“Nobody.”
“Don’t tell me that, Sal.”
“What are you talking? You asked me who she was and I told you who. She’s nobody.”
“You used to date her?”
“No! She fooled around with this guy who worked for me. She was his old lady.”
“And you never fooled around with her too?” Gemma asked.
Sal hesitated. Gemma was stunned by his lack of response. “Well?” she asked him.
“Yeah, we fooled around,” Sal finally admitted.
Gemma was incredulous. “Then why didn’t you tell me that, Sal? Why did you claim she was some other man’s woman when she was yours too?”
“Because it was a long time ago. Something like twenty years ago. We were both kids then. It was no big deal! What difference does it make now?”
Gemma knew better. She had run the property records herself after Blanche left Champagne’s. “You haven’t seen her in twenty years?” she asked. “Is that what you’re telling me?”
He hesitated again. And his lack of response said it all to Gemma. She felt as if she had thrown him a lifeline, a chance to come clean, and he had fumbled it and allowed it to fall into the water.
And suddenly she couldn’t deal with the implication. Sal was being too cagey. That woman said a child was involved and Sal knew about that child. What if that was true too? She couldn’t handle that right now. She couldn’t handle that kind of truth! She began to hurry away from him.
Sal was shocked when she pushed past him and began walking away. “Gemma,” he pleaded, grabbing for her arm, but her movement was too swift. “Gemma, wait!”
But she wasn’t waiting. She was hurrying across the room and then running up the stairs. Sal became so afraid he began running up behind her. “She’s nobody, Gem. Gem. Gemma!”
Gemma ran across the second floor landing, and ran into their bedroom. Her plan was to slam the door. She just needed to delay any confessions he might have to tell her. It felt as if her worse nightmare was about to come true, and she wasn’t ready to deal with that. But Sal was too strong. He pushed his way in before she could close the door.
“Aren’t you going to let me explain?” Sal pleaded. “What are you doing?”
She was about to make a beeline for the door again, to get out of the room he now occupied with her, but he grabbed her by the arm and stopped her progression. He wasn’t about to let go.
And it worked. His grasp forced her to remain where she stood. “Can you stop for two minutes and let me tell you what’s going on?” he asked her.
Gemma didn’t want to hear the details. She knew they would be sordid, or even worse than she imagined. But she also knew she couldn’t just leave based on what some woman told her, or what she feared might be true. She had to hear him out.
“What did she tell you about me?” he asked.
But Gemma shook her head. “We aren’t going to do this, Sal,” she said firmly. “You will not ask me a question when you haven’t fully answered mine. Who is Blanche Delilah and when was the last time you were fooling around with her?”
Sal saw the determination in Gemma’s eyes. He exhaled. “Sit down,” he told her. When she didn’t move, he gave in. “Please.”
Gemma didn’t want to sit at all, but she knew she needed to calm back down or she was going to leave without him explaining himself. And she knew she would be wrong for that. She sat on the bed.
Sal’s heart stopped pounding uncontrollably when she gave him her attention. But it was still pounding. He placed his hands in his pockets. He had to tread carefully.
Gemma’s heart was pounding too, because he looked so handsome, and so vulnerable, and she felt so stupid. She loved this man, but there was always something shady about Sal. Always something undercover and crooked. She had to stop denying that truth. She had married a very complicated man.
“We dated something like nineteen, twenty years ago,” he said to her. “I was a kid and she was a kid. She was messing around with this older man, I was seeing tons of other females, it was nothing. She was just somebody to fuck back then. I don’t mean to be crude, but that’s all she was. A good fuck. It didn’t last a year. I moved on, she moved on. It was nothing.”
Gemma wished that was the truth. She wished it was as innocent as Sal was making it out to be. But she was beginning to realize that nothing was as innocent as Sal made it out to be. “So that’s it?” she asked. “You slept around with her twenty years ago and that was it? No more contact?”
“I saw her every now and then,” Sal admitted. “And then years after that, something like fifteen years later, she started fooling around with this guy in my crew, so I would see her around with him.”
But Gemma felt that faint feeling again. What wasn’t he telling her? She could sense he was leaving too much out. “What do you mean a guy in your crew?” she asked. “What crew?”
“My crew. My men. I was no longer a cop, but there were still people out there who would have loved to see me wasted. You saw what kind of asshole I was. So I had to make sure I had people in place that had my back. People I did favors for in the past. People who I could have arrested easily, but didn’t.”
“You mean you were a crooked cop,” Gemma asked, “giving breaks to other crooks?”
Sal looked at Gemma. She knew he had cleaned up his act. She knew he wasn’t that guy anymore. But she’d also saw that tape and met Blanche. No telling what Blanche had told her. “I’m no angel,” he said. “You knew that when you married me.”
Gemma knew it, but she was too upset to apologize. He’d already given her two diametrically opposed answers for every question she asked him. But she knew she had to do the right thing. “I should not have said that,” she said. “But go on.”
Now Sal felt worse. She was more than willing to give him the benefit of every doubt every time. A benefit he didn’t deserve. “She started messing around with this guy in my crew,” he continued. “They even got married. But then one night, while we were taking care of some business, her old man dies. He gets killed.”
Gemma stared at Sal. He said it so cavalierly, as if he was saying the guy stomped his toe, or hurt his pinkie.
“Because he was working for me when he was killed,” Sal continued, “I made sure his widow was taken care of. I do that for all my guys. If they fall while working an assignment for me, their widows and loved ones will be well taken care of. Blanche was no exception.”
“You took care of her?” Gemma asked. “How? Financially?”
Sal nodded. “I looked out for her. Until she could get back on her feet.”
Gemma’s heart was pounding. “Did you take care of her sexually?” she asked.
Sal hated to admit it. Gemma could see the regret in his big, blue eyes. But he admitted it. “Yeah,” he said. “That too.”
“I’m sure your deceased quote, unquote, ‘crew member,’ would have really appreciated that. You banging his wife and all. You’re such a champ, Sal. Such a great guy.”
Sal didn’t like to see this sarcastic side of Gemma. But he knew he brought it on himself. He deserved it. So he took it. “But I never touched that woman after I married you, Gem. You have to believe that.”
“And during one of these banging sessions,” Gemma continued as if he hadn’t said a word, “something else happened, didn’t it?”
Sal looked puzzled. “What is that supposed to mean? Nothing else happened, what are you talking?”
“I’m talking about the child she bore you,” Gemma said, rising to her feet. “I’m talking about that mansion you kept her in while you were married to me!” She beat her chest when she said those last words. Sal had never seen her so unhinged.
But he was still stuck on the part about the kid. “What child?” he asked, his face creased with anguish. “That woman never had any child of mine, or anybody else’s. She’s never been pregnant a day in her life! What are you talking about?”
“Were you having sex with her
the day I was kidnapped by those guys in that parking lot?”
“No,” Sal said empathically.
“So the two of you weren’t together?”
They were together. Blanche had been ordered to stay away from the house, but she came over anyway and tried to give him head. Sal rebuffed her, but he But Sal wasn’t about to get into that. “No,” he decided to say. “Of course I wasn’t with her. Whatever that woman told you are a pack of lies, Gemma. She’s imagining things.”
“And I guess that mansion in Chicago,” Gemma asked, “is also a figment of her imagination?”
Sal knew he had to deny that too. He knew, if he tried to explain away why he failed to mention the fact that he had that house in Chicago, and that Blanche had once stayed there for an extended period of time, even after they were married, Gemma would believe everything else that woman had told her. She would believe that he had cheated on her when he never had. He had to deny it. “Yes,” he said. “It’s a figment of her imagination. I never even owned a house in Chicago for her to live in. And she damn sure never had any child of mine!”
Gemma stood there amazed. She couldn’t believe it. It was the first time. It was the very first time that she could remember ever catching Sal in an out-and-out lie. She stared at him for a good long time, and then began to leave the room. She had to get away from him. The man she loved had just lied to her. She had to go.
But Sal couldn’t let her go. Because he loved her more than life itself. He hurried behind her. “Gemma, wait,” he was saying as they hurried across the landing. “That woman never had any child of mine. I never fooled with her once since I met you. She’s lying to you!”
Gemma began hurrying down the stairs. Sal was right on her tail. “I haven’t been with her like that in years, Gem. Long before I met you. She was just some side chick even when I was fooling with her. Gemma. Gemma. Gemma, wait!”
But Gemma was at the front door. Sal jumped down the last stairs and slammed against the door before she could open it. He looked shaken, and so sincere. But she couldn’t give in that easily. Everything she stood for, every right she ever fought for, would be doomed if she did.
But all Sal could see is Gemma leaving him and never coming back. He wasn’t in any state of fear. He was in a state of panic. “I didn’t have a child with that woman,” Sal declared. “I swear on Tommy’s life I didn’t! She’s lying to you!”
Gemma knew he wouldn’t knowingly have a child in this world and ignore that child. But he never even mentioned that there was a possibility. When obviously, given his history with her, there could have been.
But Sal was sticking to his story. “She was never pregnant by me,” he said to her. “That’s what I’m trying to get you to understand. She’s lying, Gem!”
Gemma stared at him. She decided to give him another chance, one more chance, to come to her correct. To tell her the truth. “What about that mansion in Chicago?” she asked. “Was she living there like she claimed, or is that a lie too?”
Sal was desperate. He never cheated on Gemma with that woman, but if he admitted she lived in his house for all those years, even after he and Gem were married, it would seem as if everything else Blanche had said was true. He could lose Gemma forever. But that wasn’t going to happen. He made his decision. “There is no mansion in Chicago,” he said. “That woman never stayed in any house of mine, because I don’t even own a house like that, and she knows it, Gem. She’s a liar. How can you believe her over me?”
Gemma’s heart grew faint. She couldn’t believe that this was the same man she had loved and believed in so completely. How could he do this to her? Was their entire marriage a farce? She looked at him with pure pain in her eyes. She looked at him as if she was looking at a man who had disappointed her beyond belief. “I was there, Sal,” she reminded him.
Sal’s heart dropped through his shoe. “You were where?”
“I’ve been to your house in Chicago. How could you forget that? Tommy got shot in Chicago and you ordered his girlfriend to take him to that house. To your house. Reno and Tree and Jimmy, we all showed up there.”
Sal didn’t remember it. He was traumatized when his brother got shot, deeply traumatized, but he didn’t remember Gemma ever being at that house at all. But he knew the bottom line. She had just caught him in a world class lie.
“I’m an attorney, Sal,” Gemma went on. “Don’t you think I know how to look up property records? I looked it up after that woman left Champagne’s. You not only own that estate in Chicago, but you were renting it out. I was able to find that out too. You were renting it out to a woman I doubt very seriously paid you a dime. Her name, in fact, is still on the lease. And guess what her name is? Blanche Delilah.”
Gemma could see life drain out of Sal’s handsome face. He knew he’d been caught. He knew he was doomed.
And Gemma pounced. “I stood by you,” she said with more emotion than she wanted to reveal. “All that shit people accused you of, I stood by you. All my friends told me to leave you. Even my parents used to tell me time and time again to get away from you. But I didn’t. I kept taking it and taking it and I stood by you. And how do you repay me? How do you reward my devotion to you? By lying to my face! By treating me as if I’m one of your tricks that you don’t give a damn about. By taking everything I thought our marriage was about, and throwing it out the window!”
The tears began to come. She reached for the doorknob.
“Gemma,” Sal said, his heart breaking because he knew he had hurt her.
But she didn’t want to hear his voice right now. She pulled on that knob so hard that he had no choice but to move.
“I lied to keep you, Gem,” he pleaded as she flung open the door. “I was just trying,” he continued to say as the door slammed hard behind her. “To keep you,” he added.
But she was already gone.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Mercedes-Benz drove onto the driveway of the modest suburban house and parked behind the Aston-Martin. Trina, still marveling at that beautiful car Sal bought Gemma, began unbuckling her seatbelt.
“Is that Daddy’s car?” Little Sophia asked.
Trina smiled. Every pretty car Sophia saw was Reno’s car in her eyes. “No, baby,” Trina said as she got out. “That’s Aunt Gemma’s car.”
“Oh, goody,” Sophia said with a grand smile as her mother helped her out. “I haven’t seen Uncle Sal in days and days.”
“And I doubt if you’ll see him tonight,” Trina said. “Aunt Gemma’s here alone. We came to see Aunt Gemma.”
“Aunt Gemma?”
“That’s right. This is her house.”
“No, it’s not.”
“It was her house before she married Uncle Sal. Then they bought that big house together, the one we go to all the time. But she kept this house too. So you’re going to see Aunt Gemma tonight.”
“I see her lots of times,” Sophia said as her mother took her hand and they began walking toward the front door. She was a gorgeous interracial little girl, Reno and Trina’s youngest child, and was full of life and vitality. “But that’s okay,” she added as they walked. “I love her too.”
Trina smiled, walked up to the front door, and rang the bell. When the door opened, she and Gemma hugged for a long time. Even little Sophia could tell that her aunt had been crying.
“What’s wrong, Auntie?” she asked her.
Gemma looked at Sophia and then knelt down and gave her a great hug too. “I’m fine, baby,” she said. “Don’t you worry.” Then she stood up. “She’s looking more and more like you every day,” she said to Trina.
“You always say that,” Sophia said. “You always say I look more and more like Mommy.”
“It’s always true,” Gemma said. “Where’s your big brother? Where’s Dominic?”
“Dommi is my next big brother. Jimmy is my biggest brother.”
Gemma smiled. “Well excuse me.”
Trina shook her head. “No need to excuse you
rself. It’s her. I have some grown-ass children, you hear me?”
Gemma laughed. “But she’s right.”
“They’re smart now,” Trina agreed with a smile. “But they’re still way too grown for their young ages. But Dom’s with Reno,” she added.
Gemma looked at Trina. “I thought Reno had to work tonight.”
“He does. He is working! But Dommi is with him. You won’t believe what our little boy said today,”
“What?” Gemma asked.
“In school today, he told the teacher she didn’t know what she was talking about.”
Gemma laughed. Trina was already cheering her up.
“That’s why he’s with Reno,” Trina said. “Reno can handle that wild child. He knows Reno will kick his ass if he acts up on him. I can handle him too, but it takes every ounce of strength I have.”
“I know it does,” Gemma said. “Come on in,” she added, as she began closing the door.
“I couldn’t find a babysitter for this one,” Trina continued. “Jimmy and Val’s on some date night and her father’s taking care of their baby. Reno won’t allow Sophia, his precious little princess, around his smoke-filled casino, which rules out her ever going to work with him. So she gets to follow me around. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t come prepared,” Trina added, and pulled out a kid’s tablet. “Sophie, dear,” she said, handing it to her, “why don’t you go over on the sofa and play some games. Aunt Gem and I need to talk.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Sophia said, and hurried to the sofa. She was thrilled to play games.
Gemma and Trina went over to the kitchen table on the other end of the great room’s open floor plan. “Want something to drink?” Gemma asked Trina as they sat down.
“No, thanks,” Trina responded. “And Sophie just had her juice. I want to know what happened. You left Sal?”
Gemma still couldn’t believe it either. She nodded her head. “I left him, yes.”
“So what that woman said was true? She’s his mistress like she said?”
“He vehemently denies it.”
“Then you can take it to the bank,” Trina said. “Sal’s no liar.”
Sal Gabrini: His House of Cards Page 9