But when Sophie came in the room, she came with Destiny, and both girls looked worried sick. “What’s wrong?” Sophie asked her father and mother.
Reno walked away, behind the sofa, pacing. He could hardly take it.
“What is it, Ma?” Sophia asked Trina. “What did I do?”
Nobody seemed able to answer her question. They were all too emotional to answer her. But Mick looked at Gemma, the lawyer, to get those answers.
“Who have you been hanging out with, Soph?” Gemma asked her.
“Hanging out?” Sophia asked. “I haven’t been hanging out with anybody.”
“No girlfriends at school?” Gemma asked.
“Or boyfriends?” Sal asked bluntly.
But Sophia was shaking her head on both counts. “No,” she said. “There’s been some guys that wanted to hang out with me, but I wouldn’t let them. I’m not the hanging out type, and I don’t do cliques. I prefer to travel solo. Why are you asking me these questions?”
“Were any of the guys who were trying to get next to you last name Cobahara?” asked Gemma. She knew she was squatting at air, but that was what lawyers did.
It was a miss because Sophie was still shaking her head. “No,” she said, even as she was thinking about it. “I’ve never heard that name before in my life.”
“Were any of those guys Asian?” Gemma asked, since it was an in-house contract.
It was then that something registered with Sophia. And she remembered the boy Destiny showed her at the graduation. He was Asian!
Destiny realized an even greater connection. She knew that name!
“What is it, Soph?” Gemma asked. “Were any of those boys Asian?”
“The ones after me? No,” said Sophia.
“But the one after me is,” said Destiny. “And I know that name.”
As soon as those words left Destiny’s mouth, everybody looked at her. Especially her parents. They were both in shock. “Who is he?” Tommy asked, his voice raising an octave. “You know somebody with that last name?”
Destiny nodded her head. She looked terrified to her parents. “Yes, sir,” she said. “But I don’t understand. What’s this about?”
“Who?” Grace asked. “Who do you know with that name, Desi?”
Destiny looked at Sophie. “You gotta tell’em,” she said.
“Tell us what?” Reno asked as he walked from around the sofa.
“Tell us what?” Tommy asked, when Destiny was still hesitating.
“My friend,” Destiny said.
“Her boyfriend,” Sophia clarified. This was no time for games, and she wasn’t playing along.
“What boyfriend?” Tommy asked.
“It’s just this boy I know.”
“He’s hardly a boy,” said Sophia.
“Who is he?” Tommy asked.
When Destiny continued to hesitate, Reno got down to it. “Okay, let me put this shit on the line. There’s a contract out on your cousin’s life. On Sophie’s life, okay?”
Destiny and Sophia both were shocked. “A contract?” Sophia asked. “On me?”
“You know what that means, Des?” Reno asked. “That means there are fuckers out there trying to take my daughter, your favorite cousin, out. Now do you understand how real this shit is? Now tell us who the fuck this boyfriend is.” He grabbed Destiny by her arm. “Tell us, gotdammit!” he yelled.
But Destiny snatched away from Reno angrily. “Leave me alone!” she yelled. “You aren’t my father!”
Sophia’s eyes stretched. She knew Destiny had put her foot in it that time. And true to form, Reno didn’t hesitate. He backslapped Destiny so hard she fell to her knees. Then he pointed at her while she was down. “Don’t you ever talk to me like that, Destiny! I’ll kick your ass you ever talk to me like that again!”
Reno was losing it, and nobody was trying to rein him in. Because he was saying exactly what all of them were feeling. They needed Destiny to tell them the full story!
But Destiny was shocked by her uncle’s slap. She looked at her father. “Daddy!” she cried. “Did you see what he did to me?”
Mick saw it, and approved of what Reno did. Destiny knew better than to be disrespectful like that.
But Tommy was harder to read. Everybody looked at Tommy as he helped his daughter off of the floor. Then he turned Destiny toward him, still holding her arms. “Don’t you ever speak that way to your Uncle Reno ever again, or any other grown up in this family. Do you hear me?”
Destiny frowned. Nobody was on her side!
Tommy shook her angrily. “Do you hear me, Des?”
“Yes, sir,” Destiny quickly replied this time, as she knew her father, although she was still stung.
“Now you answer his question,” said Tommy. Destiny rubbed her forehead. The idea that the man she loved could be caught up in something like this had her losing it too. Grace, seeing her daughter’s distress, went over to her and she leaned into her mother’s arms.
But Grace wasn’t playing with her either. She leaned her away from her embrace, and looked in her eyes. “This is serious, Destiny,” she said. “Stop worrying about how your father or I will react. Just tell us who this person is. We believe he’s been using you to get to Sophia. We need to know who he is.”
Her mother’s hold was painful, as she was squeezing her too tightly, but she understood the seriousness. Tears were in her eyes, but she told all she knew. “His name is Bertram,” she said.
“Bertram Cobahara?” Reno asked.
Destiny shook her head. “No, sir,” she said. “His last name is Mitsu. But his uncle’s last name is Cobahara. Ken Cobahara. He mentioned that name many times. He says he works for him.”
“And you’ve been dating Cobahara’s nephew?” Tommy asked.
Destiny looked at her father, and then nodded her head.
Tommy and Grace both wanted to ask for how long, and many other questions, but it wasn’t relevant right now. Saving Sophie and Dommi’s lives were! They’d deal with Destiny and her little secret life later.
Except for one matter that couldn’t wait. “Sophia said he was hardly a boy,” said Grace. “How old is he?”
Destiny’s distress level increased.
“How old, child, tell us!” Reno insisted.
“He’s twenty,” Destiny said.
Tommy frowned. “Twenty?” he asked his daughter.
“Your ass was fooling around with a grown-ass man?” Sal asked her too.
When she said, “yes,” Sal looked at Tommy and Grace. They were as floored as Sal was. “Motherfuck!” said Tommy, staring angrily at his only daughter.
But Mick didn’t have time for the histrionics. He knew they needed to find the joker. “Where is he?” Mick asked Destiny. “Where in Seattle can we find this man?”
“He’s not in Seattle,” said Destiny.
Everybody looked at her. “What do you mean he’s not in Seattle?” asked Tommy. “Then where is he?”
“He lives here, in Vegas,” said Destiny.
Mick, stunned, rose to his feet. That floored even Sophia. “You never told me he lives here, Des,” Sophie said.
“He didn’t want anybody to know,” said Destiny, now realizing why he wouldn’t want anyone to know.
“Where does he live?” asked Reno. “Give me the address.”
Destiny hesitated too long for Tommy’s liking. He slung her toward him violently. “Where does he live, Desi, you hear your uncle talking to you!” All semblance of Tommy’s trademark cool was gone. “Where’s his motherfucking house?!”
Destiny began crying and fell against her father. But Tommy wasn’t about to coddle her. He knew they had to find that guy. He placed both hands on her small shoulders but she wouldn’t lean away from him. He held her, but he also made himself clear. “Give us his address,” he said to her. “Now.”
“5739 Washburgh Road,” Destiny said between her sobs.
“He lives alone?” Reno asked.
“Yes,” De
stiny said through her sobs. “It’s at the end of the street in the cul-de-sac.”
“But of all the boys in Seattle,” Grace asked, “why would you be dating a boy that lives in Vegas?”
“He reached out to me on social media,” said Destiny. “I didn’t go looking for him, Mommy, honest I didn’t! When he said he lived in Vegas, I told him I had cousins there, and that I visited them a lot. That’s how we hooked up. Whenever I came to visit Soph.”
“For how long has this been going on?” Grace had to ask her. The men wanted to know too. They wanted to know how long had he been targeting Sophia.
Destiny didn’t want to answer, but she knew she had to. “About two months,” she said.
“Two months?” Grace was floored. She and Tommy looked at each other. They could hardly believe it. Their daughter was dating a twenty-year-old, grown-ass man for nearly two months, and they had no clue! They both were flustered. But mainly because the man their daughter was dating, just might be the man using her to harm Sophia.
Reno looked at Tommy. “The timeline adds up,” he said.
Tommy motioned for Grace to get their sobbing daughter, who was clinging to him. Grace went to Destiny and pulled her into her arms. Sophia went and held her best friend too.
Reno looked at Mick. “We’ll armor up and then get over there,” he said.
“I’ll stay with your families,” said Mick. “In case shit goes sideways. Jimmy will stay back too.”
Reno was pleased to hear it. Tommy and Sal were too. And all three began hurrying for the room where Reno kept his arsenal.
But Mick looked at Dommi. “Go armor up too, son,” he said to him.
Dommi was shocked that Uncle Mick ordered him to go with his dad and uncles. He wanted to go desperately, but he assumed they weren’t going to let him. He looked at his father just as his father, as he knew he would, stopped in his tracks and turned around. Tommy and Sal turned too.
At first, it looked as if Reno was going to object angrily. No way was his son going, too, what the fuck was wrong with Mick! But Reno’s look changed when he looked at Dommi. Because he realized it had to be. This was as much about Dommi learning to fight for his life as it was about his life itself. Reno looked at Trina. She nodded. She understood it too.
Reno turned back around, and kept on walking. Tommy and Sal, and Dommi too, followed him.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Washburgh Road was a quiet, dead-end street off of the main thoroughfare. Reno stopped Trina’s Mercedes at the entrance onto the street and then parked on the side of the road. “There it is,” he said, as all four men stared at the house facing them at the end of the cul de sac.
“We can’t approach it from the front,” said Sal, who sat on the backseat with Dommi. “He’ll see our asses coming.”
“If he hasn’t already seen us,” said Dommi.
“Take it around back, Reno,” said Tommy. “We may have to park a street over and walk it.”
Reno backed the car back onto the main drag, and then drove a street over until they were on the backside of Bertram Mitsu’s house. And the four heavily armed Gabrini men got out of the Mercedes and began walking along the side of a closed Mom and Pop drycleaners in the heavy night air. They were in what looked like an old, dilapidated business district to the Gabrinis, backed up to that cul de sac.
Dommi stayed close beside Reno, mainly because he felt he was his father’s protector. In an odd sense, he felt as if he was all of their protector, and that was why he was there. It was laughable on its face, and Dommi knew it too. His old man and uncles had seen more days like this than he’d seen in all the days of his life. But that was his mindset. He couldn’t help how his mind worked. He couldn’t help how he felt.
The property, fortunately, had no fence, so they were able to split up into twos, with Tommy and Sal and Reno and Dommi walking on either side of the yard that led to the back door. Dogs began barking from what sounded like a few lots down from the drycleaners, as if they could hear the footsteps, or sense the presence of people who weren’t supposed to be there. In any event, it made the Gabrinis nervous. It made them quicken their steps.
They converged as a foursome at the back of the house, and Reno ordered Dommi in the middle to do the honors of kicking the door in. “Then get your ass out of the way,” Reno whispered to him.
Dommi nodded and was leaning back, ready for his first kick. He knew he had to get it down on the first try, or their target would be pre-warned and put them at a disadvantage.
But just as Dom was about to kick, Reno noticed a red dot on the back of Dommi’s shirt. A dot like a laser. A dot like the tip of a laser gun. And Reno’s heart dropped.
“Get down!” he yelled and pushed his son down even as he was getting down himself. The bullets started flying as soon as the Gabrini men heeded Reno’s call and dropped to the ground. They got on their backs and all four of them were firing in the direction of the shots. Whoever was firing on them, they realized immediately, was inside of that closed drycleaners they had so cavalierly walked past.
The gunfire was exchanged for several seconds, but then, after that, Dommi realized it was only one-sided. His uncles were doing all of the firing, and nothing from the drycleaners.
And he panicked. It was his life they were trying to save. That man might be the key to saving his life.
“He’s getting away!” Dommi yelled, and got up to run after the gunman.
“Wait your ass here!” Reno yelled and reached out to grab his son. He caught him by the shirt, but Dommi was too quick and too big. The tail tore away from Dommi’s shirt as he ran toward the drycleaners.
“Motherfucker!” Reno yelled angrily, but he, Tommy and Sal ran toward the drycleaners too. Because they knew, deep down, that Dommi was doing the right thing. They couldn’t let that fucker just get away. They needed his intel!
Dommi was already in the front of the drycleaners by the time his father and uncles were just getting to the side of the building, and he saw a man running down the side of the road.
“I’ve got him!” Dommi yelled as he began running toward the gunman. He yelled it prematurely, since he didn’t technically have him yet, but he was certain he was going to easily outrun that slow fuck. Reno, Tommy, and Sal ran to the front of the building as Dommi was taking off down the road.
And Dommi was able to easily outrun the gunman. But the problem was the car. The gunman was jumping into a car that was parked on the side of the road. Reno panicked when he saw what was going down because he knew his son. He knew his son had no stopping sense. And he ran as fast as he’d ever run. He was outrunning Tommy and Sal both, as they all ran toward that car.
But Dommi got there just as the gunman got into the car and pressed the Start button. And as soon as he did, Dommi grabbed onto the driver side door, refusing to let the gunman close that door. And just as Reno had feared, the gunman pressed on the gas and sped off, but Dommi, being Dommi, wouldn’t let go.
“Geez!” Sal yelled when they saw Dommi still holding on, and all three men knew they had to disable that car. They knew they had to do what they could to slow that car down! They got in the middle of the street, and began firing. Dommi was swinging from that door, and they knew they had to avoid hitting him, but they were all marksmen. They were all experts on the battlefield. They fired at the tires.
Dommi was doing his part too. He wasn’t just hanging on. He was punching and kicking the gunman as he hung on, so much so that the gunman couldn’t take even a potshot at Dommi. And when his guys shot out one tire, and then a second tire, and the car began to swerve wildly, Dommi saw his opportunity and took it.
He jumped into the car during one of those swerves, and in so doing he knocked the driver out cold.
But before he could take the wheel and make any corrections, the car was already running wild, off of the road, and wouldn’t stop until it was about to wrap itself around a pole. The car had been speeding, and then it dead-stopped, with a violent cras
h into that pole. Then all of the gunfire and tires squealing gave way to the sound of the dogs. They were howling now. They knew something was wrong.
Reno knew it too, as he was running toward that wrecked car. Tommy, and Sal were running their hearts out, too, trying to get to Dommi. They saw the wreckage. They saw the smoke billowing up from the hood of that car. It could blow at any moment. They saw that too.
When the Gabrinis made it up to the car, they were, to a man, relieved to see that Dommi was okay. He was shaken, they could see that, but he was okay.
“Help me out of here,” he said to his father and all three men pulled Dommi out of the wreckage.
“Are you okay?” Reno was asking Dommi as he got out.
“I’m okay,” Dommi said.
“Make sure you’re okay,” Reno said, touching his son in his ribs and stomach and back, to make sure he wasn’t feeling any unusual pain.
“I’m okay, Pop,” Dommi insisted.
Tommy reached in quickly to pull the gunman out too, so that they could safe house him and get some intel. But Tommy just as quickly saw that the gunman didn’t fare as well as Dommi had. The gunman, he realized, was dead.
“He’s dead,” Tommy said.
Reno was floored. “What?” he asked, reaching in too. He checked the guy’s pulse, to be sure. But Tommy knew what he was talking about. The gunman was dead.
“Wait a minute,” Sal said.
They all looked at him.
But Sal got into the car, too, and turned the man, who was turned sideways, onto his back. “That’s not him,” he said.
“That’s not who?” Reno asked him.
“That’s not Bertram Mitsu.”
Reno frowned. “How do you know that?”
“Because, unlike your asses,” Sal the mob boss said, “I know how to handle a hit. And before I left, I got Destiny to upload a picture of the joker so that we could know who we were looking for, in case other people were around.”
“And?” asked Reno.
“And that ain’t him,” Sal said.
“What makes you so certain?” Reno asked. “Look at that fucker’s face!”
“Bertram Mitsu is Asian,” said Sal. “That’s why I’m so certain. This guy’s as white as you and me, Reno.”
Reno Gabrini: The Trouble with Dommi Page 12