Page 45 of Tommy Gabrini: All Fall Down
Tommy, Sal, and Reno were already running out of that room.
When Chief Browne and the FBI’s special agent in charge saw them, they hurried toward them. “What is it?” Chief Browne asked.
“Hammer Reese is already at the school,” Tommy said without breaking his stride. “If he disables that device, my daughter will die.”
“What device?” Browne asked.
“I believe they have my daughter captive and that’s why my son is involved. They have my daughter and grandson. We’ve got to stop Hammer!”
And Tommy, Sal, nor Reno waited for permission from the FBI. They took off running out of that command center. The FBI and Chief Browne took off behind them, although they had no clue what device they were talking about.
It took less than two minutes for all of them to run across the cordoned off street, into the school, and around the corner. When they saw Hammer and Mick standing at one of the classroom doors, Tommy and Reno and Sal all were yelling “Hammer no! Don’t disable it, Hammer! They have Destiny!”
But it was already too late. TJ had already opened that classroom door after his uncle’s command, and he already fell into Mick’s arms crying his heart out. Mick’s eyes were squeezed shut with relief as he held his great-nephew. Until they all heard the running and the yelling.
When Mick And TJ looked up, all of the rest of the Gabrinis and Sinatras, along with the police and FBI were running toward the classroom.
When they arrived, the Police and FBI sought to check on all the hostages, although the chief and the special agent in charge stayed with TJ. Until proven otherwise, he was still their chief suspect.
“They’re okay?” asked a relieved TJ.
“Who’s safe?” asked Mick.
“We believe whoever implanted TJ kidnapped Destiny and her baby,” said Tommy.
Mick and Hammer were shocked.
“They did kidnap them,” said TJ. Then his heart dropped. “They still have her?” He clutched his father’s coat lapel. “Daddy, they still have her?”
Tommy was beyond distressed when TJ’s reaction confirmed Grace’s theory. He nodded his head.
“Motherfuck!” yelled Mick. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“We didn’t know!” Roz yelled at Mick.
“But that can’t be,” said a now panicking TJ. “They told me they’ll kill them both if I made one false move, Daddy. They said they’ll kill them both. Oh Daddy!” A terrified Tommy pulled him into his arms.
When the Gabrini ladies and Amelia made it up to the classroom too, TJ left his father’s arms and ran to his mother. Grace clutched him so tightly that they both nearly fell. “Mommy, Destiny’s in danger,” TJ was crying in her arms. “They said they would kill them both if I made one false move.”
Trina, Gemma, Roz and Amelia hurried to Grace and held onto her and TJ as Grace looked at Tommy with terror in her eyes. Tommy, so overwhelmed with emotion that his knees buckled, fell against the wall like a towering figure of a man about to go into meltdown. He thought it was just TJ. But it was both of his children, and he didn’t even realize it. Sal and Reno, devastated too, hurried to Tommy and pulled him into their arms.
If mortified was a picture, it was all of them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Three days later and it felt like a prison at Tommy and Grace’s house. Outside were policemen and FBI agents guarding the gate right alongside Tommy’s massive grounds security, and the press was standing around making a circus out of it with wall-to-wall coverage even though they knew TJ hadn’t shot anybody and was cleared by the police. But because he was a Gabrini, they were riding that horse for ratings anyway. Outside was lively and festive. But inside was like a morgue.
Because of the strangeness of the situation, and their inability to figure any of it out, all of the Gabrini and Sinatra families came to Seattle to shelter in place together. The only exceptions were that Oz Drakos kept his wife, who was Mick’s daughter Gloria, along with their baby, under his protection in Florida. Mob boss Frankie “The Monk” Paletti kept his wife, who was Big Daddy’s daughter Ashley, under his protection in Jersey. And businessman and government assassin Trevor Reese, Hammer’s younger brother, kept his wife, who was Big Daddy’s other daughter Carly, along with their baby, under his watchful eye in Boston.
But even in the game room and the family room where the younger people were hanging out, and where Teddy and Nikki were in charge, you could hear a pin drop. And although Mick and Hammer were on the phone nonstop trying to find out whatever they could, it was just as solemn in the living room. Grace, Gemma and Trina, and Roz, Amelia and Charles “Big Daddy” Sinatra and his wife Jenay, along with TJ and GG, were all sitting around in stunned silence.
Tommy, Reno, and Sal were also in the living room. The same day TJ’s device was disabled, and when none of the kidnappers were reaching out to Grace nor Tommy, the threesome had flown to the Bahamas to try and find Destiny and her baby themselves. They met up with Sal’s capos and Big Daddy, who were already there, along with a huge contingent of local private detectives Big Daddy had already hired. They searched wherever they could search, but turned up no clues whatsoever. Then they flew to Jamaica, all in the hope of finding Destiny and the baby or at least some clue to where they were or what happened to them but they found nothing there either.
She was no longer answering those phone calls she had answered every time before TJ’s implant was disabled, and none of her friends had heard from her for days. They assumed she was just having that much fun. Just as Tommy and Grace had assumed. They could not believe how wrong they were.
They spent two full days in the Bahamas and Jamaica searching and searching, but they turned up blanks. Nobody knew anything.
When they returned to Seattle, it felt as if they had wasted their time. From all the information that was finally gathered, it appeared as if Destiny and the baby never made it to the Caribbean at all. There was just no proof of their arrival anywhere. Now they were back to square one, sitting in that living room too, feeling as helpless as lambs. They knew no more than they knew the moment that implant was disabled.
