could be a
target.
 
He failed to mention that little
fact.”

“Maybe you aren’t the only one he’s feeding information to,”
Josie said. “Maybe he’s being paid even more money to feed you information, and
mis
information.”

“Yeah maybe,” Reno said.
 
“But what the fuck am I going to do about it?
 
He’s a federal agent.
 
I’ve got enough heat on me right now.
 
I’m not knocking off any Fed right now.”

“Has Mrs. Gabrini left town yet?” Josie asked.
 
“Maybe she knows what’s going on.”

“She’s gone.
 
She left
yesterday.
 
But get Vic over there and
get everybody else in place.”

“Should I call Mrs. Gemma Jones too?”

“I think she’s in court, but see if her husband is in
town.
 
If he is, tell him to get over
there too.
 
I need them to see power
there.
 
I need them to understand who the
fuck they’re fucking with.”

“I’ll get on it, boss,” Josie said.
 
And Reno killed the call, and floored it.

Reno’s Porsche sped under the portico in front of the
PaLargio’s entrance doors and he hurried out of his car.
 
The valet supervisor immediately took charge
of the boss’s car and was surprised by how fast he was moving.

“Everything okay, sir?” he asked, but Reno didn’t give him so
much as a glance.
 
He ran into his hotel.

Vic Vereen and Josie Supino were waiting for him in the lobby
and hurried as soon as he entered.

“What are they doing?” Reno asked without breaking his
stride.
 
He was walking fast, nearly
running, and Vic and Josie were struggling to keep up with him.
 
“They’re going through everything,” Josie
said.
 
“Even boxes of clothes.”

Reno looked at his security chief.
 
“Clothes?
 
What the fuck for?”

“Because it’s their prerogative,” Josie said.
 
“That’s what they told me.
 
You know how those assholes are.”

“Do they have the proper paperwork?” Reno asked Vic, his
attorney.

“Everything’s in order,” Vic said.
 
“They knew better than to come here without
the right credentials.”

“
Got
dammit,” Reno
said at just the thought of them outsmarting him.
 
“What about my books?
 
They mention anything about the PaLargio
proper?”

“Nothing,” Vic said.
 
“Their paperwork is exclusively related to Champagne’s.
 
They’re only interested in your wife’s
clothing store.
 
They’re only interested
in Champagne’s.”

“This shit doesn’t make sense, Vic,” Reno said as he swiped
his key on the side of his private elevator and the doors opened.
 
“If they really wanted Champagne’s why didn’t
they go to her main location?”
 
Reno and
Vic got onto the elevator.

“I don’t know,” Vic said.
 
“But I agree with you it would have made more sense.”

Reno looked at Josie, who remained on the outside of the
elevator.
 
His body kept the door from
closing.
 
“Did you send somebody over
there just in case?” Reno asked him.

“We have it under full guard,” Josie said.

“Order her staff to shut it down for today,” Reno said.
 
“If they ask on whose authority, tell them
mine.
 
If those fuckers want to raid
there too, they’ll have to go through me first.”

“Yes, sir,” Josie said, and allowed the door to close with
Reno and Vic enclosed.
 
He veered off to
do as Reno had commanded him.
 
Reno and
Vic rode upstairs, and then hurried off toward the small boutique.

 
Sal, to Reno’s
surprise, was already inside the store, standing near the entrance where he was
ordered to stand by the Feds.

“You got here fast,” Reno said.

“Josie called me.
 
I
wasn’t that far away.
 
Gem’s in court.
Tree’s in New York.
 
Your ass was
wherever your ass was.
 
So I knew
somebody had to be here.”

“Hello, Sal,” Vic said.

“What’s up?” Sal asked.
 
Then he looked at Reno.
 
“What the
fuck is this about?
 
This place is a
hundred percent legit.
 
Why are they
here?”

“Hell if I know,” Reno said.

“This shit makes zero sense,” Sal said.
 
“They raid Champagne’s when they’ve got the
whole fucking PaLargio, or even my corporation to raid?
 
With our slick asses at the helm of those
corporations?
 
But they raid Champagne’s
instead?
 
In what world does that make
sense?”

“And it’s not even Champagne’s main location they’re
raiding,” Vic added.

“Yeah,” Sal agreed.
 
“Not even there.”
 
He looked back
at Reno. “What the fuck is going on here?”

But Reno didn’t answer.
 
He was too busy staring at the agents.
 
He was too busy sizing up their motivation by reading the expressions on
their faces.
 
He counted at least six
different FBI agents as they went through boxes and boxes of inventory, the
cash registers, and the offices in the back.
 
He usually liked Sal around to bounce some ideas around.
 
But somehow he knew none of that
mattered.
 
Somehow this all felt plastic
to him.
 
Fake.
 
Sleigh of hands bullshit.
 
Then suddenly he felt a heaviness for Trina.

“Give me a minute,” he said, and went outside, near the food
court.
 
He pulled out his cellphone, and
called Trina.
 
It took several rings, but
she answered.

“Hey,” she said.

“You sound like you’re in bed?”

“I am.
 
We didn’t get
in until four this morning.
 
These people
party hard at New York Fashion Week.
 
I
must have attended ten different parties.”

Reno didn’t know how he liked that information.
 
The idea of his wife so far away partying her
ass off, with all of those horny-ass strange men rubbing against her fine body
wasn’t something he cared to think about.
 
But he told her to have fun.
 
She
was only doing what he asked her to do.

“Everybody alright?” Trina asked.
 
“The children okay?
 
You?”

“We’re good,” Reno said.
 
“But the Feds have arrived.”

“Ah man!
 
They haven’t
found anything though, right?”

“They aren’t exactly sharing their findings with me.
 
But I doubt it.
 
They aren’t raiding my place.”

He could imagine the frown on her face.
 
“They aren’t?
 
Then whose place are they raiding?”

“Yours,” Reno said.

He could imagine her naked body sitting up in bed.
 
“
What
?
 
My
place?
 
They’re raiding
Champagne’s
?”

“You got it,” Reno confirmed.
 
“And not your main location either.
 
They’re raiding the one inside the PaLargio.”

“Wait a minute.
 
My
PaLargio location?
 
But why, Reno?
 
That’s the smaller store.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Should I come back?”

“Hell no.
 
I’ve got
this.
 
I’m just . . .” He began pacing
around the food court area.

“You’re just what?” Trina asked him.

“It feels artificial to me, Tree.
 
I’ve been around a lot of Fed raids in my
day, and those guys are always serious.
 
They always look like this is make or break for them, and they’re trying
to make their career on that raid.
 
But these
guys today, I don’t know.
 
They look like
they’re just going through the motions.
 
They look like they aren’t going to find shit, and that’s fine by them.”