Sal Gabrini 3: Hard Love Read online

  SAL GABRINI 3

  HARD LOVE

  By

  MALLORY MONROE

  Copyright©2014 Mallory Monroe

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  This novel is a work of fiction. All characters are fictitious. Any similarities to anyone living or dead are completely accidental. The specific mention of known places or venues are not meant to be exact replicas of those places, but are purposely embellished or imagined for the story’s sake.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  The judge graveled the morning session to a close, warned the attorneys that the afternoon session would resume at one-thirty sharp, and everybody rose as the jurors were dismissed.

  Gemma Jones grabbed up her legal pads and other notes and stuffed them into her briefcase as she stood there, but her client, James Mason, couldn’t wait to complain about the tactics of the prosecution.

  “Why do they keep calling me the suspect?” he asked.

  Gemma looked at him as she continued to stuff her briefcase. “Because you are the suspect.”

  “But why didn’t you make them call me by my name, like them lawyers do on TV?”

  “I requested it. My request was denied. They have that right.”

  “It ain’t right, though,” James said as the jailers surrounded him, ready to put him back in chains and escort him back to jail. “They should be calling me Mr. Mason. Not the suspect. Those jurors are getting the wrong idea.”

  “Look,” Gemma said as she stopped stuffing her briefcase and turned toward her client. “I know you’re frustrated. I’m frustrated too. It didn’t go well this morning. But you have got to concentrate on your testimony tomorrow, not some bullshit about what the prosecutors are calling you. We have nothing to hang our hats on, James. No witnesses, no alibis, nothing. But they don’t have anything either. So we actually stand a chance here. But if you can’t convince those jurors that your girlfriend was alive and well when you left her bed that night, we’re doomed. You can kiss your freedom goodbye. And the prosecution won’t be calling you The Suspect then. They’ll be calling you The Murderer.”

  “But I’m innocent, Miss Jones,” he insisted. “I didn’t kill her!”

  Gemma’s heart went out to the young man. It was cases like this, where she actually believed in her client’s innocence, that were the hardest for her to defend. “I know, James,” she said. “But we’ve got to prove it, or at least we’ve got to give the jurors reasonable doubt that the prosecution hasn’t proven otherwise.” She squeezed his arm. “Concentrate on your testimony. Make sure that no matter what the prosecution throws your way, you maintain your cool. If those jurors see an ounce of anger on your face, they may see a killer, not a grieving boyfriend. You feel me?”

  James nodded, his dreadlocks flapping around his handsome face. Normally she would have asked her clients to get a haircut and report to court clean-shaven. Even those still locked up, like James, had that right. But she decided against the request this time. He had to be seen as completely authentic, or they didn’t stand a chance. All of the photos the prosecution was parading around had him in dreadlocks. He had to be real to those jurors. “Thanks for taking my case, Miss Jones,” he said. “At least you believe in me.”

  Then the jailers led him out of the courtroom, to go back to his cell.

  Gemma stood there. She was going to win this case if it was the last case she won. She therefore snapped her briefcase shut, grabbed it, and turned toward the exit. She would brush up on her notes during lunch.

  Milton Murkowski, the lead prosecutor, smiled at her as she turned to leave. “Going to lunch, Miss Jones?” he asked with a smile. “But wait, you can’t do that, can you? Not after I just had you for lunch in this courtroom.”

  “You stick with your jokes,” Gemma said, moving around the burly prosecutor and making her way toward the exit. “I’ll stick with my intel. Wonder which will prevail in the end?”

  The prosecutor’s smile left. He hadn’t expected that retort. Was she implying that she had some secret witness, or some strategy she planned to introduce that he hadn’t even considered? What was she trying to say?

  And as he wondered with nervous frustration, it was Gemma who was smiling as she left the courtroom.

  But she knew she had to hurry. An hour-and-a-half break might seem like a lot of time to review notes and have lunch, but it wasn’t. You never had enough time to prepare, she thought, when somebody’s freedom was on the line.

  She made it over to the courtroom cafeteria, ordered a tuna fish sandwich, and sat at a small table near the smudged window. She turned back on her smartphone and checked her messages, in case Sal Gabrini had phoned. But, as was usually the case when he was away on business, he hadn’t phoned at all. Not one time. Which used to bother her royally. What kind of man in a long distance relationship like the one they were in, she used to wonder, would go on business trips for days on end and never bother to phone his beloved? Especially since they didn’t get to see each other every day as it was. Didn’t he miss her as much as she was missing him?

  But as she got to know Sal better, she learned to appreciate his style. He wasn’t about to give her any room to cling or become needy or to turn into anything other than the strong, independent woman she was when he first met her. That was Sal. He wanted her to be a better woman for being with him, not a lesser woman. He was a Gabrini, after all, which meant that if she was ever going to become one also, she had to maintain that strength he loved about her. Sometimes Gemma wondered if that was the reason Sal rarely ever discussed marriage with her. She wondered if he was still waiting to see just what stuff she were truly made of, and if she could handle the heightened level of craziness being his wife would require.

  Which was the point, Gemma thought, as she bit into her sandwich and pulled out her legal pads. She wasn’t certain if she was ready for that kind of lifestyle. She was a tough lady, and she loved Sal in ways she never loved any man before him, but being a Gabrini, where she would have to be a ride-or-die chick in the extreme sense of the term, wasn’t something she could just accept as her life direction. She worked her butt off to get through law school and become an attorney. She was even beginning to enjoy the work again, especially now that she was winning more cases than she was losing, which just started happening lately.

  But if she became Sal’s wife, how in the world was she going to continue her career? She knew Sal had certain entanglements, even though he would never discuss them with her. That was his business, he was quick to tell her. But she was nobody’s fool.
Some of his involvements were not always legal, if they were legal at all. She was an officer of the court, which made her legality itself. It was too damn complicated.

  “This seat taken?”

  Gemma looked up. Phil Cooper, if she remembered his name correctly. Tall. African-American. Attractive. Very attractive. An attorney with Bask and Lowe, one of the premier law firms in Vegas. But she knew why he wanted to sit at her table when so many other tables were available. He wanted a hit-it-and-quit-it. A hit-and-run job. Gemma knew the game like the back of her hand. She’d been propositioned almost daily by her fellow male attorneys, most of whom were married men looking for uncomplicated sex with a likewise ambitious female attorney who would never fuck and tell. This guy had propositioned her a few times before, but kept coming back.

  “It’s not taken, no,” she said, “but I don’t want any company.”

  He smiled, although she could see the anger behind his eyes. “A working lunch, is it?”

  “It is, yes.”

  “I understand. I need to get cracking myself. But listen, maybe later, after court, we could perhaps have a drink somewhere?”

  Hit job just as she thought. He was even looking more at her boobs than her face. “Thanks,” she said, “but no.”

  He knew she was involved with Sal Gabrini. Everybody around that Vegas courthouse knew. But it never stopped guys like him. It, in fact, seemed to embolden them. They were certain, if she slept with them, that she would never tell. If a guy like Sal Gabrini found out she’d been cheating on him, he’d kick her ass up and down the Strip, and she knew it too. Which made her, in their estimation, cheating gold.

  He grinned. “You know what time it is, don’t you?”

  Gemma looked at him, but didn’t respond.

  “Of course you know,” he continued. “You’re a smart girl. Always have been.” He leaned in closer toward her, in case others in the cafeteria would hear him. “Thing is,” he said, “the pickings are awfully slim. I mean, think about it, Gemma. There are about, what? A couple dozen or so female attorneys around this place on any given day? Thirty at the most? And then, when you factor in attractive female attorneys? Come on. A handful at best. But a woman like you,” he nodded his dark baldhead approvingly, looking down the length of her, “takes the prize. The grand prize. I mean let’s be honest here. You’re black as the night, but you’re still great looking.”

  He was lashing out, Gemma thought. He didn’t get his way, he wasn’t getting any hit and runs off of her, so he decided to get back at her. To wound her. She was black as the night, he basically said, but despite that fact, she was pretty. As if dark couldn’t possibly be synonymous with pretty. And he was almost as dark as she was? “It must be tough,” she said, “being that full of self-hate. It must really keep you up nights.”

  Although he continued to smile, as if he had no clue what she was talking about, she could tell she had hit a nerve. He stood back erect, straightened his designer suit, and kept it moving just the same.

  She continued to eat her sandwich as she reviewed as many notes as she could. She knew she had to change her approach in this afternoon session or her client could be doomed. But just as she was getting into her groove, just as she was beginning to see a better approach, time ran out. Lunch was over.

  She stuffed her legal pads back into her briefcase, took one last bite of her sandwich, and hurried back to court.

  The Indy 500 was off to the races as Sal Gabrini stood in his old friend’s VIP skybox and watched the dizzily fast cars from the rafters. He and Joey Moncrief went way back, back during Sal’s Jersey days, but that didn’t mean they had anything in common. Especially not this NASCAR nonsense.

  “What nonsense?” Joey asked as he leaned back in his seat and grinned, his hands resting on his big stomach. “This is the all-American sport we’re talking here. Good family entertainment.”

  “Bullshit,” Sal said, equally relaxed in his own seat. “No families come here to watch cars drive around and around in a circle.”

  “No, you’re right,” Joey replied. “I agree with you for a change. They come for the socialization and the relaxation.”

  “They come for the wrecks,” Sal said bluntly, “and the pile-ups. They come to see who’s gonna get maimed and who’s gonna die. They come for the explosions.”

  Joey laughed. “It’s good family fun, Sal, that’s all this is. They have a need for speed.”

  “A need for violence more like it.”

  “It’s family fun!”

  “Family fun my ass,” Sal made clear. “No family of mine is coming to shit like this.”

  Joey gave up. “Getting through to you is like getting through a brick wall. Why bother?”

  Sal snorted. He knew it was true.

  “So how’s Tommy?”

  “He’s good. He’s married now you know.”

  “Yeah, I know. Your big brother got married. Didn’t invite me to the wedding, but that’s neither here nor there. It’s Tommy. I guess I’m not good enough for his kind.”

  “He’s not like that and you know it.”

  “Then why didn’t he invite me?”

  “Because you’re a pain in the ass and he had enough pains in the asses to deal with.”

  Joey laughed. “What about Reno and Tree? How they doing?”

  Reno was Sal’s cousin and Trina was Reno’s African-American wife. She had become so much a part of the Gabrini clan that old school mobsters like Joey Moncrief considered her one of them. And respected her as one of them. That was what Sal wanted for Gemma someday. “They’re all right,” he said. “I haven’t seen them in a minute, but I’m sure they’re doing okay.”

  “Good. Good,” Joey said. “I was always pulling for the two of them.”

  “Yeah, well, Trina’s putting up with him.”

  “Yeah?” Joey looked at Sal. “And who’s putting up with you? I hear some black chick too.”

  Sal hesitated on that. There was a time when he viewed life in black and white terms too, so he’d be a hypocrite to fault old man Joey for talking that way. “That’s what you hear?” he asked.

  “That’s what I’m hearing, yeah. Some lawyer. I said I know better than that. A lawyer? With all this shit Sal’s into? I know better than that!”

  Sal wasn’t about to discuss his private life with Big Mouth Joey Moncrief. He looked back at the race. “So what else is going on? Why did you request I make a detour in my travels and come see you?”

  Joey returned his attention to the race also. “I hear things,” he said.

  “Good things? Bad things? Indifferent things?”

  “Things.”

  “About?”

  “You.”

  “From?”

  “Nicky the Noose and some other people. They’re concerned.”

  “Sure they are,” Sal said with a snort. “And I’m Mario Andretti.”

  “They say you’re putting your nose where it don’t belong.”

  “Yeah? And where don’t it belong?”

  “They say you’ve been hanging around Brooklyn. They wonder why.”

  “None of their fucking business why.”

  “People talk, Sal. That’s what people do. They figure you should know Brooklyn’s taken. You should know there is no room left there for any motherfucker.”

  Sal looked at Joey. “So they’re threatening me? Is that what they’re doing?”

  “Threats? Who said anything about threats? They’re talking. So I’m talking to you. I’m your friend, Sal. I come through for you in a pinch every time. You know I do. I don’t want to see my friend in trouble.”

  “Trouble? Because of the Noose? I want him to try!”

  “Brooklyn is his territory, Sal. He owns it.”

  “Brooklyn is Brooklyn. He don’t own shit. If I want a piece, I’ll take a piece, and his ass won’t do a damn thing about it.” Sal was getting heated, Joey could tell. “Nobody tells me what I can’t have, where I can’t go, what I can’t do.
Who the fuck they think they’re messing with? Nobody’s handling me like that. Least of which some jumped-up asshole like the Noose!”

  “He’s a nasty man when he’s cornered,” Joey pointed out. “Remember that.”

  “I’m nastier, cornered or not. Remember that.”

  Joey exhaled. He knew he would get blowback from Sal, so he wasn’t exactly surprised. “I’m just telling you what I’m hearing.”

  “And I appreciate that. A word to the wise is sufficient. But Nicky the Noose? I haven’t heard a peep from that meth head in years, but all of a sudden he’s making noises? All of a sudden he’s telling me where I can’t go and what I can’t do? Him?”

  “Yes, him,” Joey said, looking with all sincerity at Sal. “Remember what I always told you. It don’t always be the Goliath that wins the battle. Sometimes a David can take you out too. And Noose is talking noise up and down the line. That’s all I’m saying.”

  Sal looked at his old friend. Why would he be so interested in warning him about some nobody hood like Nicky? Unless it wasn’t about Nicky. Unless Joey himself was the muscle behind Nicky’s mouth. “And what about you, Joey? You’re talking too?”

  Joey smiled. “Who me? Come on now. Why in the world would I be out to get my friend? And you are my friend, Sal Luca. And I’m your friend. On my word you can put your trust. You can trust me, Sal, you know that.”

  Sal nodded his head. He could trust Joey? And he knew he could? Really?

  He trusted him alright.

  Like he trusted a thief in the night.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “I don’t care how she tries to dress it up,” Liz Mertan said, “but it’s wrong on every level.”

  She and Trina Gabrini were standing near the back side of Champagne’s, a high-end clothing store that they both co-owned with Gemma Jones, and were waiting for Gemma to get her purse from the office upstairs. Trina was looking at a display of designer sunglasses, as if she was going to take one for herself, and was only mildly interested in Liz and her usual complaints. “What’s wrong on every level?” she asked her.