Page 22 of Sal Gabrini: Man on Fire

Gemma couldn’t believe it. “Sal, you can’t be serious. Are you serious?”

“What you think I’m playing? You know damn well I’m serious.”

“But I can’t walk away now.”

“Why not? You did all the prep work. All you got to do is hand over the information to one of those other three attorneys that’s working under you. Why his ass hired all those additional attorneys anyway like it’s the trial of the century? It don’t take all that!”

Gemma was shaking her head. No he wasn’t trying to put his foot down on something this crucial. Was he insane? “Sal, you know I’m leaving today to stay in San Bernardino for a full week. We are exactly one week away from the start of the trial!”

“And that’s why it’s a good time to turn that shit over and let those other attorneys earn their keep. I can’t stay in no San Bernardino for no full week!”

Gemma was livid. “Who’s asking you to?” she yelled. “I never asked you to come at all. But you came. And I appreciate it. I love being with you. But I know it had little to do with me and everything to do with Mason. You don’t like him and you don’t want me around him.”

“And your ass will not be around him without me,” Sal made clear.

“Then your ass must be going to stay in San Bernardino for a full week, because I will be around Mason most of that time. We have to be ready for trial, Sal. You know how that works!”

Sal jumped up angrily. “I don’t know a motherfucking thing about how any of that craziness works! I’m nearly dead on my feet with all this shit swirling around me, and here I am gotta nursemaid your ass for an entire week when I can’t get away for an entire hour right now!”

“Then don’t get away. Contrary to what you believe, I can handle myself, Sal. Nobody nursemaids me!”

Sal stared at her. She could see the pain and the exhaustion and the rage in his eyes. “So you’re going anyway?”

Gemma never enjoyed bucking Sal. She knew everything he did was because he loved her. But what he was asking of her was impossible. “I have to go,” she said to him. “I can’t abandon my client. I won’t abandon my client.”

“So that’s it hun? You wanna be with this joker, or what? You want me out of the picture so you can fuck him?”

Gemma couldn’t believe he just said that. She was sweating bullets about this upcoming trial, doing all she could to win for her client, and he was talking that kind of shit? Her rage came on so suddenly that it caught even Sal off guard. She jumped up, threw one of her files at him, and yelled, “Get the fuck out of my office and get out now!” She had screamed so loud that Curtis and two other attorneys in the building rushed into her office.

But when they saw it was Sal she was screaming at, they hurried right back out. All except Curtis. He knew how volatile Sal could be. “You okay, Boss?” he asked Gemma.

Gemma settled back down. “Yeah,” she said to Curtis. He glanced at Sal disapprovingly, and then walked back out and closed the door back behind him.

Sal was still upset, and she was too, but neither wanted to escalade it any further. “I’ll wait for you outside,” Sal said and left.

Gemma felt like crap and sat back down. But she knew she had to stand her ground with Sal. She couldn’t abandon her client, she didn’t care how easy he thought it was. Because she knew better.

But what angered her most was that he should know better too. He was allowing his jealousy to overrule his good sense. He had to know she wasn’t going to let anything happen. He had to know that.

But as Sal made his way out of that building, it wasn’t about her doing anything. It was about Kidd Curry trying everything to steal his wife. And not just steal her. There was something else there too that Sal couldn’t figure out. There was something about that guy that just didn’t sit right with him.

But if it took him neglecting his syndicate to protect his wife based on a hunch alone, then so be it. But it wasn’t an easy call because a crippled syndicate was a death sentence. It made all of them far more unsafe because the underworld could smell weakness a hundred miles away. And weakness brought enemies out of the woodwork. And Sal Gabrini had more enemies than he had friends.

Sal had a problem.

And when he drove Gemma to the airfield, and they were walking across the tarmac to her plane with bodyguards in tow, his heart was heavy. He had gotten two calls already on their drive from Gemma’s office to the airfield, and both screw-ups required Sal’s level of intervention and not Robby’s level alone. Dommi being with him would have helped. But Dommi left him, too, and chose to work for Uncle Mick.

But as Sal placed his arm around the waist of the most important person in this world to him, he could hardly bring himself to say it. But he had to say it. “I can’t make this trip with you, babe,” he said as they walked slowly across the tarmac.

How could Gemma get him to realize she would be okay? “You didn’t have to make any of these trips,” she said to him. “You’re working yourself to death. And you’re worrying about nothing.”

But that pissed Sal off too. “You think I got time to worry about nothing? If I’m worried about it, it’s something,” he shot back.

They stopped at the foot of the air steps of Sal’s private jet. Gemma could see the stress all over his face. “What’s going on, Sal?”

“I don’t know,” Sal said honestly. “That’s what’s worrying me. My businesses keep getting interrupted. I got a fire at this warehouse. I got a shipment stall at this dock or that port of call. And I’ve been having breaches in my organization like I’m thegotdamn Titanic!”

“And all of that’s going on while you’re flying off to California with me. Why didn’t you just stay and work it out, Sal?”

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