CHAPTER THIRTEEN #2
“How we disposed of bodies back then. We chopped it up and tossed it in the river.”
Gemma almost lost her lunch and nearly threw up on that marbled tile. She, instead, hurried to the powder room.
“Gemma, you okay?” Sal asked.
“What happened next?” Trina asked.
Sal looked at her. He just told her that a kid was chopped up and thrown into a river, and she didn’t even blink? She could sometimes be as hard as Reno. But fuck her, he thought as he hurried for the powder room. He had to check on his wife!
When he left the room, Trina leaned back and covered her face.
It was horrific to her too. But she learned the day she married Reno, which was the same day he ordered a hit on the mobster he thought had killed his father, that violence was going to be a part of her life forevermore.
Reno’s father was a major mob boss. Reno had to take over his organization for a while.
They never started any fights, but they knew how to end them.
And no Gabrini nor Sinatra left any stones unturned on their revenge tours.
Trina knew it going in. Years of living it had toughened her up to the reality of their lifestyle.
But Sal, like Tommy with Grace, kept Gemma as far away from the action as he possibly could. He was a mobster (reputedly, he would quickly point out), and she was an attorney, which was an officer of the court. He had to shield Gemma from his mob activities.
But when Sal and Gemma returned to the living room, and Gemma sat back beside Trina, it didn’t take any time for Trina to get back onto her platform. “How does this Lydia woman factor in?” she asked Sal. “Was she at that party too?”
Sal shook his head. “No. She’s Moose Vatelli’s other daughter. She was a few years older than her sister. We didn’t know anything about her when that happened to her sister.”
“Her sister being the one y’all chopped up?” Trina asked him.
“We didn’t chop her,” Sal said defensively. “But our clean up crew did, yes, and on our orders I’m sorry to say. But that was how it went back then.”
Back then my ass, Trina wanted to say. It still went that way and Sal knew it. He just didn’t want Gemma to know it. “So how does Moose Vatelli’s daughter figure into what’s going on with Reno now?” Trina asked him.
“After Moose’s daughter went missing,” Sal said, “Reno’s old man started mocking him, and saying that was what he got for taking part of his territory.
Because back then, the big man wasn’t Uncle Mick.
Mick wasn’t the king of the hill yet. The big man was Moose Vatelli.
And Paulo’s ass was so demented that he thought he could bring down the giant.
So he kept on mocking him. Moose warned Reno that he was gonna kick his old man’s ass if he didn’t cut that shit out, and Reno tried to talk to his father.
But if you knew Uncle Paulo you knew there was no reasoning with that bastard.
It just wasn’t. That was why he always had to go in hiding.
He always had too much heat around him. So he kept on ridiculing Moose about his inability to find his child.
But that was when Moose outsmarted Paulo. ”
“How?” Gemma asked.
“That’s when Lydia comes into the picture. None of us had even heard of her before then.”
“What did she do?”
“I’m sure you both knew that an old broad that Reno was banging owned the PaLargio back in the day.
She hired a very young Reno as her general manager and she fell in love with him.
When she died, Reno got the PaLargio. But Lydia shows up claiming that the old broad left the PaLargio to her and that Reno had faked documents or whatever she claimed.
But even Reno’s lawyers said that the will Lydia had looked legit.
They said Reno could very well lose everything if it went to probate. ”
“So what did he do?”
“What Reno always did back in the day. He got her to fall in love with him. And then he tricked her ass into signing over all her rights to the PaLargio to him. He knew her shit was fake, so he gave her a taste of her own medicine. But when Moose found out, he was pissed. He was already angry that he couldn’t find his baby girl.
He was already angry that Reno’s father wouldn’t let up on his ridicule.
And now Reno had outwitted him? Some young casino owner?
A war broke out over that shit. Reno had to call in, not just me and Tommy for reinforcements, but Uncle Mick and Big Daddy Sinatra too.
It was all hands on deck. That’s how much power Moose Vatelli had back then. ”
Sal paused. Thinking about those war days, and how easily it could have all gone sideways, troubled him.
“But with Mick’s help, we knocked Moose off of his mountain.
We took out everybody in his organization and he had to call a truce and start over.
He moved to Europe and got big again. He became one of the biggest mob bosses in Europe.
But Mick became the biggest everywhere. Mick took over that mountain.
But Moose is still a major boss. Some believed back then that he bankrolled Frank Partanna’s assassination of Reno’s father years later, but nobody could prove it. He’s a nasty sonofabitch.”
“But why would Reno be so afraid of him now? Every mobster is a nasty sonofabitch.”
“Yeah, but Moose controls a fourth of Europe. Mick and me controls three-fourths, but that’s still substantial power for Moose. But apparently, based on the little I could get from Reno, he and Lydia found out what happened to his daughter and her baby sister.”
“They knew what Paulo did to her that night at Reno’s party?” asked Trina.
Sal nodded. “Yes. And they’re putting it all, not at the feet of Paulo’s dead ass, but at Reno’s feet. They’re apparently blaming Reno. And they’re out for revenge however they can get it.”
“But why wouldn’t Reno just tell me all of this? Why does he have to go it alone?”
Sal hesitated.
“Why Sal?” Trina asked him.
“Reno will have to tell you that part,” he said.
“There’s more?” Gemma couldn’t believe it. It was horrific enough!
Sal nodded. “There’s more. That’s why Reno wants to go it alone.”
“What is it?” Trina asked silently. She was afraid to know. Gemma was too.
But Sal wasn’t about to tell anyway. “You’re have to ask Reno that,” he said. “I can’t go there. I’ll never go there.”
The look in Sal’s eyes told them all they needed to know. It was beyond horrific whatever it was. So horrific that Reno was willing to give up his entire family to avoid any backlash on them.
But even he knew it didn’t work that way.
His family was him by extension in the mob world and it would always be that way.
“What should we do, Sal?” Gemma asked.