Sal Gabrini: His House of Cards (3 page)

“He’s a very
bitter man, Sal Luca,” Nunzio warned.
 
“You know how he is.”

Sal
nodded.
 
“I know how he is.”

“Then why
are you bothering with a guy like that?
 
You’re a big shot.
 
He’s nobody!”

“He used to
be one of my crew,” Sal said.
 
“And now
he’s running his mouth. I have to deal with that.”

“He’s a
loser and a cheat.
 
He doesn’t deserve to
be in the same room with a man like you.
 
He went against everything you stand for that night.
 
Killing that man in cold blood, then lying
about it even to you.
 
If I were you I’d
tell him to go fuck himself.”

Sal looked
at Nunzio.
 
He used to be in Sal’s crew
too, and Sal knew he meant well.
 
But
right was right in Sal’s eyes.
 
“He’s one
of my men,” he said as if that said it all.
 
Then he got up, and headed toward the private room in the back of the
club.

Nunzio
hesitated, he wanted no parts of this, but he got up and followed Sal
anyway.
 
Mainly as muscle.
 
Mainly to ensure that that fool waiting back
there didn’t turn his beloved club into the place where Sal Gabrini got
iced.
 
Because Nunzio knew what that
would mean.
 
He knew the full force of
the Gabrini power machine would come down on him like a ton of bricks for
allowing it to happen.
 
He’d have to deal
with Reno Gabrini power.
 
He’d have to
deal with Tommy Gabrini power.
 
He’d have
to deal with all of those wise guy mobster-types with sworn allegiance to
Sal.
 
No club owner could survive that
kind of heat.

When they
entered the private room, Freddy Credo was sitting on the edge of a table.
 
He was a big, bulky Italian made bulkier from
his years in the joint.
 
Sal noticed the
change right away.

Sal walked
up to him.
 
Freddy stood up and they half
hugged/half shook hands.
 
“Welcome back,”
Sal said.
 
“It’s been a long time.”

“Nine
years,” Freddy said.
 
“Nine long
years.
 
Man can go crazy locked up that
long.
 
You know how it is inside.
 
But then again, you don’t know, do you,
boss?
 
Because you’ve never been
inside.
 
Because, when it’s you, you
always find a way to weasel out of it.”

“Watch your
language, Freddy,” Nunzio warned.
 
“That’s Sal Luca you’re talking to.”

“I know who
the fuck I’m talking to,” Freddy fired back, but he was still staring at
Sal.
 
“I’m talking to the man who was supposed
to look out for me.”

Sal
frowned.
 
“What are you talking?”

“You sold me
out, Sal.
 
You was supposed to look out
for me and you didn’t.”

“I paid for
you one of the best lawyers in this country.
 
I paid for an investigation team.
 
I did everything I could do to keep you out of the joint.
 
But make no mistake about it, Fredrick.
 
Your ass iced that man.
 
You did that.
 
You fucked that up all by yourself.
 
You wasn’t on any assignment of mine when that shit went down.
 
Don’t you forget that.”

“You had the
power,” Freddy responded, as if Sal had said nothing.
 
“You’ve got the power, Sal Luca.
 
You could have protected me.
 
You could have kept me out of there, I know
you could have.
 
But you didn’t even
try!”

“You killed
a man with five motherfucking children!” Sal fired back.
 
“You killed an innocent man who didn’t do
shit to you.
 
You can’t just go around
offing innocent people and expect no punishment.
 
If it wasn’t for that lawyer it would have
been over for you.
 
You’d better be glad
they didn’t give your ass Life!”

“They
wouldn’t have given me anything if you would have fought harder for me!
 
I know where the bodies are buried, Sal
Luca.
 
Don’t you forget that!
 
You owe me and you owe me big.
 
I could have gone to the Feds on your ass if
I wanted to.
 
And if you don’t look out
for me now the way you should have before I went to prison, who’s to say I
won’t sing my head off?”

Nunzio
couldn’t believe it.
 
Did this fool
realize what he had just done?
 
He’d just
signed his own death warrant.
 
But Sal
didn’t make a move.
 
He just stared at
him.
 
He just let him dig his own grave.

And Freddy
continued to dig.
 
“If you would have
looked out for me,” he said, “we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
 
But you let me rot in that cell and forgot I
existed.
 
But I know shit, Sal Luca.
 
I know a lot of shit.
 
Take that wife of yours, for instance.”

Nunzio was
beyond stunned.
 
That fool has lost his
mind, he thought.
 
Nunzio looked at
Sal.
 
Sal’s heart was beating so fast he
could barely contain his fury.
 
“What did
you say?” Sal asked Freddy.

“I hear you
got married while I was away,” Freddy responded.
 
“I hear she’s this hot black chick.
 
I hear you’ll cut off your dick for her.
 
Well guess what?
 
If you don’t do me right I’m going to cut out
her pussy for you.”

Sal grabbed
Freddy, lifted him up by the catch of his coat, and began slinging him around
that room as if he was a piñata.
 
“You’re
threatening me?” Sal asked with clenched teeth. “You’re threatening to harm
my
wife?
 
You’re threatening me?”

Freddy felt
as if a hurricane had just rained down on him.
 
He expected blow back.
 
He
expected anger.
 
But nothing like
this!
 
He tried to fight back.
 
He tried to get out of Sal’s grasp.
 
He had been counting on Sal’s honor.
 
Sal would never harm a man who used to be in
his crew.
 
Everybody knew that.
 
But now he wondered if he had severely
misjudged.

“Just give
me what I want then I keep my trap shut,” Freddy said boldly.
 
“You don’t have to worry.
 
That’s all I’m saying, Sal Luca!
 
But if you don’t give me what I want then you
got a lot of worry.”

“You fool!”
Nunzio yelled as Sal began punching Freddy in the face so hard that his licks
sounded like belt whips in the room.
 
Blood began pouring from Freddy’s nose, from his mouth, and his eyes
were swelling.
 
And he tried to fight
back.
 
He tried to hit Sal’s muscular
arms, to ease his blows, but Sal’s muscles felt like steel.
 
He was hurting his own fists hitting Sal.

Then Sal
grabbed him again, and slung him until his back was against the wall.
 
He held him up by the catch of his coat.
 
“Threatening
my
wife?” Sal asked again.
 
“You’re threatening me?”

Then Sal
looked at the bar owner.
 
“Give me
something, Nunz,” he said, breathing heavily, and Nunzio headed for a safe in
the room.
 
“Give me something before I
don’t care who hears this motherfucker take his last breath!”

Freddy’s
eyes grew even larger because he knew what Sal meant.
 
And now his arrogance and sense of
entitlement turned to pure fright.
 
He
began to fight to get away from Sal.
 
He
began to beg for his life.
 
“You’re
misunderstanding what I’m saying, Sal Luca,” he pleaded.
 
“You know me.
 
You know I would never do anything to your wife.
 
You know I would never do anything like
that!”

Nunzio
pulled a revolver from his safe.
 
Then he
grabbed a silencer and began putting it on the gun.
 
He tossed it to Sal.

“You have to
believe me,” Freddy continued pleading as he looked at that gun.
 
“You’ve got to hear me out, Sal.
 
You know I didn’t mean it like that!
 
You know that!”

“Your ass
threatened my wife,” Sal said.
 
“Your ass
threatened to bring me down.
 
That’s all
I need to know.”

“But I was
just talking,” Freddy implored.
 
“I was
just talking!
 
If I was gonna snitch on
you I would have done it when I was inside.
 
I don’t even know what your wife looks like.
 
I was just talking, Sal Luca.
 
I was just talking.
 
I need your help!”

“Then I’m
about to help you,” Sal responded as he kicked Freddy’s legs from beneath him
and then body-slammed him to the floor.
 
Freddy opened his mouth to continue to beg, but Sal put a knee on
Freddy’s chest and placed the revolver inside of his mouth.
  
“No motherfucker threatens to harm my wife,”
Sal said angrily, “and live to tell about it.
 
No motherfucker alive is going to have that kind of power over me.”

Freddy was
screaming but the revolver in his mouth was muting the sound.
 
Freddy was shaking his head as if Sal had it
all wrong.
 
He was kicking his feet and
pulling on Sal’s big arms as if he just knew this was one big misunderstanding
if only Sal would let him explain.
 
But
Sal understood perfectly.
 
Freddy’s big
mouth had just made him a huge liability.
 
He sealed his own fate.

Sal pulled
the trigger and shot Freddy Credo dead.

Sal stood
back up, angry that Freddy took him there.
  
“Motherfucker threatening my freedom?” Sal had pain in his voice.
 
“After all I did for his sorry ass, he’s
threatening
me
?”

Nunzio felt
Sal’s pain.
 
He’d never known a man who
gave so much of himself to his crew, even those like Freddy who didn’t deserve
it.
 
Freddy killed that innocent
man.
 
Any other boss would have left him
twisting in the wind.
 
But not Sal.
 
He got him a top lawyer.
 
He got him an investigator who tried to find
something that could clear him.
 
Sal even
attended that fool’s trial.
 
And this was
how he repaid him?
 
By threatening to go
to the Feds on him?
 
By threatening the
man’s wife?

“I told you
a guy like him doesn’t deserve your time of day,” Nunzio said.
 
“Didn’t I tell you?
 
You don’t owe him shit.”

Sal didn’t
need anybody to tell him that.
 
He
already knew that.
 
It was the gall of
Freddy that was still angering him.
 

“I’ll get
rid of him, Sal,” Nunzio said.
 
“You can
shove off.”

But Sal
didn’t leave loose ends for somebody not currently on his payroll to clean
up.
 
He got on his cell phone and called
his local guys to get over there.
 
And
they came when Sal Luca called.
 
They
were there in less than twenty minutes.
 

And then Sal
gave them the gun to lose and headed for the exit.
 
But not before glancing back at Freddy’s
lifeless body again.
 
He used to be one
of his best men.
 
But the way he blamed
Sal for shit that wasn’t even his fault, and to come at him like that.
 
One of his men threatening him like that?
 
Freddy made himself a sworn enemy.
 
He did that.

Sal buttoned
his suitcoat and left.
 
He did not look
back.

The Porsche
drove through the gates and up the circular driveway of the big, posh Gabrini
home.
 
Gemma grabbed her briefcase and
got out of her husband’s car exhausted from a day too long, and climbed the
wide steps to the front door.
 
But when
she opened the door, and saw that familiar set of luggage in the foyer, she got
her second wind.

She closed
the door, dropped her briefcase beside the luggage, and hurried up the
spiraling staircase of their big, beautiful home.
 
“Sal?” she yelled as she hurried up.

Sal was just
stepping out of the shower and grabbing a towel when he heard her voice.
 
He smiled.
 
He wasn’t due home for a couple more days, but he was home already.
 
After Freddy and all the shit he had to deal
with in Jersey, he needed to be around something good.
 
He couldn’t wait to see her pretty face
again.

Gemma
entered the bedroom, but was disappointed when she didn’t see him.
 
Had he dropped his luggage and left?
 
Had he gone to his office without even
calling and letting her know he was back in town?
 
He’d done it before.

But when she
looked toward the bathroom and saw Sal standing there, naked and wet and the
most beautiful man alive in her eyes, she smiled.
 
“Sal,” she said, as she went to him.
 
He gladly dropped his towel, and pulled her
into his arms.

Sal lifted
her up and kissed her.
 
He closed his
eyes.
 
“You make it worth it,” he said to
her, although she didn’t understand what he meant.
 
And he kissed her even harder.

When they
stopped kissing, he leaned back.
 
“Let me
look at you,” he said.

Gemma
smiled.
 
“You act as if you haven’t seen
me for ages.”

But Sal was
serious.
 
“That’s how it feels whenever
I’m away from you.
 
Like a lifetime.”

Gemma stared
into his big, blue eyes.
 
She could see
agony there.
 
“It wasn’t a good trip?”
she asked.

Sal shook
his head.
 
“No.”
 
Then he looked at her pretty face again and
smiled.
 
“That’s why I’m glad it’s over
and I’m glad to be back home with you.”
 
He sat her back on her feet.

“I didn’t
expect you back this soon at all,” she said.
 
“I’m happy, don’t get me wrong, but I never would have thought you’d be
back this soon.”

Sal pushed
his ever-hardening cock against her and continued to keep his arms around her
narrow waist.
 
“I’m full of surprises,
right?”

“I only wish
you would have been here in time for the meeting,” she said.

Sal
frowned.
 
“What meeting?”

Gemma stared
at her husband.
 
This was a problem.
 
Reno was right.
 
“The one at my office, Sal.
 
The one where we figure out how we’re going
to beat back Liz Mertan’s lawsuit.
 
She’s
suing me and Tree for revoking her partnership in Champagne’s.
 
Remember?”

“Oh, that,”
Sal said dismissively.
 
“I took care of
it.”

Gemma’s
expression was a combination of shock and befuddlement.
 
“You took care of it?
 
What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I took care
of it.
 
I met with rat-face Mertan, her
weak-ass husband, and their fat-faced attorney separately.
 
After I presented all the shit I had on all
three of them, all the affairs and shit like that, they got together and agreed
to drop the lawsuit and move the hell on.
 
I thought for sure your girl would have phoned and told you about it.”

But Gemma
was still amazed.
 
“When did all of this
happen?” she asked him.

“Just before
I left town.
 
I knew I wouldn’t be back
in time for any meeting, so I settled it.”

“But why
didn’t you let me know you took care of it, Salvatore?”
 
But what was she thinking?
 
Sal rarely phoned her.
 
He just didn’t.
 
But still.
 
“You could have phoned and told me,” she added.

“I did phone
and tell you.
 
I left a message on your
cell phone.”

“But I
didn’t get any. . .”
 
It was only then
did Gemma remember she had been in court this morning, had to turn off her cell
phone, and forgot to turn it back on after court.

“You forgot
to turn it back on,” Sal said.
 
“Didn’t you?”

Gemma
nodded.
 
She hated to admit it.
 
“I forgot,” she said.
 
But the fact that he had handled Liz Mertan
and her foolishness was the real story.
 
“But you took care of it, Sal?
 
Really?
 
I’m impressed.”

Sal pulled
her closer.
 
“What’s to be impressed
about?
 
I take care of you, Gem.
 
That’s what I do.
 
That woman wants to drag my wife in court on
some trumped up lawsuit and you think I’m going to just leave town and let you
figure it out?
 
Hell no.
 
I’m going to track down the people bothering
you and handle it before I leave town.
 
You know that.
 
When have I ever
left you hanging?”

Gemma smiled
a grand smile and threw herself back into his big, warm arms.
 
She knew she was right to stand by him.
 
Bump what Reno said.
 
“Never,” she declared.
 
“You have never left me hanging!”
 
And then she squeezed his tight, bare ass and
waited excitedly for him to squeeze hers.

She didn’t
have to wait long.
 
He was squeezing her
ass almost as she was squeezing his.
 
Only hers was covered in clothing.
 
That was not going to work.
 
He
began removing her clothes so fast that she was naked within seconds.
 
And then he just stood there, rubbing her
slender arms and taking and her all in.
 
She was lithe, and dark, and gorgeous.

“Ready to
take a ride, baby?” Sal asked her, looking down at her elegant frame.

Gemma could
feel her vagina tighten.
 
He didn’t have
to ask twice.
 
“I’m ready,” she
said.
 
“I’m always ready for you.”

Sal lifted
her into his arms and carried her to their bed.
 
Her breasts were his first target, and he was taking care of
business.
 
From one to the other one, and
back again, he was sucking them and squeezing them until she could feel the
pain.

Sal felt
nothing but pleasure.
 
Her nipples were
dark and so succulent that he started licking them and rubbing them.
 
Then he was squeezing her entire mounds again
as he sucked them.
 
When he realized they
were swollen to the point of pain, he moved down.
 
He began kissing her stomach, her bikini
line, and then he was between her legs, kissing her there.

Gemma began
to squirm in bed as his tongue began to lick her.
 
Because Sal moved so slowly, so achingly
slow, that every fiber of her vagina felt the scorch or his tongue.
 
He was flicking her clit and licking and
kissing her with a mastery that made her lick her own lips and close her own
eyes as he took her to that sensual of sensual places.

And when he
began eating her; when he began to part her folds and eat her pussy, she lifted
her upper body as if she had to sit up and take notice.
 
But Sal forced her back down as he continued
to eat her.
 
“It’s alright, baby,” he
said to her.
 
“I won’t hurt you.
 
I just want need to eat you.”

Gemma felt
the full force of that meal as he went down even further inside of her.
 
And then his head was bobbing, moving up and
down along her folds, and she was holding his head and directing his movements.

Sal loved it
when Gemma gave direction.
 
She knew
exactly where she wanted him to go.
 
She
was moving his head as if he was a vibrator, but no vibrator ever invented could
make her feel the way Sal made her feel.
 
She was on the verge of an orgasm of earth shattering proportions.

Sal moved
up.
 
He knew when she was on the verge
and he wanted her to get the full effect.
 
He eased his fully aroused penis to the tip of her super-wet vagina and
shoved it in.

Gemma cried
out when she felt the force, and opened her legs wider as he pushed further and
further in.
 
She had never known a man
who could make her feel so exhilarated just from the wave of his initial entry.
 
But Sal always made her feel that way.

And when he
began to fuck her, she felt as if her world was spinning.
 
“I won’t hurt you, sweet baby,” he kept
telling her, but he was putting a sweet hurting on her pussy.
 
She could feel his bigness with every push
in.
 
She could feel the very veins of his
rod with every scrape of her insides that his masterful movements
performed.
 
He was putting it on her and
she was taking it.
 
She was in that place
of love where her orgasm remained on the verge, and the climax was a long,
continual feeling of his great sex.

Sal felt her
too.
 
He felt her to the roots of his
hair.
 
He was in his stroke now.
 
He was in his groove.
 
And his ass was moving around and around as
he fed her and she gave it up for him.
 
He’d never wanted to fuck anybody more than he always wanted to fuck
Gemma, and every time he had the pleasure to do her, he made the most of it.

He was
making the most of it tonight.
 
He was
keeping her on the verge, that perfect sex, until he was on the verge
himself.
 
And then it couldn’t get any
better.
 
He fucked her longer than they
thought would have been possible when he first took her to their bed.
 
Until his stroking became more arduous
because her pussy became narrower, and she climaxed with a hard clench that
stopped his strokes completely.

And he came
too.
  
His ass squeezed and his shoulders
tightened and the veins of his arms revealed themselves in brilliant
display.
 
He grunted as he released
inside of her.
 
Because he was pouring
out.
 
Because the sex she gave to him was
more than an exercise.
 
It was a feeling
that was beyond description.
 
It was a
feeling that took him to a place that made him feel as if he was levitating.
 

And then he
was fucking her again, as the sloshing sounds of his cum forced it out and down
her thighs.
 
And Gemma was climaxing
again.
 
She thought it was over, but as
soon as he began fucking again, her orgasm reignited again.
 
And they were climaxing together.
 
Until neither one of them could make another
move.

Sal laid on
top of her, put his arms around her, and kissed her long and lovingly.

But then his
cock was moving inside of her again.
 
And
her pussy was aroused again as he moved.
 
They kept kissing as he fucked her.
 
She wrapped her arms around him as he took her on yet another euphoric
ride.
 
He kept fucking her and kissing
her.
 
He kept stroking her and massaging
her and giving his all to her.
 
And then
he was cumming again.
 
And she was
climaxing again.
 
And the fruit of their
labors were pouring down her thighs as he shuddered and she pulsated and they
fucked with such ferocity that even the bed springs seemed wondrously
distressed, and on the verge of popping too.