CHAPTER ONE
“I see Trina,” Sal said, “but where Reno ass at?”
Gemma Jones-Gabrini, an attorney who took the English language seriously, wanted to sayhe’s behind the preposition atthe way she usually did whenever her husband butchered the language, but she knew she’d be wasting her time. Sal Gabrini was a lot of great things, but an English aficionado was not one of them. Instead of correcting him, which he hated anyway and viewed it as more self-serving than helpful, she looked where he was looking.
Katrina “Trina” Gabrini had already entered the upscale restaurant and was making her way to their table. A woman of substance that both Sal and Gemma greatly admired, she wore a stylish pair of prescription eyeglasses, a scarf around her neck, and a body-hugging dress that quickly got Sal’s attention as soon as he looked down the length of her. He didn’t mean to have that reaction. But he couldn’t help it. Trina, in his eyes, was a gorgeous girl.
“Where Reno at?” he asked Gemma again to distract himself from his sudden hardness down below.
“He’s not coming,” Gemma responded. “So don’t mention his name.”
Sal was seated in the booth beside his wife, and he looked at her. Although Gemma and Trina were two accomplished black women who had their shit together, Sal viewed Gemma as a very different kind of beauty than Trina. Trina was old-school beautiful, the kind of woman a man would look at and immediately know she was theitgirl.
But Gemma, with her high-cheekbones and very dark skin, and with her slender, leggy body, was exotically beautiful, the kind of woman you just didn’t see every day. The kind of woman with an unmatched elegance and confidence and grace that drew Sal into a world he thought he’d never enter into. He was an Italian man who only thought Italian women were the most attractive. But after he met Gemma and got to know her, the woman he once thought was not his type at all and that was, in fact, the veryoppositeof his type, became his gold standard. Nobody, in his eyes, could ever be more beautiful. “What you giving me an order like that for?” he asked her. “Telling me not to say his name. Why I can’t say his name?”
“Reno and Trina are going through another one of their periods and I don’t want you getting her any more upset than is already the case.”
But Sal was confused. “One of their periods? What you talking, Gemma? Since when Reno have a period?”
Gemma frowned and leaned to the side looking at Sal. The second most-powerful mob boss in the land, behind only his uncle Mick Sinatra, he was a very street-smart and savvy guy. He knew his way around a room. But sometimes the words that came out of that man’s mouth astonished her.
But Sal didn’t find it astonishing at all. He frowned too. “What you looking at me like that for? You’re the one that said they’re having periods.”
“I said they’re going through one of their periods, Sal. Not having one!”
“What’s the damn difference? Having. Going through. What?”
Gemma rolled her eyes and shook her head just as Trina made it to their booth.
“Don’t tell me y’all arguing too,” Trina said as she reached over Sal and hugged and kissed Gemma. Then she hugged andkissed Sal and sat down in the booth seat across from them. “I’ve been arguing enough for both of y’all and everybody else in this bitch. So cut it out.”
But Sal saw her admission as an opening. “You ‘ve been arguing with whom might I ask?” He knew it was a backhanded way to find out what was up with Reno. And Gemma, giving him the stank eye, knew it too.
Trina removed her glasses from off of her face and sat them on top of her head, revealing her gorgeous hazel eyes, and then she jerked her long hair back. “I’ll give you two guesses,” she said to Sal.
“Just two?” Sal looked at Gemma. “Who, pray-tell, could it possibly be?”
Gemma couldn’t help but smile. “Boy bye!” He laughed. Then Gemma looked at Trina. “I told him not to bring up that man’s name. He’s purposely trying to be cute about it.”
“You didn’t have to tell him that. He can bring up his name all he wants.” A waiter arrived with a drink for Trina.
“I told him to bring you a Sherry when you arrived,” said Sal.
“Thank you,” Trina said to the waiter.
“Are you ready to place your order?” he asked all of them.
“Not yet,” said Sal, and the waiter bowed and left.
Then Trina took a sip of her drink and leaned back. “Y’all just don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “I am so over Reno it’s not even funny anymore. That man gets on my deep-down last nerve every day God send. He knew we were going to meet up for dinner tonight. He knew it. But does that matter to him? Not at all. I am so over that man!”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re so over Reno and his mess and you can’t take it anymore and yada yada yada,” said Sal. “Why does that sound so familiar to me?”
“So familiar,” added Gemma.
“Why would I lie? It’s the truth! Y’all just don’t know.”
Something in the way Trina said those last words didn’t make Gemma any less doubtful that it was all talk like it usually was for Trina, but it gave Sal some concern. “What did he do this time?” he asked her.
