“I can’t feel my ears,” Mick said. “This is ridiculous!”
“Your ears?” Reno asked. “I can’t feel my fucking face. Is it still there?”
“It’s still there,” Sal said to Reno. “It’s your brains that’s missing.”
Reno wanted to verbally jab Sal back. He loved that shit! But he couldn’t stop thinking about Maddie, and what she had to be going through. And the fact that she could be out there, in that miserable place. He was in no mood for repartee. He wanted Maddie. He’d walk a hundred miles in those conditions and worse, if it would bring his Maddie back home.
And it felt like a hundred miles by the time they finally made it to the cabin. As Hammer had alerted them, there was probably very light security, given that Koba could not have anticipated anybody finding his ass. But they still were concerned when they didn’t see any security at all. Not even flunky Artie hanging around.
“Nobody?” Sal asked. “Seems strange to me.”
“To me too,” Reno said. “You’d think he’d at least have Artie looking out.”
“Who says he’s not?” Mick asked.
And Reno and Sal realized it too. They stopped all conversation, made sure their weapons were ready, and divided three ways: Mick went to the right, Sal went to the left, and Reno headed straight for the front door.
They all converged with Mick on one side of the house with his weapon drawn, Sal on the other side, and Reno, looking at them to make sure they were in place, kicking the door in.
As soon as the door flew open, Reno crotched down in case of sudden gunfire, with his weapon drawn, and Mick and Sal then ran in ahead of Reno, all three locked and loaded and pointing too.
But nobody was inside.
They ran down the halls, and from room to room, but nobody was there.
The cabin was empty.
All three men made it back into the front room. To say that they were disappointed was an understatement.
“They were here alright,” Sal said. “All this shit all over the place proves that. And they left in a hurry.”
“But they left,” Reno said, with distress in his voice. “We got here too fucking late!”
Mick was upset too. Another defeat. Another hour without Madison home. He wasn’t used to this shit!
“What do we do now?” Sal wondered. He was a major mob boss. Like Reno and Mick both, he was used to being the one in control. But he knew it was Reno’s grandchild. Reno had the most to lose. Reno had to make the call.
“Let’s search around this whole area,” Reno said, “just in case they’re out there hiding somewhere. And then we’ll get the hell out of here. And start over.”
“Starting over,” Sal said as they began making their way outside. “Sounds like failure to me.”
And it was to Reno and Mick too. Another dark hole. Another empty room. Another hour, minute, second, without Maddie.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
As soon as they walked back into Reno’s house, and walked in without Maddie, the hopefulness left and everybody became deflated again. Val, sitting next to her father, got angry.
“How could you say nobody was there?” she asked her former father-in-law. “You went all the way to Canada and you came back with nothing? Nobody was there?”
“That’s what we said,” Reno said, trying his best not to go off on Val. He knew she was Maddie’s mother. He knew she was as upset as all of them were. But it was taking a lot to keep him from slapping the shit out of her.
“And when y’all saw that the cabin was empty, what did you do?” Val asked.
Trina, who was seated on the arm of the chair Reno had plopped down into, intervened. Val, she knew, didn’t realize just how close she was from Reno whipping her natural ass. “They did all they could, Valerie,” Trina said. “Save your fire for the kidnappers. Not the men trying to find Maddie.”
“But that’s the question,” Val asked. “Are they really trying to find her?”
“Val,” her father warned.
“Careful, Val,” Jimmy, who stood behind Reno’s chair, also warned his ex-wife. He was as frustrated as she was. But, as usual, she was taking it too far. “Just come on now. You know good and well my dad will go to the ends of this earth for our daughter.”
“He says he will,” Val said, “but I don’t see the evidence of it. So don’t be talking to me like you’re so superior to me. Your ass should have been out there too!”
“I wanted to be out there, and you know it, Val!”
“Yeah, yeah, Daddy wouldn’t let you. Poor Jimmy. Still taking orders from Daddy like some good little boy.”
Jimmy rushed toward Val, to slap the shit out of her himself, but Reno and Trina both jumped up, and Big Daddy and Tommy and Sal, too, to stop him. Mick just sat there. She deserved an ass whipping, far as he was concerned. He would have given Jimmy free rein.
Grace and Gemma got up too. Val, they felt, was making a horrific situation worse. She was trying to tear the family apart.
“Don’t do it, son,” Reno said, as he held a simmering Jimmy by the catch of his collar. She’s not worth it. That bitch ain’t worth it. Let it be.”
“Who are you calling a bitch?” Val asked.
“Val, that’s enough,” Trina warned her.
“Don’t confuse me with your wife, honey,” Val said arrogantly.
But why would she say that? Everybody in that room, except Val, knew that was a terrible mistake. Because as soon as those words left Val’s mouth, Reno broke away from holding Jimmy back, and knocked her down himself. He punched her like he was punching a man.
Val was stunned. So was Buddy. He was taught never to hit a female, but he knew those Gabrinis weren’t from that school of thought. Reno was known to beat Trina’s ass if she disobeyed him in life-and-death situations. How could any other woman expect a pass? But it was still wrong in Buddy’s eyes.
“I don’t care what a woman does or says,” he said to Reno, “you don’t hit a lady.”
“I didn’t hit a lady,” Reno fired back. “I hit your daughter.”
Buddy Wellstone was not a confrontational man. And he wasn’t about to lose a great friendship he had with Reno over a piece of trash like his daughter. And he knew Val wasn’t worth sweeping out the door. He knew it for a long time. Something evil took hold of her and never let her go. But she was still his daughter.
He helped Val back on her feet, and tried to silence her. Enough was enough. But she would not be silent.
“No, Daddy,” she said angrily. “I’m tired of these Gabrinis fucking up left and right and trying to act like they had nothing to do with it. You can physically abuse me all you want,” she said to Reno. “But Maddie was in your son’s custody when she was snatched. She wasn’t with me. She was supposed to be with Jimmy. And he needs to take responsibility for that.”
“I am taking responsibility for it!” Jimmy yelled. “You’re the one who never takes responsibility for anything. You’re the one who does that, so don’t try to put that shit on me! I’ll trade my life to get Maddie back. You won’t even trade a pair of shoes to get her back, and we both know it!”
Then Jimmy tried to break away from his family again, to get his claws into that bitch, but Reno and the other men held him back again.
But Val, being Val, never seemed to get enough. “Come on wit’ it then,” she said, waving her arm with her finger pointed, as Buddy jumped in front of her trying to hold her back. “You’re suddenly so big and bad,” Val continued. “Come on wit’ it then!”
And they kept arguing so ferociously that Jimmy had to be pulled all the way back across the room by Big Daddy himself, just to keep him from killing that girl. And Trina had had it. “Okay, Val,” she said, “you gots to leave.”
Val was incredulous. “Me?”
“Get your shit and get out of my house. Now!”
“But what about my daughter?”
“You should have been thinking about her when you were going after James,” T
rina responded. “You think we don’t want Maddie back home? Are you out of your mind? We’ll do anything for that little girl, and you know that, Val! Get out!”
“Yeah, okay,” Val said. “Come on, Dad,” she added, “we’ll get out. We’ll do our own thing.”
Buddy was reluctant, but he knew he needed to get his daughter away from that situation. She used to be his pride and joy, as sweet as sweet could be. But she turned so bitter that it oozed from her pores.
“I’ll be happy to get out of this suffocating place,” Val kept saying, as they were leaving. “Just because I told the truth I got to leave? I ask why didn’t their asses stay in Canada and keep looking, and they wanna kick me out? I’m glad to go!” Val added, and then she and her father, with Buddy giving her a decisive shove out the door, left.
After they left, Big Daddy released his death grip on Jimmy. But instead of being defiant, Jimmy just got sad. He remembered how good a person, and a parent, Val used to be too. He remembered how all of that anger didn’t help anything because Maddie was still missing. And he just ran his hands through his curly hair, and rested them on the back of his now stiff neck, and began pacing the floor.
“What about that blackjack thief?” Trina decided to ask, to diffuse the tension. “Any word from Bo on his identity?”
“It was Artie,” said Tommy.
Reno was floored. “Artie? That didn’t look like Artie.”
“He was in disguise, but Bo used some technique that made his features clearer. Koba Sorzi’s right-hand man was not only the blackjack thief, but the man who adducted Madison.”
“I’ll be damn,” Reno said. “They’re toying with my ass for real.”
“Who’s Artie?” Jimmy asked.
“He works for the man we believe has Maddie,” Tommy said.
“Geez. And he was in the casino cheating at blackjack? Why?”
“A trial run, maybe, to see if we were on our game,” Sal said.
Reno nodded. “That’s what I’m figuring too,” he said. “Since he got away, I guess he figured we weren’t.”
Jimmy had had it up to here with the ironies, the missed signs, the fact that Maddie was still gone, and he kept pacing.
Until he saw it.
“What the,” he said. “She left her pocketbook.”
By that time, they had all sat down and were strategizing. Gemma, an attorney, had just suggested that maybe they should now call in the FBI. Maybe this was getting too big for them to go it alone.
But everyone, to a person, nixed that idea.
And that was when Jimmy mentioned the purse.
“Her purse?” Grace asked.
“Yeah,” Jimmy said. “Val left her pocketbook.”
“No woman leaves their purse behind,” said Trina. “I don’t care how angry she gets.”
It was odd to Reno too. So odd that he got up. “Where is it?” he asked his son.
“Over here on the floor,” Jimmy said, pointing to a big shoulder bag sitting on the floor beside a table.
“And what woman would leave their purse lying around on the floor like that?” asked Gemma.
“Especially,” Grace said, as they all looked, “when there’s plenty of room on the table.”
Reno found it curious enough, too, that he walked over to the pocketbook. When he saw how big it was, and how it was propped against a table that was, as Grace said, virtually empty, he was more than curious.
“What is it, Reno?” Big Daddy asked him, and Mick was looking too.
But as soon as Reno knelt down and opened it, and saw the wires, and suddenly heard a very low-level ticking sound, his heart fell through is shoe. And he jumped up. “Get out! Everybody out! It’s a bomb! It’s a fucking bomb!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
When Reno made that declaration, everybody jumped up and ran to get the kids. But Reno grabbed Trina. “We’ll get’em! You get your ass out of here! You, Gem, and Grace. Get out!”
And Big Daddy grabbed Grace and Gemma and forced them out of there too.
But as the other men were running toward the playroom to grab the children, Dommi somehow had heard the commotion and was already running the children up front as if he was their drill sergeant. And they, knowing Dommi, were obeying him!
The men grabbed up the children, to hasten their retreat, and ran out of the house with all of them, and with Dommi and all of the nannies, running out too. Reno, the head of that household, was the last to run out.
But they all made it outside safely.
But then the house, the house that Reno built, exploded. And it was the kind of explosion not meant to maim, but to kill. Val left that pocketbook to kill them. All of them. Including the children!
And Jimmy couldn’t take it. As Security was pulling the family further and further back from the house, Jimmy ran across the lawn to his car. Reno, seeing him, ran after him too.
“Where are you going?” Reno asked him as he ran.
“To find that bitch!” Jimmy yelled back, refusing to break his stride.
“You and Charles,” Mick ordered Tommy, “guard the family!” Then he and Sal ran too.
“Be careful!” Trina yelled after all of them as they piled into Jimmy’s car – Reno, Mick, and Sal, and Jimmy sped off. Val might have thought they wouldn’t be alive to chase her, or to ever seek her sorry ass. But she was wrong.
The front gate security opened the tall, electronic gate as Jimmy’s car, along with a car filled with a security detail, approached it, and Jimmy burned rubber speeding out of the gate. His car swerved and nearly tilted on two wheels as he sped away. But he kept going. He was going to track Val down if it was the last thing he did.
Reno kept looking back, at his burning house, and his heart grew fainter. He leaned his head back. This was becoming his nightmare of nightmares, all because of Koba’s vengeful ass. All because Reno played footsie with Caribella’s heart when he should have known that woman couldn’t handle that. His problem, his eternal guilt, was that he probably did know she couldn’t handle it, but liked the sex so much that he didn’t give a fuck. And now his grandbaby, and his entire family, was paying for the mistake he made.
It was always about mistakes he made. He knew it, and Trina did too. That was the real reason, he believed, she went to Florida. And it was getting to him in ways it never had before. If he could turn back the hands of time, he would. And live his life so differently! But he couldn’t turn back shit. He could only hope his grandbaby didn’t end up paying for the sins of her grandfather, and paying with her life.
But the guilt, the shame, the pain was beating the crap out of Reno. He didn’t know if his heart could take much more of it. But he knew he had to take it. There would be no rest for him, or anybody else, until he found Maddie.
And Val, he thought. His blood was boiling just thinking about that evil woman. He leaned his head back again. Mick saw him, and felt his anguish. He knew he had to pump life back into Reno.
Of all the men in the family, excluding his brother Big Daddy Sinatra, Mick considered Reno as close to being his equal as any man could be. He respected every member of the family: they all were strong in his eyes. But with Reno, his respect was on a different level.
“You thinking what I’m thinking?” Mick asked him as they rode. Reno was seated up front with Jimmy. Sal and Mick were in the back.
“Yeah, I’m thinking it,” Reno responded. “Her ass involved in Maddie’s kidnapping. Has to be! Why else would she plant that bomb? To warn us? No. Her ass wanted to kill us.”
Jimmy was convinced of it too, and so was Sal.
“But why would a mother allow some wackadoodle like Koba Sorzi to kidnap their own child?” Sal asked.
“For money,” Jimmy said as he drove. “What else, Uncle Sal? That’s all it’s ever been about with Val. Money!”
“But she loves her child,” Sal said. “At least I thought she did.”
“She used to,” Reno said. “But Val has changed so much. There�
�s no telling what that girl will do.”
“Whatever she would do, she’s done it now,” Mick said as he looked back and saw the flames billowing high above Reno’s house, and saw the fire trucks as they sped past them. “Her ass has done it now.”
And they all agreed with that blunt assessment as Jimmy, with their security detail driving close behind him, picked up even more speed in search of Val’s car and, they hoped and prayed, some answers about where in the world was Maddie Gabrini.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Several minutes later, and they found it. Val’s car. Turning onto the highway heading east.
“Keep your distance,” Reno said to Jimmy, and Jimmy slowed down and held back. Reno got on the phone with the driver in the security car behind them. “Go in front,” he ordered. “We don’t want her to make out Jim’s car.”
His security man understood, and quickly moved in front of Jimmy. He knew how to keep his distance, too, without losing her or alerting her that she was being followed.
“How long are we going to hold back, Pop?” Jimmy asked.
Reno didn’t respond. Mick and Sal didn’t either. They already knew when. They would pounce once they got her ass isolated. Trying to pull her over on a busy highway would make little sense. They needed answers from Val, and they knew, to get them, they were not going to be able to hold back.
“You think she’s going to meet up with Maddie’s kidnappers?” Jimmy asked.
“No,” Mick, Reno, and Sal all said at the same time.
“There’s no way Sorzi would have his men have any contact with her until the heat is off,” Reno added, “and they could prove what she did was successful. That’s why we’ve got to get to her before the heat gets off. She’s got to tell us where they have Maddie before they find out their little plot failed.”
“She probably thinks she got away with it,” Jimmy said as he drove.
Reno Gabrini: Turn Back Time Page 12