Reno and Son: Don't Mess with Jim (The Mob Boss Series) Read Online Free

“It’ll
be a piece of cake.   A cakewalk.   It’ll be easy as pie.”  
    “I didn’t say it’s going to be easy.”
    But Reno was still too angry to hear
him.   “Comparing yourself to me!   When I was barely eighteen years old I almost
killed my father for trying to rape your mother.   What about that comparison?   I was on my own with nothing going for me but
my toughness.   You’re a pampered rich kid
who’s been living under me all your adult life, what the fuck would you know
about tough? You won’t even get your own place and leave the PaLargio because
you decided it’s easier for you to stay in an apartment I’m paying for, and
have a job I gave to you where you only have to walk downstairs to go to work
every day.   If you wanna call it
work.   I make you a pit boss, put you in
charge of one section of my casino, and you’re barely doing that right.   And I know what I’m talking about.   I check on your ass on a daily basis.   Yet you want me to give you more, just give
it to you?   Get the fuck outta here!   Get some balls first and then come talk to me
about running something!”  
    Reno knew his words were harsh, but he felt
Jimmy needed a swift kick in the ass.   He
had expected Jimmy to be on the ball by now, more than ready to take on more
responsibility around the PaLargio.   But
it wasn’t happening.   Jimmy seemed
content to hang out with his friends and smoke pot like it was nobody’s
business, hang out with his girl, and continue to lay up under Reno and his
wife like he was still their minor child.   Reno wanted more for his son, a hell of a lot more, and he was beginning
to wonder if tough love was the only way to make it happen.
    Val, however, wasn’t privy to Reno’s inner
thoughts, just his outer words, and she was astounded by the harshness of those
words.   How could he say such terrible
things to a nice guy like Jimmy?   She
looked at Jimmy.   He was just standing
there, inwardly brooding the way he always did, but showing strength too by taking
it without comment.   She, too, knew Jimmy
was a laidback young man who stopped taking the few college courses he was
taking and was hanging out more.   But he
was no different than many twenty-two year olds.  
    She was a year older than he was, had her
own place, and had a partnership in her father’s realty company, but that didn’t
make Jimmy any slouch.   He was one of the
good guys.
    She looked at him.   “You okay?”
    “I’m fine,” Jimmy said with an edge to his
voice.   “Go on and show Dad around the
place.   That’s why he’s here.”
    Val looked at Reno.   But Reno was staring at Jimmy.   “What do you want?” he asked his son.   “Want me to sugarcoat it for you?   Want me to tell you what you wanna hear?”
    But Jimmy’s anger flared.   “I don’t want you to do shit for me!”
    Reno didn’t flinch.   He saw the place it was coming from, he saw
the pain.   Jimmy had a toughness about
him, that was where the anger came from, but he had a softness too.   And that softness was a sweetness that could
take over his son if his son wasn’t careful.   And Reno wasn’t having that.   Jimmy was a Gabrini.   A soft
Gabrini meant a dead Gabrini, and that wasn’t going to happen.   Not on Reno’s watch.   He wanted the best for Jimmy.   Sometimes he felt as if he loved his son so
much, and wanted to protect him so much, that it literally hurt him to his
core.   Reno stayed awake many nights,
worrying about him.
    And that was why, despite Jimmy’s
resistance when Reno first reached for him, Reno reached anyway and pulled his
son into his arms.
    Val felt much better when Reno embraced
Jimmy.   Because she, too, knew that Jimmy
was as delicate as he was tough.   But the
harshness Reno had spoken to Jimmy still bothered her.   There might have been two sides to Jimmy, but
there weren’t two sides to Reno.   He was
so hard on Jimmy, and sometimes unflinchingly brutal, it