Jillian had her hand on her chest by now. “What are you talking about?” she asked him. “What flunkies? Are you insinuating that I had something to do with that young man coming forward, and those Trammel employees?”
“You will admit, in front of those same cameras,” Tommy continued, “that you paid those fools to make those allegations, and you will explain why you paid them.”
“But I had nothing to do with any of that,” Jillian insisted. “How could you even think it!”
Tommy stared at her. It was going to get messy. “Grace?” he finally said.
Grace looked at him. “Yes?”
“I want you to go to the car and wait for me there.”
Jillian’s heart began to pound. Grace wanted to object, she didn’t want this to get violent and she certainly didn’t want Tommy to get into any kind of trouble. But she had to trust that he knew what he was doing.
She stood up to leave. And it was that move alone that terrified Jillian. She knew Tommy long enough to know what he was capable of.
“She doesn’t have to leave,” Jillian insisted. “Why would she have to leave?”
“He doesn’t want me to see the violence,” Grace said to purposely provoke Jillian.
It worked. “Violence?” Jillian asked, her heart hammering. “What violence?”
“Go to the car, Grace,” Tommy said again.
“Don’t you do it, Grace,’ Jillian said, rising to her feet.
To her dismay, Tommy stood up too.
“You won’t bully me,” Jillian said. “I didn’t pay those people!”
“You’re a liar.”
“But I didn’t!”
“Grace,” Tommy said, and Grace began to leave.
She walked around the side wall and opened the front door. Then she closed it right back, but she remained in the foyer. She could hear them talking, or, more specifically, she could hear Jillian talking, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying. But the more she stood there, the more she realized something too. This was her fight, not Tommy’s. He wasn’t being accused. His name wasn’t being dragged through the mud. She went back into the living room.
Jillian and Tommy were still standing, and Tommy was now in her face. Grace walked up and got between them. But instead of addressing Jillian, she turned to Tommy.
“This is my fight, Tommy,” she said. “I’ve got to take care of this.”
Tommy looked at her. There was no way he was going to let her take care of any such thing. Until he saw that look in her eyes. And remembered the beat down she put on Kelli Montiscue. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, when it came down to it, Grace could take care of herself.
“Handle your business,” he finally said, “or I’ll handle it for you.”
Grace nodded her head. “Okay,” she said.
“Yes,” Jillian said, relieved. “She should handle this. This is between she and I. We can handle this like ladies!”
Tommy dreaded leaving Grace with Jillian, but he also knew she was right. He had to let go of her hand.
He began to walk away, heading for the exit. But he hadn’t even made it into the foyer before Grace, standing toe to toe with Jillian, slapped her hard across the face.
Tommy turned around swiftly, thinking Jillian had just hit Grace. But when he saw Jillian’s blonde hair swinging wildly, and her head cocked sideways, and her hand holding the side of her face, he realized what had really transpired.
“I didn’t come here to negotiate with you, Jillian,” Grace said.
“You bitch!” Jillian yelled.
Grace slapped her again. So hard this time that Jillian’s poodle jumped from her arms and fled. “You’re going to have that press conference today,” she said. “Just like Tommy said. You will admit that you paid Rait to tell those lies on me. Then you and Jared and Nayla will also meet the press. And you’ll admit your part in their lies too. You’ll admit that you paid them too.”
Jillian stared at her. “You think you’re something, don’t you?”
Grace slapped her yet again, stunning even Tommy. She remembered how Jillian called her a whore in front of her staff, and declared that she was nothing more than the help. Now she wanted Jillian to see what good help could do. “I don’t think I’m anything,” Grace said. “I know what I am. And we both know what you are.” Then she walked over to the telephone and picked it up. “Schedule the press conference, Jillian,” she said firmly. “Get it all in the open now.”
Jillian was seething with rage. The nerve of this child, she wanted to scream.
“Schedule the press conference, Jillian,” Grace said.
“Or what?” Jillian asked her.
“Or Tommy will fight my battle. You’ll be in the fight of your life then.”
Jillian looked over at Tommy. He was now standing there, leaned against the wall. He’d already promised pain. And she knew him. He always kept his word.
But her word was her bond too. “I didn’t have anything to do with this,” she said. “Nothing! I don’t know who told you I did, but they were lying.”
Tommy looked at her. Grace frowned. “Ah, give it a rest, Jillian!” she said. “It’s over. You’re exposed!”
“But I didn’t do anything! I will gladly confess it if it was true. Because frankly, I was thrilled when it all came out. Just thrilled. But you won’t pin this on me. I never met that Rawlings man, nor did I so much as encourage Jared and Nayla to do what they’re doing. I had nothing to do with any of it!” Then she smiled. “But it proves my point, Grace. I’m not the only one who really wants to screw you.”
Grace looked at Tommy. But Tommy was staring at Jilly.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Although the news of Rait Rawlings’ retraction broke that evening, and the six o clock news mentioned it, they had too many breaking stories to give it hardly any airtime. In fact, his press conference didn’t fully air until the eleven o’ clock newscast. But that was the media. It was front page news when the story first broke. Now the retraction barely registered with them.
But it registered with Tommy. He and Grace were at his home by the time the retraction came down. Tommy was on the patio in his backyard, and Grace was upstairs in his bed, fast asleep. She attempted to wait to see the news at eleven, but she couldn’t hang. She was too emotionally drained from all of the drama, and from too many late nights at work, until that tiredness finally overtook her. Tommy carried her to bed nearly an hour earlier.
But it did happen. Tommy watched Rawlings retraction to see it for himself. He stuck to the lie about the third man driving, as Tommy had told him to, but it was clear his retraction only satisfied part of Grace’s problem. There was still Jared’s allegations, and Nayla’s. And who was paying all three of them. Because Tommy never believed in coincidences. All three allegations were not made within hours of each other by happenstance.
Sal agreed, when he phoned Tommy.
“They’re related,” he said. “You’d better believe that. But Milt said it all led back to Jillian.”
“He changed his tune when I confronted him. He admitted it was an educated process of elimination rather than hard evidence.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? Milt knows better than that!”
“I told him, don’t worry.”
“So we’re back to square one?” Sal asked.
“That’s where we are,” Tommy said. “Jillian’s denying all.”
“But do you believe her?”
“I believe her,” Tommy answered him. “Jillian has a sadistic streak in her. She loves admitting her hate. She would love to take credit for Rawlings, Nayla and Jared, too, if she could.”
“So there was no money trail that went from those two bozos from Trammel to her?”
“None,” Tommy said.
“Damn,” Sal said. “So what’s next?”
“We need a meeting with Nayla. And we need it backdoor.”
Sal knew exactly what that meant. “I’ll get right on it,�
� he said.
“Okay,” Tommy said.
“You’re going to let Grace in on this one?”
“No.”
“That Nayla chick is her best friend, though, right?”
“Ex-best friend, yes. That’s why I don’t want her in this at all. You find out something, you call me. I’ll take care of it.”
“So once again,” Sal said, “you have to shield Princess Grace.”
“Don’t call her that,” Tommy said flatly. “And you can call it what you want. But when shit starts falling, you can bet your ass I’m shielding her. Just get Nayla,” he told his younger brother.
After the call ended, Tommy sipped more wine and sat quietly in the late night breeze. It was after midnight by the time he made his way back inside his house, up his stairs, and got into his bed.
Grace began to awaken as soon as she felt his arm wrap around her. She smiled when she felt his presence.
“You’re awake,” he said as his finger moved between her legs and began to rub her clit.
“Barely,” she said with a smile. “I missed it, didn’t I?”
“You fell asleep. You were super-tired, babe. So I put you to bed.”
“Did he admit he lied?”
“Oh, yes,” he said as he kissed her ear. “Loud and clear. He was as convincing in his backtrack as he had been originally.”
“Umm,” she said softly as the feeling of his clit-massage began to overtake her. “I’m glad,” she said. “I only wish Nay and Jared would do the same.”
“Oh, they will,” Tommy said as he moved from just rubbing her clit to also massaging her folds. “Don’t you worry about that. They picked the wrong one to fuck with when they picked you.”
Grace smiled. “Nobody fucks with me, Tommy?” she asked him.
“Nobody but me, babe,” he said. “Which I’m about to do right now!”
He turned her onto her back, slung off that big shirt of his that he had put on her earlier when he took her to bed, and then he began sucking her breasts with hard suctions. Grace opened her legs as his body moved between them, and wrapped her arms around his neck as he went from kissing her breasts to kissing her lips. And by the savage way he kissed her on her lips, she knew this was not going to be an easy fuck. Most times Tommy gave it to her slow and easy. But there were other times, like this time, when he gave it to her rough.
He ravaged her mouth until the sensations made her feel as if he was already fucking her. But he was only just beginning. And she had only just begun too. She might have been tired and sleepy when he first took her to bed, but now she was on fire with passion. Sleep and tiredness were nowhere to be found. She wanted it almost as badly as he wanted to give it to her.
And he gave it to her. Tommy guided his dick inside of her and then began to stroke. He had an erection, but it wasn’t fully aroused until he entered her. Then he exploded with arousal, filling her pussy with so much cock that she felt as if something wide and long and made of pure steel had been jammed inside of her.
Tommy felt it too. He could barely stroke because it felt so tight inside of her, and so snug, and so ripping with friction and fire. He grabbed hold of her, and she grabbed hold of him, as he thrust against her walls until he erupted with thrusts. And he began to pound.
Grace had to hold onto him tightly as his bed began to bounce and slide. He thrashed her and thrashed her and she screamed from his thrashings. He pounded her so intensely that she felt as if he was beating her, only his whips felt so pleasurable that she wondered if she could bear the sensations.
“Take me there!” she started screaming. “Take me there!”
And Tommy took her there. He fucked her so hard that she felt drunk with his sex. He fucked her so hard that when she came, she arched so high and felt every inch of his dick so completely that she slung him off of her, and ended up on top of him.
And as soon as he shoved his dick back inside of her, and began to thrash her small body again as it lay on top of his, he began to cum himself. He held onto her ass cheeks as he fucked her. He screamed his love for her as he fucked her. He thought he was going to stroke out from the intensity and emotion. When he released inside of her, it was a drenching release. And he kept on thrashing her. He kept on pounding it inside of her and pounding it inside of her until she was sweetly soaked, literally deluged, with his love.
The call from Sal came in nearly three hours later. Grace was sound asleep when Tommy crawled out of bed, dressed quietly, and left. By the time he arrived at the warehouse, Nayla had already been pretty well worked over.
Tommy looked at Sal, who was sitting in front of her. He had told Sal not to harm her, but he knew his brother. His impatience was legendary. By the time Tommy arrived, the truth was already being extracted.
Sal stood up when Tommy walked in. Although Tommy was dressed in a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, he still looked as if he could be on the cover of any glam magazine. Even his tousled hair made him look super-sexy. How any human being could look sexy at four a.m. was a mystery to Sal. But Tommy, the lucky bastard, pulled it off without even trying.
“You’d better be glad he made it,” Sal said to Nayla. “And you’d better start telling the truth. Nobody’s got time to be playing with you, girl. It’s too damn late to be fucking around!”
Tommy sat in front of Nayla in the dark, smelly deserted warehouse. He could see, once he sat down, that she already had a swollen eye and her nose was still trickling blood. He looked at Sal again.
“What?” Sal asked when he saw Tommy’s displeasure. “I needed her to understand that this shit ain’t no game. She wanna get in front of people and tell her lies, then I’ll get behind closed doors and tell mine. Only I wasn’t lying,” Sal said, drawing eye contact from Nayla. “Everything I said I’d do, I will do. Don’t you get it in your pretty little head that I won’t.”
Nayla already knew Sal meant business. She’d met him before, and saw him as a racist asshole even then. But she took some comfort when she saw Tommy Gabrini sit in front of her. He was a gentleman. He wouldn’t hurt her.
But if she thought Tommy was going to be understanding, and sweet talk her or anything remotely resembling sweet talk, she was mistaken. “You and Jared lied on Grace,” he said to her. “Didn’t you?”
Sal moved closer to her. She’d already made that admission and he wasn’t about to let her back down now.
“Yes,” she said, tears coming to her eyes, with her swollen eye hurting her so badly that she winced from the tears.
“Who put you up to it?” Tommy asked.
“Nobody put me up to it.”
“So you and Jared came up with this scheme on your own?”
She hesitated. “Yes,” she said.
“Bullshit,” Tommy said. “I saw that press conference yesterday. There had to be four lawyers in that room, and all four of them are top dollar attorneys. You and Jared suing a company the size of Trammel, a company that barely breaks even, is not going to interest those kind of lawyers. Not even on contingency. It wouldn’t be worth their time. But they weren’t hired on contingency, were they, Nayla? They were paid up front. And paid well. Who paid them?”
But Nayla started shaking her head. “Nobody,” she said. “They get paid if we win the case.”
“If you don’t tell me who,” Tommy said, “I’ll have to find out. My brother would want to find out too. You’ve already seen what he’ll do to you. You haven’t see what I’ll do. Now I ask you again: Who hired those attorneys?”
“Why do you keep asking me that?” Nayla said angrily. “I told you they won’t get paid unless we win the lawsuit!”
But as soon as Nayla said it, Tommy stood up swiftly and kicked her chair over, with her in it. She crashed to the floor and then scrambled to her feet, stunned and terrified. Tommy began moving toward her.
“Your daddy!” she blurted out in fear. “It was your daddy!”
Tommy stopped in his tracks. Sal did too.
“What?�
� Tommy asked.
“It was your daddy. It was Mr. Gabrini. He paid them. He set it all up.”
“You’re a liar!” Sal yelled. “You think we’ll let you get away with more of your lies?”
“It’s the truth!” Nayla yelled back. “He set it up. He came to me after he met Grace at some shooting range. At Ekland. He said he met her there and he wanted to know all about her. He said he heard I was her best friend and he would pay me to tell him what I knew.”
Sal looked at Tommy.
“Go on,” Tommy said to her.
“So I told him what I knew. I told him how she changed when she took over Trammel, I told him everything. He paid for, and I gave it to him.”
“Did you tell him about that accident she had when she was in college?”
Nayla hesitated, which angered Sal. “Talk motherfucker!” he yelled. “You just implicated our old man. You’d better talk!”
“Yes,” she said. “I knew about that accident, I helped Grace through it when it first happened, and yeah, I told him about it.”
“You told him how to get in touch with Rait?” Tommy asked her, staring at her.
Nayla nodded to that too. “I told him,” she admitted. “And when I told him about how she demoted me and Jared, he came back a few days later and told us what he wanted us to do. He paid Jared too. He told me what day he wanted me to approach Grace, and how he wanted me to make sure she fired me. Then, he said, the fireworks would begin.”
Tommy’s heart was pounding against his chest.
And Nayla, confident that if they knew the real villain here they would leave her alone, told it all. “He had his people hire those lawyers and had them schedule that press conference. He told us to what to say,” she said. “He said we couldn’t lose. He said even if we lost the lawsuit, we would still get paid. He would see to it, that’s what he told us.” Then Nayla shook her head. “He was so determined,” she said. “It was like he was so angry at Grace,” Nayla said, looking at Tommy, “for being with you.”
TOMMY GABRINI 2: A PLACE IN HIS HEART Page 16
