Romancing Sal Gabrini 2: A Woman's Touch

by Mallory Monroe

  Tommy slammed his hand onto the steering wheel, tears in his eyes. Reno leaned his head back, pain on his face. Fab Menza, he now knew if he didn’t know it before, meant business.

  Fabio Menza Gabrini slapped Sal so hard across his face that his hair bounced straight on top of his head. They were in a deserted, five-story building behind an old skating rink that closed for business nearly a decade ago, and Sal knew nobody was going to hear his screams in a place like this. It was the perfect place for a revenge kill. It was the perfect place to hide victims and bodies alike. Patty was here in Seattle. Fab was here in Seattle. Which undoubtedly meant the Joneses were here too. Probably in this very building.

  Sal was seated in a chair in the middle of the room. Fabio was standing in front of Sal’s chair and Patty was standing behind Fab. The burlap bag, containing the money, was seated on the desk. But as Sal had suspected, the money was beside the point for Fab Menza.

  Sal was still hopeful that Tommy and Reno were able to follow without the tracking devices, but he also knew he couldn’t rely on that. During Fabio’s entire tirade, with Patty’s cheering him on, Sal’s complete and utter focus was on figuring a way out.

  “Random shooting,” Fab was saying. “That’s what the cops claimed. My brother was the victim of a random shooting. But I knew that was a lie. Because that’s how we Gabrinis do it. We do our dirt, and then put it out there as a random act of violence. Lies. All lies. I knew it from the moment I heard it. It was you or Tommy, I knew it. But Tommy loved him. It wasn’t Tommy. So it had to be you.”

  Patty was the weak link, Sal decided. There were five of Fab’s men outside of the room, the five that had accompanied Sal in the Van, but Patty was the only gun inside. He was Fab’s personal bodyguard. But he was also all into Fab’s fables. Which, for Sal, was good. Patty was all into Fab going on and on about what a great man Benny Gabrini was and how beloved he truly was. Bullshit all of it, as far as Sal was concerned, but he listened, and listened, and waited for his moment.

  It came after a full hour of ranting by Crazy Fab. “He was my brother!” Fab said with great emotion and raised his hand to strike Sal, once again, across the face. What Sal had noticed previously was that every time Fab slapped him, and he’d slapped him several times already, he lunged into him and then just stood there. So this time, when he slapped Sal, Sal jumped from his chair and, with every ounce of strength he had, rammed Fabio so hard and fast that Fab rammed into Patty. Patty’s gun flew from his hand, Sal dived across the room and grabbed it, and before Patty could pull out another pistol, Sal shot him five times. Sal had extracted his own revenge.

  By now Fab had already dived beneath a desk and his men outside were already coming in. And a gun fight ensued. Sal was able to dive again, behind a coat rack, and return shot for shot. Only his shots were hitting, as he picked off man after man. Until all five were down. Sal took a moment, to compose himself, and then he hurried from behind the coat rack. All five men and Patty were indeed dead. But he immediately saw the problem. There was no sign, none, of Fab Menza and the burlap bag.

  Sal took off. There was a door behind the desk, and it was the only way Fab could have escaped the gunfight, so Sal headed in that direction.

  It led down a series of stairs. But Sal knew he couldn’t just chase Fab Menza. He had to find the Joneses. So every door he came upon, he opened. Nothing. Nobody. Floor after floor. Until he made it down to the second floor, and slung open yet another door. He was about to close it back, when he saw what he thought was a shoe.

  He aimed his gun as he walked inside, his clothes drenched in sweat, his heart pounding like a drum. The shoe was behind a doublewide metal file cabinet. And behind that cabinet, seated on the floor, their hands and feet tied, a gag in their mouths, was Rodney and Cassie Jones. Gemma’s parents. Sal’s heart leaped for joy, and their eyes couldn’t hide their own joy, but Sal didn’t hesitate. He went about the business of freeing them, by first removing their gags. “Are you guys okay?” he asked as he began to quickly untie their hands and feet.

  “We’re okay, thank God,” Rodney said as he began untying his own feet while Sal untied Cassie. “We’re okay.”

  Tommy and Reno had driven around every abandoned building, every isolated place they could think of, in search of Sal. They knew it wasn’t going to be any hiding in plain sight deal, because Fab was out for blood, so they kept their attention on the margins of the city. They had every one of their available men on the case. They had already phoned Gemma four different times asking if she’d heard from Sal, from her parents, from anybody, which they hated to have to do to her, but she hadn’t heard a word either.

  It looked just as hopeless in their second hour of searching as it had in their first, when they pulled into a closed down skating rink. Tommy had been praying the entire time for a miracle, and Reno, though he’d never admit it out loud to anyone, had been inwardly praying too. But it still seemed hopeless. No Van, no SUVs, no form of life whatsoever.

  “Another blank,” Reno said as Tommy began to drive off again.

  But that was when Tommy saw it. He slammed on brakes and turned around. And Reno saw it too. The Van. It wasn’t in the skating rink parking lot, but behind it, in front of an old building. They didn’t even know what kind of business it used to house, or if it was even deserted. But they knew that Van. They knew they were finally getting somewhere.

  After Sal had untied the Joneses, he led them, with a quickness they matched, out of the room and downstairs. So close, they were to triumph. But when he opened the door that led to an outside alley on the side of the building, their hope turned to fear. A gun was placed directly at Sal’s head. And it was held there, by Fab Menza.

  “You didn’t really think I would just leave,” Fab said. “Did you? That I would leave you alive? Are you that stupid? You’re stupid, but are you that stupid? Now drop your weapon, fool, before I blow your fucking brains out!”

  Sal’s heart grew faint. Because the Joneses were now in Fab’s crossfire. Because they had been so close to freedom!

  “Drop it!” Fab yelled again.

  Sal knew if he started firing he could hit Fab, and Fab might drop, but a bastard like him wasn’t going to go down quietly. He’d probably kill both Joneses in the process. And Sal right along with them. If Sal was by himself, he’d take that chance. But he wasn’t alone, which meant it was too risky. He knew he had no real choice. He dropped his weapon.

  “Now get back inside,” Fab ordered, but Sal knew it would be now or never.

  “Let them go,” he begged. “You want me. You don’t want these people. Let’em go, Uncle. Kill me, torture me, but let these people go.”

  “Yeah, right, I’m going to let them go. They don’t mean anything to me!”

  “But they mean everything to the Feds. This is our fight, Unc. You kill me, so what? The FBI don’t give a shit about me. But you ice these good people from Indiana and you’ve got a major league headache on your hands. They’ll hound you to the ends of this earth. When it could have all been avoided. Uncle Paulo used to always say that, remember? Never knock off average Joes. The Feds couldn’t care less when bad men kill bad men. But knock off an average Joe, and you’ve got a federal-sized problem on your hands.”

  It was a load of bull Sal was selling, especially since Paulo Gabrini would have never said any such thing. But Fab, like all of the mobsters in the family, idolized Reno’s father.

  Fab Menza looked at the Joneses. Sal knew it was do or die. He would either let them go, or kill them right here and right now.

  “Sure,” Fab said. “I’ll let them go.” Then he calmly turned the gun toward Mr. Jones, and fired.

  But just as he did, Sal knocked the gun upward, and a struggle to control the weapon ensued. Tommy and Reno were just making their way up to the entrance door, their guns drawn, when they heard the gunshot. They had phoned for backup, but now knew there was no time to waste. Reno kicked the door open, and they blasted their way in.
<
br />   By the time the dust had cleared, Sal was fine, the Joneses were fine, and Fab Menza, for all of his ranting and raving, was the only man down.

  Sal bent over, attempting to regulate his breathing, his heart still hammering against his chest. “Gemma,” he managed to say to the Joneses. “Call your daughter now. Call Gemma right now.”

  Tommy smiled, thrilled beyond measure to have his old bossy Sal back among the living, and gladly handed a cell phone to Rodney Jones.

  EPILOGUE

  His shorts and sweatshirt were drenched as he turned the corner on the last leg of his run. It wasn’t a marathon, but it had been five miles, and every inch of his body was aching.

  He entered the Wingate looking at his watch. Not his personal best, but considering how long he’d been out of the game, it wasn’t bad either.

  “Good morning, Mr. Gabrini,” the Doorman said jovially as Sal entered. Sal began unwrapping his wristband, nodded at his employee, and kept on walking. By the time he stepped onto his private elevator, and the doors shut him in, he leaned against the rail. He closed his eyes, ran his hands through his soaked hair, and experienced just how out of shape he really was. The aches, the pains, he felt like some old man. But then he thought about Gemma, and her parents, and he smiled. He might not be super-athletic, or very athletic much at all anymore, but he had Gemma.

  And when he entered his penthouse, she was still on his mind. But the smell of freshly cooked bacon, and the sound of conversation in the kitchen, took him in that direction.

  In the kitchen were Rodney and Cassie. And they seemed so at home that it warmed Sal’s heart.

  “Good morning,” he said to them. Rodney was seated at the center island, reading the morning newspaper, and Cassie was at the stove, cooking that delicious-smelling breakfast. It was the day after all of the craziness, and everybody, especially Sal, were feeling renewed.

  “Good morning,” Rodney said, with a smile on his face. Sal allowed him and his wife to spend the night in one of his downstairs, furnished apartments, and they felt as if they were on a luxurious vacation. Rodney was still concerned about Sal’s associations, and probably always would be, but there was no denying the man. Sal Gabrini loved Gemma and would move heaven and earth for her. That was good enough for Rodney. And that awesome fact that Sal had saved his life, not to mention his dear wife’s life, gave him brownie points forever, as far as Rodney was concerned.

  “Good morning,” Cassie said, smiling too.

  “It smells great.” Sal reached onto the plate to grab a slice of bacon, but Cassie slapped his hand away.

  “Not before you wash up,” she said. “Homey don’t play that!”

  Sal laughed and looked at Rodney. “Did you see your wife? She knocked my hand away. How do you put up with that?”

  “We weren’t married a week when I, too, grabbed for bacon,” Rodney said. “I got my hand slapped too. I never did it again. You live and you learn, simple as that.”

  “And make her the boss while you’re at it,” Sal agreed.

  “You’d better,” Rodney said. “If you know what’s good for you.”

  “Guess I’ll have to wait until breakfast is served then.”

  “Good guess,” Rodney said, and Sal laughed. They were still working out the kinks of their relationship. Sal wasn’t a son-in-law, so there were no titles to bandy about, but Sal felt more than just a boyfriend to their daughter too. And Rodney seemed to agree.

  “When I grow up,” Sal said to Rodney, “I wanna be just like you.”

  Rodney laughed his booming laugh.

  Sal looked at Cassie. “Where’s my better half, if you know?”

  “Still upstairs. And when you go to her you tell her that breakfast will be served in ten minutes, and not a minute later.”

  Sal laughed. “Yes, drill sergeant,” he said, and made his exit.

  Upstairs, Sal saw that Gemma wasn’t still in bed, but was in the shower. Which was perfect, he thought, as he undressed.

  When he got into the shower and stood behind her, she smiled. And then sighed in that wondrously sensual tone when he hugged her with one hand and began to massage her between her legs with the other one. She turned her face sideways, and they kissed. Passionately. Then Sal eased his penis inside of her, and they relaxed to a slow, steady fuck.

  Sal held her tightly as he did her. They had spoken so little about what happened, because they were all still celebrating life itself and the fact that her parents decided to remain in Seattle and spend some time with them. But he had one question that he felt could not wait. It had to be asked.

  After a few minutes, when his strokes were now in-sync with her body, and they were moving in perfect groove as if his sex was music, he went there. “Why?” he asked her.

  Gemma’s eyes were closed, and she was enjoying every stroke. “Why what, baby?”

  “Why did you decide to stay with me? After all of the pain I put your parents through, and put you through?”

  “You didn’t put us through anything. It wasn’t your fault, Sal.”

  But Sal knew better than that. “Why did you stay?” he asked her again.

  She thought about what he had asked. She knew he wasn’t going to accept any placating or simple reassurances. She opened her eyes. “Pain will always be a part of life,” she said. “No matter which road I would have chosen, I would have still had to experience pain. But love, especially the kind that we have?” She shook her head. “No. That kind of love, that level of love, will always require a sacrifice.” She turned her face toward him. “A major sacrifice,” she added.

  “But is it worth the sacrifice, Gemma? Am I worth it? To you?”

  Sal held his breath as he waited for her answer. But there was no need. She answered quickly and decisively.

  “Oh, yes,” she said with a smile. “Oh, yes.”

  He smiled too, and held her tighter. He pushed deeper and deeper inside of her. He rubbed her breasts, her stomach, he pumped her ass. He was all in physically. He was all in emotionally. He was all in.

  Gemma leaned back, and rubbed against him as he did her. Because she was all in too. Even without any discussion of the long haul and marriage. Because she knew, as he knew, that it would happen. They both had the courage to get there someday. It was just a matter of time. But it also took courage to know that now was not that time. They had too much to learn, not just about life in general, but especially about each other.

  But as Sal’s gyrations increased in direct proportion to their groans, and he was fucking her so hard that she felt as if she was going to cry with joy, they were determined to enjoy the ride. Their time, they knew, would come.

  Visit www.mallorymonroebooks.com

  for more information on all of her titles.