Page 72 of Sal Gabrini: Man on Fire

Minutes later, as Mick drove his Escalade in a dangerously high speed toward that police station in Spring Valley, they pulled up on the crime scene.

“What the fuck!” said Sal as the SUV stopped and he, Mick, and Robby jumped out. Both SUVs that had been a part of the convoy were riddled with bullet holes. And all of the security were either dead inside the SUVs, or dead on the street. It was a horrific scene.

They searched the SUVs frantically, checking out every dead body, but they saw that Gemma nor Reno were inside. Nor was Mason.

They jumped back into Mick’s Escalade. This time Robby got behind the wheel. “Where to, Boss?” he asked either one of them.

“Just wait, Robby,” said Sal. He was almost panicking and he knew he had to slow his ass down. “I need to think. I need to think this through!”

“Who would do a thing like this?” asked Robby.

“The same motherfucker that breached your deepest cover safe house,” Mick responded. “Why the fuck you’re surprised, Robby? Your ass didn’t run a tight ship like you should have for Salvatore.”

“But how would they even know about it?”

“How?” asked a still angry Mick. “Every month another one of Salvatore’s capos were playing footsy with one of your rivals and your ass asking me how?!”

Then Sal realized something else. Mick and Robby, too, through the rearview mirror, saw the change on his face.

“What is it, Boss?” Robby asked him.

“You know who did it?” Mick asked him.

“Delarosa,” said Sal. “It’s Barney Delarosa.”

“I thought you had a truce with his ass,” said Mick.

“I do. But he’s been dipping into my business ever since . . .” Then Sal realized what he had been missing all along. “I’ll be damn!”

“What?” asked Mick.

“What is it, Boss?” asked Robby.

“He’s been dipping into my business ever since his son died in prison.”

“His son?” asked Robby. Then he thought about it. “You’re right, Boss!”

“That’s when it started,” said Sal.

“Why would he want to harm your business because his son died?” asked Mick.

“Because Gemma represented his son. It was a racketeering case from years back. But she couldn’t get him off and he got Life without parole,” Sal said and looked at Mick. “He just recently died in that prison. And then shit started happening. Dela wasn’t paying my capos in some attempt to take over my territory. Jovie was doing that, and had been doing it for months before any danger started happening. After Dela’s son died, Dela started paying my capos to keep tabs, not on my syndicate like I thought, but on Gemma. He probably was the one who hired Kidd Curry to pose as Jovie’s underboss. My investigators told me that Curry’s on the verge of bankruptcy anyway. Dela’s got my wife.”

“But where?” asked Mick.

Then another lightbulb went off for Sal. “Robby, floor it and get us to Manhurst!”

Robby realized that to be a great possibility too. “Yes, sir, Boss,” he said, and floored it so hard that Mick and Sal both, who had been leaned forward, fell back against their seats.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

It was a tiny little safe house snuggled safely off the beaten path that Barney Delarosa was certain nobody knew about. He sat his big bulk at the head of the table in the tiny one-room shack, while Reno and Gemma sat at the other end of the table. Elsie stood behind him, and the eight other capos from the ambush in Spring Valley stood all around him too. With Reno Gabrini’s slick ass in the room, he knew he had to have full protection.

“This shit you’re pulling, Dela,” Reno said, shaking his head. “You’re signing your death warrant. You know that right?”

“You mean the same death warrant Gemma Jones-Gabrini signed for my son?”

Gemma never remembered defending anybody named Delarosa. “Your son? Who’s your son?” she asked.

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