Read Tommy Gabrini: The Grace Factor Online
Authors: Mallory Monroe
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #United States, #African American, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Romance
Tommy Gabrini: The Grace Factor
TOMMY GABRINI 5
The Grace Factor
By
MALLORY MONROE
Copyright©2015
Mallory Monroe
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This novel is a work of fiction. All
characters are fictitious. Any similarities to anyone living or dead are
completely accidental. The specific mention of known places or venues are
not meant to be exact replicas of those places, but are purposely embellished
or imagined for the story’s sake.
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OR
It felt like an intervention.
His first cousin and best friend, Vegas
Casino owner Reno Gabrini, was there.
Sal Gabrini, a gangster in his own right and his kid brother, was
there.
Even Mick Sinatra, his uncle and
the most feared mob boss on the east coast, sat in that dressing room a mere
hour before the ceremony and asked him again if he was certain he was making
the right decision.
Tommy Gabrini leaned back in his
chair as the three men sat in front of him.
His legs were crossed, his hands were folded over and resting in the lap
of his pearl-white tuxedo, but the strain on his handsome face was
evident.
His thick brown hair flapped
around his forehead, making him appear ageless, but he was no kid anymore.
He no longer had the luxury of time on his
side to continue to play games with his heart.
He knew what he wanted, and he was going after it.
“Yes,” he said.
“I’m certain.”
“But why her?” Sal asked.
Besides his wife, Sal loved his big brother
above any human being alive, and wanted the best for him.
But he wasn’t nearly as certain that she was
the best he could do.
“Why would you
want the woman that left you?
Why would
you want the woman that divorced you?
She already showed what she was made of as far as I’m concerned.
Why would you want her back?”
Tommy heard the arguments against his
decision for months on end.
He was
making the mistake of his life, they told him.
Remarrying his ex-wife would be like un-breaking his heart: the damage
was already done.
Some of his friends,
many of whom he’d known for years, were even harsher.
Liz was prettier, and savvier, they told him,
and had more going on in every direction than Grace would ever have.
Why would he choose
Grace
?
Why would he choose a
woman who couldn’t hold up to the pressure of being a Gabrini and went so far
as to divorce him, when he could have a woman like Liz who lived her life in
the pressure cooker?
Why choose
hamburger when he could have steak?
Liz,
like almost all of his previous girlfriends before her, was a strong-willed and
career-focused lady.
She was the
personification of independence, sophistication, and daring.
Grace was a good mother and businesswoman,
but she was yesterday’s news, they told him.
Why was he turning back?
But Tommy was as firm as the ground
he stood on.
“I’m not turning back,” he
said.
“I’m moving forward.
But I’m moving forward with Grace.
I love her and I want her.
I want my wife back.
I want her heart, and her imagination, and
her decency that would rival any human being’s alive.
I want to be with the mother of my daughter.”
Mick studied him hard.
“But all of your friends,” he said to him,
“appear to be against this.
They are all
wrong, yes?”
“My friends are blinded by their
loyalty to me.
All they can see is how
Grace wronged me.
What they can’t see is
how I wronged Grace.
It took a long time
for me to admit it, long after the divorce, but I saw how I married her and
thrust her into a world she was ill-prepared to handle, and then left her to
figure it out for herself while I traveled the world handling my own business
interests.
She’s tougher than they give
her credit for, but I knew going in she was fragile too.
It was that fragility, that vulnerability
that drew me to her in the first place.
How could I want her to be totally unlike all the other women of my
past, and then blame her because she isn’t like all the others?
Now my friends were blaming her.
You guys, my family, blamed her too.
But you can blame Grace until the cows come
home, but I know better.
I should have
been there for her.
I should have
understood her anguish.
I’m not going to
make the same mistake twice.”
Sal was pleased to see how confident
Tommy was, but he still wasn’t certain that he was making the right move.
He couldn’t bear anybody breaking Tommy’s
heart again.
He looked at Reno.
Mick looked at Reno too.
Of everybody in the family, Reno was the only
one who had not voiced his opinion one way or the other.
It was high time, it seemed to Sal.
“What about you, Reno?” he asked him.
“You’re awfully quiet.
What do you have to say about this
marriage?
You have a lot to say when
it’s about me, but you always give Tommy a pass.
He can do no wrong in your eyes.
But what about this situation?
Don’t you think he can do better than Grace?”
“Hell yeah, he can do better than
her,” Reno said without hesitation.
“And
she can do better than him.
And Lord
knows Gemma can do better than you.
But
that’s not what this is about.
It’s not
about better.
The grass is always
greener on the other side.
There’s
always better.
But this is about the
heart of the thing.
And I say his heart
is with Grace.
He didn’t do her right when
they were married, and he knows it.
He
didn’t do right by her.
They’ll be okay
this time around.”
But Sal frowned.
“He didn’t do right by her?
He treated her like a fucking---.” Sal
realized where he was and caught himself.
“He treated her like a freaking queen!
What are you talking?”
“I’m talking what I’m talking,” Reno
said, not backing down, “and if you don’t like it, tough. Grace was an innocent
when Tommy first had her.
A sweet
girl.
She needed nurturing.
She still does.
Tommy didn’t give her that.”
“But why would he want a chick he has
to nurture,” Sal asked, “when he can have a woman who knows how to nurture
herself?
All of these powerful women out
here.
All of these larger-than-life
women out here.
Why wouldn’t he want one
of them?”
“Perhaps it’s because
larger-than-life women,” Mick said as if he knew what he was talking about,
“have to lead larger-than-life lives.
Every man does not need, nor want, that kind of lady.”
“Right,” Reno said, nodding.
“And Tommy’s one of those men, Sal.
He’s not like you and me and Micky.
He doesn’t want a she-woman.
He’s been through hell and back again,
beginning in his childhood with that perverted piece of shit y’all called a
father.
He’s been through hell.
He doesn’t need a woman who’s been there
too.
He wants a dainty lady.”
Even Tommy had to laugh at that one.
But Reno was serious.
“I kid you not,” he said to Sal.
“He needs a dainty lady who’ll be satisfied
to be a wife and a mother, and won’t have some great need to be a she-woman too.
That’s Grace.
Say what you want about her, but that’s Grace.”
Sal didn’t know what to say.
He looked at his big brother, who seemed
pleased by Reno’s vote of confidence.
And maybe Reno was right.
Reno,
after all, was closer to Tommy than Sal ever was.
Reno was the man Tommy shared his innermost
thoughts with.
Sal had to believe that
Reno, when it came to Tommy, knew what he was talking about.
But still.
“She dumped him because of his lifestyle,” Sal said.
“He still has the same gangster lifestyle, I’m
just going to put it out there.
What’s
changed?”
“She has,” Tommy said.
“She can handle it now.”
“But what if she can’t, Tommy?
She can talk the talk now, but what if she
can’t walk the walk later?”
“Then I’ll have to pick her up and
carry her,” Tommy said, “until she’s able to walk it again.”
Sal appreciated what he was
hearing.
He even nodded.
“I just don’t want anybody breaking your
heart again,” he said with such uncharacteristic emotion that it caught all the
men by surprise.
“You’ve been through
enough,” he added.
Tommy stared at his kid brother.
“Thank you, Sal,” he said, heartfelt
too.
“But I’ll be okay.”
“And why can’t people change?” Reno
asked.
“Did I say people couldn’t change,
Reno?” Sal asked.
“What I’m saying is maybe Tommy’s
changed too.
Maybe Liz and women like
her have always been the kind of women Tommy wanted, but maybe Grace is the
kind of woman he needs.”
Tommy smiled.
“I want her too, Reno,” he said.
“Believe that.”
“Then it’s settled,” Reno said,
rising to his feet.
“Grace, in my
opinion, is the one for you.
But what
the hell do I know.
Right?”
Less than an hour later, as the four
men showed a united front in front of the cathedral crowd, all standing there
in their tailored white tuxedos, Tommy felt as if Reno had it exactly
right.
The organist began playing
Wagner’s Bridal Chorus (
Here Comes the
Bride
), Big Daddy Charles Sinatra, Mick’s big brother and Tommy’s uncle,
also stood up front as a member of the groom party too, and Grace began walking
down the aisle.
She was dressed in a beautiful gold
gown in white lace, a gown that highlighted her beautiful dark skin.
And she looked so enchanting to Tommy that
his heart began to palpitate.
She walked
her name.
She was grace in motion.
They’d been through a lot over the past
several months.
Getting back together
wasn’t as simple as getting together.
But they endured it, became the better for it, and now felt as if they
had searched around the world to get around the corner and back into each
other’s arms.
They felt as if they had
come full circle.
Little Destiny, Tommy and Grace’s
daughter, walked in front of her mother tossing flowers with great abandon,
hitting guests in the face, in the head, but still throwing as if she was a
flower-tossing girl from way back.
Trina
Gabrini, Reno’s wife, and Gemma Jones-Gabrini, Sal’s wife, walked beside Grace
in a show of unity that pleased their men. They were a united front too.
They understood, not just the backstory, but
the
full
story.
And when they walked the beautiful bride
up to her gorgeous husband-to-be, and Tommy took over and took her hand,
placing her beside him, he, too, was ready for that full story.
And the ceremony began.
It was a lovely ceremony on a lovely
Seattle afternoon.
Tommy and Grace stood
before God and man and said their vows.
The minister pronounced them husband and wife again, causing their
family and friends to rise to their feet in rapturous applause.
And Tommy gave Grace a long, passionate
kiss.
They wouldn’t take nothing for
their journey now.
Because it had been a
long road.
As they kissed, they thought
about it all.
They thought about what
happened with Tommy and Liz, and what happened with Grace and Ed.
They thought about what almost didn’t happen
because it nearly went completely south on both of them.
And just as they were thinking about what
could have been, and how grateful they felt that it turned out this way and
they were husband and wife once more, the doors of the church burst open with a
forceful clap, and men with guns entered shooting.
As bullets sailed and the wedding
guests started screaming and jumping over pews in a mad dash for cover, the
instincts of the Gabrini and Sinatra men took over.
Tommy jumped on top of Grace and Destiny,
shielding them with his own body.
Sal
jumped onto Gemma, shielding her. Reno jumped on top of Trina, shielding
her.
Mick Sinatra, whose wife Roz was
also in attendance, didn’t jump on anybody.
He pulled out the two guns he always kept on his person and began firing
back.
Nobody, including his wife, was
getting out of there alive if somebody didn’t start firing back.
He fired back.
He walked boldly toward the shooters and
fired with such force and precision that the men retreated, to the back of the
cathedral, and then gave up altogether and began running back out.
