Gemma's Daughter Read online

  SAL GABRINI

  GEMMA’S DAUGHTER

  BY

  MALLORY MONROE

  Copyright©2020 Mallory Monroe

  All rights reserved. Any use of the materials contained in this book without the expressed written consent of the author and/or her affiliates, including scanning, uploading and downloading at file sharing and other sites, and distribution of this book by way of the Internet or any other means, is illegal and strictly prohibited.

  AUSTIN BROOK PUBLISHING

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  THE AUTHOR AND AUSTIN BROOK PUBLISHING.

  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. The cover art is depicted by models and are not the actual characters.

  SAL GABRINI SERIES

  IN ORDER:

  ROMANCING SAL GABRINI

  SAL GABRINI 2: A WOMAN’S TOUCH

  SAL GABRINI 3: HARD LOVE

  SAL GABRINI 4: I’LL TAKE YOU THERE

  SAL GABRINI 5: UNTIL YOU COME BACK FOR ME

  SAL GABRINI 6: HIS HOUSE OF CARDS

  SAL GABRINI 7: JUST THE WAY YOU ARE

  SAL GABRINI 8: BURNING LOVE

  SAL GABRINI 9: LOVE AND WAR

  SAL GABRINI 10:

  SAL AND TOMMY GABRINI: A BROTHER’S LOVE

  SAL GABRINI 11:

  RENO AND SAL GABRINI: FIRE WITH FIRE

  SAL GABRINI 12: COME FOR ME

  SAL GABRINI 13: GEMMA’S DAUGHTER

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  EPILOGUE

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  PROLOGUE

  He watched her as she slept. He was smiling and admiring everything about her. He took the gun he held in his hand and traced the outline of her gorgeous dark face as she slept so peacefully. M & M he nicknamed them. Marco and Marie. His bella dama. A woman who trusted him with her life. She was his.

  And his alone.

  The tapping on the door was very light. They knew, when Marco was in that bedroom with his woman, that they had better tread lightly no matter what. But even Marco could sense the urgency.

  He got out of bed gingerly. He didn’t want to wake her. Then he headed for his bedroom’s double doors. He wore trousers and a t-shirt, with a gun holster across his chest. His jet-black hair was slicked back, and his coal-black eyes were blazing. He opened the door quickly so that the tapping would cease.

  When he saw that it wasn’t even his number two, but it was Torres, one of his lesser-ranked men, he frowned. “What the fuck you want?” he asked.

  “Tu esposa esta aqui!” Torres whispered urgently in Spanish.

  Marco was born and reared between Canada and the United States and rarely spoke any Spanish at all. But by necessity he understood it. And when he heard what Torres had said, he was shocked. He looked back at his lady, saw that she was still sound asleep, and then stepped out into the hall and quickly closed the door. “What the fuck is she doing here?” he asked angrily.

  “No se que,” said Torres. “Pero ella esta aqui, Marco. Ella esta qui!”

  Marco angrily whispered expletives in Spanish as he pushed past his man and hurried down the stairs. Hyacinth Bellamy, a beautiful woman twenty years his senior and the one who first started bankrolling him when he was a two-bit punk on the streets, stood in the living room in her mink coat and gloves. She was also his wife. And he could tell, by the fire in her eyes, that somebody had told her about Marie.

  “I can explain,” he said as he began walking up to her, his arms outstretched.

  “Is this the whorehouse?” she asked as soon as he walked up. “Is that the explanation? Where’s the whore?”

  “Hyacinth, enough. I can explain!”

  “Then explain motherfucker. Explain! What is this bullshit?”

  “It’s one of our safe houses. That’s all this is. I don’t know what anybody else told you, but that’s what this is.”

  “You’re a liar, Marco. A liar!” she yelled and then pushed past him. “Where is she?” she hurried across the room.

  “Where’s who? What are you talking about?”

  “Where’s that bitch?” Hyacinth began hurrying up the stairs.

  “Hyacinth, wait!” Marco hurried behind her. “Hyacinth, stop. What the fuck you think you’re doing? Come here!”

  Marco’s man Torres was hurrying down the stairs even as Marco’s wife was hurrying up those same stairs. “Que depo hacer, jefe?” he nervously asked Marco.

  But Marco didn’t want to even hear his voice. “Shut the fuck up!” he yelled. “That’s what you do. Shut the fuck up!” Marco was running behind his wife.

  But nobody was going to stop a woman scorned. Hyacinth was as agile as he was, and made it up those stairs in record time. She threw open the double doors to the master bedroom so fast that one of the doors almost flew back shut.

  Marie, who was still asleep in bed, opened her big eyes quickly when she heard the intrusion. When she saw a woman she didn’t recognize, she quickly sat upright, her breasts exposed.

  When Hyacinth saw who it was, and more importantly, how beautiful she was, her anger flared. And she ran for Marie. “You bitch!” she yelled as she ran toward the bed. Marie attempted to get out of the bed, away from the crazed older woman, but Hyacinth was too determined. As Marco reached for Hyacinth, to pull her back, Hyacinth reached for Marie and grabbed hold of her long, thick weave and pulled Marie out of bed so violently that Marie fell onto the floor with a hard thump.

  Marco, now furious, grabbed Hyacinth by her own extensions, flung her to the floor, too, and then he got on his knees pistol-whipping his own wife with his gun. He was bashing her face in with the kind of violence and anger that stunned Marie. Marie began backing away and screaming as Marco beat on his wife as if she was not a human being. Blood was pouring as he beat her. His men ran into the bedroom, after being notified by Torres, as he beat her. But they wasn’t about to interfere either.

  They watched him beat her. They
watched him beat her to death.

  When he had finished, with the blood all over his face and hand, he kicked the woman as if she was a mangy dog. “Get her ass out of here,” he said. He was breathing so hard his voice sounded hoarse. “And when I find out who told her, they will not survive the night.”

  The men, knowing who they were dealing with, hurriedly did as he commanded and dragged the woman once known as Marco’s wife, out of the bedroom, a trail of blood dragging with her.

  But when Marco turned toward Marie, to make sure she was okay, Marie had terror in her eyes. She began backing up even further on her butt. She wanted no parts of what she had just witnessed. She knew he carried a gun everywhere they went. She knew he was no boy scout. But she didn’t know he was this.

  She got up, crawled her naked body across the bed quickly, and attempted to run out of that bedroom door and get away from that mad man as fast as she could go. But Marco, confused that she would even try to get away from him, hurried up to that door and slammed it shut violently just as she was about to run out.

  And he flung her around, and looked at her, as if she was the one insane.

  “What are you doing?” he asked her, his eyes searching hers. He pushed her small body against the back of the door. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  His body was so close to hers that she could barely breath. His bloodied hand began to trace her face as his other hand lifted her chin. “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked her again. “You’re mine. You know that. You belong to me. You know that too. You know you aren’t going anywhere, my love.”

  He stared into her eyes. Stared as if he was disappointed that she would even entertain a thought about leaving him. And then he leaned down, and began to lustfully, angrily, violently suck and ravage her breasts.

  Marie could hardly believe it as tears trailed down her narrow face. She just witnessed a horrific thing. She just witnessed the man she loved commit a horrific crime. And now, finally, her heart realized what her head had been telling her all along: that this man who treated her better than any man ever had and always seemed too good to be true, truly was.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Four Months Later

  Criminal Defense Attorney Gemma Jones-Gabrini, the wife of reputed mob boss Sal Gabrini, stopped her Bentley at the curb in front of Champagne’s Clothing store and quickly stepped out. She left her suitcoat and briefcase inside the car, but took her cell phone and keys and made her way across the sidewalk and into the high-end boutique. She only had a couple hours to help out at the store before she had to be back in court, and hoped she could make the most of it. It had been a while since she had any time off from her lucrative practice to drop by at all.

  Oprah, their store manager, was already opening boxes of brand new merchandise just delivered, and Trina Gabrini, the wife of casino mogul Reno Gabrini, was behind the counter reviewing the inventory spreadsheets. A few customers were also in the store.

  “What’s up, Ope?” Gemma waved at Oprah as she made her way toward the back counter.

  Oprah looked up. “Oh, hey, Mrs. Gabrini. How are you?”

  “I’m good, thanks. How’s Jim?”

  “Busy. His Uncle Tommy is a monster to work for.”

  “Tell me about it. I’m married to his brother, remember?”

  “That’s right! Your husband is Tommy’s brother. I forgot about that! I need you to forget I said anything at all about Tommy Gabrini, please ma’am.”

  Gemma laughed. “Too late,” she said and Oprah laughed, too, and continued to put merchandise on the shelves.

  “I thought you had to be in court today,” Trina said as Gemma walked behind the counter and up to her and her computer.

  “I was in court. We’re in recess until one this afternoon. Thought I’d come over and lend a hand.”

  “The co-owner has decided to grace us with her presence. How big of you.”

  Gemma playfully pushed Trina as she looked over Trina’s shoulder at the computer screen. “How are we doing?”

  “Pretty good actually,” said Trina. “And I’m talking over all the stores.” Trina turned the screen toward Gemma. “Look at that bottom line.”

  Gemma was impressed. “Revenues up eighteen percent?” she asked. “That is good!”

  “You like?” Trina asked.

  “Are you kidding?” Gemma said. “I love!”

  Trina smiled. “Oh, sure! You’re just excited that Sal’s coming home tonight.”

  “That too,” Gemma admitted. “He’s been gone over a week now, but it seems like a month.”

  “And he still hasn’t called you?”

  Gemma hated to admit it. Something about Sal and phones never seemed to mix. “He doesn’t call when he’s out of town on business,” she said. “You know that.”

  “I know that makes no sense whatsoever,” Trina said boldly. “He’s no freelancer. He’s a married man with a small son. And he doesn’t even check on y’all?”

  “He knows I can take care of myself and our son. And he leaves me to it. He trusts me.”

  “But come on, Gem,” Trina said, looking at her best friend. “The fact that he can stay away an entire week and don’t call you once has to hurt. On some level it has to. I know I’d be beyond pissed if Reno ever pulled that shit on me.”

  “You’d be pissed if he called you,” Gemma said. “You’d declare he was calling you too much.” Trina laughed. “You’d be pissed,” Gemma continued, “if he didn’t call you. You’d declare he was cheating on you.”

  Trina shook her head. “You’re wrong for that,” she said cheerfully.

  “I’m telling the truth and you know it,” said Gemma. Then she exhaled. All jokes aside. “I get what you’re saying, though,” she said.

  Trina stared at Gemma. Gemma was a tall, slim, beautiful woman with smooth dark skin and a face so serious and intelligent that she was often mistaken as the boss of Champagne’s even though she and Trina were equal partners. But Gemma had that kind of sophisticated look men loved. She knew of many men who asked her personally if Gemma was available. Sal, she thought, had better get his shit together.

  Not that Sal wasn’t a busy man. Trina knew firsthand that all of the Gabrinis were workaholics in the extreme. But when most of the Gabrini men were realizing their neglect and trying to rein it in, Sal was still out there big time. His other life, as a major mob figure, made his schedule more unpredictable. She understood that too. But Gemma deserved better!

  “Can I ask you a personal question?” Trina asked Gemma.

  Gemma was strolling down the inventory spreadsheet. “When have you ever not asked me personal questions?”

  “I’m always dealing with rumors about Reno cheating on me,” Trina said, “so I’m asking as somebody who knows what it’s like to face those issues, okay? But do you ever wonder if Sal’s out there cheating on you, Gem?”

  Gemma continued to stroll down the inventory lists. “I’ll know if he’s cheating,” she said.

  “You’ll know?” Trina asked doubtfully. “How will you know, Gemma?”

  “By the amount of times he’s jumping my bones,” Gemma said. “That’s how.”

  Trina frowned. “Oh, I forgot. He’s a Gabrini. He may want some before he can put his suit case down good.”

  “There’s no may in it!” Gemma made clear. “If Sal doesn’t come home from an out-of-town trip without insisting on multiple sessions with me, I’ll know his ass is cheating. I’ll know it like I know the back of my hand.”

  Trina laughed. “Just because he doesn’t pound on you until you’re too sore to walk? That’s how you’ll know?”

  “That’s how I’ll know,” said Gemma. “I know Sal’s routine. And he’s a creature of habit if he’s anything at all.”

  “But if he doesn’t pound you to the ground, that’s a good thing, too, right? At least your tired ass will get some rest.”

  “No, I won’t. I’d be up all night worried that he’s up to something. Th
at he’d been out there cheating. You remember Blanche Delilah and that house in Chicago. I pay attention.”

  Trina laughed. “That man can’t win with Gemma on the case,” she said.

  “No, he can’t,” Gemma said with a smile, and they high-fived each other.

  But when all laughs had died out and they were both looking seriously at a few discrepancies in the spreadsheet totals, Gemma’s heart was feeling some kind of way. If she had been gone a week and hadn’t bothered to phone Sal, he’d be hopping his plane to cuss her ass out and find out what’s her problem. But he was doing it himself a lot lately. A lot!

  But then again, she thought, his business trips and the type of dangerous business he often had to take care of were nothing like her business trips. Which made her began to worry about his absence even more, but for a very different reason.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Sal Gabrini, in his double-breasted suit and sunglasses, was the only thing moving in that warehouse. Not because it was empty. There were four other men in that room. But Sal was the only one pacing the floor, walking back and forth with his Italian shoes hitting that wooden floor so hard it sounded as if he was hammering it, because he was the one who had to decide. Bumper Collins had made the mistake of his life and killed two of their own men in a gun battle that should never have taken place in the first place, and now Bumper’s life, and the life of the two other men who had been with him, was on the line. Sal and his top four lieutenants were discussing it.

  “It was an error in judgment,” said Pauley. “Point blank period.” He, along with the three other capos, were sitting down. Sal was the only one still standing. “He got in that fight with somebody he shouldn’t have gotten in a fight with, and he pulled our guys into his own personal battle.”

  “He had no business pulling anybody into anything,” Robby Yale said. Robby was Sal’s second-in-command. He was as angry as Sal was. “That wasn’t his call to make. He should have notified you or Pee Wee or Scrubs, or even me, and let us handle that shit. But no. Not Bump. He’s gonna handle it. He’s gonna ask our guys to have his back. Now two of our guys are dead because of his bullshit, and two others are facing the same extinction he’s facing.”