He began coughing, as if to drive home that point. But if he expected sympathy from Sal and Reno, he was mistaken.
“Water,” he requested.
Sal ignored him. This man tried to kill his wife and tried to set him up for a murder that would have put him on death row. He wasn’t about to honor any request he made. “How did you find out the boy wasn’t yours?” Sal asked. “Blanche?”
“Victor,” Rudy finally said. “Victor Grotski. I just wanted you to stay away from my boy. That’s all I wanted. I didn’t want any war with the Gabrinis. But she wanted revenge.”
“Blanche?” Sal asked. “What kind of revenge could she want? I never did anything but help her ass.”
“Not Blanche,” Rudy said, his voice still a whisper. “Fran.”
Reno frowned. “Fran? Fran who?”
“Your sister Fran, Reno,” Rudy said. “Fran Gabrini.”
Sal was stunned. Reno was mortified. “What the fuck does my sister have to do with this?” he asked.
“She came to me,” Rudy said. “She’s one of my ladies. She likes the bad boys. When she found out, she tried to get me to take Sal out. When she found out, she made it her mission to get revenge on Sal.”
“When she found out what?” Sal asked. None of this was making sense to him. Why would Fran be after him?
“When she found out about her mother.”
Reno frowned. “What about our mother?”
“She found out that Sal had killed her mother.”
“What are you talking?” Sal asked with a frown of his own. “I never killed her mother!”
“My mother died in a shootout at the PaLargio,” Reno said. “Sal had nothing to do with it!”
“Not your mother,” Rudy said. “Sal’s mother.”
Now Reno and Sal were really stumped. What in the world was he talking about? Sal had to take out his own mother when his mother tried to take out Gemma, but what did that have to do with Reno’s crazy-ass sister Fran?
“Spell it out, Red,” Sal ordered. “Tell me what you know.”
“I told you.”
“But Sal didn’t kill our mother and Fran knows that,” Reno made clear.
“Sal killed Sprig Sinatra.”
Reno was still confused. “But Sprig was Sal’s mother. Not Fran’s.”
“She was Sal’s mother,” Rudy said, “and Fran’s.”
Sal was so angry by this craziness that he jacked up Rudy by the catch of his hospital gown. Rudy’s eyes widened with pain. “Now you listen you rat bastard!” Sal said. “Tell me what you’re talking about, and you tell it to me straight.”
“She said Reno’s daddy raped Sprig,” Rudy said to Sal. “Sprig was married to his brother, to your old man, but Reno’s dad wanted her. So he raped her one day. He was a mob boss. He took whatever woman he wanted. He wanted his sister-in-law, so he had her. She knew she couldn’t tell what he did to her just like Blanche didn’t tell me. She knew she was dead if she told. So she left her entire family, including her sons, and fled back to Jericho, to her hometown. She said she knew her husband wouldn’t come there looking for her because he was afraid of her brother Charles. So she had the baby there, and then gave it to Reno’s father. Reno’s father forced his wife to accept it as her own. But she was never that woman’s child. Sprig was her mother.”
Reno and Sal couldn’t believe what they were hearing. Fran was Sal’s sister, not Reno’s? Sal even released Rudy from his grasp as he took in the gravity of what he’d just heard. He looked at Reno.
“Is it possible?” Sal asked.
“We had some fucked up parents,” Reno said. “Your old man was fucked up and mine was too. Hell yeah it’s possible.”
“We’ve got to find Fran,” Sal said, his heart racing.
“I don’t know where the fuck she is,” Reno said. “But I’ll find her. You’d better believe I’ll find her.”
Then Sal looked at Rudy. “Where’s my son?” he asked. “Where can I find him?”
Rudy shook his head. “I raised him. I’m all he’s ever known.”
Sal waited for more, but Rudy was done talking. He’d said too much already. But if he thought his deathbed confession was enough to spare him from Sal’s wrath, he was mistaken. He was still on his deathbed. Reno went to the door, to make sure nobody entered, and Sal used the very pillow Rudy laid upon as his weapon of choice. He smothered him and smothered him until he was dead. And then he returned the pillow, to its rightful place, behind the dead man’s head.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
As Reno’s men searched frantically for Fran, and Sal’s men searched for the young man who was supposed to be Sal’s son, he and Gemma went about their daily living and tried to push through all of the background noise they knew was still there. But as one day turned into another day, and one week was pushing toward the end of a second week, and still no word on either front, they decided that they couldn’t live their lives waiting for something to be settled that was completely out of their control. They decided to stop holding their breath and live. They didn’t know what in the world Fran was up to, or if Sal would ever know if Rudy, Junior was his flesh and blood, but they knew they still had each other. And they were going to start acting like it.
They went to the movies. Gemma felt like a teenager again as she sat in the theater on Sal Gabrini’s arm. She hadn’t been to a movie in years, as she and Sal never made time for such a frivolous activity. But now they were making time for everything.
“Nobody acts like this,” Sal said as he watched. “Who acts like this?” They were watching Black Mass, a movie about the life and times of mobster Whitey Bulger, and Sal was finding some scenes incredibly unlikely. “They should be ashamed of themselves,” he added.
“And you shouldn’t?” Gemma asked with a smile.
Sal couldn’t help but smile too, and pulled her closer.
Her parents recuperated at Sal and Gemma’s home in Vegas, but was anxious to get back to their own home in Indiana. They left a week ago. Now it was just Sal and Gemma. Just the two of them. And they were loving it.
After the movies, they left the theater for a slow ride in the country. They were in Gemma’s Aston-Martin and Sal was driving. They were hand in hand.
He looked at her. “How did you like it?”
“It was okay.”
“Yeah, it was okay. Unrealistic, but good.”
Gemma smiled. “What made you want to go to a movie all of a sudden?”
“To try something different,” he said. “We work all the time. We need to play some. I plan to prove to you, for the rest of my life, how grateful I am to have you as my wife.”
Gemma’s heart swelled. She started to tell him that he didn’t have to prove a thing, because she knew he was grateful. But she didn’t go there. Their marriage needed this shake up. Sal had not been giving it his all, he wasn’t in town enough to give it his all, but over the past few months he was changing. That was what she loved about Sal. Whenever he saw a problem, he fixed it. He didn’t complain or deny it. He fixed it. He was fixing their marriage. She would be denying his effort if she minimized their past issues. “I’m very blessed to have you as my husband,” she said instead, and looked at him. “You’re a wonderful guy, Sal. The best around.”
Sal leaned over and kissed her as he squeezed her hand. It was supposed to be a peck. And it was initially. He had to keep his eyes on the dark, quiet road. But he felt something powerful in that peck. Something that made him want more. He glanced at her again. She was feeling it too.
“I think we ought to go home now,” he said, “or I won’t be able to make it.”
Gemma glanced down at his bundle, saw that it was already expanding, and looked back up at him. “Sure you’re able to make it now?” she asked with a smile.
As soon as she asked it, Sal could feel his dick throb with a deep pulse. “Fuck no,” he said, “but I’m not risking your freedom. I’m not letting some cop arrest you for indecent exposure. I’ll
get there. It might be too late, but I’ll get us there.”
He floored it and got them there. They made it home. But they couldn’t make it any further than stepping in the front door, closing it, before Sal was all over her.
He kissed her as he undressed her. She kissed him as she undressed him. And he had his pre-cum dick in her wet pussy even as he carried her up the stairs. He sucked her breasts as he carried her. She ran her hands through his hair as she felt the fullness of his cock puncturing her as he walked. Sal had the biggest dick that had ever entered her, and she couldn’t wait for every inch to massage her. And the way he was sucking her. She could hardly contain her lust. By the time Sal was laying her across the bed and getting on top of her, she was already feeling orgasmic. She was already on the verge of a climax.
And when he started fucking her; when he started putting it on her so hard that she was arching, not just her back, but her ass too, she began having rolling orgasms. One after the other. Sal wouldn’t relent. He wouldn’t let up. He kept thrusting into her with deeper and deeper thrusts, and moving his cock in directions that amazed her slender body.
Gemma legs were wide open as Sal pounded her. He was in so deep that all that could be heard throughout their entire home was the slapping sounds of his balls against her inner thighs. And Gemma was loving every slap. She was holding onto his tanned, sweaty back as he fucked her long and hard. Her eyes were closed and her hips were raised as she couldn’t stop her body from having orgasms even if she had wanted to. Which she did not.
Sal was loving her too. He was sitting on his knees and holding onto her hips as he thrust his cock inside of her and fucked her harder than he thought he had the energy to fuck. He loved how Gemma felt. He loved the way her pussy seemed to curl around his rod and clamp down. Moving inside of her was like moving inside of a match box, and he loved every second of her tightness. No woman had ever clamped down on him the way Gemma’s pussy did. Women who made their living fucking had nothing on Gemma. She would put every last one of those whores to shame. Gemma’s pussy was like the gift that kept on giving for Sal. It always surprised him.
He was overwhelmed with surprise tonight. She had clamped down on his cock and wouldn’t let it go. Sal began to moan from the exhilaration of the feeling. She made him feel as if he was cumming over and over and over, and he hadn’t even started yet.
He was fucking hard just to move because of Gemma’s ability. He knew it was fueled by love. He’d never loved her more than he loved her right now. She could have left him. She could have walked away from him so many times that he could hardly believe she was still his woman. And she was his. Every inch of her belonged to him and him alone. And his heart could hardly contain how wonderful that fact made him feel.
And he kept fucking her hard. So hard that when he finally couldn’t hang a second longer and began to cum, it took his breath away. He was shuddering with delight as he shot his wad into her. He began to have goosebumps it felt so good.
It felt so good and was so exhilarating, that it drained every ounce of strength within him. He didn’t just lay beside her after he had emptied himself into her. He laid down beside her and couldn’t move again. And she laid there unmovable too. Neither spoke. They didn’t have the juice. It would be several minutes before Sal could even pull her into his arms and hold her. And he held her. Until both had fallen asleep.
It would be the middle of the night when Sal received a call from Reno. The plane was ready, he said. They found Fran.
When they arrived in L.A., they only had an address. But it was a long row of triple-deck apartments within the address. Reno called his men, to find out which one it was, but they were only given what he had: the address.
“It’s done now,” Tommy said as he, Reno, and Sal got out of the rental car. “I’ll take the bottom apartments. You take the middle, and Sal you go upstairs. If she’s here we’ll find her, or a neighbor will tell us which one. But belly aching about it won’t solve anything.”
“Who’s belly aching?” Reno asked. “It’s just an unwise way to find somebody. Somebody may call the cops.”
“And tell them what?” Tommy asked. “We’ll just looking for her.”
Reno still didn’t like it, but he knew they had no other choice. So he took the middle apartments, Tommy took the ground floor apartments, and Sal went upstairs.
They had no luck. It was early morning and nobody was bothering to answer their doors, and when they did, they didn’t know who they were talking about. Fran who, was the main refrain.
Until Sal knocked on the ninth door on his row of apartments. The door was quickly opened by Fran Gabrini, as if she was expecting somebody, but as soon as she saw Sal, he knew he wasn’t the one she was looking for. She immediately tried to close the door.
“I’ve got her!” Sal yelled, but Reno nor Tommy heard him.
But he didn’t have time to say more. He was too busy forcing the door open with his shoulder, causing the door to shove Fran back into the apartment. Fran ran out of the living room toward the back room. The bedroom. Sal pulled out his gun and ran behind her. She tried to close the door on him, but he pushed it open and pointed his gun to avoid surprises.
He was surprised. Standing in that bedroom, as if he had just been forced from bed, was a young man pointing his own gun too. He was pointing at Sal and Sal was pointing at him. But Sal was stunned. The young man was so familiar that Sal immediately knew who he was. He was the spitting image of Sal’s deceased father. A sadistic man if ever there was one. But this young man was Sal’s.
Fran knew it too. She was on the floor from the force of Sal’s entry, but she was full of venom. “What are you going to do, Sal? Shoot your own son? That’s your son. You’re going to shoot him?”
She said it as if she was telling Sal something he didn’t know. She said it as if it was all a game and she was enjoying playing it. But Sal and the young man in front of him failed to see the fun. And they both continued to point. Ready to kill each other.
“Tell him, Junior,” Fran said to the boy. “Tell him that he’s your father. Tell him that the great Sal Gabrini is a deadbeat dad. Tell him!”
But Sal knew this was his son. He knew this boy standing in front of him was his flesh and blood, not only because of his striking resemblance, but the feeling Sal suddenly had. Nobody had to tell him shit.
In those few seconds, as Sal stood there armed and ready, he knew he either had to kill this kid, or let this kid kill him. It was kill or be killed. He’d heard that motto all his life. But nobody ever told him what to do when it was his son.
And nobody really had to tell him that either. Because he knew what he had to do. His only regret was that he would never see Gemma’s beautiful face again. But he still had to do it. He dropped his gun.
Fran smiled so wildly that it seemed to break each man from staring at the other. She quickly moved over, grabbed Sal’s gun, and stood to her feet.
“Now we’re talking, Sal Luca,” she said as she pointed the gun at Sal. “You played right into my hands. I didn’t expect you this soon. You and Reno were always smart about figuring shit out. But I’m so happy you came.” She aimed that gun straight at his heart. “Now I’m going to take you out the way you took my mother out. I’m going to do to you what you did to her. I’m going to make you see your son for the first time in your life, and then die. That’ll be justice for you.”
Then Fran’s smile was gone. “I was the family secret nobody talked about. Reno didn’t know, our other siblings didn’t know. Nobody knew but me. You know how I found out? Your father told me when I was a little girl. He told me if I ever told anybody he would kill me. So I never told.”
Sal could see the pain in Fran’s eyes. “Years after she had me, when I was a grown woman, she had left your daddy for good and moved back to Jericho. I went to see her once, to try and see her. But she wouldn’t even see me. She looked alarmed when I told her who I was, and she slammed her door. So I left it alone. To
o many years had passed, and she didn’t want me. So I didn’t want her.”
Tears appeared in Fran’s eyes. “Except I did want her. I just knew one day she’d accept me as her daughter. But you ended that for me. I thought it didn’t matter. But as the months came and went, I realized nothing else mattered more. Reno had kicked me out. Men had used and abused me. I had no one. And you had took away my only chance with her. And now it’s my time to show you how it feels to find somebody, only to lose them as soon as you do.”
And Fran cocked the gun and the shot rang out. But Sal wasn’t shot in the head as Fran had aimed. Fran was shot in the back. She stared at Sal, as if she couldn’t believe the double cross, and fell on her face.
Outside, Reno and Tommy might not have hear Sal’s yell about finding Fran, but they heard that gunshot. They ran to his aid.
But he didn’t need their assistance. His son had just shot Fran. And he had shot her to stop her from killing Sal. Sal stared at his son. His son dropped his weapon to his side.
By the time Reno and Tommy made it inside the apartment, and into the room, Fran was dead.
Reno looked at his sister, and looked at the young man who seemed so familiar, and somehow he knew, even without being told, that she had it coming to her. And as he looked at Fran again, and remembered the risky life she always led, he knew this moment was a long time coming.
But Reno went to her, fell on his knees, and pulled her into his arms. Even if she had it coming, she was still his sister. It still didn’t blunt the pain.
Tommy went to Sal and put his arm around him. And both of them moved their gaze from Fran, to the young man that stood before them.
EPILOGUE
Sal walked shirtless along the California beach with his sweat pants low on his waist and his sandals in his hand. His son, fully dressed in a suit, walked beside him. They had been embroiled in a long conversation. Now they were nearing the end.
Sal Gabrini: His House of Cards Page 16
