Their first order of business, as parents, was to check on Destiny and Tommy, Junior. To their relief, both children were in the safe room downstairs and fast asleep. Armed security was down there too, along with two nannies, and all of them stood at attention when Tommy and Grace walked in.
Tommy ordered all of them to relax, and for Grace to stay down there until he returned too. And then he turned to leave.
But he could still feel the heaviness of Grace’s spirit, and turned back. When he saw that look of love, concern, and dread in her eyes, he went to her and pulled her into his arms. His men immediately looked away, as did the nannies, but Tommy didn’t care. He loved his wife. He didn’t give a damn who knew it.
“I’ll be okay,” he whispered to her. “Don’t you sit up here worrying about me.”
“I’ll try not to,” Grace said honestly, although they both knew it would be an impossible task for her, just as it would be for him if he was left to wait for her safe return. Besides, her sincere eyes gave it all away. She wasn’t going to rest until he made it back home to her. He had never known a woman, not ever, who loved him so unconditionally the way Grace did.
He held her even tighter. Leaving her, and leaving the children, was becoming the hardest thing for him to do. But he knew he had to do it. They weren’t going to be safe by osmosis. Safety didn’t just happen to Gabrinis. He had to fight to keep them safe. Tonight looked like one of those fight nights.
He left this time, without looking back.
Annie Kirkland was mortified. She knew the Gabrini name was synonymous in many circles with the Mafia, and she knew Sal Gabrini, Tommy’s brother, was reputed to be a mob boss. But she never dreamed she’d be caught up in their world. She never dreamed this night would have turned out so horribly. With Shelby dead. Shelby was dead! And she was in some smelly safe house waiting to see if she would be allowed to live or die. It was, without question, the worst night of her life.
When Tommy Gabrini walked into the house, she thought she would feel better. The man she saw get out of that fancy Ferrari and walk into Diamante’s, and the man she saw sitting at that table in Diamante’s, was a lover not a fighter. There was something easygoing and relaxed about him. Unlike the goons that surrounded her now.
But when Tommy walked in, and sat in the chair in front of her still wearing his Armani suit and still looking as if he’d stepped off of some upscale magazine cover, she didn’t feel that warmth and calm she expected to feel. Because it was in his eyes. The warmth was gone. The patience was gone. All she saw was fire.
At first he just sat there looking at her. His men stood around, staring at her too. But he didn’t speak. He didn’t ask her any questions. It unnerved her. “Why am I being held here against my will?” she decided to ask him. He was the CEO of a corporation. He owned Diamante’s for crying out loud. Despite his family’s history with gangsters, surely he wouldn’t skirt the law so easily? Shelby never mentioned any tendency like that!
But Tommy didn’t answer her question. He continued to sit there. He even crossed his legs.
Annie began to panic. “Why am I here?” she asked again. “I didn’t do anything wrong!”
Tommy’s body moved very slightly, as if the little patience he might have had with her was already wearing thin. “Why did Shelby need to talk to me?” he asked her.
Annie frowned. “Why should I know? We just went there for dinner.”
“That’s not true,” Tommy said, “and you know it. I saw the surveillance video.” He saw it in the SUV on his ride over. “You and Shelby were waiting for my ass. Why? And if you tell me another lie like the one you just told, harm will come to you.”
Annie’s heart dropped. Harm? Did he say harm? Her entire facial expression changed. “I wasn’t trying to tell any lies,” she said. “I just don’t know . . . I mean . . .”
She was conflicted, it showed all over her face, but she knew she had to tell him what he wanted to know. “He’ll try to kill me if I tell,” she said.
This interested Tommy’s men a great deal. It was the first time she didn’t come at them with bullshit. But Tommy remained calm. “Who will kill you?” he asked.
Annie hesitated again, but then spoke. “Harry,” she said. “Harry Edelson.”
Tommy’s men had never heard that name before. But Tommy had. “Harry Edelson, the photographer?”
“Yeah. They met last year, when he was taking head shots on set. We were all in Europe, enjoying life, and he seemed like a nice guy.”
Tommy knew him only through his former lovers, many of whom were models working in Europe too. “Why would Harry want you dead for talking to me?”
“Because he’ll know I told you about Shelby. Because he’ll know I told you what he’d been doing to her.”
Now Tommy was interested. “What had he been doing to her?”
“He beat her. He tortured her. He treated her like a possession rather than a person. It was awful. When she finally got up the nerve to leave him, and to leave Europe altogether, he swore to track her down and take her out. She moved in with me when she came back to town. She had no idea he had followed her to the States and had found where she was staying until last weekend, when we saw him at the mall. He followed us everywhere we went. Shelby was stricken with fear.”
“And that was why she wanted to talk to me?” Tommy asked.
Annie nodded, still thinking about her friend’s horrific death. “That’s why,” she said. “She knew you use to be a cop. She needed you to protect her from Harry.”
Although Tommy was relieved that he was not the target of that assassin’s bullet, he nonetheless couldn’t help but feel the burden of Shelby’s death. She came to him for help. She came too late.
“Where is he staying?” Tommy asked Annie.
“That was the scariest part,” Annie said. “That was why she made the decision to ask you for help.”
“Explain,” Tommy said.
“He wasn’t holed up in some motel somewhere, the way we figured he would be, but he had moved into a house. Like he was planning on staying for the long haul. It creeped Shelby out.”
Although she couldn’t give Tommy the exact address, she knew what street the house was on, and she described the house. It was enough. Tommy and his men, at least the ones he arrived with at the safe house, left. His other men, those in charge of the safe house, remained behind with Annie still their prisoner. At least until their boss could confirm her story.
It was confirmed almost immediately. As soon as the SUV drove onto Pantagelo Avenue, they saw where a swarm of cop cars had already surrounded one house in particular. When Tommy and his crew confirmed that the house surrounded was a light gray house just as Annie had described it, they knew they had made a connection.
“Find out what happened,” Tommy ordered Branson Nash.
Branson got out of the SUV, walked over to the small contingent of neighbors, many of whom were still in their housecoats and pajamas, and asked them what happened. It took a few asks, but he eventually found out, and returned to the SUV. Tommy, who sat on the front passenger seat beside the driver, waited for the door to close. He turned sideways, his ear toward his security chief, but not his face.
“It’s a suicide,” Branson said.
“Get the fuck out of here!” another one of Tommy’s men responded.
Even Tommy turned around. “A suicide?”
“That’s what they said. They don’t know the guy’s name, they said he was new to the neighborhood, but they already heard it was a suicide.”
That was news Tommy had not expected to hear. He even sat there, thinking, as his men digested the news too. Then they looked to Tommy for answers.
Tommy, instead, pulled out his cellphone, searched his database, and made a call.
The voice on the other end wasn’t a pleasant one, but Tommy didn’t expect it to be.
“Do you realize what time it is?” the voice on the other end said.
“I know w
hat time it is.”
“It’s late, Tommy.”
“I’m at the house on Pantangelo,” Tommy said. “Your men are out here in force. What happened?”
“You know I’m not supposed to give out information that hasn’t been released to the public. You know that.”
“What happened?” Tommy asked again.
Chief Lew Christie exhaled. “A suicide, okay? A suicide happened.”
“Did he leave a note?”
“Why is that your business?”
“Did he leave a note, Lew, come on.”
Christie exhaled. “Yes, he left a note.”
“Saying what?”
“Come on, Cap!”
“Saying what?”
Another exhale. “Saying he loved some chick named Shelby. That he can’t live without her. That she can’t live without him. That they’ll see each other in hell.”
Tommy closed his eyes. If only she would have come to him sooner! Then he reopened his eyes. “Okay, Lew, thanks,” he said.
“You know it’s wrong to be throwing your weight around like this. You aren’t my boss anymore. You haven’t been a cop for years!”
“Yeah, I know,” Tommy said. “And thanks.”
“Just don’t make a habit of it.”
Tommy ended the call. His men looked at him. “That girl was telling the truth?” one of them asked.
“It would appear,” Tommy said. Then he looked at his driver. “Take me home,” he ordered.
“How did you know where I lived?” Annie asked Tommy’s men as the SUV stopped in front of her house.
“We know everything,” one of the men responded, and everybody, except Annie, laughed.
“Yeah, whatever,” she said and got out of the truck. The men drove away.
But Annie was far more anxious than she was letting on. As soon as the truck was out of sight, she ran to her front door and ran into her home.
He was waiting.
“He believed me,” she said. “Now where is my baby?”
He was standing at the window, his back to her, still looking out. “Are you certain?”
“Yes! I’m alive, aren’t I? Where’s my daughter?” She yelled her name. “Lilly? Lilly!”
A bedroom door sprang open, and a little girl ran out. “Mommy!” she cried.
Annie fell on her knees as she pulled her daughter into her arms. The man looked at them both. When Annie returned his look, he was blunt. “Discuss me with anybody, and you will not hug her ever again. Understood?”
Annie was angry that he had put her through this, and that it had all ended with Shelby’s death. But she was no fool. She nodded her head.
The man, apparently satisfied, looked at Annie and Annie’s daughter another time, and then left.
“Are you okay?” Annie asked her daughter, rubbing down her thick hair.
“I’m okay,” she said. “But he said Auntie Shelby isn’t. Is he right, Mommy? Is Auntie Shelby okay too?”
Tears appeared in Annie’s eyes as he held her daughter tightly. She knew Shelby never dreamed this night would end like this. Neither did Annie. “No, baby,” she said. “Auntie Shelby is not okay.”
After putting the children to sleep, and after showering separately and eating dinner together, Tommy and Grace cuddled naked in bed. It had been another long day. But the details of his night were still unknown. All Grace knew was that whatever he had to do didn’t take nearly as long as his adventures usually took, and when he returned home he seemed relieved, but also burdened. She wanted him to decompress, so she opted not to ask him questions. He would tell her, she knew, in his own time.
Tommy was lying behind Grace, in a spoon position, with his arms around her. It would take several minutes of silence before he finally spoke. “The shooter killed himself,” he said.
Grace was surprised to hear it. “Were you able to find out why he did it?”
“Love,” Tommy said, “of the twisted variety. Apparently he was obsessed with Shelby, the person he shot, and decided if he couldn’t have her, nobody else could.”
Grace shook her head. “What a shame,” she said. “Why they don’t just find somebody else to love them I’ll never know.”
“They won’t either,” Tommy said. “Because it’s not about real love. It’s about them, and if they’re going to move forward or stay back. She didn’t deserve that.”
There was a time when Grace would have focused more on Tommy’s relationship with this woman who didn’t deserve her fate, rather than the cause of her fate. But those days were gone. Tommy had a past, a significant past with a lot of women, and Grace had learned to live with that fact. Reliving it, or even pretending it never existed, was a waste of time. “But what I don’t understand,” she said, “is why did he decide to take her out the day she just so happened to run into you?”
“Because she didn’t just so happen to run into me,” Tommy said, pulling Grace closer. “She was waiting for me to arrive at Diamante’s to ask for my protection. Maybe he knew her plans.”
“But,” Grace said, and turned slightly toward Tommy, “how did she know your plans?”
Tommy exhaled. “Yeah, that crossed my mind too.”
“Any ideas?”
“My secretary is a friend of Shelby’s. She knew my schedule. I suspect she told her, but I’ll find out.”
Grace turned back around and interlaced her fingers with his, as his hand rested on her stomach. His penis butted against her butt. “But you’re certain that bullet wasn’t for you?” she asked him.
Tommy could never be certain about anything, not in his world. But he knew Grace. He wasn’t going to worry her unnecessarily. “It wasn’t for me,” he said. “Edelson, that’s the shooter’s name, left a suicide note. He made his intentions clear. So stop worrying,” Tommy added, as he turned Grace around.
When they looked into each other’s eyes, and saw the sense of relief that a storm averted often generated, Grace smiled. Until Tommy kissed her, and his kiss lingered. And soon he was pulling her closer, and she was wrapping her arms around him, and the urgency, the need, superseded all else. All smiles were gone. Love mixed with lust took over.
Tommy had wanted her from the moment he saw her at that SLS soiree tonight. He wanted to hold her like this, and kiss her like this, and remind her of whose she was. Because his heart ached when she was troubled. He felt physical pain when he knew she was burdened down. But now, as he couldn’t stop kissing her, as he couldn’t stop pulling her naked body closer to his, he needed her to understand the depths of his feelings. He needed her to know that he loved her above all others, and that she had nothing to worry about as long as he still had breath in his body.
Grace could feel his body come to life against hers. And not just his penis, although it was expanding rapidly against her thigh and hardening with every passionate second. But she could feel it in his heart too. By the way it was beating. By the way his eyes closed so tightly as he kissed her. It was more, far more, than lust could explain.
And when he began moving down, to her breasts first, and then down further between her legs, she knew what he was after. This was about more than just doing it. It was about relieving the stress of the day. This was about supplanting her fears and worries with his love and dominance. And he supplanted it fully. By the time he was licking her, and then eating her, any feelings beyond the joy of being with Tommy were completely gone.
Tommy mouth-fucked Grace for a long time. He couldn’t pull himself away from her wonderful taste even when he thought his erection would force him to. But he held on. And licked and sucked and mouth-fucked her long and hard. Until she was cumming in his mouth. Until her vaginal juices overflowed, and her orgasm could not be halted.
But when he moved up her body and guided his cock inside of her, and began moving in that slow, romantic way she loved, what she thought was an orgasm took on an entirely different meaning. Because the intensity of his gyrations increased, and her feelings for him incre
ased, and everything changed from wonderment to wonderment extraordinary. She loved this big man inside of her, and he was returning the affection.
Tommy could hardly express how much he loved Grace. With every movement of his body, with every rub of his shaft inside of her, he tried with all he had to demonstrate his love. He rubbed her soft, brown skin. He kissed her gorgeous lips, and then began rubbing his lips against hers. He breathed her breath and she breathed his as he made long, passionate love to her.
It lasted so long, and felt so good, that Grace began to have yet another orgasm. The kind that took Tommy over too. And as they came, as their entire bed shook with their trembling release and Tommy kept fucking her, they knew this was the personification of their love. And they both felt as if they could dare to dream of love requited. They both felt as if they were in their own less complicated, less worrisome world.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“That’s my baby,” Grace said to TJ as he laid in her arms and sucked from her breast.
Destiny, who was seated at the breakfast table with her mother and brother, eating her cereal, shook her head. “He’s greedy,” she said.
Grace smiled. “No more than you were,” she said. “Now finish your food.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
But when TJ kept on sucking, Grace demurred. “Dang, he is greedy,” she said before she realized she had uttered it, and laughed.
Destiny grinned. “I told you!”
But when Tommy came downstairs, and Destiny saw him walking toward the breakfast table, she jumped from her seat. “Daddy!” she cried, and ran into his arms.
Tommy lifted her up. She was getting heavier, but was still light as a feather to him.
“Mommy said TJ is greedy,” she informed him.
“Oh, really now,” Tommy said, and smiled when he realized what Junior was doing. “Not as greedy as Daddy,” he added, thinking about last night.
Grace was stunned. “Tommy!” she admonished. “There are children present!”
“I’m just kidding,” he said, sitting at the table where Destiny had been sitting. She sat on his lap.
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