But all three of the Gabrini men were shaking their heads.
“No,” Tommy said.
“No,” Sal said. “No way.”
“Hell no,” Reno said. “Your ass isn’t going anywhere. We’ll get her out of there, but you aren’t going in.”
“Then how are we gonna get her out, Pop? How?”
“I don’t know,” Reno admitted. “But not through you, I know that much.”
“But I have to go, Pop. There’s no other way.”
“If a Gabrini doesn’t show up,” Buddy pleaded, “they’ll kill my daughter. That woman said so. She’s not playing.”
“We go in with all guns blazing,” Sal suggested. “It’s only three of’em from what he said. We go in with an army of men.”
“But that won’t work either,” Tommy said. “The bomb, remember?”
“I have to go in, Dad,” Jimmy pleaded. “There’s no other way.”
But Reno was still saying no. Tommy and Sal were less certain than Reno, because if it was their women in such a predicament they would have to go in too, and Jimmy saw their hesitation.
“Tell him, Uncle Tommy,” Jimmy begged. “He’ll listen to you. I can’t let my woman die. I can’t let them kill her because he doesn’t want me in harm’s way. I can’t do that. I won’t be a man if I do that! You know I won’t!”
Trina stood there, still undetected by Reno, her heart breaking. Because she knew it too.
Tommy shook his head. “Reno,” he started, but Reno cut him off.
“No,” he said.
“But my daughter,” Buddy said.
“I understand you want your daughter back, Mr. Wellstone. I want her back too. And we’ll get her back. But nobody’s sacrificing my son. Not ever again!”
Buddy frowned. Reno was talking as if Jimmy had been sacrificed before, and he didn’t get it. But everybody else in that room did. Reno’s family was threatened one time, and Reno was forced to sacrifice the life of either Trina, Dommi, or Jimmy. If Reno didn’t choose, his enemy would choose for him. Reno begged to let him be the one to die, but his offer was refused. He had to choose between his wife or one of his children. It was a Hopson’s choice, there were no good outcome that could come of any choice he made. But he had to choose. So he sacrificed Jimmy. He sacrificed Jimmy to save Trina and Dommi. Jimmy survived the ordeal, and forgave his father, but Reno swore he’d never sacrifice his son that way ever again.
Trina and Tommy looked at each other. Somehow they knew Reno was never going to give in, not with the past as his guide, and they also knew what they had to do. He nodded to her, and she went back into the kitchen, made her way around the back corridor that led all the way back around to the guest bedrooms. She made her way into one of those rooms.
Up front, Jimmy was still pleading his case, still begging his father to reconsider, when they heard a loud crash.
Reno was the first to take off, toward the sound, and Sal followed him. Jimmy, too, was about to follow but Tommy held him back.
He looked at his uncle.
“You listen to me,” Tommy said, grabbing him by his shoulders, “and you listen good. You will do this exactly as I tell you to do it.”
In the back guest bedroom, Reno and Sal found Trina on the floor, a table overturned.
Reno hurried to her. “Babe,” he said nervously. “Are you all right?” He and Sal helped her to the bed. She sat down.
“What happened?” Sal said.
Trina looked distressed, but not because of the fall.
Reno sat on the bed beside her. “Honey, what’s wrong? Did you faint? Do I need to call a doctor?”
Tears were in Trina’s eyes and her bottom lip began to tremble. Reno put his arms around her. He was terrified. “Trina, what is it?”
Trina looked at her husband. And she shook her head.
“What, babe? Tell me.”
“There are no good choices, Reno,” she said. “I’m sorry, but there aren’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“There are no good choices. Just like before. It’s upon us again.”
Reno stared at her. “What are you saying?”
“That’s his woman. That’s the woman he loves, that’s the woman he wants to be his wife. You have got to let him handle this.”
“No,” he said. “Nobody’s putting Jimmy on the grill ever again. I did it to him once, and that’s it. That’s all. I don’t care who’s in danger. Not my son. I will not sacrifice him ever again.”
But the more he spoke, the more he realized how distressed Trina really was. And he suddenly realized that she wasn’t speaking as if she was asking him to sacrifice Jimmy again, but she was telling him that Jimmy will be sacrificed again. And Reno’s heart nearly stopped. This was a ruse. This was a trick to get him away from Jimmy long enough for Jimmy to make his escape.
Reno took off running back up front. He ran as if his life depended on it. Not his son, he kept thinking. Not another child of his!
When he made it back up front, nobody was there except Cecil Hathaway. Sal and Trina made it back up there too. But Jimmy, Tommy, and Buddy were already gone.
“Where’s my son?” Reno nervously asked his father-in-law.
Cecil hated to be the bearer of bad news. “He left with his uncle,” he said.
Reno’s heart dropped. And he began to hurry for the exit. Trina pushed Sal and told him to go too. But that was already Sal’s plan.
And Trina stood there, her heart barely beating, as they were about to leave. But just as he was about to clear the door, Reno suddenly thought about Trina and stopped. He turned around and looked at her. She was leaned against the wall, her arms folded more to brace herself than for comfort, as tears streamed down her pretty brown face. She purposely distracted him so that Jimmy could go and save his woman. Reno would not have allowed it otherwise, and she knew it, and she tricked him.
He walked up to her. Sal began to follow him. He was afraid Reno was going to beat Trina’s ass for deceiving him that way, and for forcing him in this position. But he didn’t lay a hand on her.
“I don’t care what happens,” he said to her, his face a mask of agony. “I don’t care how this turns out. If Jimmy don’t get out of this alive, if I don’t get out of this alive, if Tommy don’t, it’s not your fault. You hear me?”
Trina wiped the tears from her face.
“You raise our children,” Reno went on, “and you take care of yourself. But you had better not blame yourself for any of this. Our children are going to need you to be strong. And I’m going to need you to be strong. It’ll kill me if you blame yourself, Tree.” Then he lied. “I was gonna say yes anyway,” he said to her. “I knew this was Jimmy’s woman, and Jimmy had to handle it. So you did nothing wrong. Okay? You got it?”
Trina was so sorry that it had come to this. But she nodded her head. Reno needed her strength right now, not her regret. “Yes,” she said. “I got it.”
Reno kissed her on her forehead, and then he and Sal took off.
Cecil looked at his daughter. “It’ll be all right, Baby Girl,” he said. “Reno will see to that.”
Trina wanted to believe it too. But it wasn’t in Reno’s hands. Not this time. It had to be in Jimmy’s.
“Stop here,” Tommy said and Jimmy pulled over to the side of the street. They were in Val’s neighborhood, two blocks away. A second car pulled up behind them and stopped at the curb too.
“We don’t have time to rig up anything, and we can’t force her hand in any way.”
“Right,” Jimmy said.
“Hand me your phone.”
Jimmy grabbed his phone out of his pocket and handed it to his Uncle. Tommy dialed his own cell phone number, placed the phone on Speaker and handed it back to Jimmy. Tommy then answered his own phone.
“Okay,” Tommy said. “This is the only communication we’re going to have. Keep the phone on and I can at least hear the conversation. Once you find out where that bomb is hidden, you call ou
t the location. If we can get it and remove it to a different location, we’ll do that. But you have to be alert to everything.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And if you see an opportunity to take one of them out, you take it.”
“But why won’t you give me a gun?”
“Because they’ll take it as soon as you walk through that door and that’ll only give them more firepower. You’ve got to keep it simple. Don’t overthink it, and don’t be stupid. Pick your moment, and strike. And if you can alert me of anything, you do so. We can’t come in until we know Val isn’t wired with explosives. You understand?”
Then he frowned. He knew he had to tell it to the kid straight. “This is all on you, Jim. Me and your Dad and your Uncle Sal can’t help you. It’s all on you.”
Jimmy nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Tommy stared at his nephew. He dreaded that it had to come to this, but it had come to this. He leaned over, kissed Jimmy, and then pulled him into his arms. “I love you,” he said.
Jimmy had never felt closer to Tommy, a man who still intimidated him, than he did right now. “I love you too, Uncle Tommy,” he said.
Then Tommy released him. Jimmy could see where his eyes were bright with unshed tears.
“Go get’em, Tiger,” Tommy said. “And keep that phone turned on.”
“Yes, sir,” Jimmy said and Tommy got out of his car. Jimmy kept driving, heading to Val’s house. The car behind drove up to Tommy, and Tommy got inside.
Jimmy arrived at the house alone. He glanced around, to see if he saw his father’s men, Emmett and Mike. He saw their car across the street, but he didn’t see them. Now he was walking into the lion’s den, but he also knew there was no other way.
The door was opened as soon as he walked up on the porch, and entered the home. As soon as he walked in, the barrel of a gun was pressed against his head and then the door was kicked shut. And the first thing he saw, stacked in the foyer, were Emmett and Mike, Reno’s security staff. And both of them were dead.
“Who are those two dead men?” Jimmy asked, to alert Tommy, through his cell phone, what they had already suspected: Reno’s men were goners.
“You know who they are,” said a woman’s voice. “Come on in.”
Jimmy was pushed forward by the man behind him, and was escorted, at gunpoint, into the living room. Then he was searched. The man behind him grabbed his cell phone out of his pocket, and tossed it aside, and he continued to pat him down. He was searching for weapons. He found none. “He’s clean,” the man said.
Marcy Davenport was standing there, near the back hall, and another man was standing beside Val. Val, to Jimmy’s consternation, was bound, hands and feet, to a small chair that sat in the middle of the living room. Another chair, an empty one, sat beside her. She looked so mortified it broke his heart. But he couldn’t concentrate on that. He had to focus on her captor. On this woman from his father’s past.
“You must be Marcy Davenport.”
“You must be Jimmy Mack. Reno’s oldest child.” She stared at him, her gun at her side. “Yeah,” she said, nodding her head. “I can see the resemblance. Amazing. You look almost like a white man. Considering how black I’m sure your mother was, that’s saying something.”
“So you have me now,” Jimmy said. “You can release Val.”
Marcy smiled. “You hear that boys? He comes in here telling me what to do. Just like his father.” Then she frowned. “Sit his ass down, and tie him up too.”
The man who had escorted him in pushed him further toward the empty chair beside Val. Then he pushed Jimmy down into the chair to prepare to tie him up. Jimmy knew it was now or never. If they tied him up, he would not be able to save Val. And that wasn’t an option for Jimmy.
As soon as the man reached for the rope, turning his body away from Jimmy ever so slightly, Jimmy raised up quickly, grabbed the rope from the man and slung it around his neck. But he didn’t stop there. He remembered how his father handled an ambush. He remembered how Reno used that lookout driver as a human shield. So he immediately placed the man in front of him, as a shield, to take the gunfire that was certain to erupt. But Jimmy didn’t stop there. He then placed his own body in front of Val, to shield her too.
As Jimmy expected, the second man started firing his weapon in response to the sudden move, but he was hitting his own man. Jimmy then dropped the rope and grabbed the wounded man’s gun before he could drop it, and with the wounded man still as his shield he got into a gunfight with the second man, a fight Jimmy won. The second man dropped dead on the spot.
Marcy was firing her weapon too, but unlike the second man, she had the good sense to hide behind the wingback chair in the room. And when she saw that both of her men were hit, with one dead and the other one good as dead as Jimmy’s human shield, she also had enough good sense to know she had to press her advantage. She was firing away, firing at Jimmy, causing him to recoil behind the wounded man he was holding. But she was running away too, to a backroom in the house.
“She’s headed for the back,” Jimmy yelled. He wasn’t sure if his Uncle could even hear him, given that the phone was across the room, but he yelled it anyway. “The bomb is in the back!”
Marcy ran down the hall, to where Jimmy was certain was the bomb, and he started firing, attempting to take her down. But she was moving too fast and he wasn’t a good enough shot. So he slung the wounded man away from him and aimed his shots. But it was no good. She disappeared into the bedroom.
He knew time was all but out. All she had to do was detonate. “She’s in the room with the bomb,” he was saying out loud, praying his uncle could hear him, but he couldn’t wait on that. He got on his knees as he attempted to free Val. But the knots were too tight and time was his enemy. Val’s eyes were horrified, and he couldn’t so much as free one of her hands. He kept looking back, at the room Marcy had disappeared into, as he kept trying to free her. His only hope was that Marcy would save herself and wouldn’t blow the whole thing up. He kept nervously, anxiously, desperately trying to untie Val, but not a knot would loosen.
Outside, Tommy, Buddy and the men with Tommy were jumping out of the car and running toward the house. Reno and Sal turned onto Val’s street and sped toward her house. But just as they were approaching it, the end came. The entire house exploded in a burst of red hot, rolling flames. The impact alone threw Tommy and Buddy back on their heels, and then down to their knees. Sal slammed on brakes, causing the car to swerve wildly before coming to a stop, and he and Reno jumped out of the car. They tried to run toward the house, but it was too late. There was no house. Just flames. Just smoke. Just wreckage.
Reno tried to run toward the fire anyway, to save his son, but Tommy tackled him and pulled him back. And wouldn’t let him go.
“Jimmy,” Reno yelled. “Jimmy!”
Then Reno, realizing the futility of his cries, dropped to his knees, his heart pounding as if it was pounding outside of his body. Sal placed both hands over his head, unable to bear the sight. And Tommy stood there, his heart momentarily stopped, as he held onto Reno and stared at the horror.
It was over. Jimmy was gone. Val was gone. Marcy wasn’t interested in saving herself. She lost her child, and she wasn’t leaving this earth until she was certain that Reno would lose his. And lose his in the same spectacularly gruesome way. Nicky died in an explosion. Jimmy died in an explosion.
“Oh, my God,” Sal cried through his tears. “This is unbearable! Oh, my God!”
Reno knew it too. He thought he was still calling Jimmy’s name. Not a sound was coming from his mouth, but he thought he was screaming his son’s name.
But then, Sal stopped all movement. He even removed his hands from his head. He knew it wasn’t true. He knew his grief was playing tricks on him and had him seeing things that were not there. But it looked so real!
He began walking, toward the wreckage.
Tommy looked at his brother. He saw that otherworldly look on his face. “What is it?�
�
Reno looked up too.
Sal pointed. “Tell me I’m not seeing things,” he said. “Tell me I’m not so stricken that I’m boat-shit crazy now.”
Reno and Tommy followed Sal’s gaze and looked toward what used to be the side of Val’s house too. And like a ghost coming out of the ashes, Jimmy was walking through the smoke. Reno was so stunned that he had to hold onto Tommy to stand up. But he stood up. Because it wasn’t a mirage. Because Sal wasn’t boat-shit crazy. It was Jimmy. It was Jimmy. And he wasn’t alone. He was carrying Val. She was still tied down to a chair, but he was carrying her and the chair.
Reno grabbed Tommy’s arm. He still couldn’t believe it. Was he hallucinating? Was this some bad joke?
But he wasn’t. And it wasn’t. Because Sal was running toward his nephew, and Tommy started running too. And they touched Jimmy. You can’t touch a mirage.
Reno started running too. He became so excited that he tripped over his own two feet, and fell on his face. And then he started crawling toward his son. His heart was too weak. The shock had taken him from unspeakable grief to unspeakable joy. And he made it up to his son, and touched him too.
He looked at Val as Tommy and Sal attempted to free her from her bounds, and touched her too. But his eyes went back to his son. To jimmy. To his man.
“He saved me,” Val was saying. “He killed both of those men and carried me out of that house. She was going to kill herself and take us with her,” she added. “But Jimmy wouldn’t give up. Jimmy wouldn’t allow it.”
Reno looked at her. And finally he came back to himself. He frowned, and then stood up on his feet. “What are you talking? Of course he wasn’t going to allow it. He’s a Gabrini. He’s a Gabrini man.”
And Jimmy stared at his father. He’d never felt more like a Gabrini than he did at that moment in time. Because he knew now it wasn’t about the toughness. It wasn’t about doing it to them before they did it to you. It was about the love. It was about looking out and protecting those they loved. It was about family.
Reno and Son: Don't Mess with Jim (The Mob Boss Series) Page 17
