Page 26 of Trina Gabrini: Bring Him Back Home to Me

“That’s not the whole story,” Sal said.

“Then what’s the whole story?” Gemma asked as if she was suddenly Trina’s attorney.

“Is Reno in trouble?” Trina asked Sal too.

Sal nodded his head. “Yes.”

“Because of his relationship with that woman?” Trina asked.

Sal nodded again. “Yes.” It was only half of the story, but an important half.

Gemma could tell Trina’s fight was leaving her and she was hesitant to hear the whole story. “Sit down, Tree,” she said to her and led her to the sofa. She sat down beside her. Sal took a seat in the closest wingback chair.

“Who is she?” Trina asked him in a far quieter voice.

Sal was on the edge of his seat with his elbows resting on his thick thighs and his hands clasped. “Her name is Lydia.”

“How do you know her?”

“I didn’t know her at all until after that night.”

Sal’s hesitancy gave Gemma some pause. She was beginning to wonder if her husband was involved in whatever this was too. “What night?” she asked him.

“The night of the party. It was before either one of us met you or Trina. Reno had just taken full control of the PaLargio and was throwing a bachelor party at the penthouse for one of our buddies.”

“This penthouse?” Gemma asked.

“It wasn’t as elaborate back in those days as it is now, but yeah, this penthouse. Reno hadn’t too long ago gotten full ownership and he loved to show off his power. You know how he is.”

“When you say bachelor party,” Gemma the lawyer asked for clarification, “are you talking about a party where strippers would be invited?”

“Strippers. Hoes. Whatever you wanna call’em, yeah,” said Sal. “Those types of broads.”

Gemma rolled her eyes at those Italian men in the family who still loved to refer to women as “broads” or “dames” even in this Me-Too day and age.

But what he called women was the last thing on Trina’s mind. Reno was on her mind. “What happened at the party?” Trina asked.

“Reno and Tommy were picking out women to quote-unquote ‘entertain’ us when Dirty came downstairs.”

“Don’t y’all sometimes call Dom by that name?”

“Yeah, but this is the original Dirty. A name well-deserved for his slick ass. He’s dead now, but he used to work for Reno’s old man.”

“I know who Dirty was,” said Trina. “Keep going.”

“So Dirty comes downstairs bragging about some woman he and Reno’s old man were banging upstairs. We didn’t think nothing of it at first. Before the night was out, everybody was going to be banging somebody. That’s why them dames were there. But when we found out that Dirty was talking about Moose Vatelli’s daughter, who couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen, we raced upstairs.”

A devastating look appeared in Sal’s large eyes as reliving that night still brought chills down his spine.

“Sal, are you okay?” Gemma asked her husband.

But Trina didn’t have time for sentimentality. She had to know the truth. “Go on, Sal,” she insisted.

“Reno’s old man was a sadistic sonofabitch. He had beaten that girl to beyond recognition and had raped her repeatedly. The girl was dead.”

Gemma was stunned. “Oh my.”

But Trina was just staring at Sal, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “Go on.”