Page 29 of Sal Gabrini: Man on Fire

Gemma smiled. “Fancy-like, hun? Okay.”

“So you’re gonna be there, right?”

“What time Friday night?”

When she said those words, Sal couldn’t help it. He looked at her.

“Since you’re the guest of honor, you should get here early. Like seven or eight.”

Gemma hadn’t planned to go. But Sal’s shitty attitude changed hers. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll be there.” And then she ended the call.

“Be where?” Sal asked her.

Gemma wanted to say it was none of his business, but she couldn’t do it. “Mason’s throwing a party in my honor Friday night. At his house.”

“And you’re going?”

“Yes, I’m going Sal. Are you?”

Sal didn’t want to have anything more to do with that joker. But if Gemma was going . . .

“Yeah,” he said.

And Gemma, surprisingly, was pleased. But she was careful not to show it. She was tired of giving Sal the upper hand every time they argued.

She was also grateful that his bodyguards hadn’t told him about that kiss.

But when Mason ended the call with Gemma, he leaned back in his limousine and lifted his glass of champagne to the man in black riding in the limo with him. “She said she’ll be there.”

“Good Mason,” the man said, lifting his glass too. “You did good.”

“But she won’t get hurt. Right?” Mason asked.

“That’s none of your business. You handle your business, and I’ll handle mine. You’re just a puppet to me, and don’t you ever forget that,” he added with bite, and then he sipped his champagne as if he, not Mason, was the victorious one.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Friday evening and Reno and Trina Gabrini, both decked down in evening wear, walked into Sal and Gemma’s house without bothering to knock, which was their usual way of entering. They saw Marie and Lucky, with their faces buried in their phones, slouched down on the living room sofa.

“If we were robbers, y’all would be dead,” said Trina.

Marie looked up. Lucky was playing a game and couldn’t break away. “Oh, hey guys,” Marie said with a smile.Bonnie and Clyde has arrived, Marie and Lucky sometimes joked whenever they came over. Not out of disrespect, but out of truth because Reno was as gangster as their father, and because Trina was as gangster as Reno. And they both were bat-shit crazy. “I didn’t hear anybody come in.”

“We know!” said Reno.

“Where’s everybody?” Trina asked. “And Lucky, get your head out of that phone when people are talking to you!”

“But this game,” said Lucky, still not looking up. Still playing to the death.

“Son, did you hear my wife?” Reno was about to hurry over to Lucky and snatched that phone from his hand.

Knowing how volatile their Uncle Reno could be, Marie quickly snatched the phone from her kid brother’s hand herself. And that was when Lucky looked up, which caused Reno to stop his charge toward him. “Hey, Uncle Reno,” Lucky said. “Hey, Uncle Trina. I mean Auntie Trina!”

Marie wanted to grin. She knew Lucky was thinking about theirBonnie and Clydeinside joke when he made that “error.” And Reno looked hard at him, as if he suspected it was no mistake too.

“Better put your head in some books and get it out of that phone for a change,” Reno said. “We could have been anybody coming up in here.”

Lucky looked at Reno with a sidelong look. “Really, Uncle Reno? With the gate security and grounds security Daddy’s got all around this house, do you honestly believe they’d just let some anybody walk up in here? I don’t think so. But I could be wrong. Where’s Carmine?”

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