Sal Gabrini 4: I'll Take You There (The Gabrini Men Series Book 7) (22 page)

“I
had to, Sal!” Neeco blared.

“I had to
get you angry enough to kill Rip, don’t you see?

So I lied on Rip.

I had to.

And Rip was running scared, that’s why we couldn’t catch up with
him.

But I had to lie.

I had to lie, Sal!

I killed the kid and lied!”

Sal
stood up.

Then, to everybody’s surprise
in the room, he pulled out that same switchblade he had taken from his
ex-girlfriend Teri Burk, and grabbed Neeco by the neck.

Tommy and Reno went behind Bruce, in case he
tried anything.

With Neeco struggling
wildly, Sal forced open his mouth and, without a second’s hesitation, sliced
his tongue completely off.

“Try lying
now motherfucker!” Sal yelled as he tossed Neeco away from him and Neeco
started wiggling in pain.

Reno
was nodding his head, as if he would have done the exact same thing.

Tommy was staring at his brother.

“In
enough pain?” Sal asked Neeco.

“That
enough pain for you?”

Neeco
was nodding, as the blood was gushing from his mouth.

“I
disagree,” Sal said as he pulled out his gun.

He then shot Neeco eight times.

One bullet for every year Lonnie’s kid was alive on this earth.

The Gabrini way.

Then
he looked at Bruce.

But Bruce was
pleading for his life.

“Sal, please,” he
begged.

“It wasn’t me.

I was just there.

Neeco killed that kid.

It wasn’t me!

Don’t you understand?”

“I understand.

I understand you knew a kid had been killed
and you went along with it.”

“But
it wasn’t---”

“Shut
the fuck up!” Sal yelled.

And then he
shot Bruce several times too.

Reno
hated the carnage, but he knew it had to be done.

They couldn’t kill a kid, and live.

“That’s what I’m talking about,” he said.

Tommy
nodded.

“Yeah,” he said.

“That’s it.”

But
Sal said nothing.

He did what he had to
do.

His actions, he felt, said enough.

Gemma
was still asleep after Sal showered and crawled back into bed that night.

When he snuggled against her, and pulled her
into his big arms, she groaned her satisfaction.

Sal held her, like the precious gift she was,
and thought about what he had done tonight.

Neeco used to be his boy, a leader of one of his many crews.

But he had snitched on him.

But he had killed Lonnie’s kid.

He had treated a kid as collateral damage in
a war Sal didn’t even know was being waged.

And now Gemma, when she became his wife, could one day be treated that
way too.

He
closed his eyes.

Ashamed.

But
then Gemma opened her eyes.

As if her
heart could feel the pain in his.

“Don’t
worry, Sal,” she said to him.

“They’ll
leave us alone someday.”

And
Sal actually found a way to smile.

Just
a reassuring word from her was all it took.

Because he believed it.

Even
though he should have known better, he decided to believe it.

EPILOGUE

His
heart pounded when the musicians began to play
Here Comes the Bride
.

He
hadn’t even seen Gemma yet, just her bridesmaids, but already his knees were
beginning to buckle.

Tommy was standing
beside him as his best man, and Reno and Jimmy Mack were standing there
too.

But despite all of their support,
Sal was a wreck.

Trina
was the maid of honor, and Gemma’s girlfriends from Indiana were her
bridesmaids.

Marvin was there too.

He wanted to be a bridesmaid also, and Gemma
was all for it, but Sal said over his dead body, so they scratched that
idea.

But all of the bridesmaids, and
Marvin, and Grace, and Val, and Cassie in the audience, all had tears in their
eyes.

There, in fact, wasn’t a dry eye
in the room.

Not even Tommy wasn’t
immune.

“I
saw that,” Reno whispered, as Tommy wiped a tear away.

“It
was dust,” Tommy responded, in that serious voice of his.

But
Reno knew better.

It was Sal and Gemma,
coming together in spite of it all.

And
it was a wonderful feeling.

Tommy’s
little brother was about to be married, to start a family.

It felt almost miraculous.

Then
Gemma appeared at the backside of their massive ballroom.

Her father walked her down the aisle and he
looked so proud that even Sal was surprised.

But he only had eyes for Gemma.

She looked otherworldly, he thought, in her gorgeous white trumpet gown
against her gorgeous black skin.

No
sight on earth could have been more beautiful to Sal.

When
she was deposited beside him, they both grinned.

This day, this moment, was the accumulation
of a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, and they couldn’t wait to get it
done.

Even the ceremony itself was all
about getting it done.

For such a
nontraditional couple, they decided to go completely traditional.

No groom walking down the aisle.

No flower boys and brides-males. No long
speeches at the altar.

No glitz.

No glam.

They just wanted to be married.

And
it went on without a hitch.

Until the
Priest asked for the ring.

Tommy reached
into his pocket, pulled out the beautiful ring, and handed it to Sal.

Sal took Gemma’s finger.

“With
this ring, I thee wed,” the priest said for Sal to repeat.

But as soon as the priest said those words,
an outcry could be heard in the audience, and then pandemonium broke out.

At
first there was so much commotion that no one in the wedding party knew what
was going on.

Until somebody said, “her
water broke!” and there was no doubt then.

Tommy
ran into the audience to where the crowd had surrounded his wife, and Reno,
Trina, Jimmy and Val, hurried to Grace’s side too.

Tommy immediately began hurrying Grace to the
exit, to get her to the hospital, and the family was following.

Gemma,
too, started to follow too, naturally, but Sal pulled her back.

“Marry
us,” he said to the priest.

“Sal!”
Gemma said.

“We need to make sure
everything is okay.”

“Everything’s
fine, what are you talking?

They have
babies every day of the week.

What’s new
about having a baby?

But Gemma Jones
marrying Sal Gabrini?

Now that’s rare.

That’s special.”

Sal kept Gemma in his arms.

“Marry us,” he said to the priest.