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“Bianca wouldn’t do Sal any harm,” said Robby. “She loves him.”

Reno looked at Robby. “What about your ass though? Maybe you and Dickie teamed up and she facilitated it. Maybe you wanted to merge with Dickie, but you needed Sal and Lucky out of the way.”

“That’s ridiculous!” It was Curtis’s voice yelling out from the backroom.

“Shut up, Curtis!” Robby yelled back at him. “I told you to stop eavesdropping on my conversations.”

“All you do for them and they treat you like that? Oh no ma’am!”

Robby rolled his eyes.

“Just answer my question,” Reno said. “Did you team up with Dickie Lamm?”

“I’m not going to even dignify that with a response,” Robby said.

Mick stared at him. Took some balls for him to stand up to Reno Gabrini that way. Mick respected that.

But Tommy was staring at his brother. He could see Sal’s distress. “Do you love her, Sal?”

“Not like y’all mean! I care about her, yes,” said Sal.

“Do I want her to be mixed up in this? No. Hell no. She did me a major favor. Six years of her life inside the slammer? That’s a big damn deal.

So yes, I care about her. That’s why I set her up in her own place and all the rest of it. ”

“But did she set you up as well?” asked Mick.

Sal leaned his head back. “I don’t know.” Then he frowned. “I just don’t know!” Then he looked at Reno. “But I know Robby had nothing to do with it.”

Reno shook his head. “That’s why your syndicate is always fucked up. You give your guys too much slack, Sal. For real.”

“We’ve got to find Dickie Lamm,” said Mick. “And this Bianca woman too. That’s the only way we’ll get any answers. Because all this shit y’all talking about is rank speculation. We need answers. What apartment complex did you set her up in?” he asked Sal.

“Harborview,” Sal said.

They were all shocked. “ That fancy place ?” asked Reno. “Damn Sal.”

Mick looked at Robby. “Have you heard from her?”

“No sir. Not since I picked her up the day she got out of prison.”

“Text me her apartment number,” said Mick. “We’ll put her under surveillance and see what she’s up to. But I’ve got a feeling she’s no longer living there.”

“If she’s involved in any of this,” said Sal, “I’ve got that same feeling.”

Robby looked at Sal. “You really think Bianca could be involved in that ambush?”

Sal didn’t know how to answer that. The very thought of it still bothered him.

But it didn’t bother Reno. “She’s hooked up with somebody who for sure could be involved,” he said. “Especially if he’s in a super-merger with Tito Franzino and Junnie Consalvo. Anything’s possible when you get in bed any of those assholes.”

But Robby couldn’t see it. “She loves you, Boss. She wouldn’t harm you like that. And Lucky was in that room? Your son ?” Robby shook his head. “I don’t see her doing shit like that.”

“I don’t either. But we’ll find out,” said Sal.

“What do we do in the meantime?” Robby asked.

“You don’t do shit,” Reno replied. “You sit this one out until we clear your name. Or until we can’t clear it. Either way, you’re sitting this one out, you hear me?”

Robby was no fan of Reno Gabrini’s and his take-no-prisoners bombastic style, but he knew Reno was as much his boss as Sal and all the rest of the Gabrinis and Sinatras were.

He had to respect all of them or Sal would kick him to the curb in a heartbeat.

And Reno, at the end of the day, was a man of integrity too.

He was fair. He was just overprotective of his precious Sal, even if he would never admit it even to his dying day.

The entire Gabrini and Sinatra clan were overprotective of each other.

They ran in packs that way. “Yes sir,” Robby said.

Sal looked at Tommy. “What say you, Tommy?”

“We need to find both of them, which isn’t going to be easy. Dickie Lamm don’t get found when he doesn’t want to get found. And Bianca?” He shook his head. “If we can’t find her at that apartment, then there’s no telling where she could be.”

“Or who she could have hooked up with already besides Dickie,” said Reno.

Sal ran his hands through his thick hair. He was anguished. He didn’t even know she had hooked up with Dickie. That was how out of touch he’d become.

Tommy saw it too. That was why, when they left and got into Mick’s SUV, it was Tommy that sat next to Sal. He was worried about him. Reno was worried about him too, but he sat up front with Mick.

“You know Bianca, Tommy. She used to give you some good intel too. You see her trying to take me out?”

“I don’t know her like that,” said Tommy. “I never got involved with the woman. She’s not my type.”

Sal and Tommy glanced at each other. Tommy Gabrini was known for his appetite for beautiful black women even back in the day.

He fooled with black women seemingly exclusively, and he did so his entire life.

Whereas Sal, who was a straight-up racist when he was a cop, and who had a thing for blondes back then, didn’t fully change until he met Gemma.

“But like you said,” Tommy added, “anything’s possible. Keep an open mind.”

But then Tommy exhaled. “What about Gemma?”

Sal looked at him. “What about Gemma?”

“Does she know about Bianca?” Tommy asked.

Sal frowned. “What’s there to know?”

“What’s there to know?” Tommy couldn’t believe he asked him that. “That you set her up in an apartment. That you bought her a car. That you gave her major money, Sal, that’s what!” Tommy was getting impatient with his brother.

“But it wasn’t about any of that. She did me a major favor, Tommy. I was just returning a favor.”

“But what about those texts?” asked Reno.

Sal looked at Reno. “What about’em?” Then he frowned. “Why would Bianca send texts like that to Gemma?”

“Robby said she loves your ass. That there’s nothing she wouldn’t do for you. That’s why!”

“So breaking up my marriage is doing something for me? This woman that supposedly loves me so much?”

“She wanna have you for herself,” Reno said as if it was self-evident.

Mick glanced at Sal through his rearview mirror. Reno turned around from the front seat and glanced at him too. They all could see that Sal, as usual, had a ginormous blind spot when it came to all those subordinates that showed their loyalty to him. They could do no wrong in Sal’s eyes.

“I’m just telling you what Robby said,” Reno said, refusing to get into it with Sal about something that obvious.

But Tommy was blunt. “You need to have a conversation with Gemma asap.”

“Just because of what Robby said? Reno wanted me to fire him just a few minutes ago, but now he believes every word he said about Bianca? And why would Gemma need to know any of this anyway?”

Tommy lost his well-guarded cool. “Because Bianca’s ass could be involved in the attempted assassination of her son and her husband!

” he yelled out. “Because Bianca’s ass could be sending her those awful text messages in an attempt to break up her marriage.

” Then he frowned. “What’s wrong with you?

If she finds out on her own it’ll devastate her, Sal. Tell her before it’s too late!”

Coming from Tommy, it sounded like an order. Whenever Dapper Tom became Backdoor Tommy , he could be as ruthless and as unhinged as Mick the Tick.

Sal knew that side of his brother better than anyone. That was why he didn’t say anything. But his anguished expression said it all. He knew his big brother was right as usual. He knew that. But he also knew, by not telling Gemma right away, it was probably already too late.