Sal Gabrini 4: I'll Take You There (The Gabrini Men Series Book 7) (11 page)

“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
got
damn 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
got
damn 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 your
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.
 
“
Got
dammit, 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---”