Page 82 of Salvatore
“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 bringhimself 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.
