Mob Boss Eleven- The Wrong One (The Mob Boss Series Book 11) (14 page)

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 his
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?”