CHAPTER TWENTY
Shocked that his wife would be in that particular area, and at night, he hopped in his Porsche and sped in and out of lanes like the wild man he could be.
But when he arrived at the motel and saw the yellow tape and all of the sirens still twirling on the various first responder vehicles, and then he saw the gaping hole through the front of the motel as if a Mack truck had driven straight through it, his heart dropped through his shoe.
He couldn’t get out of his car fast enough.
He was praying that it wasn’t Trina. Let it not be Trina. Let it all be some big mistake!
It wasn’t Trina at first. He saw a black man being rolled out on a gurney and put into one of the ambulances.
When he hurried up to the tape, he could see it was Javon Douglas.
Trina’s ex-lover. From the way they were rushing him into that ambulance and not hesitating to stabilize him, Reno knew he was in bad shape.
But he was still hopeful that somehow Trina wasn’t there. That seeing Javon was some kind of twisted coincidence.
But when he looked around and saw Trina’s Bentley, he knew it was no fluke. And as soon as he saw her vehicle, he then saw another gurney hurrying out of that badly damaged motel room. This time, a black woman was on the gurney. And that was when he knew it was Trina. His heart sank.
As soon as he saw Trina, he tore that yellow tape in two and began running toward her. But the cops tried to stop him. “That’s my wife,” he yelled angrily as two cops grabbed him. “That’s my wife!”
But they wouldn’t let him go. And he wasn’t about to stay away from her. That was why he violently tossed one of those young cops away from him, and then pushed the second one, as he tore away from them and ran to that gurney.
When both cops got up and tried to run after him again, the detective in charge on the scene hurriedly motioned for them to stand down.
They may not have realized it, but that detective knew they had Katrina Gabrini on that gurney, and the man running to her side was none other than Reno Gabrini, the most powerful man in Vegas and the owner of the PaLargio Hotel and Casino on the Strip.
He wasn’t taking any blowback from brass if they actually did their jobs and restrained Gabrini.
He ordered those zealous cops to not do their jobs and let it be.
But it was Reno who restrained himself when he saw the condition Trina was in. He stopped in his tracks when he saw her. She was hooked up to oxygen. There were tubes and drips. Blood was everywhere.
“Trina?” It was as if he couldn’t believe it. Is that you? he wanted to ask. But he knew it was her. He was looking right at her.
And those paramedics weren’t playing around. They rushed her into that ambulance and continued working feverishly on her. The detective in charge expected Reno to try and get inside of that ambulance with his wife, which he knew he couldn’t allow, but Reno didn’t even try it.
He just stood there as if he was in a state of disbelief. As if this couldn’t be his wife. As if he was in the middle of a deadly fever that he knew was going to break. And even when the detective asked him a question, he was so feverish that he didn’t hear him.
“Sir? Mr. Gabrini?”
The detective had to touch Reno for Reno to realize he was standing beside him and talking to him. Reno looked at him.
“Did your wife have a security detail with her, sir?”
It was only then, when he mentioned her security detail, did Reno snap out of his stupor. “Security?” Then he remembered. Where were his guys? “Yes,” he said. “Matter of fact she did.”
“A team of four men, sir?”
How would that cop know how many? “That’s right. Why are you asking me that?”
“We found their car, with them inside, about two miles north of this motel. They were shot to death, all of them, and then driven to another location.”
That sounded like mob shit to Reno. But why would they be targeting Trina? Did it have something to do with Dommi’s kidnapping? Was Rats Scorvino involved like Lolo claimed? What the fuck was going on?
But it was Trina that Reno was focused on. “What happened to my wife?”
He asked with such an anguished look on his face that even the detective, who was convinced, without any solid proof, that those Gabrinis and Sinatras were more mob-related than they would ever claim to be, felt sorry for the guy.
“A big, fortified Ram truck drove straight through that motel room where your wife and a male black were holed up. According to witnesses, there were at least three men in that truck, and they shot them both. Repeatedly,” he added.
“And then they backed out and took off.”
“What do you mean by holed up?” Reno asked. Was that asshole implying that Trina was in that motel room having sex with Javon Douglas?
“According to the manager,” the detective said delicately, “this wasn’t the first time the couple stayed in that room at this motel, sir.”
Reno’s jaw tightened. He wanted to kick his ass right then and there because he knew that shit couldn’t be true. Trina wouldn’t do that to him. She wouldn’t!
But when he looked at Trina, and saw the condition she was in, he didn’t give two shits about that cop. Or even why Tree was in that motel room to begin with. He just wanted her to live. He just wanted her to be okay.
“We’re on our way to the hospital now, sir,” the paramedic said as he closed the back of the ambulance, leaving his partner inside still working feverishly on Trina, and then he hopped onto the front driver seat ready to go.
Reno ran to his Porsche even as the detective was asking him another question, hopped in, and took off behind that ambulance as if speed limits meant nothing to him either.
But he could hardly see in front of him for the tears.