Until You Come Back To Me, Book 5 (23 page)

“But
you’ve got it wrong,” Rodney said, searching for anything to buy them
time.
 
“Sal doesn’t love us.
 
You saw how he hated us when you were at our
home in Indiana.”

“I
saw how hurt he was when you kicked him out.
 
He loves you.
 
And even if he
didn’t, Gemma loves you.
 
He’ll be
devastated enough.
 
His stupid ass killed
her whole family.
 
Oh, yeah.
 
It’ll be more than enough torment for Sal
Gabrini.
 
He killed my sister.
 
I’m going to show him what that feels like to
those of us left behind.”

“Why
do you keep saying he killed your sister?”
 
Rodney was looking around, for something to grab.
 
“What do you mean by that?
 
He killed Chelsey.
 
You said so yourself. He killed my daughter,
not your sister.
 
That police report
proved Sal was lying.”

“He
killed Karen!
 
I got one of my numerous,
devoted lovers to rig that police report and to file it too, so if Sal went
snooping he’d be convinced it was the official report.
 
He killed my sister, not your daughter.
 
But you believed me, didn’t you?
 
You didn’t even know me. All I had to say was
that I was a close friend of Chelsey’s and you believed me over your own
son-in-law.”

Then
Jonnell
began to cry.
 
“Everybody forgets about her.
 
He
killed her that day.
 
She wasn’t going to
stab his brother, that was a lie and he knows it!
  
Karen couldn’t hurt anybody.
 
But Sal killed her.
 
Now he’s going to feel what I felt.
 
His in-laws first, and then his precious
wife.
 
It’s his time to mourn!”

And
Jonnell
pointed her gun at the Joneses ready to use
it.
 
But Rodney jumped in front of his
wife and tried to lunge at
Jonnell
.
  

All
Cassie heard was the sound of the horrific gunshot.
 
It was so loud her eardrums shook.

Gemma
was upstairs, still in bed, but she heard it too.
 
She jumped out of bed in a state of
panic.
 
She was naked so she grabbed
Sal’s dress shirt that had been discarded on the floor.
 
But more importantly, she grabbed the gun he
kept in the nightstand drawer and hurried downstairs, throwing on the shirt as
she hurried.

When
she arrived downstairs, she was stunned.
 
Her mother was on the sofa in the living room, her father was seated
next to her, holding her, and Sal was standing near the entrance with a
still-smoking gun in his hand.
 
Reno and
Tommy and Jimmy with their security people ran in behind him.
 
And the woman Gemma remembered from her
parent’s home, the woman who claimed to be a close friend of Chelsey’s, was
shot dead on the floor.
 
Gemma was scared
and confused that she looked at Sal again, for comfort.

Reno
moved out from behind Sal, but as soon as he saw Gemma, her shirt unbuttoned,
her beautiful breasts and womanhood exposed, he blurted out
wow
before he could stop himself.
 
But then he quickly looked away, inwardly
cursing himself for being so
got
damn
sexualized, even at a time like this, and then he took the smoking gun from
Sal.

Sal
went to Gemma.
 
All he could think about
was the guilt he would have been unable to live with had this turned out
differently.
  
But as he came toward her,
she ran to him.
 
Because all she could
think about was him, and how happy she was that he,
her man
, had saved the day once again.

When
they met, Sal removed the gun from her, sat it down, closed his big shirt she
wore, and then pulled her into his arms.
 
He almost lost her again. He could hardly believe it.

“You
all right?” he asked her as he held her.

“I’m
fine,” she responded.
 
“Are you alright?”

Sal
couldn’t lie.
 
“No,” he said honestly,
his eyes squeezed shut, his heart still pounding too hard.
 
All of the killings and the near-misses and
the agony and despair were getting the best of him right now.
 
And he needed her to understand.
 
“I’m not alright.”

Gemma
held him tighter.
 
She understood.

Then
Cassie broke away from her husband and hurried to Sal.
 
Rodney, still traumatized by what almost
happened to his wife, hurried behind her.
 

“Sal,”
Cassie said.

Sal
and Gemma stopped embracing.
 
They looked
at her.
 
Sal looked so distraught that
even Rodney felt sorry for him.

“You
saved our lives,” Cassie said.
 
“We
brought that evil into this home and it nearly took us away from here.
 
But you saved us, Sal.
  
You saved us again.
 
Thank-you,” she said, and hugged his
neck.
 
Sal hugged her back.
 
Gemma fought back tears.

When
they stopped hugging, Rodney extended his hand.
 
Sal didn’t have to shake it.
 
After the way he had been treated, Rodney would not have blamed him.
 
But Sal shook it. Gemma knew he would.
 
That was the kind of man Sal was.

And
then Sal threw his arms around his father-in-law and they hugged too.
 
Gemma and Cassie joined in and the four of
them, the Jones-Gabrini family unit, group-hugged and cried.

Tommy
was so relieved he fell against the door.
 
And prayed that their unit stayed together.

Reno
was pleased too, but he was also pissed.
 
It had largely been his men guarding Sal’s house.
 
His men had fucked up.
 
“Now,” he said to them as they huddled around
the open front door, “which one of you motherfuckers allowed that woman to come
into this house without clearing it with me, Sal, or Tommy first?”

Everybody
started looking around, with nobody willing to take the fall.
 
Until Jimmy Mack, to their shock, stepped
forward.
 
“I did, Dad,” he said.

Although
Reno knew, and every one of his men knew that Jimmy Mack did no such thing,
Reno was proud of him for standing up and shouldering the blame anyway.
 
It was a sign of leadership, a sign he had
been desperate to see in Jimmy for quite some time.
 
“Don’t let it happen again,” he said to his
son, “or next time, you’ll be joining
Jonnell
Keith
on the scrapheap.”

Jimmy
nodded.
 
“Yes, sir,” he responded, and
all of the men, grateful to Jimmy beyond measure because they knew what Reno,
what all of those Gabrinis were capable of, headed back to their posts.

And
the Jones-Gabrini clan continued to hug.
 
They didn’t seem ready, willing, or able to let each other go.

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