CHAPTER THIRTEEN #3
“I don’t know that yet. It’s too much I still don’t know. But when Tommy gets here, we’ll make the call then. We need a strategy. But if Moose has any sense left at all, he’ll want to keep it between him and Reno. If he ropes the whole family in, Mick gets in. He can’t want Mick in.”
“But now that I think about it,” said Trina, “there’s been a lot going on.”
Sal looked at her. “Like what?”
“Like Jimmy almost getting in an accident. Like Sophia and Carmine getting in an accident. Like me being nearly run over at that restaurant by that drunk driver. And then Reno looks like he just saw a ghost and had to rush back into the restaurant because of some woman he saw. Every one of those accidents had logical explanations, so it wasn’t like we were going to put two and two together.
But how could it be that many accidents over a couple days like that? ”
“Every member of Reno’s family, except for Dom and Maddie, have had near-misses over the last day or two and you’re asking me a question like that?” Sal asked. “Accidents my ass! That shit sounds orchestrated.”
“And on top of all of that,” Trina continued, “Jimmy said he saw Reno cozying up with some pretty blonde at this bar he was at, and that they left together. Like they were going to get a room or something. And that was the last time anybody saw Reno until he showed up before day this morning looking all wild and crazy.”
“And that was the last time anybody saw Reno until he showed up here?”
“That was the last time,” Trina said.
“What are you thinking, Sal?”
“I’m thinking everybody needs to get on lockdown effective immediately. If she’s going for his family, then that must mean . . .”
“That she knows about what Reno’s father did to her family,” said Trina. “To her sister.”
Sal nodded. But he was thinking about that other thing Reno did to her family that Trina knew nothing about. “Right.”
“Take me to her, Sal,” Trina said with a plea in her voice.
“I told you I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t know where the fuck she is! Reno never told me he had contact with that woman. He only told me he saw her at that restaurant, but that she got away from him. That’s all he said.”
“Does he love her?” Trina asked.
Sal knew it was much worse than any love affair. But he couldn’t go there. And he figured it was better she thought it was about love. Because he knew it was about the absolute opposite. “That’s for Reno to tell you,” he said.
Trina’s face looked like pure distress. “What’s going on, Sal? Why did Reno leave me and our children? Why would he do that to us? He’s been in mob wars before that didn’t force him to leave us. You’ve got to tell me something or I’ll just die! Please, Sal.”
Sal’s heart dropped when Trina sat up there begging him. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d seen her so distressed.
But this was bigger than her. And him. And Reno too. “Reno will have to tell you,” he said again.
It was heartbreaking to Trina. And it was no longer just the fact that Reno had left her and the children.
But that Sal couldn’t even say why. That was the scary part.
That was the part that made her suddenly clam up and stop asking questions.
She wasn’t at all sure if she wanted to know the answers.
And when Sal began moving around the room on his phone, giving new orders to bring the families to the PaLargio, and for every available man to find Reno or Lydia or both, Trina let him handle it.
But they already knew Tommy was bringing his family with him regardless. He always did.
But when Sal looked over at his wife and saw her exhaustion, he interrupted his own phone call. “Go to bed, Gemma. You’ve got to give your opening statement in court in a few hours. You’ll fall on your face in front of that jury if you don’t get some sleep. I’ll wake you up in time.”
As if he didn’t have enough to manage, Gemma thought. But she knew he was right. She had clients that were depending on her.
She hugged Trina’s neck, kissed Sal, and went to the first guest room she came to and fell on the bed. She was exhausted.
Three hours later, everything changed. Sal went personally to bring his stepdaughter Maria, along with his son and baby to the penthouse to put them under lockdown too.
Gemma had awakened an hour after that and had taken her shower, dressed in her smart dark-blue skirt-suit, and had grabbed her brief case and, under heavy guard, left for court.
Tommy Gabrini had flown in from Seattle with his wife and their children and all of the young people were in the back family room with the Gabrini children.
And when all of that activity had finally died down into an awkward, tense-filled quietness, Robby Yale, Sal’s highly-trusted second-in-command, burst into the penthouse with the kind of news nobody had expected to hear so soon: “We found her, Boss,” he said excitedly.
“Found who?” Trina asked as she, Sal, Tommy and Grace all looked at Robby.
“We found Lydia Vatelli,” Robby said. And everybody, especially Trina, flew to their feet.