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

“That’s
well and good,” Rodney said. “I’m sure you do love her.
 
Many men love her.
 
But to be quite frank with you, Sal,” Rodney
added, “I don’t think you deserve my daughter.”

Gemma
was outraged.
 
But Sal was nodding in
agreement.
 
“Hell I could have told you
that myself!” he said.
 
“You don’t have
to tell me that!
 
Of course I don’t
deserve her!
 
I’m a fucking piece of
costume jewelry compared to the gem your daughter is.
 
But . . .”

Cassie
stared at him.
 
“But what, Sal?”

“But
I love this gem,” Sal said.
 
“I love
her.
 
There is no man alive that can love
her better.”

“Okay,
I’ll be blunt,” Rodney said.
 
“And I’m
going to expect blunt answers.”

Sal
stared at him.
 
“Shoot,” he said.

“Are
you, Salvatore Gabrini, a mob boss?”

Sal
hesitated, but did answer.
 
“No,” he
said.

“Have
you ever been a made man?”

“A
made man?” Cassie asked with a frown.
 
“What in the world is that?”

“A
mobster,” Rodney explained to his wife.
 
“A made man is a mobster who has the protection of one of the major mob
families.”
 
He looked at Sal again.
 
“Are you now or have you ever been a made
man?”

“Hell
no,” Sal responded.
 
“Give me more credit
than that.”

Rodney
didn’t understand.
 
“What’s that supposed
to mean?” he asked.

“I’m
in nobody’s pocket,” said Sal.
 
“That’s
what it means.
 
Nobody made me.
 
Not even my uncle, and he was a mob boss,
could make me.”

“Are
you now,” Rodney went on, “or have you ever been in the mob?”

“Oh,
Dad!”
 
Gemma said.
 
“He shouldn’t have to sit here and answer all
of these questions.”

But
Sal answered him.
 
“No,” he said.

“Do
you now, or have you ever in the past been involved with mob activity?”

Now
Gemma was offended.
 
“What kind of open-ended,
generalized question is that?”

“Generalized?”
her father asked.
 
“What’s generalized
about it?
 
Somebody ask me if I’ve ever
been involved in mob activities, there’s a real specific answer for that.
 
No.
 
Hell no.
 
That’s the answer.”
 
Then Rodney looked at Sal.
 
“Isn’t it, Salvatore?”

But
it wasn’t so simple for Sal.
 
It was
obvious that it wasn’t when he didn’t respond right away.

“Well?”
Rodney asked.
  

Sal
looked at Gemma’s mother.
 
He could tell
she was still holding out hope that he wasn’t as deplorable as he really
was.
 
But he had no sweet answer to a
question like that.
 
“I have
connections,” he said.

Rodney
pushed his glasses on his face and studied him.
 
“Connections?
 
As in mob
connections?”

Sal
frowned.
 
“As in all kinds of connections,
what’s with this mob obsession?
 
I have
all kinds of connections.
 
My friends
need help, I help them. I need help, they help me.”

“Even
if they’re Mafia?”

Sal
hesitated yet again.
 
But, yet again, he
answered.
 
“That’s right,” he admitted.

Rodney
leaned back, and removed his glasses.
 
For him it was the answer he was dreading.
 
For Cassie, she still wasn’t convinced that
Sal Gabrini could be all bad.

“What
kind of help do you give to your friends?” she asked him.

“Help,”
he said.
 
“Whatever kind they need.”

“Legal
or illegal?”

“Legal,”
Sal said, “and illegal.
 
Yes ma’am.”

Cassie
let out a harsh exhale.
 
And she and
Rodney both looked at Gemma.
 
“Did you
know about this?” she asked her daughter.

Sal
didn’t look at Gemma, which didn’t surprise her.
 
He was so tense that his muscles were
straining his suit coat.
 
At any moment,
she felt, the seams would split.
 
She
looked at her mother.
 
“I know he has
business dealings beyond his businesses in Seattle, yes.”

Her
father looked at her.
 
“Business
dealings?
 
Is that what he calls it?
 
Well the FBI calls it suspicious
activity.
 
Maybe even illegal
activity.
 
A far cry from business.”

Sal
frowned.
 
“FBI?
 
What the fuc. . .” He calmed back down.
 
“What does the FBI have to do with this?”

“I
spoke to them, that’s what.
 
Didn’t Gemma
tell you?”

Sal
looked at Gem.

Gem
shook her head.
 
“It was just some guy
Daddy met who claimed that they suspected you of being a mob boss once upon a
time.
 
That’s all that was about.”

“Why
are you minimizing it, Gemma?” Rodney asked her.
 
“Being accused of mob activity is not a
trivial matter.
 
Admitting to mob
activity is not a trivial matter.”

“He
didn’t admit to any mob activity.
 
He
said he has connections.
 
That’s all he
said.”

This
offended Rodney.
 
“Justifying for him
now,” he said.
 
“That’s what you’re
doing.
 
You’re justifying his wrong
behavior.
 
A lawyer no less.
 
An officer of the court justifying heinous
crimes in the name of love.
 
What is
happening to you, young lady? I didn’t raise you this way!”

“You
raised me to be an independent woman who knows her own mind.”

“And
I also raised you to follow the facts and not---”

“And
not emotion.
 
I know that, Daddy.”

“So
what the hell do you think you’re doing?
 
He’s a mobster, Gemma.
 
No matter how
you try to dress it up, Sal Gabrini is a mobster.
 
He’s not a mob boss in the traditional sense
maybe, but he’s a mob boss in every other sense!
 
And you need to wake up, baby, and realize
who you’re dealing with.”

“Okay,
knock it off!” Sal said forcefully.
 
“She
hasn’t done anything wrong, what are you riding up her ass for?
 
I have connections and I handle my
business.
 
That has nothing to do with
her.”

“Bullshit!”
Rodney fired back.
 
“Somebody wants you
dead, what about her?
 
Will they take her
out to get to you?
 
How can you say it
has nothing to do with her?”

“I
look out for her.
 
Don’t you worry about
her.”

“Don’t
you tell me what to worry about.
 
That’s
my daughter. I’ll always worry about her!”

“She’s
your daughter, but she’s about to become my wife.
 
And when we get married she’s going to be my
responsibility.
 
Not yours.
 
Not anybody else’s.
 
Mine.
 
And I know how to look out for mine.”

“Will
you give up your connections for her?”

“What
are you talking?” Sal asked angrily.
 
“What connections?”

“Your
mob connections! Since you look out for your own.
 
Will you give up on your mob friends for
Gemma’s sake?”

“How
would that help Gemma?” Sal asked.
 
“I
have a friend in need, and I don’t help that friend.
 
How does that help Gemma?”

“It
keeps you out of the mess, that’s how.
 
It keeps trouble away from your door!”

“That’s
where you’re wrong,” Sal said. “If I turn my back when my friends are in need,
then I’m opening the door to my own destruction.
 
My world doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
 
It exists in pieces of a puzzle.
 
You can’t have one without the other.
 
If something happens to them, it’s as good as
if it happened to me.
 
Because if they go
down, so do I.
 
Maybe not right
then.
 
But in the end.”

Rodney
couldn’t understand that kind of code to save his life.
 
And he knew it.
 
He went from his father’s house, to college,
to running his father’s bank.
 

But
Cassie Jones, it seemed to Sal, continued to hold out hope.
 
She looked at him.
 
“Will you be good to her, Sal?” she asked
him.

And
he couldn’t even give himself that credit.
 
“No,” he admitted.
 
It was a
wrenching admission.
 
Even Gemma was
surprised.
 
She looked at him.

“No?”
Rodney asked, surprised too.
 
Any fool
would have said yes.
 
For peace sake
alone!

But
Sal wasn’t going to lie to them.
 
“No,” he
said.
 
“If I was good to her, I would
have never asked her to marry me.
 
Not
asking her to be my wife, that’s how I would have been good to her.
 
Asking her to latch herself to me in what
they call holy matrimony is good for me.
 
It’s great for me.
 
But it’s the
worse move she can make, to tell you the truth.”

“The
worse move?” Cassie was floored.
  
“I
don’t understand.”

Sal
had to pause, to fight back his emotions.
 
Gemma stared at him.
 
Then he
spoke again.
 
“I’m not a loveable man,
Miss Jones,” he said.
 
“I wish I was, but
I’m not.
 
I’m crude, and rude, and I have
baggage that would make Samsonite blush.
 
I wish to God I would have never walked into the PaLargio and saw your
daughter.
 
Then I wouldn’t have fallen in
love.
 
Then I wouldn’t be the selfish man
I am today and asked her to marry me.”

Gemma
had tears in her eyes.
 
So did Cassie.

“I’m
not here for your blessing,” Sal went on.
 
“That’s too much to ask. I know it is.
 
Nobody blesses a man like me.
 
But
I am here to make it clear: if Gemma will have to lose the two of you in order
to have me, then she won’t have me.
 
I
won’t allow it.
 
I’ll live alone in a
cave before I become the reason for her separation from her parents.
 
I can’t let that happen.
 
I won’t let it happen.”

Rodney
sat speechless.
 
He stared at Sal as if
he’d never seen a man quite like him before.
 
Tears dropped from his wife’s eyes, but he wasn’t emotional that
way.
 
He was riveted.
 
“Are you telling me,” he finally spoke, “that
if we refuse to go along with this marriage, you’ll leave Gemma?”

Gemma
looked at Sal.
 
Sal swallowed hard.
 
“No,” he said.
 
“I’m not telling you that. You don’t have to
go along with the marriage.
 
I’ll never
give you or any other man that kind of power over my life.
 
But I am telling you that if you can’t
continue to love and be there for your daughter because she’s marrying me, then
yes, there won’t be a marriage.
 
Your
love and respect means everything to Gemma.
 
And she can’t lose that.”

Rodney
nodded his head.
 
“I cannot, in good
conscious, go along with this marriage.
 
I can’t do it.
 
You are too much
of a risk for my daughter.”

Sal’s
heart dropped.

“But
I can promise you this,” Rodney went on.
 
“I will always love and cherish her. No man will ever come between my
love for her.
 
On that I give my word. If
that is your concern, you should perish the thought.”