Sal’s cell phone was synched to his car phone, and he saw Tommy’s number on the dashboard screen.
“You’re going to answer it?” Gemma asked him.
“He has a right to know,” Sal responded.
“But I thought you were going to wait until we got more information.”
“I was. But he’s not waiting.” Sal pressed the answer button. “Hey,” he said into the car’s speaker system.
Tommy Gabrini was in his limousine, as his limo driver hurried him to the Seattle airstrip. The nanny was with him, and so was little Destiny. “Reno phoned you?” Tommy asked his younger brother.
“He phoned,” Sal responded. “I’m on my way to the hospital now.”
“What do you know so far?” Tommy asked. “Reno didn’t know shit.”
“I don’t know shit either,” Sal responded. “It just happened. Where are you? Still in Seattle?”
“I’m on my way to my plane. I have Destiny with me, and her nanny.”
Sal frowned. “What are you bringing the baby for?”
“What do you think?” Tommy responded. “I’m not leaving our baby without me or Grace in town.”
“Oh, right,” Sal said. His thoughts were scattered all over the place.
“Is Grace with you?” Tommy asked. “I couldn’t reach her on her cell phone. I want to let her know what’s going on, and that we’re on our way.”
Sal glanced at Gemma.
“Sal?” Tommy asked. “Is Grace with you?”
“No, Tommy,” Gemma spoke up. “She’s not with us.”
“She hasn’t arrived? She phoned and told me she was going to spend the night at your house, then head back to Seattle tomorrow.”
“She arrived,” Gemma said.
Tommy didn’t like this hesitancy. It wasn’t Gemma nor Sal’s style. “Okay,” he said.
“But . . .” Gemma couldn’t bring herself to tell him. She looked at Sal.
Sal hated to tell the news too. But he had to. “Jimmy says it wasn’t just Tree,” he said.
There was a slight hesitation. What were they talking about? “What do you mean it wasn’t just Tree?” Tommy asked.
“Grace and Val were with her when the shooting went down,” Sal said bluntly. “Tommy, we think Grace might have been shot too.”
Tommy’s heart fell through his shoe. The Nanny looked at him. “What are you saying?” he asked. “Are you telling me that Grace . . . that my wife?”
“We aren’t sure,” Sal quickly responded. His heart was aching for his brother. “But we do know she went to meet Trina and Val at Scroll’s. We know that much. And the shooting took place at Scroll’s. We know that too.”
Tommy’s heart was hammering. “But how can you be sure she showed up? Maybe she didn’t make it there. Maybe---”
“Two other ladies were hit, Tom,” Sal said to kill any such delusions his brother might be concocting. His heart was hammering too. “According to the owner of the place, both of those ladies were sitting at Trina’s table. Both of those ladies were with Tree. Grace and Val, Tommy, were with Tree.”
Tommy leaned forward, and rubbed his hand across his forehead. Not Grace. Not Grace too. He looked at his little child. His beautiful baby girl. And he didn’t know if he could bear this. “Dear Lord,” he said. “Dear Lord!”
As soon as the Mercedes came to a screeching halt in the parking lot, Sal and Gemma both jumped out. Sal took Gemma’s hand and hurried with her into the hospital. He understood how differently this could have been. It was bad enough that it was Tree, Grace, and Val. But he was thanking God Almighty that it wasn’t Gemma too. Because it so easily could have been her too. She had planned to go out with the ladies also. But she didn’t go. He was nearly in tears when he realized how close it came to being her too.
But that didn’t mean this wasn’t horrible. Other than Gemma’s top place in his heart, Tree, Grace, and Val were the most important women in his life. He hated what happened to them. The idea that somebody would have the balls to try and take all three of them out at the same time was so outrageous, and so stupid a move that it angered him. That was why he brought Gemma with him. Until they figured out what was going on, she was staying under his thumb.
As soon as they entered the hospital, Gemma noticed Fran near the water coolers talking on her cell phone.
“There’s Fran,” Gemma said.
Sal found it odd that she would beat them there. “Fran?” he asked.
Fran seemed startled when he said her name. Then she hurried to him.
“How did you find out?” Sal asked her.
“I was already here visiting a friend of mine. I saw Jimmy.” Then she began to cry.
Not more bad news, Gemma thought. “What’s wrong?” she asked Fran.
“She’s gone,” Fran cried. “It’s so awful, Sal Luca. She’s gone!”
Sal’s heart dropped. “Who’s gone?”
“Grace,” Fran said. “Grace is gone!”
Sal frowned. “What the fuck are you talking about? Gone where?”
“They killed her, Sal. They killed Grace!”
Sal and Gemma couldn’t believe it. Gemma covered her mouth as tears dropped from her eyes. Sal was equally distraught, but he grabbed his wife closer against him. “Where’s Jimmy?” he asked as he ushered her further into the hospital. “Where’s Jim?”
“Second floor,” Fran said. “He’s upstairs.”
Sal grabbed Gemma by the hand again and hurried with her to the stairs. Fran was right behind them as they made it to the second floor.
On the second floor, Val was in one of the rooms. She was sitting upright on the bed and Jimmy was sitting on the bed beside her. She was in her hospital gown, and Jimmy was wiping away her tears. The only visible evidence that she had been at that horrific scene was a bandage on one of her hands.
“All I could think about the whole time was you,” Val was saying to Jimmy, “and how much I love you, and how much I hated how I’ve been treating you.”
“It’s alright, baby,” Jimmy said. He was so thrilled that she wasn’t hit that he would have forgiven her anything. “You were grieving. You couldn’t help it.”
“Yes, I could have helped it. I could have worked harder on my problems. I should have taken all of that help everybody was offering me. I’m so sorry, Jimmy. I’m so . . .”
Jimmy stopped her. “It’s okay, Val. It’s okay.”
They hugged. The fact that Val was okay and was coming around was sweet to Jimmy. But it was bittersweet. His wife was fine, but his stepmother wasn’t.
By the time they stopped hugging, Sal and Gemma had entered the room. And they both were floored when they saw Val looking as if she was right as rain.
“Uncle Sal,” Jimmy said, and then stood up.
“Val’s okay?” Sal said, surprised, as he moved toward the bed.
“Yes,” Jimmy said, nodding. “She’s okay.”
“Thank God!” Gemma said.
“And Trina?” Sal asked.
Jimmy exhaled. “Not okay. Ma’s still in surgery. She was hit multiple times, Uncle Sal.”
Sal’s heart grew faint. “Don’t tell me that. Multiple times?”
“They don’t even know how many,” Jimmy said. “She’s in bad shape, Unc.”
Sal angrily shook his head. “Those motherfuckers!” he yelled, just thinking about what they had done. Then he looked at Jimmy again. “What about Grace? Where’s Grace?”
“She was there too, Unc.”
“I know,” Sal responded. “Fran told us. Where did they put her?”
“She’s on this floor too. She’s at the room near the end of the hall. Dad’s men are standing outside.”
Sal took Gemma’s hand and hurried to Grace’s room. Reno had so many men on that second floor that it seemed like a hospital under siege. The nurses and even the doctors seemed intimidated. Gemma was as bewildered by it all as the hospital staff seemed to be, but she followed Sal. He wasn’t letting her leave hi
s side, and she wasn’t trying to leave it.
When they entered the room, Grace was lying on the bed, looking so angelic, they thought. Buddy Wellstone, Val’s father, was sitting in a chair near the bed. Sal and Gemma walked up to Grace. They couldn’t get over how peaceful she looked!
“Poor, poor Grace,” Gemma said heartfelt, as tears dropped from her eyes. “Tommy did everything he could to shield her from this, and she’s the one who doesn’t make it.”
“Yeah,” Sal said regrettably, fighting back tears himself. “You can’t shield shit. Not in this world. Not if you’re in this family.” And then he glanced at Gemma, and felt even worse.
Then he looked over at Buddy. “They’re making you stand watch?”
Buddy smiled. “No, Sal, nobody’s making me do anything. Since my daughter’s okay, it didn’t seem right for her to be in here all alone.”
Sal was grateful. “Thanks Buddy,” he said, and squeezed his shoulder. “You’re a good man. I’m sure my brother thanks you too.”
Gemma looked at Sal. “Your brother.” Then she shook her head. “This is going to devastate him.”
Sal nodded. “Yeah, I know,” he said as they looked, once again, at Grace. “This is going to kill him.”
But even as they spoke, Grace opened her eyes. “Sal?” she asked in a weak, quiet voice.
But she might as well had screamed it out because it startled the shit out of Sal and Grace. They backed away from that bed so quickly it looked almost comical to Buddy. He was so surprised by their reaction, that he stood up too. “What is it?” he asked. “What happened?”
Sal, dumbstruck, moved Gemma aside, and moved closer to Grace. “What the fuck?” he asked, looking her all over, his face unable to reconcile what he was told had happened versus what he was seeing with his own two eyes.
“I’m loopy as hell,” Grace said in a voice that confirmed her drowsiness, “but I’m sure that’s not how you’re supposed to greet your sister-in-law.”
Gemma smiled. Grace wasn’t dead! Her heart leaped with joy.
But Sal was still too floored to begin to entertain his feelings yet. Grace wasn’t dead? He threw the bedspread and sheets off of her, to make sure this wasn’t some mirage. “Where were you hit?” he asked her.
“I wasn’t hit,” she responded. “Not by bullets anyway. The people in our section started running for their lives when the shooting started, and they knocked me down and trampled me. So many of them trampled me. So many . . . Nothing was broken. I don’t have anything broken. Just pain. But Trina, Sal. They shot Trina. You should have seen it. They started shooting and . . . They . . . Where’s Tommy?” She drifted back off to sleep.
Sal didn’t know what to make of this. He looked at Buddy.
“They have her heavily sedated,” Buddy said. “They’re keeping her overnight for observation because she’s still in a lot of pain, she’s not kidding. The doctor said she’ll go in and out for a while, and then she’ll eventually sleep through the night.”
“You knew she wasn’t dead?” Sal asked him, still trying to understand this.
“Dead?” Buddy asked, astounded by the suggestion. “Why would you say something like that?”
“Why would I say something like that?” Sal asked, and was about to explain why, but Gemma wanted more information.
She moved beside her husband. “Was Grace in cardiac arrest and they brought her back, or perhaps they had to resuscitate her? Maybe that’s what Fran meant,” Gemma added, to Sal.
But Buddy shook his head. “No. There was nothing like that. She had passed out, I think they said, when she arrived, but nobody said anything about her being close to death, and certainly not dead.”
Sal looked at Gemma. Gemma looked at Sal. “Ain’t this some shit?” he asked her, and then both of them took off looking for Fran.
She was in Val’s hospital room, leaned against the wall, talking on her cell phone. Sal and Gemma walked up to her. Jimmy noticed the change in their mood. He stood up. Val was concerned too.
“What is it?” Jimmy asked. “Aunt Grace is still okay, right?”
But Sal and Gemma only had eyes for Fran.
“Why did you lie?” Sal asked Fran.
“What did she lie about?” Jimmy asked Sal.
But Sal was just getting over his own horror. He couldn’t deal with Jimmy’s. “You told us,” he said to his cousin, “that Grace had died.”
Jimmy and Val couldn’t believe it. But Fran remained defiant. “I know what I told you.”
“Why would you tell us something like that, Fran? She’s not dead.”
“Well I thought she was, alright? She looked dead to me.”
Sal frowned. “She looked dead to you?”
“When I saw her she looked dead to me, yes!”
“She was sedated!” Sal yelled.
“How was I supposed to know that? Hun, Sal Luca? Nobody told me that!”
“Nobody should have had to tell you! Your ass could have asked!”
“Don’t you talk to me like that!”
“Your ass could have asked before you told us something like that!” Sal blared. “You lying motherfucker! You could have asked!”
“Well I didn’t ask, did I? I didn’t know she was sedated. Nobody told me she was sedated. She looked dead to me!”
“Get out,” Sal said, fighting hard to hold back his anger. “Get the fuck out of my face now, Fran, before I slap the shit out of you!”
But Gemma wasn’t letting her get away with this. Not something like this. She was Reno’s sister, and because of it, everybody was always giving her a pass. But not this time. Not about something like this.
Gemma took her hand and slapped the shit out of Fran. She slapped Fran so hard that Fran completely flipped over and crash-landed against a cart. Even Sal couldn’t believe it. And when Fran jumped back up ready to fight, Gemma still didn’t back down. “Oh, yeah?” she asked. “You want to go down that road, Fran? You want to go down that road?”
Fran was seething, but she was no fool. Sal wasn’t going to let her put a finger on Gemma, and she knew it. She backed off.
And Sal took over. “Now get the fuck away from here,” he ordered, “before she really beats your ass!”
Fran rubbed the side of her face, picked up her cell phone that had fallen from her hand, looked at Gemma one more time, and then left.
Sal looked at his wife as if he was seeing her for the first time. “You wanna go down that road,” he mocked her. “Like you’re bad.” Jimmy and Val laughed.
But Gemma was dead serious. “We could have called Tommy and told him what Fran had told us,” she said. “If we didn’t go and see it for ourselves, we could have killed Tommy with that kind of news. You should have let me beat her ass.”
“You’re right.” Sal nodded. “You’re right.” Then he exhaled and looked at Jimmy and Val. He was pleased that Val and Grace were okay. “So everybody’s okay,” he said.
But as soon as he said it, everybody knew that wasn’t quite true.
Jimmy gave it voice. “Except Ma,” he said. And his father, because his mother wasn’t okay.
And their already heavy hearts grew fainter.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Sal and Gemma met Reno’s plane with a line of SUV’s behind them. Reno expected security, but even he was surprised by this show of force. He would have thought the President of the United States had arrived the way so many of his men were standing at the foot of the steps to provide a line of cover for him as he hurried off the plane, and made his way across the tarmac.
His suit coat flapping in the rising wind. And that very wind felt like a metaphor to Reno. He was stepping back in Vegas. He was returning home to his town. But it didn’t feel like his town anymore. His wife had been gunned down in this very town and was now fighting for her life. It felt like an unwelcoming, strange, cold place to Reno as he made his way to Sal and Gemma.
Reno and Sal hugged as soon as he arrived. Both men were emo
tional, but neither man, Gemma noticed, allowed themselves to shed a single tear.
As soon as they stopped embracing, Reno looked at Sal. “Any new news on Tree?”
“She’s still in surgery,” Sal responded. “They’re too busy working on her. They aren’t keeping us posted.”
Reno let out a harsh exhale. Then he thought beyond his immediate pain. “And Val and Grace?”
“Val and Grace are good. Considering. Both of them were hurt in the aftermath. Neither one of them were hit.”
“Thank God,” Reno said, relieved. Then he looked at Gemma. “How are you, sweetheart?” he asked.
“I’m okay, Reno.”
He kissed her on the lips and then hugged her. He closed his eyes tightly as he held her. Everybody knew she was his favorite. Of all the Gabrini women after Trina, Gemma was number two. “Thank God you weren’t there too,” Reno said to her.
Sal looked at Reno. He appreciated that. Most men would be angry and bitter if it were their wives who took the hit, and not his. But not Reno. He was always a stand-up guy that way. And although Sal disagreed with Reno on virtually every single thing, there was not a man alive he respected more.
“Fran was at the hospital too,” Sal said.
Reno looked at him. He knew Sal would not have brought her up unless she was up to no good. “Yeah? What did she do this time?”
“She told us Grace had died.”
Reno frowned. “She what?”
“Yeah,” Sal said. “And you know what her excuse was for telling us that?”
“What?”
“She said Grace looked dead to her.”
Reno couldn’t believe that crazy-ass sister of his. “Wait until I get my hands on her,” he said.
“No need,” Sal said with a grin. “Gemma took care of it.”
“Gemma?” Reno asked, surprised.
“My Gemma,” Sal responded. “And it wasn’t pretty.”
Reno looked at Gemma and nodded his head. “Good,” he said. “I hope you beat the shit out of her,” he said. “It’s overdue.”
“Long overdue,” Sal said. “But don’t get me started on that sister of yours. I know you want to get to the hospital.”
Mob Boss Eleven- The Wrong One (The Mob Boss Series Book 11) Page 10