They said goodbye and Gemma ended the call. She held the cell phone for a moment longer, thinking for a moment what she should do. Then she thought about the man Reno was talking about. He was talking about Sal. He was talking about her husband. He was talking about the man she trusted with her life. But yet she wouldn’t trust him with a beautiful blonde?
Gemma tossed the phone back onto her desk, and looked at Ted. “Where were we?” she asked.
CHAPTER FIVE
Monday Night Football in the Gabrini household was must-see TV. Sal was in the master bedroom, seated on the floor with his back against the foot of the bed, watching the flat screen on the wall in front of him. Gemma entered the bedroom, another beer for Sal to drink, just as his team was turning the ball over.
“Fucking idiot!” he yelled at the TV screen. “How could you drop it again?”
Gemma handed him the beer.
“How could that freakin’ asshole drop the ball twice in one quarter? What is he blind?”
Gemma looked at the TV. Since she had no answers either, she didn’t attempt to give one. She sat on the daybed parallel to where Sal was sitting and watched him continue to complain about the blind wide receiver. Sal wore a sweatshirt and a pair of shorts that tightened around his thick thighs. Gemma noticed how there was nothing small about Sal-absolutely nothing. And she realized, just sitting there, that she was beginning to depend mightily on the sense that he was her protector; that she could rely on him. Which made the news Reno shared with her earlier that much more troubling. She turned her attention back to the game.
But Sal was sipping his beer, and turned his attention to her. She’d been quiet all evening. He looked down at her slender legs coming out of the short shorts she wore, and that sense of love he felt for her tried to overwhelm him again. He fought back the emotion of it, but he couldn’t fight off the truth of it. He also couldn’t dismiss the fact that his lady was troubled. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked her.
Gemma shook her head. “Nothing’s wrong,” she said.
“Yeah, and I’m Captain America. What’s wrong, Gemma?”
“Nothing’s wrong, Sal.”
Sal exhaled. Then he waved his hand. “Come here,” he said.
“I don’t see anything wrong with your two legs,” Gemma shot back.
“Come on, Gem,” he said, patting his lap. “I’m not playing with your ass. Get over here.”
Gemma didn’t see what good it would do, but she got up and began walking over to Sal. She watched him as he watched how short her shorts were. She sat on the floor between his legs, her back against his chest, and leaned her head back onto his broad shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her and for a few minutes more, they didn’t talk at all. Sal continued to look at his game, and so did Gem. One of his hands also began to massage one of her breasts. Sal knew he was becoming almost obsessed with her body, as he always wanted some, and he knew that could become a problem too. “How was your day?” he eventually asked her.
“It was good.”
“Met with your new client?”
“Not yet. She’s not sold on anybody other than Ted representing her. He suggested I meet with her for dinner tomorrow night.” Then Gemma looked over at him. “Think you can make it?”
This surprised Sal. “Me?” But when he saw that anguished look on her face again, he acquiesced. “Yeah, sure, I’ll make it. I’ll have to move some things around, but yeah.”
Gemma nodded. “Thanks,” she said, and laid her head back onto his shoulder. “How was your day?” she eventually asked.
“It was, well it was tough.”
“How so?”
“It was just a tough day, that’s all.”
It wasn’t what Gemma had hoped to hear, but it was what she always heard from Sal: no details.
But then Sal surprised her. He continued to talk. “I picked up the sister-in-law of one of my men. I picked her up from work.”
Gemma was hopeful again. “Where does she work?” she asked.
Sal frowned. “What difference does that make? I picked her up. This guy, his name is Alfie Farino, died, and his wife had to be notified. They had only been married a couple of weeks.”
Gemma hadn’t expected to hear anything like that. “My goodness” she said. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
A pained look coursed through Sal’s eyes. “It was an awful thing. Just awful. So I picked up the sister-in-law from this restaurant she works at, took her to her sister’s house, to Alfie’s house, and we notified his widow together. It was a terrible scene.”
Gemma realized what she was hearing. She looked at Sal. “So she wasn’t your girlfriend or anything like that?”
Sal looked at her with shock in his eyes. “My girlfriend? What the fuck I’m gonna have a girlfriend for when I have you? What are you talking?”
Now Gemma felt bad for bringing it up. “I was just wondering---”
“You weren’t just nothing! Who gave you the idea that I was fooling around with that lady?”
Gemma didn’t respond.
“Tell me, Gemma. You tell me.”
She was not going to keep any secrets from Sal. “Reno saw you with the sister-in-law and he followed you. He called and told me where you were.”
“He called you? Why that fucking snitch!”
“He’s no snitch, Sal. He looks out for me like that, and you know it. He doesn’t want you to break my heart.”
Sal looked at her. “Break your heart?” He held her tighter. “I’ll break my own heart and a million others before I break yours.”
Gemma smiled. “I know,” she said, and held on even tighter.
The door to Reno Gabrini’s massive office at the PaLargio Hotel and Casino flew open, and Sal Gabrini, massively angry, hurried in. Reno’s secretaries and assistants came in behind him, assuring Reno that they did everything in their power to stop this intrusion. But Reno stood up and waved them off. “It’s okay,” he reassured his staff.
“Now get the fuck out of here!” Sal ordered them.
Because they knew the power Sal Gabrini wielded too, they got the fuck out, closing the door behind them just as they saw Sal continuing toward Reno’s desk.
“Settle down, Sal,” Reno warned him as he continued to approach.
“Settle down my ass,” Sal said, still approaching. “You called my wife on bullshit like that? Really, Reno? You called my wife, got her upset and scared, because you saw me with some dame? And you’re telling me to settle down? I’ve got your settle down right here, you bastard!” Sal pushed his older cousin’s chest with the force of both of his hands, causing Reno to stumble back. But then Reno regained his balance, hurried forward, and pushed Sal right back. And just as they used to do constantly as little kids, these two big men, titans of industry, were now deadlocked into a wrestling match, with each man gaining and losing ground as they stumbled around the office seeking to break the stalemate. It wasn’t until they fell against the desk and Reno was able to pin Sal on top of it, did the tussling cease.
“Settle your ass down,” Reno ordered him.
“Let me go!” Sal ordered back.
“For what? So that you can beat me up, and I beat you back, and we keep it going all day long? I’m too busy and so are you. So let’s call it a draw and give it a rest, Sal. Neither one of us have time for this shit.”
When Sal gave a weak nod, Reno released him.
Sal jerked away from Reno’s grasp just as he loosened it, but he didn’t try to challenge him again. Because Reno was right, and he knew it. Both men straightened their expensive suits, and then Sal walked over to Reno’s floor-to-ceiling window and looked out.
Reno looked at Sal. This was much more than just his anger over telling Gemma about that woman, although that woman might be a part of Sal’s distress. Reno walked over to the window too, and stood beside his younger cousin. “You know how protective I am of Gemma,” he said.
“You aren’t more protective of her than I am.
She’s my wife.” He looked at Reno. “Not yours!”
“That goes without saying, Sal, what are you talking?”
“I see how you look at her when you think nobody’s watching,” Sal said. “Your ass gets hard-ons sometimes when you’re looking at her.”
“That’s a lie and you know it!”
“Every time you see her you wanna hit that thang.”
“Every man that sees her wanna hit that thang.”
Sal looked at him, shocked that he would admit it.
“But I don’t hit it and I’m not interested in hitting it,” Reno clarified, as if he didn’t mean him in that every man comment he’d just made. “I have Trina. What would I look like trying to hit on Gemma?”
“Then why would you tell me about every man wanting---
“All I was saying was that Gemma is a special lady. And I look out for her the way I look out for my sister Fran, although she’s a pain in the ass that has become a boil on my butt. Gemma’s special. The way she understood after I had to take out her own sister. It was her sister, or it was Tommy, and she understood that. It broke her heart, but she understood it. Show me any other woman on the face of this earth who would accept something like that? But Gemma did. She forgave me. That’s how much I respect her and she respects me. We have that special bond. And I’m not about to mess that up by trying to hit on her. And I’m not hurting my wife, the love of my life, by doing something that stupid. Whereas you,” Reno said, “on the other hand---”
“Fuck you,” Sal said without the sting.
And then both men, once again, looked out of the window.
“Who was the lady?” Reno asked him.
Sal placed his hands in his pockets and exhaled. “Alfie Farino’s sister-in-law.”
“Your side bitch?”
Sal looked angrily at his cousin. “Why the fuck you keep bringing that up like I’m cheating on Gemma?”
“Because I know your ass,” Reno responded. “Because I saw that blonde chick you set up in that house of yours in Chicago!”
“I don’t have her set up. Her old man worked for me, and he was staying there with her as one of my on-call men. He was looking out for the place. Then he got iced on assignment, which was unfortunate because he was a good man, a really good man, and I let her stay there to grieve and get herself together.”
“But Gemma doesn’t know about this set up, or, excuse me, this act of kindness on your part. Does she?”
“What she need to know about that for?” Sal asked. “I don’t give her a blow-by-blow of my business dealings, and especially not that part of my business, any more than you give Trina a blow-by-blow on that part of your business. We’re the same, Reno, that’s why we can’t stand each other. Stop trying to act like you’re better.”
“But you could have told Gemma about that house in Chicago and who’s living in it.”
“My wife is an attorney, she’s an officer of the court. I’m not getting her caught up in that crazy part of my life. I told her before we married I wasn’t discussing that area with her, and she accepted it then and understands that now. That’s Gemma. She can handle the fact that I have to handle that alone.”
Reno wasn’t buying it. “You could have told her about a woman living in your house. You can’t bullshit me. You could have told her that, Sal.” Then Reno looked at him. “I saw how beautiful that Chicago dame was. You hit that before. Don’t you dare tell me you didn’t.”
Sal didn’t tell him anything.
“And that’s why Gemma doesn’t know about that house in Chicago, and that lady living there. Don’t bullshit me.”
“I’m faithful to Gemma,” Sal said.
“It could have been before you married Gem, I don’t know. But you fucked that blonde before, I know that. And it apparently wasn’t half bad because you keep her around. You may not do anything with her, but you keep her around. So stop bullshitting me. I know the game. I invented the shit.”
“Ah, fuck you, Reno,” Sal said, although he didn’t say it with the usual Sal gusto.
“Fuck you!” Reno responded, with the usual Reno gusto.
Then they became silent again. Reno looked at him. “How’s Tommy doing?”
“He’s still recovering,” Sal said. “He went through hell and back in Chicago.”
“You’re right about that. But he’ll be his old self again. He’s a fighter.”
“Fighter my ass,” Sal said. “He’s a fucking warrior! He’s getting better every day.”
“That Liz woman still around?”
Sal frowned again. “Yeah, she’s still around, Reno, why are you always making out like you’re the only Gabrini who knows how to hold onto a good woman? It’s Trina anyway who keeps your marriage together. You left her for damn-near a year before, remember that?”
“It wasn’t a year.”
“Stop acting so above everybody else,” Sal continued. “Your ass hanging by a thread too.”
Reno wanted to smile at that, but he didn’t. He and Sal had great love and respect for each other, but they also had a very contentious relationship that neither one of them wanted to correct. So Reno didn’t smile, but for Gemma’s sake he still wanted to hear Sal tell him that the woman he was with wasn’t his lover. “Why were you at a restaurant with Alfie Farino’s sister-in-law?” Reno asked.
Sal waited a moment, but he needed to get it off of his chest. Reno got on his nerves, but he was one of the few people in this world who would understand. “She agreed to be there with me,” Sal said, “when I told Alfie’s widow.”
Reno was dumbstruck. “His widow? What are you talking? Alfie’s dead?”
A stormy look appeared in Sal’s blue eyes. “Yup,” he said.
“Get the fuck out of here, Sal! What happened?”
“Marty Dim was moving in on territory he had no business moving into, and I needed to remind him of that fact.”
“You made a volley run?”
“Yeah. Alf and I went over to some dive he was staying at, and busted in the room. But his ass was waiting on my slick ass. He was firing with both barrels blazing. Alfie didn’t stand a chance. I barely got out of there alive, thanks to Alfie’s dead body as my cover.”
Reno looked distressed too. He’d been there before. He knew what Sal was going through. Except he knew Sal, as big a heart as he had, was going through it times ten.
And he was right. Sal was still anguished by that night. He scrunched up his face. “It was a horrible scene,” he went on. “I not only had to leave a man behind, which just kills me, but I had to use that same man as a human shield.”
“Damn shame,” Reno said. “But you had to do what you had to do, Sal. Alfie would understand.”
“His widow didn’t.”
Reno frowned. “You told her?”
“Damn straight I told her.”
“Sal!”
“I had to leave Alf’s body behind, remember? I didn’t get a chance to have my men take the body to some random place and pretend he was the victim of some crime, rather than part of the perpetration of one. I wasn’t going to sugar coat it.”
“But you didn’t have to tell her the part about using dead husband as a human shield to get yourself out of there alive, Sal. You didn’t have to go there.”
“Yes, I did. And yes, she didn’t like it. She said I’ll know what it feels like to be in pain too, one of these days.”
“Oh, that bitch is full of shit. You know how Rosie is. She’s always been a big mouth, just like Alfie was. But what about the guy? What about Marty Dim? We need to go after him?”
“Hell no,” Sal said. “I took care of his ass that night.”
“He got what he deserved,” Reno reminded Sal. “That’s on him.”
“Damn right he got what he deserved,” Sal echoed Reno. “But Alfie didn’t.” He looked at Reno. “That’s on me.”
CHAPTER SIX
He saw the BMW stop in front of the tall office building near the Vegas Strip and Gem
ma step out from behind the wheel. She stood there, in her bright yellow pantsuit and her green-and-yellow heels, and looked up at the huge complex. Sal smiled as he stared down from the top floor, the fortieth floor, at his wife. She was his world, and he knew he didn’t deserve her. But when he saw a man approach her, and then pull her into his arms, hugging her vigorously, his world turned upside down. He frowned. He knew if Gemma was in his shoes, she would have remained at that window and wait to get the facts. But he wasn’t Gemma. He was Gemma’s husband, and she was hugging another man. He didn’t wait to get shit. He hurried out of his top-floor office and onto his private elevator.
Gemma was smiling from ear-to-ear when she stopped hugging Rory Calhoun. “How long has it been?”
“Since you clerked for me,” Rory said. “Years.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t stay in touch.”
“Oh, don’t trouble yourself, Gemmanette, don’t you dare. It’s as much my fault as yours. I’m just happy to see you.”
Judge Rory Calhoun was one of Gemma’s first mentors. He treated her like his own daughter and gave her invaluable advice through much of her early career. “So how have you been, sir? And how’s Mrs. Calhoun?”
“I’ve been good.” Then his look turned less joyful. “Evelyn passed on last year.”
“Oh, sir! I’m so sorry to hear that. Had she been ill?”
“She was. But she’s not suffering now, so I’m at peace with it.”
“Good. She was a wonderful person.”
“Yes, she was. And she’s sorely missed. But life goes on, at least that’s what my clerks tell me. So I’m going on with my life. That’s why I’m here.”
“In Vegas?”
“That’s right. I’m thinking about moving here.”
Gemma smiled. “Really?”
“Yes, I think so. I’ll be stepping down from the bench in a couple months and I want to open up a practice. So I was looking for office space, and knew this was the most luxurious game in town. I’m meeting my realtor here. That’s why I’m over here. I hear office space in this building are selling like hot cakes and I had better stake a claim while a claim can be staked. Is that why you’re here to? To stake your claim?”
Until You Come Back To Me, Book 5 Page 6