“Oh, stop that,” Cassie admonished. “That’s not fair, Gemma. Your sister is a bureau chief. You know she has a very important job.”
But Rodney wouldn’t go along. “It’s not that important,” he said.
“She’s coming next month,” Cassie said. “That’s the important thing.”
“Oh, come on, Ma,” Gemma said. “You don’t really expect her to show up next month, do you? Something is going to come up and she’ll cancel just as sure as I’m sitting here.”
“On that,” Rodney said with a smile, “you can depend. That big sister of yours is the queen of I’m unable to make it.”
“When was the last time she came to see you guys?” Gemma asked. “Two years ago?”
“It hasn’t been as long as all that,” Cassie responded. “More like fourteen months.”
“Too long,” Rodney said. “There’s no excuse for it. You haven’t even met her yet, Sal, have you?”
“I haven’t. I asked Gemma if she wanted to go visit her, I think she was in Saudi Arabia at the time. But Gem said no.”
“Of course I said no,” Gemma replied. “I wasn’t going to break my neck to go see her when she’s not breaking her neck to come and see her own parents.”
“And I agree with your decision,” Rodney said.
“What else is new?” Cassie asked. “You always agree with Gemmanette. But Chelse? Never!”
Sal could tell that Rodney didn’t like that accusation, but he dropped it. Mainly, he suspected, because of Sal’s presence in his house. He wanted to know why they came. He even looked at Sal. “Not that we aren’t glad to see you two,” he said. “We’re thrilled. But it’s the middle of the week. What brings you guys all the way to Rosemont in the middle of the week?” A banker by profession, Rodney Jones was not a man who mixed words.
Sal and Gemma were sitting, side by side, on one couch. Rodney and Cassie, Gemma’s attractive, middle-aged parents, were sitting, side by side, on the facing couch. But unlike the rest of them, Sal was on the edge of his seat.
“I’m not going to beat around the bush,” he said to the parents. But then he hesitated. This was momentous for Sal. This was like winning the lottery, but fearing you might be disqualified from receiving it.
“What is it, Salvatore?” Cassie asked him. He had an ally in her, he believed. But her husband Rodney? He was the issue.
Amazingly, Sal was trembling. Gemma could literally feel Sal’s leg tremble as she sat beside him. And it was all about his parent problem. It was all about this belief of his that her folks, like his now deceased folks, wouldn’t find him worthy. She reached her hand beneath his arm, and squeezed it.
Then she spoke for him.
“Sal has asked me to marry him,” she said, “and I said yes.”
Sal was relieved that she had put it out there, but he was still holding his breath. And the more he looked at her perfect parents, living in this perfect house, living their perfect lifestyle, the less secure he felt. Why would they want their beloved daughter saddled with a joker like him? She was smart and beautiful and successful in her own right. What did she need him for?
And just as he had feared, neither parent so much as cracked a smile. It seemed as if they had just been told about a death, rather than a wedding. Even Cassie, Sal’s ally, looked depressed. She looked at her husband, as if she was relying on him to explain.
“I see,” Rodney said.
Gemma was stunned. “You see? Is that all you can say?”
“What do you want me to say, Gemmanette? Sal has a good heart, I believe that. But I can’t overlook what he is.”
Gemma couldn’t believe her father put it that way. “You can’t overlook what he is? And what is he?” Her anger was growing.
Sal took her hand and squeezed it. “It’s okay, Gem,” he said.
“No, it’s not okay! Tell me what he is, Daddy. Tell me he’s not the man who saved you and Mom’s life that time. Tell me he’s not the man who would lay down and die for me. Tell me he’s not the man who’s always accused of being something he’s not!”
“He saved my life,” Rodney freely admitted. “He saved my life and your mother’s life. Yes, he did that. And I will be eternally grateful to him for his bravery. Nobody’s saying he’s not brave. Nobody’s saying Sal isn’t a strong man, and a natural leader. Because he’s all those things and more. But your mother and I would not have been in danger if it had not been for his lifestyle. Don’t forget that. So yes, he has many good attributes. But he has some serious flaws too. Some severe flaws. And are you telling me, Gemma, that because he saved our lives I’m supposed to overlook everything else about him?”
“No,” Sal said firmly. “I don’t want you overlooking anything about me.”
“Warts and all?”
“Warts and all,” Sal agreed. “Hell yeah! I never in my life pretended to be perfect. I’m not on the same planet as perfection. Wouldn’t know it if it slapped me in the face. But I love your daughter.”
“That’s well and good,” Rodney said. “I’m sure you do love her. Many men love her. But to be quite frank with you, Sal,” Rodney added, “I don’t think you deserve my daughter.”
Gemma was outraged. But Sal was nodding in agreement. “Hell I could have told you that myself!” he said. “You don’t have to tell me that! Of course I don’t deserve her! I’m a fucking piece of costume jewelry compared to the gem your daughter is. But . . .”
Cassie stared at him. “But what, Sal?”
“But I love this gem,” Sal said. “I love her. There is no man alive that can love her better.”
“Okay, I’ll be blunt,” Rodney said. “And I’m going to expect blunt answers.”
Sal stared at him. “Shoot,” he said.
“Are you, Salvatore Gabrini, a mob boss?”
Sal hesitated, but did answer. “No,” he said.
“Have you ever been a made man?”
“A made man?” Cassie asked with a frown. “What in the world is that?”
“A mobster,” Rodney explained to his wife. “A made man is a mobster who has the protection of one of the major mob families.” He looked at Sal again. “Are you now or have you ever been a made man?”
“Hell no,” Sal responded. “Give me more credit than that.”
Rodney didn’t understand. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.
“I’m in nobody’s pocket,” said Sal. “That’s what it means. Nobody made me. Not even my uncle, and he was a mob boss, could make me.”
“Are you now,” Rodney went on, “or have you ever been in the mob?”
“Oh, Dad!” Gemma said. “He shouldn’t have to sit here and answer all of these questions.”
But Sal answered him. “No,” he said.
“Do you now, or have you ever in the past been involved with mob activity?”
Now Gemma was offended. “What kind of open-ended, generalized question is that?”
“Generalized?” her father asked. “What’s generalized about it? Somebody ask me if I’ve ever been involved in mob activities, there’s a real specific answer for that. No. Hell no. That’s the answer.” Then Rodney looked at Sal. “Isn’t it, Salvatore?”
But it wasn’t so simple for Sal. It was obvious that it wasn’t when he didn’t respond right away.
“Well?” Rodney asked.
Sal looked at Gemma’s mother. He could tell she was still holding out hope that he wasn’t as deplorable as he really was. But he had no sweet answer to a question like that. “I have connections,” he said.
Rodney pushed his glasses on his face and studied him. “Connections? As in mob connections?”
Sal frowned. “As in all kinds of connections, what’s with this mob obsession? I have all kinds of connections. My friends need help, I help them. I need help, they help me.”
“Even if they’re Mafia?”
Sal hesitated yet again. But, yet again, he answered. “That’s right,” he admitted.
Rodne
y leaned back, and removed his glasses. For him it was the answer he was dreading. For Cassie, she still wasn’t convinced that Sal Gabrini could be all bad.
“What kind of help do you give to your friends?” she asked him.
“Help,” he said. “Whatever kind they need.”
“Legal or illegal?”
“Legal,” Sal said, “and illegal. Yes ma’am.”
Cassie let out a harsh exhale. And she and Rodney both looked at Gemma. “Did you know about this?” she asked her daughter.
Sal didn’t look at Gemma, which didn’t surprise her. He was so tense that his muscles were straining his suit coat. At any moment, she felt, the seams would split. She looked at her mother. “I know he has business dealings beyond his businesses in Seattle, yes.”
Her father looked at her. “Business dealings? Is that what he calls it? Well the FBI calls it suspicious activity. Maybe even illegal activity. A far cry from business.”
Sal frowned. “FBI? What the fuc. . .” He calmed back down. “What does the FBI have to do with this?”
“I spoke to them, that’s what. Didn’t Gemma tell you?”
Sal looked at Gem.
Gem shook her head. “It was just some guy Daddy met who claimed that they suspected you of being a mob boss once upon a time. That’s all that was about.”
“Why are you minimizing it, Gemma?” Rodney asked her. “Being accused of mob activity is not a trivial matter. Admitting to mob activity is not a trivial matter.”
“He didn’t admit to any mob activity. He said he has connections. That’s all he said.”
This offended Rodney. “Justifying for him now,” he said. “That’s what you’re doing. You’re justifying his wrong behavior. A lawyer no less. An officer of the court justifying heinous crimes in the name of love. What is happening to you, young lady? I didn’t raise you this way!”
“You raised me to be an independent woman who knows her own mind.”
“And I also raised you to follow the facts and not---”
“And not emotion. I know that, Daddy.”
“So what the hell do you think you’re doing? He’s a mobster, Gemma. No matter how you try to dress it up, Sal Gabrini is a mobster. He’s not a mob boss in the traditional sense maybe, but he’s a mob boss in every other sense! And you need to wake up, baby, and realize who you’re dealing with.”
“Okay, knock it off!” Sal said forcefully. “She hasn’t done anything wrong, what are you riding up her ass for? I have connections and I handle my business. That has nothing to do with her.”
“Bullshit!” Rodney fired back. “Somebody wants you dead, what about her? Will they take her out to get to you? How can you say it has nothing to do with her?”
“I look out for her. Don’t you worry about her.”
“Don’t you tell me what to worry about. That’s my daughter. I’ll always worry about her!”
“She’s your daughter, but she’s about to become my wife. And when we get married she’s going to be my responsibility. Not yours. Not anybody else’s. Mine. And I know how to look out for mine.”
“Will you give up your connections for her?”
“What are you talking?” Sal asked angrily. “What connections?”
“Your mob connections! Since you look out for your own. Will you give up on your mob friends for Gemma’s sake?”
“How would that help Gemma?” Sal asked. “I have a friend in need, and I don’t help that friend. How does that help Gemma?”
“It keeps you out of the mess, that’s how. It keeps trouble away from your door!”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Sal said. “If I turn my back when my friends are in need, then I’m opening the door to my own destruction. My world doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It exists in pieces of a puzzle. You can’t have one without the other. If something happens to them, it’s as good as if it happened to me. Because if they go down, so do I. Maybe not right then. But in the end.”
Rodney couldn’t understand that kind of code to save his life. And he knew it. He went from his father’s house, to college, to running his father’s bank.
But Cassie Jones, it seemed to Sal, continued to hold out hope. She looked at him. “Will you be good to her, Sal?” she asked him.
And he couldn’t even give himself that credit. “No,” he admitted. It was a wrenching admission. Even Gemma was surprised. She looked at him.
“No?” Rodney asked, surprised too. Any fool would have said yes. For peace sake alone!
But Sal wasn’t going to lie to them. “No,” he said. “If I was good to her, I would have never asked her to marry me. Not asking her to be my wife, that’s how I would have been good to her. Asking her to latch herself to me in what they call holy matrimony is good for me. It’s great for me. But it’s the worse move she can make, to tell you the truth.”
“The worse move?” Cassie was floored. “I don’t understand.”
Sal had to pause, to fight back his emotions. Gemma stared at him. Then he spoke again. “I’m not a loveable man, Miss Jones,” he said. “I wish I was, but I’m not. I’m crude, and rude, and I have baggage that would make Samsonite blush. I wish to God I would have never walked into the PaLargio and saw your daughter. Then I wouldn’t have fallen in love. Then I wouldn’t be the selfish man I am today and asked her to marry me.”
Gemma had tears in her eyes. So did Cassie.
“I’m not here for your blessing,” Sal went on. “That’s too much to ask. I know it is. Nobody blesses a man like me. But I am here to make it clear: if Gemma will have to lose the two of you in order to have me, then she won’t have me. I won’t allow it. I’ll live alone in a cave before I become the reason for her separation from her parents. I can’t let that happen. I won’t let it happen.”
Rodney sat speechless. He stared at Sal as if he’d never seen a man quite like him before. Tears dropped from his wife’s eyes, but he wasn’t emotional that way. He was riveted. “Are you telling me,” he finally spoke, “that if we refuse to go along with this marriage, you’ll leave Gemma?”
Gemma looked at Sal. Sal swallowed hard. “No,” he said. “I’m not telling you that. You don’t have to go along with the marriage. I’ll never give you or any other man that kind of power over my life. But I am telling you that if you can’t continue to love and be there for your daughter because she’s marrying me, then yes, there won’t be a marriage. Your love and respect means everything to Gemma. And she can’t lose that.”
Rodney nodded his head. “I cannot, in good conscious, go along with this marriage. I can’t do it. You are too much of a risk for my daughter.”
Sal’s heart dropped.
“But I can promise you this,” Rodney went on. “I will always love and cherish her. No man will ever come between my love for her. On that I give my word. If that is your concern, you should perish the thought.”
And Cassie broke down in tears, stood up, and hurried to her daughter. Gemma stood up and she and her mother, both in tears, embraced heartily.
It wasn’t what Sal had hoped for. He knew Cassie was crying tears of pain, not joy, and she was crying those tears because her daughter was marrying a man like him. But it still felt victorious. He still had Gemma, and she still had her folks. Her folks wasn’t having him, he thought sadly, but that was just the price he had to pay.
And as the doorbell rang, he smiled anyway. At least he had Gemma. And Gemma, above any human being alive, was pleased to have him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Expecting anyone, Gem?” Rodney glanced back at his daughter as he headed for the front door. The doorbell rang again.
“I told Marv and the gang I was coming to town,” Gemma said, “but they didn’t say anything about coming over.” She and her mother were no longer embracing, and she was wiping her tears away.
But her mother became horrified. “Oh, my makeup,” she said, hurrying for the back of the house. “I must look horrible.”
Sal smiled. The bea
utiful thing about Gemma, he thought, was that she rarely wore makeup. She didn’t need it. Her mother, who was a beautiful woman in her own right too, didn’t need it either. But she wore it liberally.
“You look fine, mother,” Gemma tried to reassure her. “Your makeup isn’t running!”
But Cassie kept on walking. “All the same,” she said, as she left.
Gemma sat next to Sal, and took his hand. She exhaled. “Not exactly the reaction I was expecting from my parents,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he said with a frown. “Forget about me. Your relationship with them is intact. That’s what I was hoping for.”
Gemma knew he was hoping for so much more, like full acceptance for a change, but it was too painful for her to even discuss. Her parents had let her down. But she left it alone. Sal would be upset with her, she knew, if she got into it with her folks.
And when the front door opened, and her best friend Marvin walked in, along with Keisha and Penelope, her two girlfriends from high school, she left it alone completely. She jumped up from the sofa and ran into their welcoming arms. Sal stood up too, smiling. He’d met them once before, when he first came to Indiana to meet Gemma’s parents. They liked him, and he liked them. He felt relieved by their presence.
Marvin, who enjoyed Sal’s quick wit the last time they hung out, hurried over to Sal and pulled him into a warm embrace too.
“Welcome back, Salvatore!” he said cheerfully as his dark, slender frame hugged Sal’s white, bulkier one. And although Sal was usually very uncomfortable hugging anyone outside of Gemma, especially a gay guy like Marvin, he was glad for the show of affection. He needed the reassurance. He needed the acceptance. He needed to be around people like Marvin, whose positive energy and lack of judgmental demeanor was infectious.
“So what in the world,” Marvin asked after all of the embracing and hellos were over, “brings you two wonderful, metropolitan people to lil’ old Rosemont? And it better be good. I left work early for this. It better be hot.”
Gemma looked at Sal. Leave it to Marvin to ask the exact right question. But Sal looked at Rodney.
Sal Gabrini 4: I'll Take You There (The Gabrini Men Series Book 7) Page 5
