“Bet she thinks that,” Sal said. “Any woman who would pull the stunt she pulled would think like that. Because she doesn’t know the Gabrinis.”
Mick looked Sal up and down.
“Or the Sinatras,” Sal added, and Jimmy and Reno smiled, as Jimmy looked at his Uncle Mick through his rearview.
But it wasn’t a smile that could last beyond that moment. It was gone as soon as the reality reemerged that they were tailing Val on a cold, winter night, trying to get answers about Maddie, before Maddie was no more. That was nothing to smile about.
It would take several more minutes of driving, with Jimmy careful to stay with his father’s men, before they caught a break. Val turned off of the highway, and then turned a few additional corners, until she had turned onto a long, quiet road Reno knew led to Buddy’s house.
“This is more like it,” Reno said as they followed his security guys as they, too, turned onto the isolated road.
“She’s going to her father’s house,” Jimmy said. “Why would she go there?”
“So she can lay low until the cops call her ass,” Sal said. “Then she’d receive the news that all of the Gabrinis were dead and cry her eyes out like she had nothing to do with it, nothing to see here, she’ll just be the grieving ex-wife.”
“Not to mention the mother of Maddie, the only surviving heir.”
They all looked at Reno. They hadn’t even thought about that. “Shit,” Mick said.
“You think Val’s that diabolical?” Sal asked.
“She’d never admit it,” Reno said, “but it had to be a motivating factor. She might not have thought up the bomb part of the scheme herself. That has Koba written all over it. But I’m sure, as an enticement, Artie mentioned that very fact to her. If money is her motivation, she would be richer than her wildest dreams. Through her daughter.”
“Motherfucker,” Sal said. “And she’d be grieving all over town like she was so broken-hearted.”
“She’s going to be grieving, alright,” Jimmy said, “but not for us.”
Reno was watching her car intensely, waiting for the right time. “Cut her off now,” he said finally, and Jimmy happily drove past his father’s security guys and then in front of Val’s car, where he swerved and cut her off. She slammed on brakes.
When she saw all the Gabrinis and Mick Sinatra get out of Jimmy’s car, she attempted to back up and get away. But she backed into the security car that had her hemmed in. She wasn’t going anywhere.
Jimmy was the first to get to the car. Buddy had pressed down the window and was about to ask Jimmy did they have news about Maddie. But Jimmy reached into the car, grabbed Val from behind the wheel, and flung her out of the car’s window. Reno opened the back car door and Jimmy threw her inside of it, where he proceeded to beat her ass.
Buddy was hurrying out of seatbelt, stunned by Jimmy’s behavior. “What are you doing? Jimmy? What are you doing?” Buddy had gotten out and was hurrying around the car.
Val was trying to fight back, she was always feisty, but it was no contest. “Where’s Maddie?” Jimmy was asking her. “Where’s my daughter?
“How would she know?” Buddy was trying to pull Jimmy away from Val. Those Gabrinis had always been too rough and tough for him, but he always thought Jimmy was different.
“Where’s my daughter?” Jimmy was still asking Val as he punched her.
“She doesn’t know any more than you do,” Buddy insisted, still trying to pull Jimmy back.
Then he gave up, and looked at Reno. “Why don’t you stop this? What’s happening? Why’s Jimmy doing this?”
“Val’s involved in the kidnapping,” Reno said and then he reached in and pulled Jimmy off of Val. Val, he knew, had to be dealt with, but Jimmy wasn’t going to be the one to do it. Reno wasn’t about to let him kill the mother of his child, and bare that kind of burden forever.
He pulled Jimmy off of her and flung him out of the car. “Keep him back!” he yelled, and Sal and Mick pulled Jimmy back.
But Jimmy was fighting them. It was a losing battle, but he was fighting them. “She knows where Maddie is,” he was yelling, the snot flying from his nose as his eyes were wet with tears and pain. “She knows!”
“We know that, James,” Mick said. “But we need answers first. Alright? Now settle your ass down!”
Jimmy snatched away from both men, but he did settle down.
But Buddy was still agitated. “What’s going on here?” he asked. “How could you think Val knows where Maddie is? How could you think that?”
“Val just tried to murder our families,” Sal said. He respected Buddy Wellstone. Didn’t give a shit for his daughter, but he respected Buddy. “That’s how we know it.”
Buddy was floored. “She tried to what?” he asked, his voice unable to conceal his shock.
“She left a bomb at Reno’s,” Sal said, and this really shocked Buddy. “If Jimmy hadn’t seen it, and Reno hadn’t checked it out, all of us, and our children, would have been dead.”
Buddy’s heart was broken. He looked at his daughter. “That true, Valerie?” he asked her, but she was too busy kicking and trying with all she had to keep Reno away from her.
But Reno overpowered her and slammed her back down into the seat, his hand grasping her blouse with a hard grip. “Now you listen to me, Val,” he said. “We know what you did. We also know you know where Maddie is. Tell me where Maddie is.”
But Val spit in Reno’s face.
Reno wanted to slap her so hard that her neck cracked. But he knew he couldn’t let his temper get the best of him this time, and he stopped himself from doing her any more damage. Anybody else who would spit in his face would have been dead on the spot, or badly injured at least. But Val held the key that could unlock Maddie’s captivity. Reno wasn’t about to let his temper jeopardize her any further.
“Where’s Maddie?” he asked her again.
“Val, you know where Maddie is?” Buddy was leaned into the open back door asking her too.
But it was Reno who had her undivided attention. It was the man who had just slammed her down so violently. The man she used to have such a crush on. The man she used to get naked in front of because she wanted to be with him more than she wanted to be with Jimmy. The man she now hated with a passion.
“Where’s Maddie?” Reno asked again, this time grabbing her blouse and lifted her up toward his face. “Tell me where you have my grandbaby!”
“Fuck you!” Val said. “Fuck you!”
“Your ass better talk, Val,” Reno said, “or this moment, right here, will be your last. You hear me?” Reno had clenched teeth. “I’ll motherfucking kill you. You know I will. Where’s Maddie?”
It was something about Reno’s eyes that shook Val straight. And she finally gave in. “He has her,” she said.
“Who’s he?”
“Koba Sorzi,” Val said.
When she said it, it was as if the veil finally lifted from over Buddy’s eyes. He’d seen her bad behavior for years, and denied it existed. Now it was right in his face. Val knew where Maddie was all along? She knew who had her and didn’t tell them? He could hardly believe it.
Reno couldn’t either. Despite Val’s badness, none of them could. But Jimmy was more angry than anything. He wanted to rush back into that car and bash Val’s skull in. But his uncles held him back. They knew, and Jimmy knew deep down, that they needed full answers first.
“Where does he have her?” Reno, determined to keep his emotions in check and get those answers, asked Val. “Where?”
“I don’t know where,” Val said.
“How are you going to pick her up?”
“What do you mean?”
Reno couldn’t believe she didn’t understand the question. Buddy couldn’t believe it either. “How are you going to get Maddie back?” Reno asked her more clearly.
But Val just stared at him.
Reno couldn’t believe it. He wanted to lash out, but he had to make sure he wasn’t misun
derstanding what she was implying. “He didn’t tell you how you could get Maddie back?”
“No,” Val said.
“What?” Buddy asked, floored. “Valerie, that can’t be true!”
But Reno had another thought. A terrifying thought. “You sold her to him?” he asked her. “Are you telling me you sold her to Koba Sorzi, Val?”
Jimmy couldn’t believe his ears. How could his father even ask such a question?
But Val wasn’t dismissing the question at all. “Y’all weren’t giving me any money,” she said. “Not the kind of money I deserve! Y’all living high on the hog at the PaLargio, and at your palatial estate, and I’m barely getting by. I should be living high too! I’m the mother of your grandbaby. But do you treat me like I’m somebody special? No! None of y’all do. He told me his daughter would raise Maddie as her child, and she’d be rich and loved. And so would I. But first I had to plant that bomb. That’s why I went to your house. To start a fight. And then to leave that bomb behind while y’all asses were hemming and hawing about me. But I couldn’t even do that right.”
Tears were in her eyes. “They get to keep Maddie, and not pay me another dime, if I didn’t do that right!”
Reno began to panic. Jimmy was already there. It was as if he was now too afraid to move. What was Val telling them? That they would never see Maddie again?
“Where’s Maddie now?” Reno asked her.
“I don’t know,” Val said. “They never told me where. I only met that man once, in a café, when I gave him Maddie and he gave me some working money. More was coming, though, he promised me, after I did what I had to do.”
Buddy just shook his head. He couldn’t believe she was his daughter!
“So when his man Artie was at that shopping center with Maddie?” Reno asked. “What was that about?”
“They weren’t going to turn her over to you,” Val said. “I know that. They were supposed to kill you. You and your wife. That was the plan. They hate you almost as much as I do. And I have no idea where they are, or where Maddie is. She’s theirs now.”
When Val said those words, something snapped in Reno. And he balled up his fist ready to beat her until there was nothing left of her.
But then he felt pressure against his side. And it was only then did he realize the error they had made.
They pulled her from behind the wheel of that car and threw her into the backseat, to get answers and to beat her ass. But they never checked her for weapons. Because he now realized she had one. And it was a gun. And it was pressed deep into his side.
And Val was smiling a reptilian smile. “How you like me now, Reno?” she asked. “I’m about to kill your ass, and enjoy watching you die. I’ll be the last face you see. Bye, bye, Reno. Bye, bye!” she said gleefully. And before Mick could reach for his gun; before Sal could reach for his gun; before Security could run to the car; before even Jimmy could run to save his father: the shot sounded.
It was so loud it sounded like another explosion.
It was so loud Jimmy had to cover his ears from the reverberations.
And they all stopped in their tracks.
And looked, not at Reno, but at Buddy.
Buddy had pulled out his own gun, and shot his own daughter.
Reno, who watched the life go out of Val’s once-beautiful eyes, turned around quickly and looked at Buddy.
“She took my grandbaby away from me. She sold that child for money. For money! And she was going to kill the one man I believe can still find my baby.” He shook his head. “No. I couldn’t allow that. I couldn’t,” he said, as his hand went limp on realizing what he had actually just done, and the gun was about to drop from that hand.
Reno, still shaken himself, got out of the car, took the gun from Buddy’s hand, and then pulled Buddy into his arms. They already treated him like a Gabrini, despite the divorce. He had just proven why.
“It’s going to be okay, Buddy,” Reno said. “We’ll find those bastards and bring Maddie home. There’s no doubt about that.”
Buddy nodded. “I know you will, Reno. But I just never thought it would end up this way.” He looked at Val in the car. Jimmy went up to him, and looked at her too.
“She changed and never changed back,” Buddy said. “I was praying she would someday change back to the child I raised. But it never happened.”
“I was hoping so, too,” Jimmy said, placing an arm around his former father-in-law. “But we wanted her to change more than she wanted it. That didn’t work. It never does.”
Buddy knew it too. And then Jimmy, feeling what Buddy felt, embraced him, and his father, together.
But the relief they all felt when they realized Reno was okay, was no match for the agony they still felt because Maddie was still missing.
And thanks to her miserable mother, the situation had gone from dire to damn near impossible.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Reno and Trina had showered together, and were now in bed at their penthouse apartment inside the PaLargio. Reno was naked and on his back. Trina was naked and on top of him. He held her in his arms and was rubbing her to soothe her. Because she was still as shaken as he was.
“I still can’t believe Val would do something that crazy,” Trina said.
“She’s been pulling crazy shit for years now,” said Reno. “But this topped it.”
“Selling her own child to that maniac? And not even getting paid yet. She had to kill us first!” Trina shook her head.
Then she looked at Reno. “She almost killed you.” He hadn’t mentioned that part. But Jimmy had.
A weariness appeared in Reno’s eyes. And he nodded. “That’s what spooked me,” he said. “Val’s slick ass got the best of me. All she had to do was pull that trigger.”
“I’m so grateful Buddy saw her. And acted on it.”
Reno knew it too. Then he looked at Trina, and rested his hands on her bare ass. “What about you?” he asked her. “Seeing what happened to our home, and hearing what almost happened to me. What about you?”
“I’m okay,” Trina said, and it was the truth. “We all got out of there alive. Forget the house. That’s just a building. That can be rebuilt. We’ve done it before. But we’re all okay. That’s what matters.”
Then Trina’s face took on an anguished look. “We’re all okay, except for Maddie. For our baby.”
Reno closed his eyes. They had every man on the case. Searching for that bastard Sorzi and his daughter felt like searching for a needle in a haystack. And it still felt as if he was missing some clue somewhere.
“What about the daughter?” Trina asked Reno. “You said Val said Koba Sorzi was going to let his daughter raise Maddie. Do you think she’d harm her like she tried to do you?”
Reno was shaking his head. “No. She won’t do that. At least not the Caribella I used to know. But I don’t want her ass or her father’s ass having anything to do with my grandchild.”
“Yeah, me either. We’ve got to get her back.”
“And we will. Hammer Reese has got a black ops team on his tail, without telling the men why he wants him picked up. Something will break for us.”
Trina knew it too. Because something needed to break and, finally, break in their favor.
Although Reno did ultimately guide his aroused penis inside of Trina, and fucked her hard, it was purely to relieve their mounting tension. The fact that it always felt good to Reno to fuck her, didn’t hurt.
But when they both came, and while he was still wedged deep inside of Trina, his cell phone rang.
He placed the call on Speaker, and answered quickly. He hadn’t even looked at the Caller ID. “This is Reno.”
“This is Kobayatti. Hello, Reno.”
Reno’s blood boiled. Trina’s too. She eased off of him, and they both sat up. “Where’s my grandchild?” Reno asked.
“With me. Where do you think?” Then they could hear Koba grinning. “I told Artie you had nine lives. Problem for you? You’re on number ni
ne now.”
“How do I get my grandchild back?” Reno asked.
“It’s very simple, Reno. I like simple. You complicated my life, and Caribella’s life, with your cowardice act of betrayal. She was barely out of the hospital and you were marrying that black bitch. It was the ultimate betrayal. Your selfishness changed my sweet Cari forever. Now it’s time for me to change you.”
Trina’s heart squeezed with fear. She wanted to blurt out for him not to harm Maddie, but she already knew he hated her too. She was the black bitch. She was the woman Reno chose over his precious daughter. She remained silent.
“What do you want?” Reno asked him. “And I don’t want to hear about any hundred thousand bucks. What do you want?”
“The deal is this: your grandbaby,” Koba said, “for the PaLargio.”
Reno and Trina both frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Your grandbaby,” Koba said again, “In exchange for your real baby: for the PaLargio. You sign over the rights of ownership to your gem, and I mean lock, stock, and barrel rights, and I will return Maddie to you. If you play any games with me, and I mean any games, and you will never see that child again. I promise you that.”
Reno was frowning, and hesitating, but not for the reason Koba thought.
“Take time to think about it,” Koba said. “I know you would rather die than part with the PaLargio, but--”
“Yes,” Reno said, and Trina nodded her agreement. Maddie for the P? It was not even a contest for them!
Now Koba was the one hesitating. “You don’t need time to think about it?”
“You give me back my granddaughter,” Reno said, “and I’ll give you the PaLargio.”
“And all its smaller market chains?” Koba asked.
“All of them,” Reno said. “Yes.”
“I’m not just talking about your hotel interests.”
“I understand that.”
“I’m talking about your casino interests too.”
“I understand that.”
“I want it all. Hotel, casino, the name. All of it.”
“I said yes, Sorzi,” Reno said. “What more do you want?”
Reno Gabrini: Turn Back Time Page 13