Gemma's Daughter Page 10

  “They just found her in her cell. Dead,” he said.

  Everybody was floored. Gemma stood up too. “Dead?” she asked.

  Robby nodded. “They just found her in her cell, yes, ma’am.”

  “But how?” Gemma asked.

  “They’re claiming it was suicide. At least that’s what the official version is.”

  “And your version?” asked Cassie.

  “Somebody offed her,” said Robby. “Most definitely.”

  “But who would do such a thing?” asked Gemma.

  Sal and Robby glanced at each other, but that wasn’t a conversation they were willing to have in mixed company.

  But Gemma looked at her mother. She could see the relief in her eyes. Her part in that scandal might just be buried with Sylvia Pendle. Which gave her a powerful motive. But Gemma quickly dismissed such a thought. Her mother was a capable woman, but she wasn’t capable of that.

  Besides, Gemma was relieved that her mother would not be implicated too. She did the wrong thing. But her heart was in the right place. And she was still Gemma’s beloved mother.

  “We’d better go,” said Rodney as he placed his hand on his wife’s lower back. “We’ll call you, Gemma. And let Lucky know we’ll be calling him too.”

  “Okay,” was the best Gemma could muster to say. She was pleased that her mother might have dodged a bullet. But their relationship mending was going to take time. A lot of time.

  “See you around, Robby,” Rodney said. “Bye Sal.”

  Robby and Sal said their goodbyes too. But as Cassie was walking past Sal, he took her by the arm and stopped her progression. “For the record,” he said, “if any of this Sylvia Pendle shit blows back, I’ll do all I can to keep your name out of it.”

  Cassie and Rodney both looked at Sal. He was a man they highly respected, and had grown to love. “Thank you,” Cassie said heartfelt. She knew Sal would have done the same thing she had done for his child, had he been placed in that position. He understood her. “Thank you,” she said again, and squeezed his arm. And then she and Rodney left.

  That meeting didn’t go so well for Marie, but everything else went off without a hitch. She and Gemma continued to be inseparable, and Sal continued to monitor their progress. Until one day, they seemed to be having so much fun that he decided to join them too.

  He walked up in the middle of a conversation.

  “What’s surprising?” he asked near the end of the fourth week when he walked downstairs and across the courtyard to the bench by the waterfall just as Gemma and Marie had taken a seat.

  Marie smiled when they heard his voice and they both turned and looked at him. Sal was still Marie’s favorite in her new life, although Gemma was running a close second. But Sal was the man who had risked his life rescuing her. Without his heroics, in her view, there would be no new life for her, or the discovery of her birth mother. That fact would always give him the inside track to her heart. “Hey, Mr. Sal,” she said cheerfully.

  “Hey, baby, what’s up?”

  “We’re just talking,” said Marie.

  “I heard you. What’s surprising?”

  “She said it’s surprising that Marco didn’t strike back,” Gemma said as Sal sat beside Marie, effectively placing Marie in between her mother and stepfather. Just as Sal was happy that Gemma and her daughter were getting along, Gemma was happy that Sal and Marie had so easily taken to each other too. It was required if they were going to make their family unit work. None of them wanted to deal with any turf drama.

  “Are you upset that he hasn’t come for you with both barrels blazing?” Sal asked her.

  “Upset? No way,” said Marie with a smile. “I am appreciative that he hasn’t come for me. I hope he stays exactly where he is.”

  “What were you up to, babe?” Gemma asked Sal.

  “Just hanging around,” said Sal.

  “You and me not working?” Gemma said with a smile. “This can’t last forever.”

  “For you it can,” Sal said with a laugh. “I pay all the bills around here. Your ass don’t ever have to go back to work.”

  “I know,” said Gemma. “But I didn’t struggle and get that law degree to put it on a shelf. That ain’t happening,” she said to laughter from Marie and Sal. “Besides,” she added, “I’ve got too many clients that hired me because they figured I could help them out. I’ve been neglecting every one of them. The attorneys in my firm have picked up the slack, but they weren’t the ones hired. I was. Eventually, I’ll have to go back to the office and get on with it.”

  “What about you, Marie?” Sal asked her. “What’s your game plan?”

  “Everybody’s offered me work,” Marie said. “Uncle Reno and Aunt Trina. Uncle Tommy, too, in his Vegas office. He said I’d be working directly under Uncle Reno’s son Jimmy Gabrini, which he says is like the vice-president or something big like that in his Vegas office. Even Mom said I can come and work for her at her law firm, although I have no idea what I’d be doing there.”

  Gemma laughed.

  “But I appreciate the gesture,” Marie said.

  Sal would have loved to have Marie come work for him at Gabrini Enterprises, LLC, but his company was more a front company for his crime syndicate businesses, and he wasn’t about to get her caught up in that madness. Marco was going to be the last illegal craziness she experienced in this life if he could help it. And he believed he could. “Have you decided which one of those offers interest you the most?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Marie. “I start working for Uncle Reno on Monday.”

  Reno, Sal thought. Figures! “Why Uncle Reno?” Sal asked.

  “Because,” Marie said with a grand smile, “he owns the PaLargio! That’s the most beautiful hotel and casino in all of Vegas. Maybe even all of the world.”

  “Yeah, working in a casino is sexy to you young ladies, I’m sure,” said Sal. “But it can also be a hotbed too. What are you supposed to be doing on this job?”

  “He says he’s going to train me as a pit boss eventually. He thinks I have it in me.”

  “A pit boss?” Sal asked. “Is Reno nuts? You aren’t doing that kind of shit. Reno knows I wouldn’t approve of you doing that kind of shit.”

  Marie grinned. “Ma said you would react exactly like that!”

  “Listen to your mother,” said Sal. “Nobody knows me better.”

  “I already told Reno that’s a no-go,” said Gemma. “I got together with Trina and we decided she’ll be better served working on the hotel side of things.”

  “But in the Talent department, Mr. Sal,” Marie said happily. “I’ll eventually work my way up to where I’ll be assisting the singers and dancers and people like that whenever they perform at the PaLargio. That’s sexy too,” she added.

  Sal smiled. She still had that seductress side deep within her that he picked up on when he first saw her. Being the girlfriend of a man like Cardoza undoubtedly required it. But that particular skill was no longer needed in her new life. Sal was going to see to that.

  Because, he was beginning to realize, Marie was the daughter he may have always wanted too.

  And on Monday, nearly a month after her rescue from the clutches of Marco Cardoza, it was official: she went to work at the PaLargio for Reno. And Gemma and Sal got back to their offices and workloads too.

  It was supposed to be their return to normalcy.

  It became everything but.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  At Gemma’s law office on that Monday morning, Curtis Kane came down the stairs with a stack of files in his arms. “This is ridiculous,” he said as he headed for his desk.

  “What’s ridiculous?” asked Ed Dowdell, Gemma’s new paralegal.

  “All of this,” Curtis said as he plopped the stack on his desk. “I’m just one person. How am I supposed to file all of these cases, and pull out what they call, quote-unquote ‘relevant materials?’ What’s that supposed to be anyway?”

  “Look at my stack,” Ed
said. “It’s as if Mrs. Gabrini returned to work with a vengeance. She’s got all these new, some would say far-reaching ideas.”

  “Such as?” Curtis asked.

  “She wants every file referenced and cross-referenced regarding the recidivism rate of our clients who were found not guilty thanks to our representation.”

  “Why in the world would she want to know that?”

  “One of our attorneys heard through the grapevine that the DA’s office is launching a smear campaign against this law firm.”

  “Why would they do that?” Curtis asked.

  “They’re so afraid she may run for DA again. They’re trying to make sure she’s maligned on every hand.”

  “That’s a shame. A crying shame. But what are they trying to claim?”

  “That her law firm is representing a lot of super-guilty people and those same people are turning around and committing other crimes. Which is a bald-face lie. But Mrs. Gabrini wants facts and figures to back up her response to those jerks.”

  “That’s what I like about Gemma Jones,” Curtis said. “She don’t take no mess.”

  “I know that’s right,” agreed Ed.

  “But speaking of backing up,” said Curtis with a sly smile. “I bet you’ve thought about backing her up into one of these offices up in here.”

  Ed laughed.

  “Well?” asked Curtis.

  “I’m not gonna lie,” said Ed. “I thought about it. It did cross my mind.”

  “But?”

  “But then I thought about her husband, and I changed my mind real fast.”

  Curtis laughed.

  “Because that husband of hers? No, sir. He don’t take no mess either!”

  They both laughed and got back to their respective stacks of folders to review. But just as they did, they suddenly felt the ground beneath them shift in a seismic shift as the front picture window suddenly blew inward and shattered into pieces, shocking them. And then the entire building seemed to buckle around them.

  And before either man could say a word, Ed was thrown to one side of the room as if he had been picked up and tossed, while Curtis was thrown to the other side of the room, his back slamming against the crumbling wall and sliding down.

  But from the outside looking it, it was even more dire. Onlookers stood in shock as the third floor caved into the second floor, and the second floor caved into the first floor. They could hear the horrific screams of the attorneys and support staff inside. They could see with horror themselves as the entire building that housed the not-all-that-long-ago newly renovated Jones-Gabrini law firm, violently implode.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “Don’t give me that bullshit,” Sal said as he leaned back in his swivel chair behind his desk and squeezed the stress ball he held in his hand. He was in his office at Gabrini Enterprises, LLC, and was on his desk phone with yet another supplier playing con games with his supplies. The television set on his wall was on a local channel, and two of his assistants were standing in front of his desk after giving him the bad news: another shipment shortfall.

  “It’s not like that, Sal,” the voice on the other end of the phone was saying. “I’m telling you that can’t be right. I personally checked that shipment myself. It added up.”

  “And I’m telling you that’s bullshit. It didn’t add up. I paid for two thousand. I received thirteen hundred. Don’t tell me that adds up. I may not know math, but I know that math!”

  “Then it has to be on your end.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Maybe some of your guys are keeping a cut for themselves.”

  “Bullshit!” Sal yelled. “Your ass knows better than that! I have cameras all over that shit. Nobody steals from me even if they wanted to. Now come up with my merchandise, Frankie, or that’s the end of our partnership. And you know I’m not fucking around!” he added, and then ended the call.

  “Blaming us,” said one of Sal’s assistants. “Typical wop.”

  “Watch your tongue,” said Sal. “I’m a wop too.” Then he saw Breaking News on the television screen. And then he saw what looked like Gemma’s law firm. He dropped the ball.

  “What the fuck is going on?” Sal asked as he stood on his feet and grabbed the remote, staring at the screen. His assistants, seeing his shock, looked too.

  When he pressed the remote’s button, the reporter’s voice could barely be heard. “The Jones-Gabrini law firm has been bombed,” the reporter said as the sound of sirens almost drowned out his voice.

  Sal’s heart fell through his shoe and he immediately pulled out his cell phone.

  “We have crews at the scene already, and folks it’s a horrific scene. To say that there are fatalities will be an understatement. There’s definitely fatalities.”

  “That’s Mrs. Gabrini’s office?” one of the assistants was asking as Sal was hurrying from behind his desk and running toward the exit.

  “Call my brother!” he yelled as he ran. “Call Reno!”

  His call to Gemma gave him no joy, as all he got was her voice mail. As he ran into the hall and into the stairwell (he had no patience to wait on the elevator), he was calling her security detail. But all he was getting were rings and rings. Nobody was picking up!

  Sal was running down those stairs two, sometimes three at a time. He couldn’t get down them fast enough. And when he made it out of the stairwell, and some of his employees were trying to tell him that they just saw on the news that his wife’s law office had been bombed, he didn’t even give them a glance. He ran out of the lobby, out of his office building, and hopped into his Bugatti. It was built for speed, and he utilized every cylinder. He needed Gemma. All he could think about was Gemma! This was her first day back in the office. Her very first day back to work in a month. And bullshit like that happened?

  He flew out of that parking lot so fast that two different cars had to slam on brakes to avoid a certain collision. And Sal didn’t bother to look back.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “This is nice.”

  Marie was in Trina Gabrini’s office at the PaLargio, and she was impressed. “This is what I call an office.”

  “If you think this is a big deal,” Trina said, “you ain’t seen nothing yet, girl. When you see your stepfather’s office, or even my husband’s office, you’ll see what I mean.”

  Marie smiled. She was seated in front of Trina’s desk. Trina stared at her. “How are you coping?” she asked her.

  Marie nodded. “Good.”

  “I know Gemma’s over the moon happy to have you in her life.”

  Marie smiled. “I could not have hoped for a better mother if I would have dreamed her up myself. I feel so grateful.”

  “And a stepfather?” Trina asked. “What about your relationship with Sal?”

  “Oh, he’s been wonderful. He set me straight when he has to, don’t get me wrong. He doesn’t pull his punches just like Mom doesn’t, either. But he’s been great too.”

  Trina smiled. “Good. I know they’re glad to have you. Now let’s talk about what you will be doing in the Talent Department, and what you won’t be doing yet.”

  But before Trina could list any duties, her office door flew open, and Jimmy Gabrini, her stepson, hurried in. “Ma, did Dad call you?”

  Trina frowned. “Call me about what?”

  “Aunt Gemma. Somebody bombed her law firm!”

  Marie and Trina jumped up at the same time. “They bombed it?” Trina asked in shock.

  “Is she okay?” Marie asked anxiously. “Is my mom okay?”

  Jimmy realized who she was when he looked her way, but he was too confused to respond.

  “What do we know?” Trina asked her stepson as she hurried from behind her desk.

  “Nothing yet,” said Jimmy. “Pop’s on his way there now.

  “Round up the kids,” Trina ordered. The kids were usually the youngest Gabrinis: Carmine, Lucky, and Jimmy’s own daughter Madison.

  “And
tell Dommi to get over to Sophie’s school and bring her in too. She could be at risk for all we know. That’s why I want him bringing her in, not her security detail. I want Dommi handling it. I want everybody on lock down!”

  “Yes, ma’am!” Jimmy said urgently, and was pulling out his cell phone and running out of the office, too, but in the opposite direction from where Trina and Marie were running.

  But Trina suddenly realized what was wrong with that picture, and turned around. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “That’s my mother,” Marie said. “I have to go!”

  Trina looked at Marie. That was no fake emotion she was showing right there. “Come on,” she said as both ladies ran for the elevator, their heels stepping down in clangs so loud they sounded like a two-lady army.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Sal was opening the door of his Bugatti Chiron before it came to a stop at the chaotic scene. He jumped out and ran to the building he no longer recognized. Police cars were everywhere. Fire trucks were everywhere. Ambulances were everywhere. And onlookers were cordoned off across the street with an excitement in the air that could rival a red carpet event. But Sal couldn’t take his eyes off of that building. It had collapsed. It looked as if it was straight out of a picture from an old war-torn Beirut. And his wife was in that building? He could hardly believe it.

  And although the cops were keeping all onlookers back, Sal would not be denied. He had to find Gemma. She wasn’t answering her cell phone. Her security team wasn’t answering their phones either. It was as if, when the explosion occurred, they all ran inside to help Gemma, only to find themselves trapped too.

  Reno and Tommy, who was in town to check on his Vegas office, arrived on scene together, just after Sal had arrived, and they were able to run over to Sal as soon as they jumped out of the car. Reno stopped in amazement, when he saw that building, but Tommy didn’t break his stride. He knew his brother. He knew his brother would run into a burning building if he thought Gemma was inside. Reno, realizing he was gawking instead of running, knew Sal just as well as Tommy did. He got in a hurry too.