Tommy Gabrini: Every Which Way But Loose

by Mallory Monroe

  But he timed it as perfectly as he could. As soon as he heard them within a hair’s breath, he turned his body into the corridor, revealing himself, and fired for dear life. He took out as many as he could. But more were on their way, and he began to realize he was outmanned and outgunned. He turned back into the cubbyhole as the gunfire continued. And as they began to advance on him even faster.

  But then he heard even more gunfire, from farther away. And he heard bodies falling, with little or no additional advancement. When he turned back into the corridor, he saw Sal, his beloved brother, picking off the enemy as if they were test dummies. And Tommy picked off the rest. By the time it was said and done, each and every man was down. Except Tommy and Sal.

  Tommy looked at Sal. Both were worn out. “What about downstairs?” he asked.

  “Your men got it under control,” Sal said. “I came up the back way.” Then he smiled. “You aren’t the only backdoor motherfucker in this town.”

  Tommy smiled too. “Why did you come back?” he asked him.

  “That feeling you had?” Sal asked. “I had it too. Call it brotherly intuition.”

  Tommy felt pleased. Thank God for his brother!

  But then he got busy. “Branson Nash has been shot,” he said. “He’s in a locked room on the second floor. Get him some medical attention.”

  “Where are you going?” Sal asked, as Tommy turned to head back toward the end of the corridor.

  “To check on my family,” Tommy said, and took off running.

  Grace was locked, loaded and ready when she heard footsteps, and then a stop at her door. Her heart was pounding. But then she heard somebody knocking on the door.

  Knocks, she thought. What bad guy would knock? But then, to her everlasting joy, she heard Tommy’s voice.

  “It’s me, Grace,” Tommy said. “Open up.”

  Grace knew it was no ruse. Tommy would die before he allowed anybody to use him as a pawn to get to his family. She jumped up and ran to that door, and opened it without hesitation. When she saw him standing there, in one piece, she didn’t have time to pull him into her arms. He pulled her, instead, into his arms. She was bleeding, but it was just a bruise. She didn’t even feel the pain.

  The baby started crying, and Destiny did too, reaching for her parents. Both parents gladly hurried over, and comforted their children.

  It had been another bloody battle, but Mick and Reno had managed to bring the Tank alive and to one of Tommy’s safe houses. They stood around the wall of the tiny structure and allowed Tank to cajole them with all of his big talk of all of his various and sundried escapades. That fool was going to die soon, but he acted as if he knew better. He acted as if he didn’t realize his army of men had been defeated by Tommy’s army. And they decided to let him continue in his ignorance.

  The talking stopped, however, when the object of his hate, Grace Gabrini, walked into the safe house with her husband and brother-in-law. And the look on his face was priceless. Even Mick found himself laughing it up with Reno and Sal.

  “She’s alive?” Tank asked. He was dumbstruck. “But my men, a veritable army of men, were supposed to go there!”

  “They went there alright,” Sal said, “and got their asses kicked.”

  But a suddenly distressed-looking Tank was focused on Grace. “You killed my son,” he said. “You’re the bitch who killed my son!”

  “Watch your mouth,” Tommy said. “That’s my wife.”

  “But she killed my son! She killed him. Jillian told me what happened, and her brother Lootie told me too. I know what went down.”

  “You don’t know a damn thing,” Grace said, “if you think I killed Cameron. Cameron shot himself, and Jillian and Lootie knows it.”

  “Was Jillian involved in this plot of yours?” Tommy asked.

  “I haven’t seen that bitch in years,” Tank said, his singular focus on Grace. “I don’t know if she’s dead or alive. This ain’t about Jilly. This about her! Cam was in love with her, and she broke his heart.”

  “Now that’s some bullshit,” Sal said. “Even I knew that. Cameron Birch was a troubled punk who couldn’t get his way. And he killed himself. That’s what that was about.”

  “Why did it take you so long?” Mick asked.

  Tank looked at Mick. Then back at Grace. “Prison. I was locked up. Then, when I got out, I was gunned down by some enemies. I had to recover, and then take care of that situation. But I knew all along I was going to get my revenge. I knew all along I was going to make this bitch suffer!”

  Tommy pulled out a gun and, before anybody realized his intentions, shot Tank in the arm. Tank grabbed his arm in shock, as the pain shot through. “What are you doing?”

  “Call her a bitch again!” Tommy warned.

  Tank still held onto his arm. “I heard you were a lover, not a fighter!”

  Sal laughed. “Man you’re batting 0-for-a-thousand, aren’t you? You don’t know shit about shit!”

  “Why try to kidnap the kid?” Mick asked Tank. “What was that about?”

  “About a bargaining chip,” Tank said. “And then the kid was going to get it too. Maybe even right in front of her mama. And daddy too, if he would have gotten in my way. But I was going to strangle that bastard child to death!”

  Tommy was about to finish off the job. He couldn’t bear the sight of that scum a second longer. They all knew it too. But just as Tommy was about to squeeze that trigger, Grace took the gun from his hand and squeezed it herself. She shot Tank once, between the eyes, and then again, through the heart. For her family’s sake.

  Sal, Reno, and Mick were astounded. Not their Grace! They were all shocked beyond measure. Except for Tommy. He wasn’t shocked at all. Grace had proven her meddle to him long before this day.

  And as they watched Tank die, as they did to him what he tried to do to Grace, Tommy took his wife, and pulled her into his arms. It was over, but the sting was still real.

  EPILOGUE

  The house in Paris sat high atop a hill within the Golden Triangle, situated like a stately mansion near the Champs-Elysees and the Seine. Tommy held Grace’s hand as the limousine lumbered toward the massive estate. He was in town on business, a trip that could not be cancelled. But unlike the past, he brought the family along too. The children, Destiny and Thomas, Junior, were back at the hotel with their entire staff of nannies and assistants and security, plenty of security, while Tommy and Grace headed to a dinner party in their honor.

  “I got a text from Branson Nash today,” Grace said as they held hands in the limousine. “He’s recovering nicely. He gave me pointers on security.”

  Tommy laughed. “That’s my Branson. He’s a good man.”

  “He loves you,” Grace said, “and by extension, me and the kids. We’re fortunate to have him.”

  “Yes, we are.” Then Grace looked at Tommy. “Mick text you the other day.”

  Tommy nodded. “He did.”

  Grace was always apprehensive when they heard from Uncle Mick. He wasn’t a casual man. Usually when he was contacting you, it was serious. “What did he want?” she asked.

  “To see if I’ve been taking my vitamins,” Tommy said. When Grace looked at him as if he’d lost his mind, he laughed. “Just kidding. He told me he spotted Annie Kirkland in Spain.”

  “Annie Kirkland? Isn’t she Shelby’s friend?”

  “That’s the one. Mick wanted to know what I wanted him to do about it.”

  Grace stared at her husband. “What did you tell him?”

  “I told him to let her be. She was a pawn in Tank’s madness just like Shelby and Lisa were pawns. The guilty people have paid. It’s been enough carnage.”

  “I sometimes think about Ellen Matanzas and when she pressed charges against me. I wondered if she was the one who recruited Lisa.”

  Tommy shook his head. “I don’t think so. Her story checked out. Rondo Jefferson owed one of Tank’s loan sharks. He did approach Ellen and threaten to expose her underhanded dealing
s. Ellen told the truth.” Then Tommy leaned toward Grace. “But that’s why I’m glad to be here with you. This is the exact opposite of Tank and Rookie and all of that nonsense.”

  Grace leaned down too, slouched the way he was, and smiled at his handsome face. “I’m glad to be here, too, with you,” she said. “This is the city of love, after all.”

  He looked deep into her beautiful brown eyes, and his playful look turned serious. He remembered one of his ex-girlfriends telling him she didn’t see it. “Tommy,” she said, “I tried with all I had to make sense of it. I looked at picture after picture of her. And I can’t see it. She’s not pretty at all, Tommy. Not like me or any of the girls you’ve dated! She’s just ordinary. Why would you want ordinary when you can have all the extra you want? I would understand it if she was dynamic. I would understand if she wasn’t so great looking, but was curvaceous out of this world, just like you like it. But she’s not even that! I mean, she has curves, but she’s a little thing. She’s no bombshell at all!”

  And Tommy remembered telling his ex, in some many words, to get lost. She didn’t see it because she didn’t know what to look for. Grace was as beautiful as her big heart, and her heart was humungous. And any time they said Grace wasn’t beautiful, all Tommy had to do was look in her eyes. And his heart melted in her beauty. They didn’t know what the fuck they were looking at.

  He kissed Grace. It was a token of his love. But like every time he kissed Grace lately, his token became an outright obsession. And he needed more and more. He placed his hand on her chin, and kissed her longer, and then harder, and then he could feel his entire body reacting to her taste and her smell and her nearness. And before he knew it, he had to have her.

  He pressed the button and the privacy screen that separated the driver from the passengers lifted up. The windows also went to deep dark tint. Then he lifted Grace onto his lap, and she straddled him face front. They continued kissing long and hard as he reached beneath her dress and tore the seat of her panties. Grace was amused as they kissed. “You tear my panties so easily,” she said. “As if you’ve done it so many times before.”

  Tommy continued to rain kisses on her. But his look was sensual, not amusing. “I have,” he said. “To you.”

  “To me and so many more.”

  Tommy had to smile at that. “Not that many,” he said.

  But when he reached down and rubbed that bareness between those torn panties, the smile was gone. He leaned his cheek against her cheek and sighed with contentment. This was who he wanted. And he wanted her with a need that supplanted all other needs. With his free hand, he unzipped her dress, and she allowed it to fall off of her shoulders until it was around her waist. With his mouth he lifted her bra, and with his mouth he sucked her breasts. He pushed his finger inside of her as he sucked. And the harder he sucked, the deeper his finger penetrated her. Until he needed the real thing. His erection was getting painful. No more props.

  He unzipped his pants, pulled out his fully erected dick, and shoved it into her.

  Grace felt the push and leaned her head all the way back. And soon she was lifting up and down and riding his rod. It made her feel so full, as its hard veins rubbed her soft ridges, and they were fucking hard.

  Even the driver, who couldn’t see a thing, could feel the bounce. They were fucking the shit out of each other. And soon he was getting hard too, just from the bounce.

  But Tommy wasn’t thinking about that driver. He wasn’t thinking about the fact that they were in the backseat of a limousine. All he thought about was Grace, and giving her the best ride he could give her. Because she was already giving him, in everything she did, the ride of his life.

  He continued to suck her breasts as he fucked her. She held onto his head and enjoyed every suck and fuck. And when she came, first, and then he soon followed, they felt like surfers riding the waves. Up and down, but always that feeling of triumph. They released into each other. And then strained as the feelings became nearly unbearable. But they kept fucking. They kept enjoying each other. Until even the enjoyment, their cum, took too much effort.

  By the time they arrived at the mansion on the hill, and the chauffeur got out and opened the back door, both Tommy and Grace had freshened up and were fully clothed.

  The party host, Mademoiselle Josalini, met their car. “Tommy and Grace,” she said in her heavy French accent. “Welcome!”

  Tommy kissed her hand and she and Grace blow-kissed each other’s cheeks.

  “Come,” the host said, as they walked toward the front entrance with each on either side of her, and her arms intertwined with theirs. “The guests await. You’re late, my darlings.”

  “Unavoidable,” Tommy said.

  “And why, might I ask? The beauty of the Parisian countryside held you back?”

  “No,” Tommy said. “I would say that very beauty got us going.”

  And he and Grace, behind their host’s back, gave each other a wink and a smile.

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