Free Reno Gabrini: For His Lover (The Mob Boss Series Book 14) by Mallory Monroe

report this
morning, sir,” she said, “and we have to investigate the allegations.”
    Reno frowned.   “What
allegations?”
    “Allegations of child endangerment and child neglect,” she
said.
    “They asked me questions about what happened at Jimmy and
Val’s when I was driving the getaway car,” Dommi said.
    Trina’s eyes stretched and Reno’s heart pounded when Dommi spoke
out loud about a situation that occurred a few months earlier.   Reno knew he had to play it off.   “What are you talking about, boy?” he asked.
    “What are you talking about, child?” Trina asked, playing it
off too.
    But Dommi, to their horror, obliged them.   “They wanted me to tell them about the time
when I had to get Sophie away from the killers.   So I put Sophie in Val’s car and drove it away.   But it didn’t do any good.   They caught her anyway.   And then they kidnapped me too.   These people here, including that horse-face
lady, told me they already knew all about it.”
    The principal angrily corrected Dommi on using impolite
verbiage to describe the social worker, but Trina looked at Reno.   It wasn’t as if Dommi was lying.   Not about that woman’s face, but especially
not about what happened that day.   Everything he said had, in fact, happened!   But they were cooked if these sanctimonious
do-gooders discovered that they were actually on to something.  
    Reno removed his shades.   They worked to shield his eyes from the morning sun, but his eyes still
looked bloodshot and drained.   “Are you
telling us,” he asked, “that you believe these fairytales?”
    Good move, Trina thought, and nodded her head.   “And that’s all they are,” she said.
“Fairytales.”
    “Monumental fairytales,” Reno echoed.   “And you’re standing here telling us that you
believe this nonsense?   Getaway cars and
killers?   Kidnappings?   Our ten-year-old innocent little child
driving a car?   Are you serious?   You made me leave my busy office to come down
here for this bullshit?”
    “Watch your language, sir,” the principal insisted.
    “I’ll watch my language when you watch your step,” Reno fired
back.   “This shit ain’t funny.   How would you feel if I accused your kid of
this kind of foolishness?”
    “Who called this in anyway?” Trina asked.   “Some prankster?   Maybe it was our son trying to get some days
off from school.   But our child wouldn’t
do anything like that.”
    “We were simply asking him if any of the allegations were
true,” the principal said.
    “And I told them they weren’t,” Dommi replied.   “I told them.   Then they told me what happened.”
    “You see,” Reno said.   “I’m telling you it’s all a pack of lies.   My son is telling you it’s a pack of
lies.   My wife is telling you it’s a pack
of lies.   What more do you want?   And if you still won’t take our word for it,
then where are the police reports?   If
all of this crazy shit went down the way that anonymous report claims it did,
where are the police reports?   You can’t
have getaways and gunmen and kidnappings without some kind of police
involvement.   So give.   Show me what you have.”
    But he knew they had nothing, even as he also knew every word
of that anonymous report was true.
    But practicality won out.   The social worker nor Principal knew anything about the kind of
lifestyle the Gabrinis were forced to lead.   And because it was so foreign to them, they accepted Reno’s
premise.   This was nonsense.   A fairytale.   Bullshit.
    Detective Crowston believed every word, but without Dommi’s
cooperation they had no proof whatsoever.   They had no choice.   They released
Dommi to his parents.
    But as Reno and Trina took their son out of the school and
made their way down the steps, they were concerned.   “Who could have called it in?” Trina asked as
they hurried away.
    “Hell if I know,” Reno said.   “But they had a lot of