Epilogue
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
“ I want to go out to eat tonight.”
Sal looked away from the security footage he was watching to see Valerie nonchalantly sitting next to him. “I’m working.”
Like always, Valerie didn’t seem to mind that he was, but she kinda had a massive point, today of all days. “Who the hell works on their birthday? Ask someone else to work for you.”
His gaze solemnly went back to the screens. “I told you I didn’t want to celebrate my birthday.”
“Who said we’re going to celebrate your birthday?” she asked, waving that thought off. “I just want to go out to eat. Don’t you get sick of eating here all the time?”
“No.”
“Well, I do.” An exasperated Valerie continued, “Come on; you can just watch me eat if you’re not hungry.”
Stern eyes drifted back to her. “We’re not eating at Taco Bell.”
Giving him one of those pitiful looks she had learned to give to get her way, she knew she had won the battle before he did. “If I let you pick, can we go out?”
Was he ever going to tell this woman no?
“Let me see what I can do.” At least that stopped her from pestering him for five minutes.
“I’ll go get dressed.” Hopping off the chair, no longer pouting, she gave him a kiss that had him pulling her down on his lap. “I thought you wanted me to leave.”
“I do. I’m trying to work, and you’re very distracting.” Sal ran his hand under her oversized grumpy cat T-shirt to cup her breast.
Valerie grinned at him unrepentantly. “You take life too seriously.”
When she started unbuttoning his shirt, he meant to stop her, but kisses always managed to destroy his good intentions. Pressing a button to electronically lock the door, he settled her more comfortable over his dick. “I take life seriously every time I make love to you, sweetheart.”
“Aw …” she cooed lovingly. “I love it when you talk sweet to me.”
He also loved the fact she didn’t wear a bra under her baggy shirts.
Since she had started working on her new game, she didn’t come to his office to hang out as much as she used to do.
At first, he enjoyed the break from her constant presence.
That lasted a whole hour. After his shift, he would go to their apartment, and she would make up for her absence.
Squealing with happiness, she would barrel into him before he could practically shut the door.
An hour later, they would order something from one of the restaurants in the casino, and then she would show him what she had worked on that day. They would spend the rest of the evening watching old movies in bed before making love again then going to sleep in each other’s arms.
His life had gone from spending most of his life alone to being loved unconditionally again.
Tilting Valerie’s chin up, he stared into her eyes. “I don’t think I could stand being alone again.”
“You won’t have to be,” she promised him. “You’re missing your mom today, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” he softly admitted. Hiding anything from Valerie was becoming nearly impossible. He had come to find out she was a much better hacker than himself.
“That’s why you don’t want to celebrate your birthday?” she asked, fiddling with a button on his shirt.
“She always made a big deal of my birthday.” Sal dryly swallowed the lump in his throat at a memory, “One time, she’d manage to rake enough cash so we could stay at a hotel that day.
We checked in while they still had the complimentary breakfast. It was the only time we didn’t have to share a meal.
We had eaten until we were full, and then went swimming in the pool till the sun went down.
That was the only day we could pretend to be a normal family.
For dinner, Mom had gone to Little Caesars for a five-dollar pizza, then we sat and watched TV until we fell asleep.
In the morning, Mom had woken me up to eat again before we left.
When we checked out of the hotel, we didn’t know when we’d have another meal, but it didn’t matter.
“Mom had her problems, but she taught me a very valuable lesson. You can survive anything, if you’re with someone you love.”
Valerie gave him a soft kiss on his cheek. “I’m sorry you’re missing your mom, baby.”
Before he could stop her, she had already shimmied out of his arms.
“I’m going to get dressed, and you’re going to find someone to fill your shift tonight,” she said defiantly before clapping her hands together. “Now, hurry up!”
Pressing the button, he let her leave. Talking about his mom had brought out a sense of melancholy he had trouble shaking off.
That was when he realized sitting in his office wasn’t helping to relieve the aching void of her being gone.
He then called Lucca, asking him to send someone to replace him for the rest of his shift.
Less than thirty minutes later, Amo showed up. Expecting Amo to give him a hard time, Sal was shocked when Amo took his vacated chair without mouthing off.
“You’re not going to bust my chops because you had to come in?”
“I wasn’t doing anything anyway. Besides, it’s your birthday. Go enjoy your night off.”
Taking a long look at Amo, Sal realized the man who was sitting in the chair was no longer a kid. He couldn’t pinpoint when it had happened, but Sal could see a maturity in Amo, and he could no longer see an adolesecent trying to navigate his way into the adult world.
“Thanks, Amo,” he said before leaving his office and heading to his penthouse.
Valerie was coming down the steps right when he came in the door.
“You’re here!” As he walked toward her, Valerie launched herself into his arms. “I thought I was going to have go back to your office and drag you out of there.”
“Amo took over for me.” Giving her a quick kiss, he set her back down and looked her over appreciatively.
Valerie had changed out of her comfortable pants and T-shirt to a pink, pleated plaid mini skirt, black tights, and boots, with a matching black blouse that had a pink frilly lace around the neckline that matched her skirt.
“You look hot. You sure you want to go out.” Sal’s hand itched to pull that skirt up and play with what was underneath.
Darting away from him when he was about to put action behind the thought, she placed herself protectively behind a chair. “You’ll have the rest of night when we come home for the birthday boy to get his gift.”
“I’ll be right back then.” Laughing, Sal went upstairs to freshen up. Taking off his suit jacket and tie, he unbuttoned the first few buttons of his shirt, before running a comb through his hair before he went back downstairs where Valerie was waiting impatiently by the door.
“Finally!”
Sal shook his head at her. “I only took five minutes.”
“Let’s go,” Grabbing him by the hand, Sal found himself having to speed up to keep up with her.
Eyeing her suspiciously in the elevator on the way down, he belatedly got the feeling that Valerie was up to something.
“You’re not throwing me a birthday party, are you?”
Valerie shook her head. “No way. It’s just going to be us tonight.”
Satisfied with her answer, he allowed her to tug him out of the elevator.
Sal caught the happy smiles everyone gave him as they walked through the casino. When they came to the front door, they walked outside. Seeing them, one of the valets immediately walked over to them.
“Sal, I’ll get your car for you.”
“It’s all right, Marco, I can get my own car. It’s not that far of a walk.”
“No need. It’s slow right now. Vincent gets mad if he sees us standing around just talking.”
After the incident with Valerie, Sal understood. The last valet driver hadn’t noticed that she was being held at gun point while she had been walked across the street to the Horseshoe. Not wanting to let another of Nadia’s protégés get in trouble, he gave Marco his keys.
“Thanks, Sal. I’ll be right back.” The kid took off at a run.
Sal watched him go with a frown. He was going to have to have a talk with Lucca about Vincent.
All thoughts of Vincent were washed away as a car was pulled in front of Valerie and him. He had to blink twice at the car to make sure he wasn’t imagining it. It looked like his car, but he instinctively knew it also wasn’t. The car in front of him brought him eerily back to his tenth birthday.
When Marco jumped out, grinning, and tossed him the keys, Sal clumsily caught them, still awestruck.
“You’ve got a cool ride, Sal.” Marco stood next to him, admiring the classic car.
“What do you think?” Valerie’s quiet words had him turning to her.
“This isn’t my car.” It was, but it wasn’t anymore.
“Yes, it is. Happy birthday, Sal!”
His mind still couldn’t wrap around the fact of what he was staring at. There were so few happy memories he had of his mom, and the car had been a big part of them.
Walking forward to touch the hood of the car, he confirmed it was real and not a figment of his imagination.
“It’s my mom’s old car,” he said, still in disbelief. There was no denying it, not even his replica brought him this much joy.
Valerie couldn’t help but grin from ear to ear. “I saw the picture with you and your mom in front of the car, so I tracked it down.”
Sal turned from his car in astonishment. “I did, too. I tracked it down to a salvage yard. The worker I spoke to told me it had been crushed.”
“You call or go there?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
He swallowed. “I called.”
“I went there and showed the picture to the owner. Most of the parts had been parted out, but the owner couldn’t bring himself to crush it. The car had been sitting in his garage for years. He had been planning on restoring it for his grandson. He didn’t want to sell it to me …”
Sal raised a brow. “How did you manage to get him to sell it to you, then?”
“I asked Lucca to talk to him for me,” she said with a wink.
Sal looked back at the Casino Hotel to see Lucca standing behind the glass doors, watching him.
“Lucca found all the parts of the car that was missing and bought them,” Valerie continued. “Maria found a car restorer for me, Nero bought the custom wheels, and Leo found the hood ornament.”
Coming up to him, she put her arm around his waist. “The car isn’t just from me but from all of your family, Sal. Even Vincent bought the original car mats, and Amo found the hardest part—the engine.”
He didn’t know what to say and couldn’t have anyway from having the massive lump in his throat. With his gaze moving from Lucca’s, he finally noticed all his family was there, watching him. They all then came out, seeing he had spotted them.
“What do you think?” Maria asked, joining them with his brother, Dominic, and their daughter. “Does it look just like you remember?”
Sal nodded with mist in his blue-black gaze.
“When I had it repainted, I thought you might like a different color this time around,” Dante spoke around an unlit cigar. “But Valerie was adamant it had to be the same.”
Angel, who had his arm hooked around Adalyn’s shoulders, gave him an envelope. “The rest of us got together to give you plenty gas for a year and hand car washes.”
Taking the envelope, it was hard not to get choked up. They all knew he didn’t need the gift cards; he wasn’t hurting for money. They had chipped in to show him they cared and that he was a member of the Luciano family, too.
Sal looked around the large group surrounding him in their midst to see just how much family he had accumulated for a boy who had been born homeless. “Thanks, everyone.”
“You ready to go eat, son?” Dante asked, patting his shoulder.
Sal stared at his father then down at the woman who would make every birthday here on as special as his mother had when he was a child. “Where are we going?”
“So, I googled the hotel you told me you and your mom stayed at for your birthday, but the hotel has been torn down. It’s just a casino now, but they have a buffet starting in twenty minutes.
I reserved a whole section. Is that all right?
If not”—Valerie gave him a mischievous smile—“we could always break in this bad boy with Taco Bell.”
“And let you get lettuce all over my car?” Sal slung an arm around her shoulders, knowing she was joking, but just in case she wasn’t … “Hell no.”