Page 30 of Tommy Gabrini: All Fall Down
“I didn’t say you wasn’t. I’m just telling you to do exactly what your father and me taught you to do.”
TJ could see the concern all over his beloved mother’s face. He hated when she was worried. “Don’t worry, Ma, I won’t do anything,” he said as two police officers were walking up onto either side of Grace’s Bentley.
Grace pressed down the window. “Hello Officer.”
“License and registration.”
Grace had already pulled out both. “May I ask why I’m being stopped?”
“No,” said the officer. “License and registration.”
TJ couldn’t believe it. Grace knew it was wrong too. By law they had to tell you why they were stopping you, and she didn’t have to give up her license unless she was being accused of a crime or if she was in the commission of a crime, which she knew wasn’t possible. But to get her and her son out of there alive, she gave him her license and registration.
He looked at the paperwork as if he was confirming something, and then he reached into her car, unlocked the door, and flung it open. And suddenly his no-nonsense move became super-aggressive. “Okay out!” he yelled.
“What did she do?” asked a flabbergasted TJ as the officer pulled his mother out of that car like she was a rag doll and then slammed her against her car.
“What did she do?!” a terrified TJ asked again. But before he could finish asking his question, the second officer flung open the passenger door and grabbed him out of the car too. That officer threw TJ to the ground seemingly as hard as he could,placed his knee in his back, and began cuffing him as the first officer was cuffing Grace.
“What did I do?” Grace was asking the officer. “And why are you arresting my son? He’s a minor! Why are you arresting a minor?”
“Resisting arrest,” said the first officer. “Same as you.”
“We didn’t resist anything,” said a terrified Grace. “What are you doing?”
But the smalltown cop didn’t want to hear it. He began walking her as if he was dragging her toward his patrol car while the other cop began hurrying TJ to his patrol car. It seemed surreal to TJ.
But Grace had been around that block too many times. And she was a Gabrini too? It seemed far more sinister than surreal to Grace.
But as the first patrol car sped off with Grace in custody, the second patrol car waited. When his colleague was out of sight, an SUV drove up and parked in front of the remaining patrol car. The officer got out of the patrol car, opened the back passenger door, and let a handcuffed TJ out. Then he walked a confused TJ to the back passenger door of the SUV where one man got out, took TJ and put him inside, and then the man got back in. Then the SUV drove away with the patrol car following it.
TJ’s heart was hammering. He knew this was no arrest. This was something worse. And he felt right away that it had everything to do with that family business he was never supposed to talk about.
“Who are you?” he asked the man that was already seated on the backseat. He was sandwiched between the two men.
“I’m your daddy until it’s finished.”
TJ was confused. “Until what’s finished?”
“If you don’t do exactly as we say, everybody will die.” Then the man looked at TJ as if the emphasize his point. “Your mother will die. Your father will die. Your baby sister GG will die. And your big sister and her daughter will die too. In fact,” he said with a smile, “we’ll get the ball rolling with those two.”
TJ was terrified. And so confused it was hurting his head. “What two? What are you talking about?”
The man pointed a remote control to a small TV screen on the back of the front passenger seat. TJ looked and saw his sister Destiny and his little niece come on screen. They were seated in chairs and tied up with rope. “Destiny?” TJ blurted out in shock. She and her baby were supposed to be on vacation in the Bahamas. What was happening?
Then he looked at the man. “What’s that?”
“That’s proof that we mean business,” said the man. “Look.”
TJ looked at the screen again as a man walked into view and placed a gun to a crying Destiny’s head. TJ’s heart dropped. “Don’t do that! Why is he doing that?!”
“Because he can,” said the kidnapper. “Because if you don’t do what we tell you to do, your sister and that baby of hers will be shot in the head both of them. And then we’ll come for your baby sister and then your mother and then the great Tommy Gabrini.”
The man then grabbed TJ by the chin. Pure evil and hate was in his eyes. “And that’ll be that,” he said with clenched yellow teeth, “if you don’t do exactly what we tell you to do.”
TJ’s heart was hammering. “What do I have to do?” he asked with a quivering voice.
“You will be implanted with a device that will not only allow us to hear every word you say until the job is finished, but we will see every move you make. You can’t tell anybody. You can’t try to send anybody a note or drop a hint to anybody. Youcan’t write a note to somebody, or raise an eyebrow at somebody without us seeing it. Do you comprehend what I’m saying to you, boy?”
