CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The terrace door opened and Malcolm Zock stepped outside with a sense of urgency on his face. “Ladies, there’s a threat. Please come inside,” he said as Trina, Gemma, and Ashley hurried into the penthouse parlor.
“What happened?” Trina was asking as Malcolm hurried over to the parlor’s safe room and began pressing in the security code. “What’s wrong, Mal?”
“There’s a threat,” he said as he opened the door and ordered Gemma and Ashley to get inside. Since he was Reno’s security chief, they did as they were told.
But Trina was questioning it. “But what’s the threat?” she said. “Where’s Reno? Did something happen in the Bowels?”
That was when Malcolm slammed the safe room door shut, and locked Gemma and Ashley inside.
Even though they were undoubtedly banging on the door and screaming for help, the safe room was soundproof, and technology-adverse too.
Their phones wouldn’t work in there. Not a sound could be heard from inside out either.
Trina’s heart dropped when Malcolm slammed that door shut and locked it. And when she saw his face, and that look of hatred in his eyes, she knew there was a threat alright. And he was the threat!
She began backing up. “What are you doing, Mal?” she asked him.
“What do you think? I’ve watched your husband live the highlife while I was just his flunky. That changes today! You’re coming with me, and I won’t release you until he pays me my due.”
“What due? He doesn’t owe you anything!”
“All those hours he made me work. All that shit I have to put up with! And you don’t think he owes me?”
“He pays you well, Malcolm!”
“Fuck a paycheck! I want the highlife too.” Then he grabbed Trina by the hair, causing her to scream out, but he placed tape over her mouth that she didn’t know he had, and tried to throw her to the floor.
But Trina grabbed a vase from the side table and slammed it across his head. He staggered, but he didn’t fall.
She ran to another vase, and threw it at him. Then she began throwing everything she could get her hands on at him, including her own shoes. She wasn’t going down without a fight. And she was fighting for her life.
But Malcolm was too big for her. He grabbed her and slung her to the ground. He pulled out rope to tie her up, but she was fighting him tooth and nail. She was kicking and wiggling and doing all she could to avoid his restraints.
She even got away from him and stood up on her feet again. She tried to run out on the terrace, hoping that those sharpshooters on the rooftop would see her, but he grabbed her and flung her back down. The pain was excruciating for Trina, but she wasn’t about to give up.
She continued to kick and wiggle and at one point she was able to take her shoe and kick Malcolm in the face so hard that it knocked him backwards.
But now he was angry. Holding her down with one hand, he took his other hand and pulled out his gun with the silencer on. He was going to shoot her in the leg or arm to incapacitate her, but not to kill her.
But she kicked his gun away. Then he knew he had to tie her up. There was no two ways about it. And he finally managed to flip her onto her stomach. And then he began tying her up.
All of the commotion in that room wasn’t heard in the family room in the back of the house where Carmine and Sophia were.
Nor could it be heard in the dining room where Dom and Jimmy were still playing cards.
Malcolm had left to use the restroom, but they hadn’t missed him yet. Until Dom’s phone rang.
He grabbed it from the table and looked at the Caller ID. “It’s Pop,” he said and quickly answered, putting it on Speaker. “What’s up?”
“Mom’s in danger!” Reno screamed in the phone. They could tell he was running. “Malcolm wants to kill her. Neutralize him and get Trina off of that terrace!”
They were already jumping up and running toward the back hall that led to the parlor before he could even mention the terrace. Reno was still talking, but Dom had dropped his phone when he took off running. They knew Malcolm had been out of their sight. They couldn’t get to that parlor fast enough!
But when they got to the door, it was bolted lock. Because it was a fortified door like all the doors inside the penthouse, their attempts to break it down were useless. But they could hear noises inside the parlor, as if there was a scuffle going on.
Dom began to panic. All he could think about was getting to his mother. Then he pulled out his gun, but Jimmy pushed it down. “You can’t just shoot. You could shoot Ma!”
But Jimmy was panicking too. He and Dom kept trying to break their down with their shoulders, and their whole bodies, but they couldn’t do it.
“Go get the guards to help!” Jimmy ordered, and Dom ran and got the men that were in the hall outside of the PaLargio to come and help.
And they all tried to break down that door. But they couldn’t do it. Jimmy and Dom had tears in their eyes as they did all they could to knock that door down.
Then Reno, Sal, and Monk ran into the PaLargio and down the hall where the commotion was.
“It’s locked, Pop,” Jimmy said in full panic, “and we can’t break it down!”
Sal and Monk tried to break it down too, but Reno ran into his office, grabbed a sledgehammer, and ran back out.
“Back up!” he said to them. Then he began slamming that hammer into the lock part of that door with all the force he had. It was as if he was a madman he was banging so hard. Trina was in that room. There was no way that door wasn’t opening. He had to get to Trina!
With tears in his eyes, too, he banged and banged on that door until that lock finally gave way. And then they all ran inside.
But they stopped in their tracks when they saw Malcolm, with Trina bound and gagged and standing in front of him as his human shield. He had his gun to her head. “Stay right where you are!” he yelled.
They all just stood there. They were terrified to move because Trina was completely in front of Malcolm. There was no shot anybody could take.
“I’ll pull this trigger so don’t even try it,” Malcolm said.
Reno was flustered. “But why, Mal?” he asked him. His face was a mask of confusion. “What did my wife ever do to you?”
“It’s never you, is it, Reno? It’s always somebody else’s fault. Now you wanna blame your wife.”
Reno frowned. “What?”
“You never paid attention to me and my needs. Did you Reno? You’re one of the richest men around, but you never let me get rich too.”
Let him get rich? That sounded crazy to all of them.
But as they were thinking it, the door to the terrace behind Malcolm and Trina slowly began to open. That was when Reno knew he had to keep Malcolm occupied.
“I was your righthand man,” Malcolm was saying. “I would have took a bullet for you. I was your ride or die.”
“My ride or die?” Reno asked as they all could suddenly see Mick easing his way through the terrace door of that parlor. “How could you be my ride or die? You were a fucking employee, what are you talking about?!”
“That’s what you think of me?” Malcolm said.
Then all of them started talking to hide the noise Mick’s entrance might make. They knew Mick couldn’t shoot Malcolm in the back because the bullet might leave his body and enter Trina’s. He had few options.
When Mick realized it, he looked at Dommi, who was standing to the far left of the line of people in that parlor. And he nodded to Dommi.
That was when Mick made a noise to get Malcolm’s attention. He quickly turned sideways to see what that noise was. When he saw Mick, he started backing toward the wall with Trina still as his shield. “I’ll kill her if you make another move!” he yelled at Mick. “I’m not playing. I’ll kill her!”
When Malcolm turned sideways, Reno knew he had to take the shot. Malcolm was going to kill Tree. Reno could see it in his eyes. He had to take the shot. They all knew somebody had to take the shot.
But Dom knew Mick’s nod meant he had the best angle. He was terrified, but he knew if that man pulled that trigger, then his mother would be dead.
Dom always had nerves of steel. He gathered that steel and he didn’t hesitate. He took his shot before Reno, who didn’t have the angle, could even lift his gun.
Dom, who had been a shooter since he was a child, shot Malcolm in the bottom part of his hand.
Because of the pain, Malcolm, by reflex, grabbed that hand, causing the gun to fall to the floor, and he moved away from Trina without knowing it.
But it was just enough space between them now for Reno to fire several shots into Malcolm.
With Trina scurrying away from her attacker, Reno began walking toward Malcolm as he continued firing shot after shot after shot.
He was angry. A grown man expecting another grown man to not just pay him a great salary, but to make him rich too?
And because he didn’t, he was going to kill Reno’s wife?
Reno had his rich alright, and it was in that gun. And he didn’t stop unloading it until Malcolm was completely lifeless.
Then Reno dropped his gun and hurried to Trina. Mick kicked both guns way.
Reno, Dom, and Jimmy ran to Trina. Monk and Sal were asking frantically where were their wives?
“In the safe room,” Trina said as soon as Reno snatched that tape off of her mouth. “They’re in the safe room!”
Sal, who knew the code, unlocked the door and Gemma and Ashley hurried out. Sal and Monk pulled them into their arms as Reno, after Jimmy untied her, pulled her into his arms. Jimmy hugged both of his parents.
Dom looked at Mick. “How did you get on that terrace?”
“I took the elevator to the floor just below the penthouse. Then I went up the back stairs that led to the back terrace. And walked on in.”
Dom knew that was a way to get on the terrace, but he couldn’t even think about that when he knew his mother was in danger. Monk and Sal were too worried about their wives to think about that too. Mick was probably the only one who had the presence of mind to remember it. Thank God!
“What happened to Rats Scorvino?” Dom asked.
“The cleanup crew has him,” Mick said.
“So that bastard was involved?”
Mick nodded. “Oh yeah.”
“What was his reason?”
“The same as Malcolm’s. The same as Javon’s. Money.”
Dom exhaled and shook his head. But Dom had another question. “Why did you give me the nod to shoot, Uncle Mick?”
“You had the best angle,” Mick said.
“And?” Dom knew others in that room had good angles too.
“You’ve always been a great shot,” Mick added. “Even as a kid.”
Dom smiled. “I know that’s right,” he said happily.
“Still humble I see,” said Mick, and Dom laughed at that too.
But when he saw Sophia and Carmine come into the parlor looking confused and scared, and then they ran to Reno, Trina, and Jimmy and joined in the group hug, Dom went over to his family. They got out of it all in one piece. They were together again. He joined in the group hug too.