Until You Come Back To Me, Book 5

by Mallory Monroe

  “On the left,” Gemma added.

  “On the left,” Sal said into the phone. “The motherfucker is Rory Calhoun. I know. The first prick we questioned. Right. If he’s not there, let me know. But find him! He’s not getting out of this alive.” Then Sal looked at Gemma. “Was he alone?”

  “No. There were three other guys and a driver. One of the guys was called Screw.”

  “Yeah, he’ll be screwed alright,” Reno said, “when we get our hands on him.”

  “Three other guys,” Sal said to his man. “One’s named Screw. Probably a street name. Ask around.”

  And then Sal ended the call.

  “Now,” he said to all assembled, “if you will excuse us.”

  Sal took his wife by the hand, stood her up, and then lifted her into his arms and carried her upstairs. Cassie wanted to go too, to be there for her daughter, but she knew it wasn’t her place anymore. She was Sal’s woman now. She did whatever he told her. She belonged to him. If she and Rodney didn’t know it before, they knew it now.

  “We’ll find him, Gem,” Sal whispered to her as he carried her.

  She loved the warmth of his big arms around her. She missed him so much! “If he’s no longer at that house,” she said, “tell your men to try the hospital.”

  Sal looked at him. “I thought you said you didn’t ice him.”

  “I didn’t. But I bit the hell out of his penis.”

  Sal would have laughed, and cheered her on, but he couldn’t. He could only imagine what that man had her doing to get her to that place. He looked at her with pain in his eyes.

  Gemma knew she had to explain. “I offered to suck his dick,” she told him, “in exchange for my freedom.”

  “Oh, Gemma, that man wasn’t going to free you for a little head.”

  “I knew that. But I also knew he would lie and try to get some anyway. And he did.” Then she looked at Sal, wondering if he would judge her for that. “That was my only means of escape, Sal. I did what I had to do.”

  Sal frowned. “Damn right, you did! Don’t you dare second guess that. You got out of there. You’re safe, at home, with me. I would have wanted you to fuck him and ten other men if it would have gotten you home safe to me. Don’t you ever be too proud to fight for your freedom, you hear me? Don’t you ever leave any stone unturned because nothing’s beneath getting out alive. Nothing!”

  Gemma smiled. And laid her head on his shoulder.

  As soon as she made it upstairs, she immediately went to the bathroom and brushed her teeth and gargled, and told Sal to do the same.

  “I thought you said you wiped his dick off your mouth,” he said.

  “I did. Now I want to clean it off. Since you couldn’t wait and had to kiss me right there and then, you clean it off of yours too. I want no parts of that man on us.”

  Sal smiled. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, and brushed and gargled as she had ordered.

  While she sat on the bed and undressed, Sal remained in the bathroom running her bath water. “What have you eaten since I’ve been gone, Sal?” she asked him. “Have you gotten some sleep?”

  “Don’t worry about me,” he responded. “I can take care of myself.”

  “And I can take care of myself,” Gemma said with a smile.

  Sal left the tub as it filled with water and came out of the bathroom. His shirtsleeves were drawn up to his elbows, and he looked at her with a doubtful look on his face.

  “What?” she asked. “You don’t believe me? You don’t think I can take care of myself?”

  She was smiling, but Sal was dead serious. “I take care of you,” he said. “Just because I wasn’t there for you this time, doesn’t mean I don’t.”

  Gemma thought that was nuts for him to even go there. But she knew him. Even though she was back home, under his protection, he was still inwardly beating himself up for her plight to begin with. “Oh, Sal,” she said, heartfelt. “There was nothing you could do to prevent this. Nothing! Rory and his boss were determined to kidnap me, and nobody was going to stop them. And yes, you do take care of me.”

  Sal smiled. “And I’m good at it.”

  Gemma smiled. “The best.”

  Then they stared at each other. Neither one of them were touchy-feely types, but they loved each other on so many levels that it would put touchy-feely people to shame. It was sometimes mind boggling to both of them how deeply they cared for one another. In every way. And Gemma looked especially hard at Sal. He needed relief more than she did.

  “Get out of those clothes,” she ordered him, “and take a bath with me.”

  Sal’s heart soared. He wanted her sexually the moment he felt her in his arms again, but he didn’t dare go there with her. But that was why he loved her. He didn’t have to go there. She was already, even after her ordeal, in tune to his needs.

  He undressed even before she had finished. And then she stood up and walked to him. Sal’s easily aroused dick stood at attention as he watched her gorgeous black body move like a lithe panther toward him. She looked so beautiful to him that he began to rub his own dick in anticipation of putting it inside of her. And when she made it up to him, and he pulled her naked body into his arms and began kissing her without the restraint he showed when they were outside and had an audience, his dick began to expand almost to the point of no return. And they were just getting started.

  Sal lifted her and sat her down in the tub. Then he and his erection got in behind her. But Gemma turned around and was face to face with Sal. And not only did she bathe herself, but she bathe him too. Sal felt so overwhelmed with emotion for this woman that, as she bathe him, he fought back tears.

  And when the bathing was over, and she allowed him to put his dick inside of her, he pulled her body onto his lap, pulled her into his arms, and slow-fucked her for an hour. He could have rushed it. She would understand. But that was not how neither one of them were feeling. Because they were making love and this kind of lovemaking was all about sex, and not about sex at all. It was about Gemma lying her head on Sal as he fucked her, and enjoying not just the feel of his penis inside of her, but the feel of his heartbeat against her breasts, and the feel of his breath as it blew across her face, and the smell of his cologne and man-ness and strength and power. It was about Sal to Gemma. And all he meant to her.

  It was about Sal holding his wife as he fucked her. It was about how she sighed against his chest. It was about her wonderful perfume smell, and her happy eyes, and her small, fragile body. It was about her refusal to take any shit from him, even early in their marriage, and how she demanded respect from every human being alive. It was about how odd she made him feel when he first laid eyes on her at the PaLargio that fateful day. It was how he respected her too much to sugarcoat his racist past, or minimize it, or pretend he was really a good guy underneath all that baggage. He was an asshole underneath all that baggage, a cop who treated minorities like crap, a hardhead who wasn’t above manufacturing evidence to get the result he wanted, or profiling people just because of the color of their skin. And she changed him. She didn’t work at it. She didn’t tell him the error of his ways or how ridiculous his worldview was at that time. She showed him. She showed him what decency acted like, and what morality looked like, and what love felt like. It was about Gemma to Sal. And all she meant to him.

  It was such a relaxing fuck that they both closed their eyes and nearly went to sleep. Not because it wasn’t intense: it could not have possibly been more intense. But because there was no desperation anymore. There was no fear and anguish and distress anymore. They were in their beautiful home, in their marble-top bathtub, doing what they wanted to do. And the world be damned. Problems be damned. Sal and Gemma were back together. They were at peace with the world.

  And after they came, after a pour-out that felt like a purge of all the pain and negativity they had endured, they fell into each other’s arms. And for the first time since her ordeal, Gemma fell asleep.

  Sal cleaned her vagina, and clea
ned his dick, and then found the strength to lift her out of the tub, pull the covers back, and put her in their bed. When he got in behind her, and pulled her into his arms, it only took two minutes. Two minutes tops. And for the first time since their ordeal, Sal was fast asleep too.

  EPILOGUE

  Nine that next morning, as a rainstorm thundered outside, Tommy entered Sal’s bedroom. Somebody had to tell him, and Tommy knew it had to be him. But he didn’t knock. He didn’t want to wake Gemma. He, instead, walked quietly across the floor, and up to their bed. It was an intrusion, but it couldn’t be helped. Sal would not forgive them if they went to deal with Rory Calhoun, and left him behind.

  Tommy tapped his brother’s shoulder.

  Sal opened his eyes. When he saw that it was Tommy, he already knew. “They found him?”

  “There was a shootout,” Tommy said. “Screw and his crew were killed.”

  “And Calhoun?”

  “They took him alive. Barely. But he’s alive.”

  Sal looked at Gemma. When he realized she was still sound asleep, he kissed her on the forehead, removed his arm from around her body, and got out of bed.

  Two SUVs arrived at the safe house in the woods, a safe house that was one of their most secluded. The rain had completely stopped by the time Sal, Reno, and Tommy got out of the first SUV, and a group of their men got out of the second one. Sal went to the trunk, pulled out a steel rod, and headed inside.

  “Everybody wait here,” Reno said to their backup. They knew and loved Gemma and wanted a piece of the guy too. But somebody had to be Plan B if Plan A failed. Their back up was always Plan B. Reno and Tommy, a part of Plan A, followed Sal inside.

  Rory Calhoun, his face already bruised and his pants bloodied from Gemma’s bite, was seated in a chair in the middle of the near-empty room. Unlike their cozier safe houses, this one wasn’t meant to soothe anybody. Subjects were brought to this house when the last thing the Gabrinis wanted to do was soothe.

  And as soon as Sal walked into the house and up to Rory, he kicked the leg of the chair from under him, causing Rory to hit the floor hard. And then Reno held him down and turned him onto his stomach, Tommy pulled down his pants and boxers, and Sal took the steel rod and rammed it up Rory’s rectum.

  Rory howled in pain as soon as the steel pushed in, but if he thought the Gabrinis would ease up now, would let up, would set him free, he was mistaken. Sal thought about his polluted dick in his wife’s beautiful mouth and he twisted the rod.

  “No!” Rory was crying and screaming in pain.

  “Who’s your boss?” Sal asked him through his howls.

  “Please stop! Please pull it out, pull it out, pull it out!”

  Instead of honoring Rory’s request, Sal twisted the rod again, causing Rod to cry out again.

  “Who’s your boss, motherfucker, I’m not playing with your ass!”

  “You are playing with his ass,” Reno said, “but we get your point.”

  “Who’s your boss?” Sal asked Rory again.

  “Johnnie,” Rory screamed. “Johnnie!”

  Sal looked at Reno and Tommy. They didn’t know him either. Sal looked back at Rory. “Who the fuck is Johnnie? Johnnie who?”

  “Jonnell Keith. She’s the one.”

  Sal remembered that name. “Jonnell?”

  “Yes, Johnnie,” he said. If he talked, he didn’t think Sal would twist the rod. He talked. “She’s the boss. She’s the one you want. She’s Karen’s sister.”

  Tommy looked at Sal. “Wasn’t that the name of Chelsey’s girlfriend? The one you had to take out?”

  “That’s her,” Rory said. “Karen Johansson. She was Jonnell’s sister.”

  “What the fuck,” Sal said, remembering. “Jonnell Keith was the chick at my in-laws house, talking that shit about me killing Chelse instead of Reno.”

  Tommy was remembering the name too. “You mean the one you told me about?” he asked. “The one who had that police report claiming you were the shooter?”

  “Yeah, her.”

  “But I thought you said she was a friend of Chelsey’s,” Tommy said. “You never mentioned she was Karen’s sister.”

  “Because she never said she was,” Sal replied. “I’ll be damned.” He looked at Rory. “What the fuck does she have to do with this?”

  “She wants revenge for what you did to her sister,” Rory said. “She wants you to suffer the way she did and her brother did.”

  “Her brother?”

  “Her brother. Carmine Fontaine.”

  “We’ve been looking for that bastard,” Sal said. “Where the fuck is he now?”

  “I don’t know,” Rory said. “Johnnie says he’s in hiding in Europe somewhere, that’s all I know. He’s too terrified to show his face anywhere near the States. But Johnnie isn’t.”

  Sal and Tommy looked at each other. “Why did you call her the boss?” Reno asked.

  Rory smiled a smile that wasn’t meant to be joyful. “She’s the boss,” he said. “She’s the boss of me. We met after her sister died. She’s a very gorgeous lady. And I fell hard for her.”

  Reno shook his head. “You old fool! That woman didn’t want you. She wanted to use you to get to Sal. She did her homework, and found out your ass used to mentor Gemma. She got you to leave the bench, to move to Vegas. She was using your dumb ass!”

  But Rory was shaking his head. “She loves me. She’s going to marry me, after this is all over.”

  “You mean after she kills Gemma?” Sal asked. “Ain’t gonna happen! Where is she?”

  Rory didn’t respond. Sal twisted the rod again. Rory screamed out again. “Where is she?” Sal asked. “Where the fuck is Jonnell Keith?”

  “I don’t know!” Rory’s pain was renewed, and tripled. “Please stop! She was supposed to come to Vegas, but I haven’t seen her. Please stop!”

  “Does she know Gemma got away?” Sal asked.

  “Yes,” Rory said. “Please let me go. I was only helping her. I didn’t do anything to Gemma.”

  Sal knew that was a lie. “You paid those goons to kidnap her. You held her against her will. You mouth-fucked her. But you didn’t do shit to her. Man get the fuck out of here! Get the fuck out of my face!”

  Then Sal angrily shoved that rod so far up Rory’s rectum that it split his colon. Rory screamed and cried and thrashed until his eyes bugged out. And he finally, mercifully, died.

  Then Sal pulled the blood-soaked rod out, stood up, and tossed the rod aside. “Motherfucker,” he said, looking at Rory. Then he looked at Reno and Tommy. “We’ve got to find that bitch,” he said.

  “Don’t worry,” Reno said. “We’ll find her. If it’s the last thing we do, we’ll find her.”

  And they all headed out to the SUVs, got in, while their men stayed back and cleaned up the mess.

  But something was bothering Tommy. He couldn’t put a finger on it until they were almost home. Until they were turning into the gate at Sal’s estate.

  “What if she’s in town?” Tommy asked him.

  Sal looked at him. “He said she was coming this way, so what are you saying? You want us to set up some roadblocks? Have men stationed at the airport, the train stations, the bus stations? How the hell we gonna pull all of that off?”

  But Tommy was thinking a different way. “What if she’s heading, not just to Vegas, but to your house, Sal?” Their SUV drove up to the closed gate. “You said she presented herself to Gemma’s parents as a friend of Chelsey. What if she tries it again?”

  Sal’s heart dropped through his shoe and he jumped out of the van just as it was slowing at the security gate. The gate opened and Sal took off running, with Tommy and Reno and the entire security team running too, but much farther behind him.

  Jonnell Keith had had enough. She sat impatiently inside of Sal and Gemma’s luxurious home and chitchatted with Gemma’s parents. Rodney and Cassie had cleared her for entry as a friend of the family, and Security had allowed her passage in. Now all three were in
the living room, the Joneses seated on the sofa and Jonnell in the flanking chair, and Jonnell looked atsy.

  “I’m just glad they found her,” she said. “You guys just lost Chelsey. I know you couldn’t afford to lose your other child too.”

  “No, Lord,” Cassie said. “That would be the end of us. We couldn’t bear it.”

  “When I called, to see if you had Gemma’s phone number so I could look her up, and talk with her, I never dreamed she’d been through so much. Thank-you for inviting me over.”

  Rodney smiled. “Any friend of Chelsey’s is a friend of ours.”

  “What about a friend of Karen’s?” Jonnell asked with edge in her voice.

  Rodney caught her change in tone, but he was still trying to figure out the question. “Who’s Karen?” he asked.

  Jonnell’s jaw tightened. “Karen Johansson. Chelsey’s fiancée, remember? The wonderful lady she was going to marry?”

  “Oh, please,” Rodney said. “That’s just a bunch of nonsense! Chelsey had turned her down was my understanding of it. That woman was putting Chelsey up to that.”

  “So you didn’t like that woman?”

  “We didn’t know her,” Cassie said.

  “And didn’t want to know her,” Rodney said. “I don’t even remember her name.”

  Jonnell stood up. She couldn’t take it anymore. “I’ll bet you’ll remember it now,” she said, and pulled out a loaded gun.

  “Good Lord!” Cassie said as she leaned back, her hand to her heart. Rodney was too stunned to move.

  “What are you doing, Jonnell?” he asked her.

  “I’m doing what Sal did to me.”

  Rodney frowned. “What are you talking about, child?”

  “He killed my sister. Yeah, Karen Johansson was my sister. The nobody? The woman you didn’t want to know? She was my sister! It was three of us. Me, our brother Carmine, and Karen. And Sal killed all of us when he killed Karen. Carmine’s in hiding, afraid of his own shadow, and I’m ready to die for what I believe in. Because I’m killing all y’all asses today. Nobody’s getting out of here alive. Not you. Not your wife. And especially not your precious daughter upstairs. Sal Gabrini’s wife. She’s going to get it good. I’m going to kill everybody he loves.”