Sal Gabrini: Love And War Read online

  “Get to the point,” Sal said. “Make it plain.”

  “We’re falling apart,” Frank said. “Is that plain enough for you? Every crew is doing their own thing and the capos, the crew chiefs, don’t give a fuck anymore. They’re letting them get away with murder! That’s why that shit went down in the first place. Horseface Hines let his boys retaliate over some bullshit poker game, and they took out the Bonaduce kid. Now all of the Bonaduces are coming after us. And they’re stupid enough to start at the top.”

  Frank moved to the edge of his seat. “I’m looking you dead in your baby blues,” he said. “We need your leadership, Sal Luca. We’re making all kinds of mistakes. And the blowback always blows back on you. And, I hate to say it, your wife and baby now, too. That’s why those fools came after you at that car dealership.”

  Even Robby could feel the impact of what Frank had just said. Vinnie felt it too. But Sal was holding his cards close to his chest. Nobody knew how he was taking it.

  But then word came that they had found the remaining Bonaduces, and along with Horseface Hines, the crew chief, were all being escorted to Vegas.

  For Sal, nothing else mattered at that moment, but sweet revenge.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Horseface Hines expected Robby Yale to show up. He always seemed to show up lately when shit went down. He even expected maybe Fat Frank and Vinnie might pay them a visit. But he never, not ever, expected the Boss himself to come. Even when they told him, he didn’t believe it.

  “Quit fucking with me,” he said to the two guys guarding him and the Bonaduces. “You know damn well Boss not handling this!”

  “So, my eyes lying?” one of the guards asked. “Is that what you’re telling me? I’m standing here at the window seeing what I’m seeing, but you’re telling me I’m not seeing it?”

  Horse, who had been at a table playing solitaire with a deck of cards, stared at the guard to make sure it wasn’t some sick joke. But when the guard didn’t crack a smile, his heart began to pound. He dropped the card he was about to play and hurried to the window. When he saw Robby as he had expected, and Fat Frank and Vinnie, he felt vindicated. But when he saw Salvatore Luciano Gabrini step out of that car too, his heart started hammering.

  The guard he stood next to looked at him. They were compatriots in a way: foot soldiers in Sal Gabrini’s army. He could only imagine what he was going through. “Boss is a fair man,” he said to reassure him. “He won’t fuck with you too badly.”

  “What’s he going to fuck with me about? What’s this about? I didn’t do nothing wrong!”

  “They don’t tell us to guard one of our own for nothing,” the other guard said. “Your ass did something.”

  Both guards laughed.

  “Very funny,” Horse responded. “See me after this, alright? See who’ll be laughing then.”

  “What you jumping on us for?” the guard next to him asked. “You put your ass in the Sal Gabrini meat grinder, not us. You did that! And now you want to play innocent? Give me a fucking break!”

  And when the door to the safe house opened, and Sal and his lieutenants walked in, that was exactly how Horse felt: like meat in a grinder. Like steak on a plate. Like a very foolish man who forgot what level of ruthless man he was dealing for.

  With no other options, Horse decided to play up their long-term relationship. He still didn’t understand why he had to be called out. He just didn’t get it. “Sal Luca, how you doing? Long time, no see.”

  But Sal didn’t even look at Horse. His entire focus was on the Bonaduces. They sat on the sofa. Three young men in a row. All tall, all skinny, all filled with that kind of street hustle arrogance that made them certain they would beat this rap too. Sal’s aim, as he saw it, was to disabuse them of their certainty.

  Robby nodded to one of the guards, and the one next to Horse hurriedly placed a chair in front of the Bonaduces. Sal sat down. Robby stood beside him. Sal became a different man when he was in this role. He became the kind of man even Robby, who’d seen it all, wouldn’t want to fuck with.

  Sal leaned forward in his chair. It wasn’t lost on the Bonaduces that he was a man of good taste. His double-breasted Canali suit and Mantellassi shoes proved that. They stared at his Rolex and diamond ring. They had all that shit too. But for some reason he wore it better than they could have ever attempted to. He came off as a completely different dude face to face than they had expected. Who the fuck were they dealing with?

  Sal rested his elbows on his thighs, and clasped his hands beneath his chin. He was more than happy to show them who. “Do you boys know who I am?” he asked them.

  The youngest Bonaduce on the sofa was also, Sal had observed, the most arrogant. And, as Sal suspected, the first one to speak. “We know you. You’re Sal Gabrini. So what?”

  Everybody in the room was astonished by the young man’s bravado. Especially Horseface Hines. He saw the opening and took it. “So what?” He began walking toward the young Bonaduce. “You don’t say Sal Gabrini and so what in the same fucking sentence, you moron! Now apologize to Boss!” Horse hit the young man upside his head. “Apologize!”

  “Sorry,” the young man said rapidly and irritably. He said it more out of spite and fear than any remorse of any kind.

  “That’s better,” Horse said.

  But Sal didn’t give a damn. “Since you know who I am, or at least you claim you do,” he said, “I want you to tell it to me straight. Who gave the order to come after me and my family last night?”

  “My brudder,” the young man said, and the others in the room, all except Sal, laughed at his thick Jersey accent.

  “Which brother?” Sal asked.

  The older Bonaduce, who couldn’t be more than twenty-five himself, looked bitterly at Sal. “The one you clipped last night,” he said.

  Sal nodded. He’d been given similar intel from Robby. He looked at Horse. “Is this all of them?” he asked.

  Horse nodded. “Yes, sir. You took out the four oldest. They were the true leaders of the family. These three here are the also-rans, but they’re all that’s left.”

  To Horse’s anguish, Sal looked at Robby for confirmation. Robby nodded. “I double-checked,” he said. “One of the men you and Cab iced last night was the uncle, their true leader. There were seven brothers in all. The baby brother was already gone. You took out three more and the uncle. These three are all that’s left.”

  But Sal wasn’t so easily convinced. It was too convenient for his liking that their ringleader would have been on the kill run too. Usually the leader of a ragtag gang like the Bonaduces would be a coward in the long run, and would let his underlings handle every tough run.

  Sal rose to his feet and looked at the youngest brother, the one with the biggest mouth and swag. “Stand up,” he said to him.

  When the youngster hesitated, Horseface grabbed him by the shoulders and forced him to his feet.

  Sal stared him in the eyes. “Who gave the order to come after me and my family last night?” he asked again.

  “I told you my brudder,” the young Bonaduce said.

  Sal grabbed his left arm and then twisted it backwards and then up so hard and so fast that it broke. The young man screamed out in agony as the sound of the tear reverberated throughout the safe house. The young Bonaduce nearly fell to his knees. But Sal kept pulling on his arm.

  His brothers tried to stand up and help him, as they were as agonized by their kid brother’s pain as their kid brother was, but Sal’s men, including Robby, put guns to their heads. “Don’t even,” Robby warned.

  “Who ordered that hit on me and my family?” Sal asked the distressed young man again.

  The young man was bent over in pain. “My brudder,” he cried through the pain. “I told you my brudder!”

  Sal released the young man and he fell to the floor, still screaming in pain. But if he and his siblings thought that Sal had accepted what he said and that was the end of it, they were sadly mistaken.

 
Sal took his expensive shoe and slammed down on the very arm he had just broken, causing the young man to shriek in unbearable horror. His brothers were horrified too. “Who ordered that hit, motherfucker?” Sal yelled as he continued to slam his shoe down on that broken arm. “Who ordered that hit?”

  “Our old man!”

  Everybody looked. It wasn’t the youngest Bonaduce who yelled it out, but the oldest one there. He was in tears. “Our old man ordered it.”

  Sal was inwardly pleased. Now he was getting somewhere. He left the young Bonaduce’s side and walked over to his older brother. “Stand up,” he ordered him.

  The older Bonaduce, unlike his younger brother, didn’t hesitate. Now that he saw Sal Gabrini in action for himself, he knew who they were dealing with.

  “Where is he?” Sal asked.

  The older Bonaduce felt like crap, ratting out his old man like that, but he couldn’t bear to see his kid brother in any more pain. “L.A.,” he said.

  “Where in L.A., motherfucker. That town is bigger than a state!”

  “On Monico Drive. He’s holed up at the Monico Arms apartments. You’ll find him there.”

  Sal stared at the older brother. And he believed him. But if the older brother thought that would give them a reprieve, at least until they found his old man, he was mistaken. Sal looked at Robby, and gave him a nod.

  Robby took his gun and handed it to Horseface Hines. He started this shit, he knew Sal was thinking. “Finish it,” he said to Horse.

  Horse didn’t hesitate. Finishing messy jobs was what he did. And he didn’t hesitate either. One by one he shot two of the three brothers between the eyes. The kid brother first, to take him out of his misery, and then the other one. But with the oldest brother, the one who ratted out his old man, he shot him in the mouth. But the result was the same. All three Bonaduce brothers were dead. Everybody who came after Sal and his family, except for the mastermind, were gone. Sal wouldn’t stop until he found the mastermind. But at least he took care of the muscle.

  When the smoke cleared, and all three were declared dead by one of the guards, Sal walked over to Horseface. “You’re a good soldier,” he said to Horse. Then he took Robby’s gun away from him. “Which makes it a shame to do what I have to do here today.”

  Horse began shaking his head. “What did I do, Boss? What did I do?!”

  Robby, terrified by what Sal was looking to do, jumped to Horse’s defense. “He made a mistake, Boss,” he said.

  Sal looked at Robby. “A mistake?”

  “It was just a stupid mistake.”

  “That stupid mistake almost cost my wife and my child their lives. When a mistake becomes that deadly, that’s when the shit starts rolling downhill. That’s why you don’t start shit! That’s why,” Sal said, aiming the gun at Horse, “you don’t start shit that affects me. That’s why you don’t even think about starting shit that affects my family. You did both.”

  And Sal didn’t hesitate a moment longer. He fired successive shots. Horse fell to his knees. “Motherfucker,” Sal added bitterly, as Horse dropped dead.

  Robby was distraught that it had turned so sideways. But he knew he had to keep it together. He took the gun from Sal, and ordered the guards to clean up the mess. The big three: Sal, Fat Frank, and Vinnie Vazzano, left the safe house. They left feeling as if it was a job that had to be done. Robby was thinking that this was some fucked up business.

  When the door closed, the two guards were still staring at Horse, instead of getting to work. They thought Sal would punish Horse, but they never thought to this extent. But they also knew it was a message Sal wanted them to hear loud and clear. They knew Sal wanted to make it clear that they were never to do anything that would bring blowback to his family. That, they would tell everybody in the organization who didn’t already know, was unforgivable in Sal’s eyes and would be punished unforgivably.

  Robby frowned. “What are you staring at?” he yelled. “Didn’t I tell you shitheads to clean it up? Clean it up!”

  They broke their trance, and got to work.

  CHAPTER SIX

  After getting out of the shower and removing her shower cap, Gemma grabbed the towel and began drying off as she made her way to her lingerie drawer. Sal walked into their bedroom just as she was opening the drawer. She turned around. When she saw who it was, she turned back around. “About time you made it home,” she said. “You haven’t forgotten, have you?”

  “I didn’t forget,” Sal said as he closed the bedroom’s double doors. What caught his attention wasn’t what his wife was saying, but what she was wearing: nothing. From his vantage point, the towel was in front of her, as she was drying off her front, but her back, specifically her tight ass, was completely naked. And Sal’s penis, dormant as hell after such a long day, immediately began to throb.

  “Trina already phoned and told me they were going to be on time,” Gemma said, “so it’s not like we have forever. And the reservations are for seven.”

  She turned around, to make sure he heard her. When she saw that he had already removed his suit coat, and his tie, and was removing his shirt, she felt better. She turned back around. “How was your day?” she asked him.

  “Nasty,” he said, as he continued to undress.

  Gemma hesitated. He wasn’t usually descriptive like that with her. She glanced back. “You okay?” she asked.

  “I’m good,” Sal lied. But he just didn’t want to discuss his day.

  Gemma turned back around and placed the towel across her shoulder. She was now trying to decide which panty-bra combo she wanted to wear as she dried off her back.

  Sal, now naked and with an erection that was only swelling with every passing second, began walking over to his wife. Gemma didn’t realize what he was up to until he was upon her and she could feel his fully aroused penis jut against her ass. When he began tracing kisses down the side of her neck, she smiled, and lifted her neck to give him better access.

  “I thought we agreed we would be on time for once,” she said.

  “Do I want to be on time,” he asked as he kissed her, “or do I want to be on you?”

  Gemma’s eyes became heavy-lidded at the thought of Sal’s big, naked body on top of her. And she smiled again. “Being on time is nice,” she said as he began turning her around. They were now face to face, and Sal’s eyes were even more heavy-lidded than Gemma’s. “But there’s no comparison,” she added.

  Sal smiled, but just long enough to capture her mouth with his.

  He held her and kissed her for a wondrously long time. But the longer he kissed her, the more desperate for her he became. And then there was no comparison for him either.

  He squeezed and sucked her breasts, as he moved from her breasts back to her mouth, back to her breasts. And then he lifted her up onto the top of her lingerie chest, opened her legs, and began to eat her with a ferociousness that left her dazed. She placed her feet on his shoulders and leaned her body back as far as the wall would allow her to go, as he went down on her so hard that it was joyous and painful all at once. Until it was just overwhelmingly joyous. Until she was holding onto his hair and moving his head up and down as his tongue devoured her.

  Sal’s finger was flicking Gemma’s clitoris as his tongue slid inside of her folds and licked her and sucked her with an urgency he couldn’t explain. But he wanted Gemma desperately, and was holding nothing back. He hungrily ate her, as her stomach muscles pushed in and out with every elevated sensuality. She was going to have an orgasm from that alone. Until he lifted her in his arms, tossed her onto their bed, and rammed him penis into her with such force that it tore through her tightness and didn’t stop, despite her screams of joy, until it was as far in as it could go. And then he started stroking.

  Gemma loved the way Sal did her. She loved the way he kept it nice and slow, even as she could feel his heartbeat hammering to pound her. She knew that would come, but only when he couldn’t control himself anymore. But right now, he was steady. He was sl
ow. He was hitting every one of her spots with the kind of precision only Sal had ever been able to accomplish.

  And then it was too much. Gemma couldn’t hold back any longer. Her orgasm came like rushing water coming ashore and she bucked and took it and enjoyed every second of it. Because she knew, it was only the beginning. And she was right. Within seconds of her orgasm, Sal began to pound.

  Gemma had gotten off. That was always his first goal. Make sure his wife got hers. But now, as he thrashed into her with a need so strong that even he couldn’t describe it, it was time for him to get his. And he got his. He was pouring into her within minutes of her cum, and his entire body leaned forward and took it.

  He looked at her with a look that was part anguish, part joy, and all parts love. He loved her. His eyes stared into her eyes as he came. As he, in his mind, demonstrated his love.

  He continued to fuck her as he came. He continued to lean down and suck her breasts as he came. And when he had completed his release, and was holding onto her for dear life, she rubbed his silky hair and smiled. “It’s time’s time now,” she said.

  At first Sal didn’t understand what she meant. Then he got it and smiled too. He laughed. That was his Gemma! With a sense of humor all her own.

  He stood up and allowed his long dick, that was still deep inside of her, to travel the long way out of her. Gemma always felt as if she was going to cum again whenever he moved along her ridges to get out. But she also knew she had a responsibility. She also knew she had to clean up and get ready or they would be as late as late could be.

  But Sal, always her gentleman, carried her into their bathroom, sat her on the vanity, and cleaned her up himself. She knew it wasn’t a good idea when he first began carrying her, and as he wiped her clean, she was certain it wasn’t. Because before she knew it, Sal had stopped wiping her with the cloth, and was hand-wiping her. And then he was flicking her clit again. And then his head was between her legs, and he was eating her again.