Sal Gabrini 4: I'll Take You There (The Gabrini Men Series Book 7)
Read Sal Gabrini 4: I'll Take You There (The Gabrini Men Series Book 7) Online
Authors: Mallory Monroe
SAL GABRINI
4
I’LL TAKE YOU
THERE
By
MALLORY MONROE
Copyright©2014
Mallory Monroe
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This novel is a work of fiction. All characters are fictitious.
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CHAPTER ONE
Sal
Gabrini walked from one end of the elongated room to the other end.
Hands in his pockets.
Double-breasted suit showing no signs of wear
despite the dust and grime around him.
Black, shiny shoes creating a rhythm to his walk, as if it were a
march.
But a death march.
They
were on the tenth floor of a vacant office building, and all eyes were on
Sal.
Especially Philly, who knew he’d
fucked up.
He followed Sal’s every
movement.
He learned the rhythm of his
walk: twelve steps, and then a turn.
Twelve more steps, and then another turn.
Rattling change inside his pockets.
Blue eyes ablaze with the look of a man
trying to contain his rage.
With the
look of a man trying to decide, and not interested in getting it wrong, if
Philly was going to live or die.
Sal
was an odd one.
Philly heard about
Sal.
Everybody else were one-trick
ponies: you knew what you were going to get with them.
But you could never tell with Sal.
Everything depended on something else with
him.
Whether he showed mercy, or was
merciless, always depended on shit Philly couldn’t begin to figure out.
But as Sal walked and turned, and turned and
walked, and continued to rattle that change, Philly wasn’t waiting.
He begged.
“You
know me, Sal,” he said for what Sal’s men figured were the hundredth time.
“I couldn’t snatch a kid!
Why would I want to take a kid?”
“For
revenge, motherfucker!” Neeco blared.
“You know why.”
Neeco
was the man who tracked down Philly and brought him to Sal in the first place,
and Neeco was no joke either.
Philly
knew it.
Of all the men on Sal’s
payroll, including the five-man crew in the room now, Neeco was the toughest.
But
nobody in that room, or anywhere else as far as Philly was concerned, was
tougher than Sal.
That was why Philly
responded to Neeco, but was still looking at Sal.
“What would I want revenge for?
What is Neeco talking about?
You know me, Sal Luca.
Me and you, we used to run around Jersey
together.
We were little kids
together!
I didn’t do it.
I knew he was under your protection.
I would have never snatched somebody under
your protection!”
“The
Ripper knew he was under Sal’s protection,” Neeco said.
“Rip didn’t give a damn.”
“Rip’s
a fool,” Philly responded.
“Don’t put me
in there with Rip.”
This
angered Neeco.
“Don’t put you in
there?
You work for the motherfucker!”
“What
are you talking?
I don’t work for that
prick!
I keep telling you I don’t!”
“You were
there,” Sal said.
Compared to Neeco,
Sal’s voice was calm.
But
Philly saw his calmness, not as a reassuring sign, but a chilling one.
“Yeah, I was there,” he admitted.
“But I didn’t have nothing to do with it!
I didn’t know that shit was going down, Sal,
you’ve got to believe me!
I was there to
collect.
Rip owed me big time and I was
there to get what I was owed.
That’s
all.
That’s it!
Then Neeco and his men busted in like some
got
damn SWAT, and everybody scattered.”
Sal stopped
walking and looked at him.
“Where did
they hide him?”
“I
don’t know, Sal.
I swear to you I don’t
know.
I didn’t even know they snatched
the kid!”
“Why
wasn’t he there at the scene?”
“I
had nothing to do with it, Sal, why you keep asking me these questions?
You’ve got the wrong guy!
Rip and his men got away, but they’re the
ones you want!”
“He’s
full of shit, Sal,” Neeco said.
“He’s
one of Rip’s men and he knows it.
He was
right there with him.
He wasn’t
collecting a dime.
He was plotting and
scheming right along with the rest of those cocksuckers!
He knows where that kid is.
He’s full of it and he knows it!”
But
Sal wasn’t ready to get on Neeco’s ship of rage.
He kept walking and turning.
Turning and walking.
This shit wasn’t checkers to Sal.
It was chess.
He had to look at the big picture.
He owed his friend to find the kid, not to go halfcocked on some
half-baked theory of Neeco’s.
The
kidnapped boy’s father had been one of Sal’s crew members too, and he died
under Sal’s watch.
He owed him.
That was why his old lady came to Sal begging
for help.
Rip snatched the kid, she told
him, and the cops weren’t doing a damn thing about it.
Sal was angry that she went to the cops
before coming to him, since their involvement would limit his.
But for the sake of his deceased crew member,
he was doing what he could do.
But
he had to do it right.
A kid was
involved and cops were on the case.
He
didn’t know if Philly was a part of it or not.
He probably was.
Neeco was
probably right.
But Sal didn’t deal in
probabilities anymore.
A man’s life was
at stake.
He had to have more.
But
before he could decide either way, and before he could take yet another twelfth
step, Philly reached for the gun in Neeco’s hand, and they began to fight for it.
A shot was fired, barely missing one of Sal’s
men.
Another shot fired: barely missing
Sal.
Even
though other men were closer, it was Sal who moved with maniac’s speed and got
to Philly first.
“Motherfucker!” Sal
yelled as he kicked the gun out of Philly’s hand, knocking it safely across the
room, and then grabbed Philly by the catch of his shirt and dragged him to the
open window.
“Sal,
please,” Philly was begging.
“I didn’t
mean for it to go off!
I was trying to
get you to understand.
That’s all I was
trying to do!
Sal!
Sal!
Sal
!”
But
his pleas went on death ears.
Those
bullets almost hit one of Sal’s men, and could have easily hit Sal.
That was not allowed.
Philly knew that was not allowed.
Sal
hoisted him up as if he were light as a feather, and hung him upside down out
of the tenth floor window, with Sal holding him only by the catch of his big
shoes.
“Kill
that motherfucker!” Neeco yelled.
He ran
to the window and stood beside Sal. He was out for blood after getting bested
by the likes of Phil Meretti, and Sal knew it.
Philly
was still wiggling and screaming, and reaching up, and pleading with Sal to
pull him back in.
He was crying.
He was begging for his life.
There
was a time when Sal would have dropped his ass and went home to dinner.
He would have deserved it.
He couldn’t fire on Sal Gabrini and expect no
retribution!
But things were changing in
Sal’s life.
He was soon to be a husband
to the woman he loved, and would one day be a father.
And even this thug here, Sal thought as he
stared down at the terror in the begging man’s eyes, was somebody’s son.
And somebody’s husband.
And somebody’s father for crying out
loud!
They would be told that he was
dead.
They would have to spend the rest
of their lives without his protection, his love, his whatever they needed from
him, all because of Sal’s decision.
And
that was worth thinking about to Sal.
Because he kept thinking about his own woman.
What if that was Gemma getting the news?
What if that was his children living fatherless
for the rest of their lives?
And
Sal, just thinking about Gemma, and the children he didn’t even have yet,
froze.
For
the first time in his entire life, he froze.
But
Neeco was there.
The baddest
motherfucker Sal had working for him.
And he didn’t hesitate.
Because
as soon as Sal began to lean over and reach for Philly’s shaking hand, deciding
that a punishment short of death was more warranted, Neeco released Sal’s left
hand from Philly’s shoe, before Sal could make contact with Philly’s hand, and
Philly went sailing down.
Sal,
stunned shitless, leaned over the window sill just as Philly, his terrified
eyes still staring at Sal, and his trembling mouth still begging for Sal’s
mercy, and his flailing arms still trying to latch onto the air, fell to the
ground like some expendable crash-test dummy, and splattered.
Sal
looked at his second-in-command.
He
couldn’t believe any man, especially one of his own men, would defy him like
that.
He
grabbed Neeco by the catch of his collar, drug him across the room, and rammed
him against the wall so hard it shook the room.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he yelled.
His face was a mask of anger and
disappointment.
“Why did you do that to
him, Neeco?
What’s wrong with you?”
Neeco’s
face was a mask too.
Of confusion!
“What are you talking, Sal Luca?
What are you talking about?”
“I
didn’t tell you to take that action.”
He
rammed Neeco against the wall.
“That’s
what I’m talking about!
Why did you do
that?”
“Because
that’s what we do!” Neeco yelled.
“That’s what we do, Sal,” he said in a softer
tone.
And
those words alone stopped Sal in his tracks.
“That’s
what we do,” Neeco said again.
“He shot
at you.
He can’t shoot at Sal Gabrini
and live!
If word got around that he
shot at Sal Luca and Sal Luca let him live, it’ll be open season on you, on
your men, on anybody associated with you.
On Tommy.
On Gemma.
On anybody near and dear to you.
And you’re asking what the fuck is wrong with
me?
What the fuck is wrong with you,
man?”
Sal stared
at his lieutenant.
That was why Sal
hired him.
That was why he hired every
man that ever worked for him.
They were
all as badass as he was.
They didn’t
take shit, but gave it.
And as he looked
around that room, at all of his men who were now staring at him, he knew Neeco
was right.
What the fuck was wrong with
him?
He would soon have a wife to
protect, and children.
Now was not the
time for his ass to go soft, was he kidding?
Now was the time for him to go hard!
He
nodded.
And released Neeco.
“Get downstairs,” he ordered.
“Clean up the mess.
We still don’t know where the kid is,” he
added, “but Rip will get the word.”
Neeco
smiled.
And nodded too.
“That’s right.
He’ll know not to fuck with Sal Luca
Gabrini.
He’ll know what will happen to
his ass when he fucks with you.”
Sal
looked into Neeco’s eyes.
Was he mocking
him?
But he wasn’t.
He meant it.
These men looked up to Sal Luca.
And Sal knew it.
But
after they left to not only clean up the mess, but to remove all evidence that
any mess had ever occurred, Sal still felt uneasy.
When Gemma became a Gabrini, this was going
to become her baggage too.
Everything he
did would affect her.
Every right
decision, and every wrong decision.
Gemma would own it too.
And that
shit, the thought of the woman he loved enthralled in his long and deep-ass
drama, scared him far more than any mobster ever could.