But Justin Carboni, the Chief Financial Officer, along with the VP of Sales at his side, already heard the news and was working his computer and his phones furiously to stop it in its tracks.
“Has the boss been notified?” the Marketing VP asked.
“No,” Carboni responded, his attention on diverting a disaster rather than telling it.
But the vice presidents knew the boss had to be told. That was why the VP of Sales joined the VP of Marketing and took off. But they didn’t go directly to the head man. They knew it didn’t work that way at GCI. It had to move up the chain of command to the top and only Niles Corman, the chief operating officer, had the authority for a direct conversation.
They hurried into the stairwell, and up two flights of stairs, until they were hurrying into Niles’ office.
When they told Niles, he was stunned by the news, and although he was suffering from a bad outbreak of gout, he took off too. He moved slowly, but as fast as he could out of his office and onto the elevator. With the two VPs at his side, all three men made their way up to the top floor and then off of the elevator and into the suite of offices of their Founder and CEO, Tommy Gabrini.
Tommy was seated behind his desk, and was just hanging up the phone after a teleconference with his associates in Hong Kong, when his three employees hurried in without being announced.
“We’ve got trouble, Tommy,” Niles said as soon as they entered.
“What is it?” Tommy asked.
Niles quickly grabbed the TV remote off of the cocktail table. “Gabrini Capital has been sold,” he said.
Tommy looked at Niles as if he had just lost his mind. He frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“GCI is no longer yours,” Niles said as he turned on the television set. He was breathing heavily. “GCI has been sold, Tommy!”
Tommy looked at the television set with disbelief in his eyes as Niles switched the channel to Bloomberg. And there it was on the scroll at the bottom of the screen: BREAKING NEWS: GABRINI CAPITAL SOLD! And the ticker tape announcement continued to scroll over and over, like an infomercial.
There it was. Three simple words that were as mind-boggling as it was mind-blowing. It was easily the hottest topic of conversation on the network. “What is Tommy Gabrini thinking?” the panelists were asking. “Why would he suddenly sell his baby? Why would he suddenly sell a corporation he built from the ground up?”
Tommy couldn’t believe it. He looked at his men. “What the fuck is going on?” They all just stood there. “Niles? Jeffrey? What the fuck is going on?!”
Jeffrey Endiso was the VP of Sales. He, along with his boss, the CFO, were responsible for the company’s financial health. “It happened so quickly,” he said nervously. He knew what kind of trouble he was in. “As near as Justin could figure, there was a glitch, sir.”
“A glitch?” Tommy asked.
“A ten second glitch. Maybe not even that long. But it was enough.”
“Enough for what?” Tommy asked.
Jeffrey swallowed hard. “It was enough for the sale to go through.”
“What fucking sale?” Tommy yelled angrily, rising to his feet. His cool, which had always been his trademark, was gone. “What are you talking about?”
“In the span of those few seconds,” Niles said, taking over for the younger VP, “your fifty-percent shares of this corporation were sold to what appeared to be a cabal of investors. Your brother’s shares were untouched. But he didn’t have the majority. You did. And then the cabal joined forces with the McClatchey Group, who had just purchased the five percent of shares owned by members of your board of directors, giving them a clear majority.”
“And that merger allowed them to keep Sal from joining forces with McClatchey and usurping them,” Jeffrey added. “We’ve been cyberattacked, boss. And because of that glitch, it might have been perfectly legal.”
Tommy was devastated. He turned to Bloomberg again. And it remained the talk of the broadcast. “Tommy Gabrini either sold GCI out of some sort of impulse,” one panelist said, “or there was a hostile takeover right under his nose. Either way, it doesn’t bode well for him.”
“He sold a company that was outperforming every metric,” yet another panelist said. “Why would he do that? And with no fanfare? No announcements or competition? Why would Tommy do such a thing? I’ve known Dapper Tom for years. He’s no gambler. He’s steady as he goes. This move here was not only unsteady, but shaky as hell.”
“I ask again,” the first panelist asked, “what is Tommy Gabrini thinking?”
Tommy sat back down. He was beyond stunned. Some fucker took his company? Some fucker was crazy enough to try this shit? He looked at Niles.
“I know how that glitch was manufactured,” Niles began.
But Tommy cut him off. “I don’t give a fuck about the how of that glitch,” he said. “I want to know who. Who stole my company? That’s all I want to know right now.”
Jeffrey and the Vice President looked at Niles too. Because they already knew the answer, and they already knew it was not going to be satisfactory.
“Tell me who,” Tommy ordered again.
Niles let out a harsh exhale. “We don’t know, sir,” he was forced to admit. “It’s all sketchy at this point.”
But Tommy knew better than that. He hurried from around his desk. He knew the one man responsible for making sure nothing like this ever happened was the one man who should have been the first to catch the error, and to notify him in person.
“Where’s Carboni?” Tommy asked as he walked.
“In his office, sir,” Jeffrey responded.
And Tommy Gabrini, flanked by all three men, headed in that direction.
“That one,” Destiny said to the grocer in the outdoor farmer’s market.
“Make sure it’s not too soft, Des,” Grace reminded her.
“May I, sir?” Destiny asked, and the grocer, a heavyset Arab, handed the peach to the small girl. He watched amusingly as Destiny called herself inspecting the fruit.
But what was not amusing, at least not to Grace, was when Lisa McBride walked up. “Hi, Mrs. Gabrini,” she said jovially.
Grace looked at her. This stalking shit wasn’t funny anymore. “What are you doing here?”
“I was in the neighborhood--”
That’s bullshit, Grace wanted to say, but knew her daughter was with her. “What do you want?” she asked instead.
“I don’t want anything. I was just walking by and I saw you---”
“How did you know I would be here?” Grace asked.
Lisa’s heart began to pound. “Why are you being so hostile?”
“How’s your mother?” Grace asked. “Didn’t she pass on last night? Or was that twenty years ago?”
Lisa knew she was not fooling this woman one bit. “Look, Mrs. Gabrini,” she began to say, but as soon as she started, Grace felt a tug that nearly took her to her knees. Somebody, a man, was attempting to snatch Destiny from her hand and he nearly had her. But Grace instinctively had not let go.
A car suddenly drove up, the getaway car no doubt, and the man drug Grace and Destiny toward that car. Destiny was screaming as Grace fought with all she had to keep her daughter out of that man’s grasp, but he was big and on the verge of winning that battle.
But when Grace realized Destiny was within an inch of being taken from her, she flung her entire body onto her daughter. She knew she could harm her, but she would rather harm her severely than allow this maniac to take her anywhere with him. She fought for her daughter’s life.
Tommy’s men, who had been near the outdoor marketplace but further back, were running to the action as fast as they could. When the man realized Grace was not going to let go, and realized men with guns were running his way, men he didn’t realize were with Grace, he let go, jumped in the car, and the car took off.
Tommy’s men began firing at the vehicle. They emptied round after round into that car. But the car, along with the driver a
nd the attempted kidnapper, swerved around a corner and got away.
“Are you alright, Mrs. Gabrini?” one of the men on her security detail asked.
But Grace wasn’t thinking about answering him. She grabbed hold of her daughter, and held her as tightly as she could. And the three leaders of the army of men on her detail, looked at each other with bewilderment. They knew it was going to be hell to pay when Tommy Gabrini got word of this. Their instinct was to run and hide. But their common sense made them know that when it came to the Gabrinis, and especially Tommy Gabrini, there was no hiding place.
Grace suddenly remembered what was going on before the kidnapping attempt. She remembered Lisa McBride had been lurking around. She looked for her. Up and down the sidewalk she looked. Where was she now? But, as Grace suspected, she was nowhere in sight.
As soon as Tommy entered Jake Carboni’s office, and saw him sitting there like some deer in headlights, his anger flared. And he jumped across his desk and punched him so hard that Carboni, a muscular man himself, flipped over his chair and landed on the floor.
And Tommy got down on the floor with him. His men were shocked by his reaction, and wanted to pull him off of their colleague, but neither the COO or the two VPs had the nerve to interfere.
“It was a glitch!” Carboni was crying. “It was a glitch, Tommy!”
But Tommy didn’t stop. Tommy beat the glitch out of him. “Who?” Tommy asked.
“It was less than ten seconds,” Carboni pleaded. “It didn’t take ten seconds!”
“Who?” Tommy asked again, banging Carboni’s head against the floor.
“I’m still working on it. I don’t know yet!”
“Who pulled this shit, don’t play games with me!”
“I have an idea,” Carboni said nervously, “but I rather be more certain.”
“How certain are you now?” Tommy asked.
Carboni hesitated, and his hesitation caused him another head bang.
“I’m fairly certain,” he said.
“How certain?” Tommy asked.
“Ninety-nine percent.”
“Then tell me who, motherfucker! Who’s behind this shit?”
Carboni hated to say it, but he knew he had no choice. “Sal is behind it, Tommy,” he finally said. “Your brother Sal is behind it.”
The entire room went still. Everybody were stunned. Tommy, so thrown that he suddenly felt queasy, stared at Carboni. And then he stood to his feet. “Sal?” he asked.
Carboni, aided by Jeffrey Endiso, rose to his feet too. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I refused to accept it myself. But all data, independent and internal, led to him and his office. It led nowhere else.”
Tommy knew this was some bullshit. It had to be! “Show me,” he said to Carboni and Carboni pulled back up his chair and sat back behind his computer.
But before he could show Tommy anything, Carboni’s office door was opened, and another employee, but this one a member of Tommy’s security detail, came rushing in. “We’ve got trouble, sir,” he said.
Tommy knew it could not possibly be any worse than the sale of his company. “What?” he asked, looking at the computer as Carboni pulled up his evidence.
“Your wife and daughter, sir,” the man responded.
Tommy, realizing that it could get worse, looked up. “My wife? What about my wife? What about my wife and daughter?”
“There was an attempted kidnapping. Somebody tried to kidnap your daughter.”
Tommy was floored. “What?”
“She’s okay. Your wife thwarted the attempt.”
“My wife?” Tommy began hurrying toward the exit. “Where is she? Is she okay? Where’s my daughter?”
“They’re on their way home, sir. Under heavy security.”
“And where the hell was their security to begin with?” Tommy asked, as he hurried out of the door. “Why was my wife thwarting it? Where the hell was her security?”
Jeffrey was shocked when he left. “What is he doing? His company has been stolen right from under his nose and he’s leaving? He just lost his baby. Why is he leaving?”
“You don’t know anything about that man, do you?” Niles asked. “Because if you did you’d know that Grace is his baby, and his daughter. Not this company. It’s a close second, I’ll give you that. But it’s not first. Not by a long shot.” Then Niles exhaled. “Just compile your evidence,” he said to Carboni. “You know how he is. He’ll have to see it in black and white. We’ll present it when he lets us.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The electronic gate opened and Tommy drove up to his home, amid beefed-up security, with an urgency he wasn’t accustomed to feeling. But everything was going sideways on him. He thought news of the nefarious sale of his company was the most shocking news he’d heard. Then he heard that his beloved kid brother and partner could be behind the sale. Then he learned that his wife and child had been the victims in some kidnapping scheme. All in the span of one damn morning. He couldn’t help but have that sense of urgency.
He jumped from his car and hurried into his house. Henry, his long-time butler/house manager, met him at the door.
“The living room, sir,” he said, and Tommy squeezed his man’s arm as he hurried to the living room. He and Henry had been together for a long time. He trusted Henry with his life, and the life of his family.
When he entered the living room, his first sight was of Grace seated on the sofa, holding a sleeping Destiny so tightly that it made Tommy’s heart sink. And it angered him. It was one thing for those bastards to target him. It was another thing altogether when they target his wife and child. He also noticed that the three leaders of her security detail, Whisk Mason along with his top two lieutenants, Neal Stephacelli and Rollin Packling, were also in that living room, waiting for him.
His men rose to their feet when Tommy walked in. But Tommy’s entire focus was on Grace and their child.
“We’re okay,” Grace said immediately when she saw that worried look on Tommy’s handsome face.
Tommy sat beside her, and placed his arm around her. He looked at Destiny, saw that she was fast asleep and just fine, and then looked at his wife. He noticed the abrasions on her arm before he sat down, but now he could see the abrasion on the side of her face. It was faint, but it was visible. He placed his hand beneath her chin, turned her face toward him, and looked at her facial injury. His jaw tightened as he fought to maintain his cool. “What happened?” he asked her. He could see the terror still in her eyes when he asked it.
But Grace, as he knew she would, pulled it together. “Dessie and I were at the farmer’s market buying fresh fruit,” she said, “when Lisa McBride walked up.”
Tommy didn’t expect to hear that name. “Lisa McBride? Her again?”
Grace nodded. “Her again. She claimed she happened to be in the neighborhood, but I knew better than that.”
Tommy knew then he had dropped the ball. He thought that female was just some up and comer trying to worm her way into the big leagues. He should have had her checked. He should have never accepted her at face value. Never!
But he maintained his composure. Worrying about spilled milk was not productive worry. Worrying about how he was going to track down those fuckers was. “You believe she had something to do with what went down?” he asked Grace.
Grace nodded. “Yeah, I do. If she was some kid trying to get on my good side, she would have stayed around at least. But that bitch was gone as soon as trouble started. Like she was supposed to be my distraction. Like she had a job to do, and did it.”
Tommy nodded. “I’d better get some men out searching for her ass,” he said.
“I already ordered it,” Grace said.
Tommy looked at her. “You already ordered what?”
“I ordered Henry to notify Branson Nash that he needed to get a team out to find her butt. I told him to tell Bran she might be involved.”
Tommy nodded. Grace would never know how pleased he was to hear that. �
��Good job,” he said. “And I’m sure Henry took care of it.”
“He did. Branson called to confirm it was my order.”
Tommy nodded again. “Good,” he said. Then looked at the security detail in front of them. Branson Nash would run circles around these assholes. “And none of these men thought to order shit?” he asked.
“They were too afraid of facing you. They knew you were going to be very angry.” Then Grace added, looking at their sleeping daughter and remembering how close they came to losing her. “As I am,” she added.
Tommy exhaled. “So you were talking to Lisa McBride at the market,” he said.
Grace continued. “We were just talking. I was pointing out that I didn’t believe her just happened to be in the neighborhood nonsense, and she seemed to be offended that I didn’t believe her. But then, seemingly from nowhere, this man runs up and attempts to snatch Des from my hand.”
Tommy pulled her closer at just hearing those words. “You didn’t let go,” he said.
“I wasn’t about to let go,” Grace responded, as if it went without saying. “I held on with every ounce of strength I had within me. Destiny was screaming, and he dragged me across that sidewalk, but I held on. He finally let go, and took off in some car. But I held on.”
Tommy looked at his security detail. “Any cameras recorded this?” he asked.
“No, sir,” Mason, the lead guard, responded. “We checked.”
“Anybody get the tag number?”
Mason hated to admit it. “No, sir.”
Tommy was so angry he could hardly contain himself. He looked at Grace. “Could you describe the guy?”
Grace was already shaking her head. “I wouldn’t know if he was black, white, or blue. My entire focus was on Destiny.”
Tommy pulled her closer, and looked at Mason again. “You allowed a man to just walk up on my wife?”
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