Sal Gabrini: Just The Way You Are

by Mallory Monroe

  “They were going to tell you that too,” Sal said, “but only just before you had to testify so that you wouldn’t have time to contact my wife or get cold feet. They knew what they were doing.”

  “So what am I supposed to do now? I never agreed to harm Mrs. G. Other than my mama, she’s the only person who ever believed in me.”

  “You go before that conduct board and tell them everything you just told us,” Sal said. “Tell them it wasn’t your attorney, but some stranger. Tell them how Mark Price set the whole thing up. You tell the truth.”

  “Just don’t mention this van ride with us,” Reno said as Sal hit the roof and the van pulled over to the side of the road.

  “You can leave now,” Sal said.

  “But what about my mama’s car?” Shaun asked.

  Sal pulled out a wad of bills, handed him what amounted to a few thousand dollars.

  “Thanks, Mr. G,” Shaun said happily, and got out of the van.

  When they pulled out, Reno looked at Sal. “That’s a switch,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever gone on a run with you where somebody didn’t get their ass kicked.”

  “Don’t worry,” Sal said. “Somebody will.”

  “The law partner?” Reno asked.

  “For starters,” Sal said.

  “Who is this guy?”

  “Some small dick I always pegged as having a thing for Gem. She doesn’t believe so, but I think he’s in love with her.”

  “Some love,” Reno said. “That asshole tried to destroy her reputation.”

  “I think he was trying to destroy her marriage.”

  Reno looked at Sal. “Why you figure that?”

  “He expected me to see my wife making love to her client on that video, and flip out. He figured I’d kick her ass and everything. And there he would be, her knight in shining armor, waiting to pick up the pieces.”

  “That’s where he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing. You wouldn’t divorce Gemma Jones even if it was her on that video. Would you?”

  Sal didn’t respond. Because that hit to the core of his weakness.

  “Would you, Sal?” Reno asked again.

  Sal looked at Reno. “If that was your wife on that video, if that was Trina, would you leave her ass?”

  There was a time Reno would say hell yeah like it was crazy to even ask. That time was gone. “Whatever,” he said, and that was the end of that.

  Mark Price was in his bed, in his Vegas condo, making love to his woman. It was a warm night, and the sheet around them was barely covering his pumping bare ass, and they were sweating as they fucked.

  But their good feelings changed in an instant when the bedroom door was kicked open, and two men he knew very well walked in.

  Both lovers jumped, with Mark jumping completely out of bed. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked them angrily. “This is my home, man!”

  “Do we look like we give a fuck?” Sal asked.

  The woman began backing against the wall. “What’s going on, babe?” she asked Mark.

  “Why did you try to set up my wife?” Sal asked.

  “I didn’t set anybody up,” Mark responded. “You’ve got the wrong dude.”

  Sal took his fist and punched Mark so hard that he fell against the wall. “Do I have the right dude now?” he yelled, and began hitting him again and again. Reno joined in, hitting him too.

  It didn’t take long before the pain became unbearable, and Mark gave in. “Okay,” he finally said, as the blood began to pour. “Okay!”

  Both men let up, and stood up. Mark, they felt, was ready to surrender. But they couldn’t account for his female companion. She had been screaming as Sal and Reno attacked Mark, but she wasn’t so thrown that she couldn’t pull open the nightstand drawer and pull out a gun. Sal didn’t see her at all, he was preoccupied, and Reno barely saw her. By the time he did, she pulled out the gun and fired. It was a reckless aim, and she hit, not Sal or Reno, but Mark.

  Sal and Reno, both reacting quickly, pulled their own guns and fired too. They fired just as she was about to give it another go, and better focus her aim on them. But they already knew how to aim, and took her out easily. Her gun went one way, and she dropped down. She died instantly.

  But they were both stunned. Mark was down, and his lady was dead. Reno looked at Sal. “If she wasn’t such a bad shot,” he said, “this would have ended very badly. At least for us.”

  Sal looked at the now deceased woman. “What did she wanna do that for?” he asked bitterly. He was angry that he had to shoot her.

  But while they were trying to come to terms with the shooting, Mark, who was only slightly injured, reached for the gun that had fallen from her hand. He was just about to fire when Sal realized what was occurring. He jumped on top of Mark and grabbed the gun. There was a tussle for control.

  “Sal, watch out!” Reno yelled as he positioned his own gun to take Mark out, standing above both men. But he was too late. Just as he was ready to fire, Mark’s gun went off.

  “Sal!” Reno cried, as he flung Sal off of the guy.

  Sal’s body at first looked slumped to Reno, as if Sal was the one who had been shot. But when Reno pulled him back, he saw the truth. It was Mark that had been shot, and was as dead as his woman.

  “Damn!” Sal said. “Damn!”

  They had two dead bodies, and no more information than they had when they first arrived. It was what they called a dry run.

  Sal and Reno hated, with a passion, dry runs.

  When he made it back home to Gemma, she was waiting up for him. She made it downstairs and into the foyer by the time he entered their home. But when she saw him she slowed her speed. She could see that he was still unsettled.

  “You didn’t find him?” she asked. “You couldn’t find Shaun?”

  “We found him,” Sal said. “But he was just a puppet. He was just doing what he was told. Mark Price, your so-called partner, was the puppet master.”

  Gemma was floored. She leaned against the table. “Mark?” she asked. “Mark was behind that tape?”

  Sal nodded. “Yup. They doctored it. Shaun was fucking some woman he didn’t even know. It wasn’t you, and he told us so.”

  “And Mark set it all up?”

  “We believe he even set up that murder Shaun was accused of committing. Shaun had nothing to do with that. I’m sure, when it all comes out, they’ll drop the charges.”

  But Gemma was still floored. “And Mark . . .” She looked at Sal. “You were right about him.”

  “Unfortunately, yeah I was.”

  “But why did he do it?”

  “I have my theory,” Sal said. “He was in love with you, maybe obsessed with you, and he saw me as the only person standing in the way of his happiness. I think he wanted to break us up. He thought that tape would do the trick.”

  “But you didn’t believe that tape. You believed me.”

  Sal nodded. “That was the part he failed to realize. I’m a hard-ass man, Gemma, and that’s all everybody sees. They don’t get to see what I become when I look at you. All they see is a hard-ass man.”

  Gemma could see the distress all over his face. She placed her hand on the side of his face. “I’ll take you, hard and all, over all of them. I’ll take you just the way you are, Salvatore Luciano.”

  Sal smiled, but she could still see the anguish in his eyes. “What’s wrong?” she asked him. “What happened out there?”

  Sal looked into her eyes. He hated that he had to bring this kind of news to her. But he had no choice. “He came for us, Gemma,” he said. “He tried to kill us.”

  Gemma’s heart began to pound.

  “I didn’t want to do it. I hated to do it. But I had to take him out,” Sal said.

  Gemma stared at him. She hated to hear it too. She truly did. “But like I said,” she said firmly, “I’ll take you over all of them.” She ran her hand through his hair. “Always do what you have to do,” she said. “Promise me that.”


  And Sal, grateful to have a woman like Gemma Jones in his corner, pulled her into his big arms. His eyes squeezed shut.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  By week’s end, the last thing Sal wanted to do was to take Gemma to her parents’ home in Indiana so that they could break the news. It had been a stressful week for both of them, with business problems on every side, and it was only their first month of pregnancy. He would have preferred a trip to Jamaica or to Paris or to any of their favorite vacationing hideaways. But they couldn’t put off this trip to Indiana any longer. They had to tell Gem’s parents.

  Sal’s private plane landed at the airstrip in Indiana and they walked, hand-in-hand, to the waiting limousine. Once inside, the ride was a peaceful one to the Joneses home in Rosemont. Gemma was leaned against Sal, and Sal had his arm around her waist, but he could tell she was still unsettled. She was staring out at the cornfields and farmhouses that populated the Indiana landscape as the limo drove by, as if she was homesick for that easy life she used to know.

  Sal wished he could give a slower lifestyle to her. He wished he could break all ties that bind him and only keep a string to Gemma. Reno tried it once. He packed up and moved his family to Georgia to get away from the madness. But the madness only followed him there. Sal knew, given his ties, that the madness would be even more likely to follow him because his enemies were too numerous, and his responsibilities too entrenched. He knew walking away, or even running away, was an impossibility. It was a heartbreaking truth that kept him up nights, but it was the truth.

  He pulled Gemma closer. He could feel her hold his hand and absently twirl around the big ring on his finger. There were a thousand things he needed to be doing right now, workwise, including answering the thousand messages he knew was on his phone. But he turned off his phone for a reason. Gemma needed him. Unlike the past, when he balanced her needs against the needs of his legit (and not so legit) businesses, this weekend he was giving himself completely to Gem.

  But he knew she was unsettled, and he was not the kind of man to pretend he didn’t know why. “Worried about your parents’ reaction to the news?” he asked her.

  “A little, yeah,” Gemma responded with equal honesty. “They know we don’t exactly live the Huxtables kind of life.”

  “The Huxtables don’t live the Huxtables kind of life,” Sal said.

  “You know what I mean. It’s only natural that they would be concerned.”

  “I know what you mean,” Sal said. “And they probably aren’t going to be all too happy that Reno and Tree heard the news before they did.”

  “That’s why they don’t need to know that,” Gemma said. “It’s going to be stressful enough.”

  Sal hated to hear that, but Gemma knew her parents. He looked at her. “After this visit, I’m going to do everything in my power to make your life as stress-less as possible. But I’m going to need you to slow down and help me.”

  Gemma nodded. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I want to slow down too.”

  Sal smiled. “Good to know that.” But he also knew her parents were only part of the story. “Mark’s death is still bothering you,” he said. “Isn’t it?”

  At first she didn’t respond. She continued to watch the life she used to know as it passed by her window view. Then she nodded. “Yes,” she said.

  “He was trying to do you in, babe. Don’t shed any tears for that fucker.”

  “But why would he want to harm me?” Gemma looked at her husband. Her face was within an inch of his. “Why would he get Shaun to pull that stunt? And why would the DA’s office and the police department go along with it?”

  “They didn’t go along with it. Reno did some digging. Somebody did murder that girl Shaun was accused of killing, and they did frame Shaun for that killing.”

  “But who framed him? Mark?”

  “That’s what we figure, yeah. I think your law partner killed that girl and framed Shaun.”

  “But why, Sal?”

  “Because he needed Shaun to be your client, not just your lover, so that he could put your career in jeopardy as well as your marriage. He would then present info that would exonerate Shaun, provided Shaun did everything he said. And then he would present info that would exonerate you when you went before that judicial conduct board. He would be the hero in everybody’s eyes, and would finally win the girl of his dreams.”

  “I’m not the girl of his dreams, Sal. I don’t know why you keep saying that.”

  “You aren’t now,” Sal said. “That’s for fucking sure.”

  Gemma exhaled. And shook her head. “And you don’t think Mark was working for somebody else? You think he did it all himself?”

  “Yeah,” Sal said. “That’s what I think.”

  Only he wasn’t sure. Mark and that bitch woman of his made the wrong decision and got their asses killed. Now Sal might never know. But his men, and Reno’s men, were still on the case. They were determined to find out.

  “Their limo just pulled up,” Cassie Jones said as she looked out of her living room window.

  Rodney Jones, her husband, walked up to the window just as the chauffeur was opening the car door. Sal got out first, and then reached his hand inside to help Gemma. “Say what you want about Salvatore Gabrini,” Rodney said. “That man knows how to dress. That man has style.”

  Cassie looked at Sal as he stood there in his obviously expensive dress pants and shirt. He wore a cardigan sweater this time, light blue in color that highlighted his deep blue eyes, and she had to agree with Rodney. Sal was a very nice dresser.

  But when Gemma took Sal’s hand and got out of that limousine, she smiled. “Now that’s what I call style,” she said.

  Gemma was dressed beautifully too, both her parents thought, as she stepped out in a pair of flare-leg Italian silk pants and a thigh-length silk blouse. Her heels were four-inch high as always, and the short jacket she wore over her shoulders matched those heels. She now wore her hair longer, in a beautiful mix of big curls and bounciness, that only added to her ability to project the most professional, elegant persona imaginable. Nobody, her parents proudly thought, would ever confuse their daughter as anything but extraordinary.

  “Wonder what this visit is about?” Rodney wanted to know. “Sal isn’t the kind of man to just drop by just to say hello, or to let Gemma drop by.”

  Cassie looked at her husband as Sal and Gemma made their way toward the front door. “Let her?” she asked. “Why would you put it that way? Gemmanette is her own person and always will be.”

  “And with any other man on the face of this earth, that’s true,” Rodney said. “But Sal Gabrini is her man. We can pretend it’s not so, but he’s a mobster. A mob boss, Cass. He runs their household and he runs Gemma. We can pretend it’s not so, but it is. She didn’t get a husband, she got herself a daddy.”

  “Oh, please,” Cassie said dismissively and went to the front door to welcome home her daughter, and equally important, son-in-law.

  After the greetings and hugs and kisses, Rodney and Sal settled in the family room, while Cassie and Gemma went into the kitchen to check on the food.

  Gemma kept looking at her mother as she lifted the top of the roaster and checked on the meat.

  “How have you been doing, Ma?” Gemma asked her. “I mean really.”

  Cassie glanced at her daughter as she added more seasonings to the roast. “Everything’s going as well as could be expected.”

  “What does that mean? Not so good?”

  Cassie started to respond, but didn’t.

  Gemma hated to go there. Her mother only mentioned what was going on with her father in passing, and Gemma knew she did not want it to be aired publicly. But Gemma had to know. “Dad still working late hours?” she asked.

  Cassie hesitated this time. But then she answered. “Yes,” she said.

  “Did you ask him?”

  “Ask him what?”

  “If there’s another woman, Ma. You know what.”

  Ca
ssie exhaled. “I asked him. Okay? Yes, I asked him.”

  “And?”

  “And he said no.”

  “Like he always says,” Gemma added.

  Cassie nodded her head. “Right. And, like always, he was stunned that I would even ask.”

  Gemma stared at her mother. “Are you stunned that you felt a need to ask?”

  Cassie looked at her daughter. And then she shook her head. “No,” she said, as she placed the top back on the roaster.

  Then she placed her hand on her slim hip. “But we’re fine, dear,” she said. “Don’t you worry about us.” Then she smiled, as if she didn’t have a care in this world. “Now let’s go join our men. Shall we?”

  Gemma wanted more details. She wanted much more. But her mother, an attorney herself, knew how to keep her private life private. Even from her daughter. Since Gemma kept her private life private from her mother too, she was not in any position to object.

  The two couples settled down in the Jones family room, with Gemma sandwiched between her parents on the sofa, and Sal sitting in the chair in front of the sofa.

  “So what is this about?” Rodney asked, looking from Gemma to Sal. “We’re glad to see you two always, but we know you don’t just drop by. So what’s the reason for this visit?”

  Gemma leaned forward, ready to tell her parents the news. But Sal interrupted her. If anybody was going to take the heat, it was going to be him. “We’re having a baby,” he said to his in-laws.

  But there was no heat from Cassie. She was overjoyed and burst into a huge smile. “A baby?” She looked at her daughter. “Oh, Gemma!” She pulled her daughter into her arms, and began to rock her side to side. “We’re having a baby! A baby! I’m going to be a grandmother! Oh, Gemmanette!”

  But Sal wasn’t looking at the ladies. He knew Ma would be happy for them. He was looking at Rodney. It was his father-in-law he was concerned about.