“Fantastic, actually,” Trina said. “Thanks for asking.”
“Well,” Gemma interjected. “I wouldn’t say fantastic, but better than before.”
“Right,” Trina said. “It’s better. But the thing is, we want to expand.”
“Expand?” Reno asked unsympathetically. “Expand to what?”
“All things female,” Trina said. “Whatever we can do.”
Reno frowned. He looked at Tommy and Sal. “You guys understood that?”
“Not a word of it,” Sal said.
“Run that by us again,” Tommy asked.
“They want to cater to a woman’s every need,” Grace said, immediately understanding.
“Like what?” Reno asked, looking from Grace back to Tree.
“A day spa, for example, where a woman can be pampered,” Gemma said.
“And a battered women’s shelter,” Trina said, “for women in trouble.”
“Wait a minute,” Reno said, frowning. “How the fuck are you going to have time to run some shelter and spa, Tree? You can barely do what you’re doing now effectively.”
“And you too, Gem,” Sal said. “You have a growing law practice. How are you going to have time to run all of these other businesses?”
“It’ll be tough initially,” Gemma said, “but we hope to have them pretty much running themselves once we get them off the ground.”
“That’s a gotdamn myth,” Reno said. “I’ve been in business all of my adult life and I’ve never seen a business run itself. Not ever! So you can forget that.”
“Have you guys even drawn up the plans on paper yet?” Grace asked.
“No,” Trina said. “We wanted the family’s input.”
“Put it on paper,” Grace suggested. “Let the family see the vision. Then they might go along with it.”
Reno nor Sal believed that, but if it would table such talk for now, they were willing to remain silent.
“Okay,” Trina said, knowing good and well that Reno still wasn’t going to go along with it. “We’ll write it down.”
Chef Paul entered the living area. “Excuse me, Mrs. Gabrini.”
“Yes, Chef?”
“Dinner will be served in five minutes.”
“Okay, Chef, thank-you.”
Sal glanced at Gemma. It was now or never. “But first,” Sal said, “I have an announcement.”
“That’s right,” Reno asked. “You’re the guy who called this meeting in the first place. So what’s up? What’s going on?”
Sal didn’t hesitate. “I’ve asked Gemma to marry me,” he said.
Reno was floored. “You what?”
“And I said yes,” Gemma added.
“Oh, Gem!” Trina and Grace couldn’t get to her fast enough. She stood up and embraced them both.
“Now where’s the ring?” Trina asked, and Gemma pulled it out and finally put it on.
“How wonderful, Miss Jones!” Val said as she stood up too. “And Uncle Sal.”
Jimmy hurried over to Sal, extending his hand. “That’s great, Unc,” he said as they shook. “Good move. Great choice.”
“Thanks Mackie,” Sal said, thrilled with Jimmy’s enthusiasm. So far so good.
But then he looked over at Reno and Tommy. Neither one of them were up. Neither one was congratulating him.
“What is it?” he asked them.
Gemma nervously looked too. Sal didn’t need another letdown. She was praying they didn’t let him down too!
“What?” Sal asked again, still puzzled.
“You should have talked to me about this first,” Tommy said.
But Sal was blown away. “Talk to you about what? You aren’t happy for me?”
“Happy?” Tommy said the word as if it was a pollutant. “How can you expect me to be happy about a damned thing like this? Why would you do something this fucked up, Sal? Happy? Are you out of your mind?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Sal just sat there. He was, at first, too stunned to speak. Then he looked at his older brother. He looked at his beloved brother. “What are you talking, Tommy? What did I do that was so fucked up? I asked Gemma to marry me. And you’re saying I fucked up. How is asking my woman to marry me fucked up?”
“Come on, Sal,” Reno said, entering the fray. “You know why. Your little stunt just destroyed her life. You know that!”
Gemma couldn’t believe she was hearing this. Sal frowned. “My little stunt?”
“You heard me. You’re destroying her life.”
“Because I asked her to marry me,” Sal asked, attempting to make sense of their hostility, “I’m destroying her life?”
Tommy stood up. “Don’t pull that shit, Sal. I mean it.”
But Sal was still perplexed. He stood up too. “What shit?”
“Don’t act like you don’t know what we’re talking about.”
“Who’s acting?” Sal asked. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about! This ain’t no gotdamn act! What are you talking about?”
“We’re talking about you, Sal,” Reno said, standing too. “We’ll talking about you.”
“What about him?” Gemma asked. But Trina tried to touch her arm and hold her back, so that she could stay out of it. But she snatched away from Tree. “How in the world could he be destroying my life?”
“Tree,” Reno said, and he gave his wife a look that was undeniable: take the ladies and scram. Only he didn’t have to say a word. Trina understood that look.
“Why don’t we ladies go in the back and see Sophie and Dominic,” Trina suggested.
But Gemma would have none of it. “No thank-you,” she said. “I want to know why your husband and Tommy suddenly disapprove of our relationship.”
“See,” Reno said. “See what I’m talking about?” Then he turned to Sal. “It’s not about your relationship.”
“Then what is it about?” Sal asked.
“It’s about you,” Tommy said firmly. “You know what it’s about!”
Sal stared at them. Everybody else, from Gemma, Tree, and Grace, to Jimmy and Val, were staring at him. “I see,” he said, his heart growing faint. “It’s about me. You can get married, oh yeah. Congratulations all around. Grace is a good girl. And Reno can get married. No problem. Great choice. Trina is a good girl. And even Jimmy Mack, who’s almost half my fucking age, can get married. But me? But good old Sal? Never. He’s not good enough!”
“That’s not what I mean!” Tommy made clear.
“Then what the fuck do you mean, Tommy, because that’s what I’m hearing! I can fuck her. Hell, I can even live with her. That’s all fine. That’s all well and good. But don’t marry her because that’ll destroy her life. That’s what you’re saying. Because I’ll destroy her life!”
“Because your lifestyle will!” Tommy shot back. “Don’t act as if this shit isn’t real, Sal Luca! Don’t act as if you don’t realize that marrying Gemma can be the worst thing you can do.”
“You married Grace!” Sal yelled.
“I’m not you!” Tommy blared back.
“Reno married Tree.”
“I’m not you either!” Reno yelled back.
“You’re out there big time and you know it,” Tommy said to his kid brother. “You’ll expose her to hell on earth, and you know it!”
Sal knew it, but his soul was angry. How dare them, was all he could think about. How dare them! “And what have you exposed Grace to?” he asked his brother. “She had to fucking kill some chick to keep her ass away from you, and you’re talking to me about exposure? And you, Reno. Who the fuck are you to talk? You turned sweet Trina out so hard that people in the fucking Mafia think of her as a badass from way back! But because I want a woman in my life; because I want her to bear my name and bear my children too, something’s wrong with me?”
But Tommy was even more upset. “Stop twisting this shit, Sal! You can’t have this shit both ways. You’re in. And you know you’re in. You can’t bring a woman like Gemma into yo
ur world without first cleaning that shit up! And that’ll take years for you to do, and you know it. Years, if ever! She doesn’t deserve that!”
“Or I don’t deserve her. Is that what you really mean, Tommy?”
“With your life the way it is right now, with your involvements, yes. That’s exactly what I mean. You don’t deserve her.”
And it was an admission that proved more than Sal’s heart could take. Had those words been on Reno’s lip, he would have thought nothing of them. He and Reno were at each other’s throats all the time. But this was Tommy talking. His big brother. The man he loved above them all. Even, if he were to ever admit it, above Gemma herself. And he couldn’t take it. Not from Tommy of all people. He couldn’t see the love anymore. He couldn’t see their affection. All he saw was red.
He went for Tommy so hard, punching him so decisively, that they both fell backwards, taking the sofa backwards with them, and shattering the glass table beside it as they fell to the floor.
“God, no!” Gemma yelled as Reno and Jimmy, horrified too, scrambled to break it up.
But Sal and Tommy were in the throes of passionate anger now. They were not going to be comforted. They were rolling on the floor fighting each other tooth and nail. One would get an advantage and end up on top, plummeting the other one, and then the other one would roll over and retake the advantage.
And the women were just as affected by this incredible outburst as the men. Val ran out of the way, her brand new pregnancy foremost on her mind, but Gemma tried to run to the action, to help Sal. But Trina and Grace both held her back.
“They’re Gabrini men,” Trina said. “You can’t get in the middle of that!”
And the Gabrini brothers kept at it. Even Reno and Jimmy together couldn’t pull those two apart. It seemed useless. It seemed they were going to fight to the last man no matter what. Gemma kept looking at Sal as he fought. She could see the pain deep in his eyes. The mere ideal of it was preposterous! Sal fighting Tommy? Never in a million years. A trillion years. But it was happening. They were going at it like cats and dogs. They weren’t holding anything back.
Until a voice suddenly cried out, and it stopped them cold.
“Uncle Tommy! Uncle Sal! Stop fighting! Stop it!”
They all looked. Little Dominic Gabrini, Reno and Trina’s young son, had entered the room from the back of the penthouse. And the cherubim face of that gorgeous biracial child, with his big blue eyes and little, button nose, stopped them cold.
“Oh, Dommi!” Trina said, and hurried to her son. She lifted him into her arms.
But all activity had already ceased. No more rolling. No more fighting. No more pulling by Reno and Jimmy to separate them. It was over. The voice of a child became the voice of reason. Sal was on top of Tommy at this time, ready to rearrange his handsome face, but he knew Dommi was right. They had to stop it, and stop it now.
He got off of his brother. He got off of the man he loved above any man alive. And then he looked at Gemma. The room was so quiet now that it seemed unnaturally so; as if there were thousands of words that needed to be said, but not one word was being spoken. And Sal didn’t have to say a word to Gemma. She knew what to do. She went to him, took his hand, and they headed out.
“Sal!” Tommy yelled as they left. “Gotdammit, Sal!”
But Sal kept going. He wasn’t about to look back.
Tommy continued to lay there. He looked so out of place on the floor, that it stunned Grace and everybody else in the room. And it wasn’t just because he was lying around in his Armani suit, or his Battistoni shoes. But because they weren’t used to the man they all looked up to, being knocked down.
But he wasn’t thinking about what they thought. He was thinking about his kid brother. About Sal. Because it came out all wrong. That wasn’t what he meant. That was not it. At all.
They sat on the bench in front of the quiet lake, as the park at night was a relaxing anecdote to the hustle and bustle of the PaLargio and the Vegas Strip.
Sal’s legs were stretched out, and Gemma’s were crossed. But they were together. He had his arm around her shoulder, and Gemma realized he had his hand on her, in some capacity, ever since they left Reno and Trina’s penthouse.
“What a night,” Sal said. Then he frowned.
Gemma looked at him. He continued to stare straight ahead, as if he didn’t want to face her, but then he looked her way.
“You and Tommy?” She shook her head. “That’s just heartbreaking, Sal.”
“Yeah, well.” He started with a defensive tone. But he thought about Tommy, and the fact that he had fought him, and that sense of depression returned.
“I’m not saying I didn’t understand why,” Gemma said. “Because I did. Tommy and Reno had no right saying the things they said to you. I was so disappointed in them. Especially Tommy.”
Sal exhaled. “Yeah,” he agreed.
“You and Reno are at odds all the time. That’s nothing new. But you and Tommy? He usually has your back.”
“He has my back. He’ll always have my back. He wouldn’t have said it if it . . . If it---”
Gemma looked at him. “If it what?”
Still no response.
“If it what, Sal?”
“He’s right,” Sal said. “He wouldn’t have said it if it wasn’t true. They’re both right.”
But Gemma was shaking her head. “No, Sal,” she said.
“Yes, Gem, yes. I’m being selfish---”
“You’re not!”
“Or I don’t love you enough. One of the two. Because if I loved you I would have never asked you to be my wife.”
“Sal, that’s ridiculous!”
“Listen to what I’m saying here.”
“No!” Gemma said forcefully. She turned to him. “You listen to what I’m saying here. Everybody gets whatever the hell they want. Everybody does whatever the hell they want to do! But they always want to change the rules when it comes to you.”
“But if I love you, Gem---”
“Stop saying that! Stop buying into their foolishness! You love me, Sal. No other man has ever, or will ever love me the way that you do.”
“But my lifestyle. It’s . . . complicated, Gem.”
“I know that.”
“I deal with a lot of unsavory characters. They’re my crew members. They helped me out at one time or another. And it’s not a spigot I can turn off. It’s a gotdamn waterfall, Gem. If one of my crew members get in trouble, I have to help them. But when I help them and take somebody out while I’m at it, then somebody else affiliated with that guy I took out now wants to take me out.” Then he looked at Gemma with troubled eyes. “Or they want to take out the person I most love.”
Then he exhaled. “They think you ought to get out while you can. And I’ll understand if you do.”
Gemma stared at him. If he ever was going to come completely clean with her about his “crew members,” it would be now. “Why did you need a crew in the first place, Sal?” she asked him.
Sal looked her dead in the eye. “Sometimes things go sideways on you,” he said. “You have to be prepared.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
She wanted more. It was, he felt, a moment of truth in their relationship. It was, he knew, time for him to stop bullshitting and tell her that full truth. “I used to help out,” he said.
Gemma braced herself. This was a different line. The words, and the way he said it was different. He didn’t say he used to help a friend out, the way he normally phrased it. He was telling her a secret. But she had to ask the right question. Instead of asking about what kind of help, which was usually the question to ask, she decided to go to the source. “You used to help who out?” she asked him.
Sal knew it would come to this one day. She was too savvy for her not to eventually go there. “My Uncle,” he said. “My Uncle Paulo.”
“Your Uncle Paulo?” Gemma was astounded. “You mean Reno’s father?”
Sal no
dded. “Yeah.”
“But Sal, he was a mob boss.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“But you said you weren’t in the mob.”
“I wasn’t! He was my uncle, he came to me for help every now and then, and I helped him. End of story. And when I helped him, I wasn’t helping him with men he trusted. They were backstabbing him anyway, that was why he had to come to me. I helped him with men I trusted. Men who had my back. With my own crew.”
“And these are the men you still help today?”
“Or use when I need help myself, yes,” Sal said. He could see the concern in Gemma’s eyes, as if she wasn’t sure just what she was signing on for. He decided to plead his case. “But I was never Mafia,” he said. “I was never any mob boss or in any mob group. I was never a made man, nothing like that, Gemma. I do my own thing. I go my own way. I never lied to you about that.”
Still no response from Gemma. She was still digesting it all. Especially the fact that Sal knew his uncle was a mob boss, but he helped him anyway.
“He was family, Gemma,” Sal said, as if he read her mind. “That’s why I helped him. He was family. And family, as you know, means everything to me.” A flash of him fighting his own brother, rolling on the floor with him, whipped through Sal’s mind. And that depressing feeling returned.
He exhaled. “Get out while you can, Gem,” he said to her. “I’m not worth the trouble, to tell you the truth. Please get out while you can.”
But Gemma looked at him as if he was the one with the doubt. “I’m not going anywhere,” she said firmly.
“That’s what they were trying to tell you tonight,” Sal said. “They think you should leave me. They were saying you need to go on with your life.”
But those words only angered Gemma. “I don’t care what they were saying! I don’t care what they think I should do. You asked me to marry you, and gotdammit we’re going to get married! And we’re going to be happy, Sal.”
Tears were now in their eyes.
“For once in our lives,” she continued, “we’re going to be happy! You’re used to rejection. I know you are. You’re used to people who should love you abandoning you. I know that too. But I’m not that girl. I’m in this with you. Hell or high water, better or worse, ride or die, I’m not going anywhere, Sal.”
Sal Gabrini 4: I'll Take You There (The Gabrini Men Series Book 7) Page 8
