Sal Gabrini: Just The Way You Are

by Mallory Monroe

  SAL GABRINI

  JUST THE WAY YOU ARE

  BY

  MALLORY MONROE

  Copyright©2016 Mallory Monroe

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  AUSTIN BROOK PUBLISHING

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  This novel is a work of fiction. All characters are fictitious. Any similarities to anyone living or dead are completely accidental. The specific mention of known places or venues are not meant to be exact replicas of those places, but are purposely embellished or imagined for the story’s sake.

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  “Another round, boss?”

  “No. We’re still on duty.”

  “Ah, come on, Sarge! Just one more round.”

  “What are you asking me again for? I said no. We have to stay sober. He’ll be here any minute.”

  “All Cap’s gonna do is bitch and moan about why we can’t keep our asses out of trouble like he always does. Who the fuck wants to be sober for that?”

  The cops, all plainclothes detectives, laughed. But their young sergeant, Sal Gabrini, failed to see the humor. He looked at his wrist watch instead. The “Cap” they were referring to was Captain Tommy Gabrini, Sal’s big brother and boss. And Sal knew Tommy didn’t play.

  But his detectives had a point too. Hearing that shit sober, especially when he already knew Tommy was mad as hell, wasn’t appealing no matter how he sliced it. Besides, they were having the meeting in a fucking bar. What did Tommy expect? “One more round,” Sal said, and the men hooped and clapped. They always knew they could count on Sal!

  The men, four deep, were sitting at a table in Luddie’s, a dark and dank smoke-filled bar in a slum outside of Seattle, and they were a boisterous group in a bar filled with boisterous groups. But they were also plainclothes Vice cops in all kinds of trouble, and their captain wasn’t happy. Something happened to a trunk-load of narcotics they were supposed to have confiscated during a drug bust. Sal declared that some unknown group of drug dealing thugs ran off with the stash during the shootout. But Tommy, to Sal’s anguish, wasn’t buying it. Tommy believed that his own officers, led by his thug younger brother, snatched the stash themselves.

  While Carve Clayton, one of the four Vice cops, went over to the bar to order another round, Frankie Jaleppi and Dukes Ward remained at the table with Sal. Frankie, who was always the most observant of the group, noticed Luddie at the bar. He elbowed Sal. “Big Tit Luddie’s eyeing you again, Sarge.”

  Sal glanced at Luddie, a busty, beautiful blonde, and she waved at him. But Sal didn’t respond to her wave. He lifted his beer mug and drank the last of his pint.

  Frankie laughed and dapped the ash off of his cigar. “What are you doing, Sarge? Trying to act as if you’re no longer interested? You were interested when we shot by here last week. And the week before that.”

  “You don’t know what I was interested in,” Sal responded.

  “He’s been hitting it,” Dukes said confidently.

  Frankie smiled. “You been hitting that too? Damn, boss, you get around more than I do and I’m the lover boy of this group! And what about Grady?”

  “Fuck Grady,” Sal responded and they laughed. “She’s his old lady. She owes him faithfulness. I don’t owe him shit.”

  “Ah shit,” said Dukes. “Cap’s here!”

  Sal and Frankie looked out of the dingy window of the dingy bar. They saw Tommy Gabrini, their young police captain, get out of his Corvette and make his way toward the entrance. He was on his cell phone, however, and stayed outside to finish his conversation.

  “Check him out,” Dukes said, shaking his head. “Driving a fucking Corvette and we can barely pay our rent.”

  Frankie, still staring at Tommy, shook his head too. “That’s a freakishly handsome dude, though,” Frankie said. “I mean damn.”

  “I’ll bet he has no trouble wooing the ladies,” Dukes added.

  Sal was staring at his brother too. They all saw the beauty and the glitz and glamour, but Sal knew the price Tommy had to pay for that beauty. Men were in love with Tommy as well as women, and he knew how much Tommy hated it. He knew how much Tommy didn’t want to have anything to do with their so-called “love.”

  “How come you ain’t freakishly handsome like Cap is, Sal?” Frankie asked his boss. “I mean, you’re a freak,” he added, and Sal and his men couldn’t help but laugh.

  “And how come your brother gets to be Captain,” Frankie continued, “and you’re still a sorry-ass sergeant in Vice?”

  “Because he’s a fucking genius and I’m stupid,” Sal responded with sarcasm in his voice. “How the fuck should I know? How come you’re asking me all of these questions?”

  “Hey, Handsome,” a voice said just above Sal’s head and all three men turned toward the sound. Luddie, the bar’s namesake, was standing at their table. She was a tall blond with a narrow waist and enormous breasts, and it was those breasts that caught the eyes of all three men first.

  “What’s up, Lude?” Sal asked.

  “What’s up with you? I ever tell you how much I love Italian men? Especially if they look like you, Sal Luca.”

  “We’re all Italians at this table,” Frankie said. “Why you singling out Sarge?”

  “Because he’s the only good looking one at this table,” Luddie said, and Dukes and Carve laughed.

  Luddie turned her attention back to Sal. She leaned toward him, revealing even more of her big breasts. “I got that paperwork in the back,” she said, glancing down at his biggest attribute too: that penis she knew so well. “Wanna check it out?”

  Sal looked toward the bar. Grady was nowhere in sight. Not that it mattered to him. “Yeah, why not?” Sal drank the last of his beer, and began to rise.

  “But Sarge,” Frankie said, “Cap’s right out front.”

  Sal frowned. “What are you going all nervous nelly on me for? When he gets in here you tell him I’ll be back. Damn, Frankie, what’s your problem?”

  “I ain’t got no problem. What’s your problem?”

  But Luddie was smiling. “Looks like Little Frankie loves him some Big Sal,” she said playfully.

  “Ah, fuck you, Lude!” Frankie fired back, and Luddie and Dukes laughed. Then Luddie followed Sal to the back.

/>   “Where’s Sarge going?” Carve asked when he arrived back at the table with four mugs filled with beer.

  “None of your fucking business,” a still angry Frankie responded.

  “What did I do?”

  “Just sit your ass down.”

  Carve glanced at Duke as he sat down. “What did I do?” he asked again as Tommy, ending his phone call, entered the bar.

  “Forget about it,” Dukes said as he nodded toward their captain.

  Carve and Frankie looked too. “He doesn’t look like he’s in a good mood, though,” Carve said.

  “When is he ever in a good mood?” Dukes asked.

  “Hey, Cap,” Frankie said with a fake smile when Tommy walked up. Because Tommy was taller than all of them, far more handsome than all of them, and wealthier than all of them despite their underhanded dealings, Frankie hated his guts.

  “Where’s Sergeant Gabrini?” Tommy asked. Sergeant Gabrini was Tommy’s beloved younger brother. But at work he kept it completely professional. Everybody already were convinced that the only reason he was captain at such a young age was because his father was police commissioner. They believed it was nepotism, not his hard work that propelled him ahead. Tommy worked overtime, refusing to go easy on anybody, to prove them wrong.

  “He’s here,” Frankie responded.

  “That wasn’t my question,” Tommy said. “Where is he?”

  Dukes looked at Frankie. How would he get out of this one? “He’s in back pulling together a more private room for us to meet in,” he said. “He’ll be out in a sec.”

  Tommy began heading in that direction.

  “Shit!” Dukes said. “Why did you have to tell him he was in the backroom?”

  “Cap, wait!” Frankie said as he, Carve, and Dukes hurried behind Tommy.

  But Tommy knew his brother too well. He knew exactly what he was “pulling together” in that backroom. And when they made their way to the back of the bar beyond the smelly restrooms, and Tommy pushed open the door to the storage room, his suspicion was confirmed. On the far end of the room was Sal, his pants down to his ankle, fucking the shit out of Luddie’s bent over pink ass. And he was cumming too. Tommy could see it in the way his muscular body trembled.

  Frankie, in an effort to alert Sal of their sudden presence, banged on the wall before Tommy could speak. When Sal saw them, he was stunned. His cock quickly pulled out of Luddie’s wetness. But they all could already see the thick wad of semen already in his condom. “Damn, Frankie, I thought you had my back!” Sal yelled.

  “I do have your back! What was I supposed to do? Tackle the captain of police?”

  Sal looked at Tommy. He already could see his displeasure. “I didn’t think we were still having the meeting,” Sal lied.

  “There’s no meeting,” Tommy responded with his well-known controlled fury. “No need for one. You and your men are suspended pending an investigation.” They all were astonished. Nobody expected that harsh a penalty. Tommy was their sergeant’s brother for crying out loud!

  “Suspended?” Frankie asked.

  “For three months,” Tommy said.

  “Suspended?” Dukes asked.

  “Without pay,” Tommy said.

  “What did we do?” Carve asked, astounded too.

  “Suspended without pay effective immediately,” Tommy said firmly.

  “But what did we do?” Sal asked, repeating what Carve had asked.

  “You cannot locate drugs that should have been seized and placed into evidence,” Tommy said, his anger rising. “You’re drinking on the job. You’re fucking on the job. That’s what you did!”

  Tommy turned to leave, but angrily turned back. “You’re sorry excuses for cops every one of you. All four of you should be ashamed of yourselves. Conduct unbecoming all over the fucking place! And you’re the leader, Sal. You’re their sergeant. And look at you.” They all looked at Sal’s still long dick as he slung off his condom. “Caught with your pants down again. Just because you’re plains clothes vice detectives don’t make you above the law!”

  “Who says we’re above the law, Tommy?” Sal wanted to know. “We never said that!”

  “You didn’t have to say it,” Tommy responded. “Your actions said it. All of you better be glad I don’t fire your asses on the spot right now. And the commissioner will back me up.”

  “Yeah, in more ways than one,” Sal responded. “You’re always kissing his ass anyway.”

  Sal would never know how much that hurt Tommy. He didn’t know the extent of abuse Tommy suffered at the hands of their father. “Clean up your squad, Sergeant Gabrini,” Tommy said, “or you and your men will be fired. You won’t get another chance. I guarantee you that.” And Tommy left.

  Sal wanted to run out of that door and apologize to his brother. Above any human being alive, he loved Tommy. But Tommy was so damn by the book. He was so much their father’s son that sometimes Sal enjoyed twisting that knife. But he loved Tommy, and hated to see him in pain.

  Sal tossed his condom into the trash and pulled up his pants. “Get lost,” he said to Luddie.

  “Maybe your boys want some?” Luddie said, rubbing it in.

  Sal looked at her as if he couldn’t believe her backtalk. “I said get lost!” he ordered again.

  Luddie continued to smile, but she knew Sal and his temper. She pulled up her panties, pulled down her skirt, and left.

  “Shit, shit and damn!” Sal yelled. “Why the fuck did you let him back here, Frankie?”

  “I tried to stop him,” Frankie said as he, Carve, and Dukes made their way toward Sal. “I told him you were finding us a private room for the meeting. But he didn’t want to hear that. I tried to stop him. Didn’t I, Dukes?”

  “You tried to stop him.”

  “Didn’t try all that hard,” Carve said. “But you tried.”

  “Three months without pay,” Dukes said. “I can’t live three months without pay!”

  “Me neither,” Frankie said. “You’ve got to talk to your brother, Sal. You’ve got to make him see reason!”

  “I don’t have to do shit,” Sal said with a frown. “Who do you think you’re talking to?”

  “So what do we do now?” Carve asked. “We didn’t steal those drugs. Cap wrong for suspending us over that!”

  “Don’t even try that,” Sal said. “We’ve done worse shit than lifting drugs. Shit that should have got us fired years ago. And Tommy knows it.” Then he exhaled. “But you’re right about one thing. We’re innocent this time.”

  “So what do we do?” Carve asked again.

  “Find those motherfuckers who snatched that stash and get our drugs back. If we’re going to get suspended for something we didn’t do, we’re going to at least get the fair market value for those goods.”

  Sal’s men smiled. And nodded. They were like a gang of four, like a family, and Sal was their leader.

  But it wasn’t easy to smoke out thugs who didn’t want to be smoked out. It required rounding up every snitch they ever worked with to get any kind of intel. It required working their street contacts to the bone. And even then, it would take nearly two more weeks before they got their first big break.

  Sal and his men piled into their old school bubble Chevy and drove to a slum on the backside of Seattle. The hangout was an old building masquerading as a Drycleaners. When Sal and his men began driving toward the dilapidated building, they couldn’t believe it. “A Drycleaners on a dead end street in the middle of nowhere,” Frankie said. He was driving. Sal sat on the front passenger seat beside him. Carve and Dukes sat in back. “What the fuck kind of sense does that make?”

  “Who says a thug needs sense?” Carve asked.

  “They had enough sense to hide from our asses,” Sal said. “They had enough sense to steal our stash,” he added. Then he ordered Frankie to stop the car just short of the front of the building.

  Sal and his men got out quickly. It was wintertime in Seattle and all four wore leather jackets and glov
es. Sal also wore a skullcap on his head.

  They went to the trunk, pulled out lead pipes in case they could settle this without gunfire, and then headed into the building. They were officers of the law. They were card carrying members of the Seattle Police Department. But this wasn’t about policing. This was about street justice. Their brand of justice.

  As soon as they entered the Cleaners, an old Chinese man moved in front of them. He was nothing more than a front, a pawn, and Sal and his men knew it. The old man began speaking a combination of Mandarin and broken English that was undoubtedly alerting the boys in back that they had unwelcomed guests, but Frankie covered his mouth before he could give them the full story.

  Sal and his men then pushed the guy aside, and Dukes kicked open the door in the back of the cleaners. Their perps, five young thugs, were cutting dope when the door kicked open. Some reached for their weapons, some ran out of the backdoor.

  Sal and Dukes dropped the lead pipes, pulled out their weapons, and the two men who stayed raised their hands in surrender. While Frankie and Carve began beating them down with pipes, angrily asking where was their cut, Sal and Dukes ran out of the backdoor to chase the runners. But they didn’t have to chase them far. They ran through a narrow alleyway that led to a house. A dilapidated, two story, wood-framed hundred-year-old house.

  Dukes wanted to keep running, but Sal pulled him back. “It’s could be a trap,” he said.

  “So what are we gonna do?” Dukes asked.

  Sal was looking around, sizing up their surroundings, and thinking about that next move. Then he realized the only thing they could do. “We’re going to do what we always do,” he said.

  “Which is?”

  “Smoke their asses out. Only this time literally.”

  Dukes smiled. He knew exactly what Sal meant. “I’ll get the cans,” he said, and ran back through the alleyway and into the back of the cleaners.

  But when he ran inside and saw the state of the two thugs Frankie and Carve had beaten down, he stopped in his tracks. “Damn,” he said. “Y’all had to kill’em?”

  “It was kill or be killed,” Frankie said and Dukes looked at him. Frankie was stone cold. They always suspected it. This was the first time Dukes was able to see it for himself.