Rodney stared at her. There was a long, long pause. It was as if he could hardly bring himself to admit it. But he knew he had to. He exhaled. “Yes, I know,” he said. “I guess I’ve known it all along.”
Gemma stared at him. “I hate to do it, Dad, but I’m going to have to give you an ultimatum. I’m going to have to pull a George W. Bush on you, Pop.”
“A what?”
“A George W. Bush. After 9-11. You’re either with me and Sal,” she said, “or you’re with the terrorists.”
Rodney laughed.
“What’s your choice?” Gemma asked.
“The terrorists,” he said.
Gemma looked at him as if she couldn’t believe it.
He laughed and pulled her into his arms. “You, silly girl,” he said. “I’m with my daughter always.”
Later that night, when her parents were asleep in the guest room, and Sal and Gemma were snuggled close in the master bedroom, the call came in. Gemma woke up first. She was lying in front of Sal in the spoon position and fumbled around with the nightstand until she found his ringing cell phone. She answered it.
“Hello?” She didn’t bother to look at the Caller ID. It was two in the morning. It was obviously important.
“Hey sweetie.” It was Tommy. “Sal there?”
Gemma nudged Sal. “Sal?” she asked. “Sal?”
Sal began to wake up. Gemma handed him the cell phone. “It’s Tommy.”
Sal took the phone and moved to lay onto his back. But his dick was inside of Gemma and didn’t slip out easily, so he remained on his side and lifted up on his elbow instead. “Tommy, hey. What’s up?”
“You sleep more than a dead man.”
“Fuck you,” Sal said, his eyes closed.
Gemma shook her head. Even half asleep that word was still Sal’s favorite word.
“Don’t get your panties in a bunch,” Tommy said. “We’ve got Neeco.”
Sal’s eyes opened then. He didn’t need any further explanation. “Tell me where,” he said.
The safe house was located in a wooded area on the outskirts of town. It belonged to Reno, and it was his men guarding the place, so Sal wasn’t surprised when he got out of Gemma’s BMW and saw Reno there too when he went inside the house.
Sal walked in slowly. He wore an oxford shirt hanging out of his pants, and was still shaking off sleep. But he was wide awake when he saw Neeco, battered face and swollen eyes, sitting on that sofa.
Sal frowned. “Damn,” he said. “What happened to him?” He looked at Reno.
“He slipped,” Reno said. “Who cares? His ass got what he deserved.”
Another man was in the room: Bruce Slim. He also did jobs for Sal, but only because Neeco had brought him into the fold. He was guilty by association only. At this point.
Sal stared at Neeco, at this man who worked for him. He stared at the man he used to trust. Then he walked around the coffee table and sat down in front of his former friend.
Neeco looked at him. He knew the gig was up. Sal Gabrini, Reno Gabrini, and Tommy Gabrini together? They didn’t come together in a safe house to sing Kumbaya. This was bad. Neeco knew it would take a miracle for him to get out of this alive.
But Sal had a heart. And he was Sal’s man. They couldn’t do anything if Sal didn’t go along. Neeco was depending on Sal to not go along.
“It’s not what you think,” Neeco started, but Sal immediately held up a hand, and in doing so he made it clear: he did not want to hear it.
“Where’s Rip?” he asked him.
“Sal, you gotta help me, man. I’m one of yours!”
Sal punched him so hard in the face that Neeco’s head whiplashed, and blood flew from his nose. Reno smiled. Tommy continued to stare at his brother. He didn’t often get to see Sal in action.
“Where’s Rip?” Sal asked Neeco again.
Neeco started begging. “I’ve been there for you, Sal.”
But Sal had no sentiment for him tonight. “I’m not going to ask you again,” he said. “I’m going to fuck you up instead. Answer my question.”
“There is no Rip!” Neeco yelled. “Alright? Satisfied?”
Sal frowned. So did Reno and Tommy.
“What the fuck?” Reno asked, mystified.
“What are you talking?” Sal asked. “You’re telling me Johnny Ripperton don’t exist?”
“He don’t exist in this. He’s not involved in this.”
“What the fuck you mean he’s not involved?” Sal was beside himself. “He killed that kid.”
“I made it up,” Neeco admitted. “I made the whole thing up.”
Sal couldn’t believe it. “You made it up? How could you make it up? The kid died!”
“I know that!”
“Then what the fuck you mean you made it up? Now you tell me the truth you cocksucker! Where’s Rip and why did you claim Rip killed Lonnie’s kid?”
“They wanted a fresh murder,” Neeco said.
Reno and Tommy looked at each other. Sal frowned. “Who wanted a fresh murder?”
“The FBI! They wanted to nail your ass and they needed a fresh murder to do it with. They couldn’t pin any of the old stuff on you, and they knew it. They needed fresh meat.”
“So what?” Reno said. “They’re always looking to take down a Gabrini. What does that have to do with you?”
Neeco hesitated.
“Spit it out!” Sal yelled.
“Because they had my ass already,” Neeco said.
“The Feds?”
“Yes.”
“What for?”
“Old shit. Some hit I did years ago. Before I met you. But they had my ass in a sling, Sal. They were talking about Life plus twenty. And they’d get a conviction too. They had me dead to rights.”
“So you snitched on Sal?” Reno asked him.
“I had to deliver better goods,” Neeco said. “They’d take me off the grill only if I gave them bigger fish to fry.”
“Sal,” Tommy said.
“Sal,” Neeco admitted. “But nothing was going down fast enough for them. So I faked that kidnapping of Angela and Lonnie’s son. I put the blame on an easy target like Rip, and I knew that would get Sal involved. But Rip was elusive as a motherfuck. I couldn’t catch his ass with an ocean-size net. But I was able to snatch Philly. I figured Philly’s death would do the trick. But Sal saw through it. He knew Philly wasn’t in deep enough for a killing, and he wouldn’t let him fall. I dropped him, but told the Feds Sal dropped him. But that wasn’t enough for them. Philly’s death suddenly wasn’t enough. They thought Philly was too dirty and complicated for the charges to stick in a court of law.”
“So you had to get more?” Tommy asked.
“They said I had to. My life was on the line! They said Philly plus somebody else would do it. It didn’t matter who. But it had to be fresh and Sal had to be easily implicated. That’s when Lonnie and Angela’s kid came into play again.”
“Why was Angela pointing a finger at Rip?” Sal asked.
“Because she thought she was dealing with Rip. I made her think it. But it wasn’t Rip. Bruce was handling it for me.”
Bruce began to back up. “No, sur, boss,” he said. “I didn’t know it was going down like that, Sal,” he added.
But Sal was completely focused on Neeco. On his main man.
“So I knew I had to do something drastic,” Neeco said. “They were breathing down my throat for more. So that’s when the kid came in again.”
“Lonnie’s kid?” Tommy asked.
“Yeah.”
“Who iced the kid. You?” Sal asked him pointblank.
Neeco didn’t respond.
“Who iced the kid?” Sal asked again. “You?”
Neeco began to cry. “I had too, don’t you see? That’s the only way you would do something! They wanted fresh meat. I could blame the kid’s death on Rip and I knew then you’d get him. You’d get him then. So me and Bruce, we took care of it.”
Bruce was m
ortified. “I didn’t know it happened until after it happened, Sal! Then Neek said I was in too deep to run to you. Neek said you’d kill me on the spot anyway!”
But Sal was just sitting there. Stunned. Silence overtook the room.
Then Sal spoke. But he spoke as if he was still coming to terms with it himself. “Are you telling me . . . Are you telling me that you motherfuckers killed a kid just to get my attention?”
“I had to, Sal!” Neeco blared. “I had to get you angry enough to kill Rip, don’t you see? So I lied on Rip. I had to. And Rip was running scared, that’s why we couldn’t catch up with him. But I had to lie. I had to lie, Sal! I killed the kid and lied!”
Sal stood up. Then, to everybody’s surprise in the room, he pulled out that same switchblade he had taken from his ex-girlfriend Teri Burk, and grabbed Neeco by the neck. Tommy and Reno went behind Bruce, in case he tried anything. With Neeco struggling wildly, Sal forced open his mouth and, without a second’s hesitation, sliced his tongue completely off. “Try lying now motherfucker!” Sal yelled as he tossed Neeco away from him and Neeco started wiggling in pain.
Reno was nodding his head, as if he would have done the exact same thing. Tommy was staring at his brother.
“In enough pain?” Sal asked Neeco. “That enough pain for you?”
Neeco was nodding, as the blood was gushing from his mouth.
“I disagree,” Sal said as he pulled out his gun. He then shot Neeco eight times. One bullet for every year Lonnie’s kid was alive on this earth. The Gabrini way.
Then he looked at Bruce. But Bruce was pleading for his life. “Sal, please,” he begged. “It wasn’t me. I was just there. Neeco killed that kid. It wasn’t me! Don’t you understand?”
“I understand. I understand you knew a kid had been killed and you went along with it.”
“But it wasn’t---”
“Shut the fuck up!” Sal yelled. And then he shot Bruce several times too.
Reno hated the carnage, but he knew it had to be done. They couldn’t kill a kid, and live. “That’s what I’m talking about,” he said.
Tommy nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s it.”
But Sal said nothing. He did what he had to do. His actions, he felt, said enough.
Gemma was still asleep after Sal showered and crawled back into bed that night. When he snuggled against her, and pulled her into his big arms, she groaned her satisfaction. Sal held her, like the precious gift she was, and thought about what he had done tonight. Neeco used to be his boy, a leader of one of his many crews. But he had snitched on him. But he had killed Lonnie’s kid. He had treated a kid as collateral damage in a war Sal didn’t even know was being waged. And now Gemma, when she became his wife, could one day be treated that way too.
He closed his eyes. Ashamed.
But then Gemma opened her eyes. As if her heart could feel the pain in his. “Don’t worry, Sal,” she said to him. “They’ll leave us alone someday.”
And Sal actually found a way to smile. Just a reassuring word from her was all it took. Because he believed it. Even though he should have known better, he decided to believe it.
EPILOGUE
His heart pounded when the musicians began to play Here Comes the Bride. He hadn’t even seen Gemma yet, just her bridesmaids, but already his knees were beginning to buckle. Tommy was standing beside him as his best man, and Reno and Jimmy Mack were standing there too. But despite all of their support, Sal was a wreck.
Trina was the maid of honor, and Gemma’s girlfriends from Indiana were her bridesmaids. Marvin was there too. He wanted to be a bridesmaid also, and Gemma was all for it, but Sal said over his dead body, so they scratched that idea. But all of the bridesmaids, and Marvin, and Grace, and Val, and Cassie in the audience, all had tears in their eyes. There, in fact, wasn’t a dry eye in the room. Not even Tommy wasn’t immune.
“I saw that,” Reno whispered, as Tommy wiped a tear away.
“It was dust,” Tommy responded, in that serious voice of his.
But Reno knew better. It was Sal and Gemma, coming together in spite of it all. And it was a wonderful feeling. Tommy’s little brother was about to be married, to start a family. It felt almost miraculous.
Then Gemma appeared at the backside of their massive ballroom. Her father walked her down the aisle and he looked so proud that even Sal was surprised. But he only had eyes for Gemma. She looked otherworldly, he thought, in her gorgeous white trumpet gown against her gorgeous black skin. No sight on earth could have been more beautiful to Sal.
When she was deposited beside him, they both grinned. This day, this moment, was the accumulation of a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, and they couldn’t wait to get it done. Even the ceremony itself was all about getting it done. For such a nontraditional couple, they decided to go completely traditional. No groom walking down the aisle. No flower boys and brides-males. No long speeches at the altar. No glitz. No glam. They just wanted to be married.
And it went on without a hitch. Until the Priest asked for the ring. Tommy reached into his pocket, pulled out the beautiful ring, and handed it to Sal. Sal took Gemma’s finger.
“With this ring, I thee wed,” the priest said for Sal to repeat. But as soon as the priest said those words, an outcry could be heard in the audience, and then pandemonium broke out.
At first there was so much commotion that no one in the wedding party knew what was going on. Until somebody said, “her water broke!” and there was no doubt then.
Tommy ran into the audience to where the crowd had surrounded his wife, and Reno, Trina, Jimmy and Val, hurried to Grace’s side too. Tommy immediately began hurrying Grace to the exit, to get her to the hospital, and the family was following.
Gemma, too, started to follow too, naturally, but Sal pulled her back.
“Marry us,” he said to the priest.
“Sal!” Gemma said. “We need to make sure everything is okay.”
“Everything’s fine, what are you talking? They have babies every day of the week. What’s new about having a baby? But Gemma Jones marrying Sal Gabrini? Now that’s rare. That’s special.” Sal kept Gemma in his arms. “Marry us,” he said to the priest.
And Gemma smiled. Sal was absolutely correct. “Yes,” she agreed. “Marry us.”
And in front of Gemma’s proud parents, and a scattered audience of witnesses, he married them.
Salvatore Luciano Gabrini and Gemmanette Jones once and finally, in their own way, got married.
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Sal Gabrini 4: I'll Take You There (The Gabrini Men Series Book 7) Page 16
