Page 4 of Sal Gabrini: Man on Fire

“You heard me.”

“Why would you ask me something like that, Sal?”

“Why would Kidd Curry send me that video, Gem?”

Gemma frowned. “What video?”

Sal was so hurt that he couldn’t speak.

“What video, Sal? Tell me what you’re talking about.”

Sal looked at her with a mixture of cynicism and pain. “As if you don’t know.”

But Gemma was angry too. “I don’t know!” she blared.

“Motherfucking liar!” he blared back.

But when he said those words, it was too much for Gemma. She slapped Sal so hard across his face, he stumbled backwards. “Don’t you ever call me a liar!” she declared.

“Oh Lord,” Robby said. He was certain Sal would come back up swinging on Mrs. G and he had to get in position to try and stop him.

But it was in that moment, as they both were looking deep into each other’s eyes, that Sal realized maybe she didn’t know what he was talking about. That she had no clue her wonderful Kidd Curry had a video circulating with her in a compromising position. And although he was still upset by what he saw on that tape, and could hardly control his rage, he controlled it anyway. Because he loved her. His heart was breaking, but he loved her. He even reached out and touched her arm.

But Gemma was still red-hot. She snatched her arm away from him, told him to get away from her, and began walking, with her bodyguard in tow, toward the dugout.

Sal felt like crap on every hand. His syndicate was in disarray. His unity coalition of other mob bosses was crumbling. He felt as if he was losing it, as if he wasn’t half the man he used to be. And now his wife was slipping away from him too?

Fuck it, he said to himself and began heading back toward the entrance gate. He’d wait for them at his car. But then he frowned when he realized both Robby and his guard was right on his tail. “What are you following me for?” he barked out at the guard. “Go and protect my wife and son, that’s why I bought you here!”

“Yes, sir!” said the guard as he hurried behind Gemma and her guard.

“Fuck this shit,” Sal was murmuring as he left the ballpark. “What I need her ass for? I don’t need her!”

But before he started heading across the street to his Bugatti, which was parked nearly five cars behind Gemma’s Bentley, he stopped in his tracks. He’d already lost a lot over the past few months, including half of his syndicate. But he couldn’t lose Gemma. And despite what he saw on that tape and what he knew Kidd Curry was up to, he wasn’t losing Gemma.

He made a beeline for one of the flower stands in front of the ball park just past the entrance gates, and checked out the various arrangements they had on display. After nearly ten minutes of indecisiveness, Sal finally decided to just purchase her a bouquet of yellow and white daffodils. He didn’t even know if she liked daffodils, but they were pretty and he was tired of looking around.

Robby found it so cute that Sal would do such a kind thing for his wife that he smiled, which Sal hated. “What the fuck is so funny?” he asked him.

Robby’s smile quickly left. He knew how sensitive Sal was about his sensitivity. “Nothing’s funny, Boss. I was just clearing my throat.” He began clearing his throat.

But when Sal looked beyond Robby and saw that Gemma and Lucky had already crossed the street and were getting into Gemma’s car, and that she was about to leave before he could give her the flowers, he panicked. “Lady, hurry up,” he said anxiously to the cashier.

“I’m trying to get you your change, sir.”

“Keep the change,” Sal said, even though the change was nearly seventy dollars. He tipped well, but he knew her slow ass didn’t deserve it. But he grabbed the flowers and began hurrying toward the sidewalk to cross the street.

But just as he and Robby were crossing the sidewalk, the hood of Gemma’s car suddenly and dramatically flipped up and off its hinges as if some hurricane-force wind had carried it away, and then the entire front end of her car exploded into a fireball that rocked the entire area. Sal had to watch in horror as his wife’s car’s front end became engulfed in flames and was quickly spreading like wildfire throughout the car.

Knowing that his wife and son were in that car, and that they both were about to perish before his very eyes, Sal dropped those daffodils and ran for his family like he was the one on fire.

The front end of the car was eviscerated. You couldn’t tell the front lights from the engine. And the fire was spreading fast. All three bodyguards, who were still on the outside of the car, had been thrown many feet away from the impact, which rendered them useless.

Gemma was behind the wheel of the car, trying to force open the door as the fire was steadily moving from beneath the hood toward the car’s interior.

Sal saw her fighting to open that door or break that window and he yelled and waved his gun as he ran, motioning for her to bend down. As soon as she saw him running toward her with that gun in his hand, she bent down, and Sal began firing at the top part of that window as he ran. The window shattered.

And Gemma sat up, yelling for her son, who was in the back, to climb to the front. “Come on, Luck, get out! We gotta get out now!”

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