Tommy Gabrini: The Grace Factor (2 page)

Big Daddy Charles Sinatra, along with
his oldest son Brent and his other sons at the gathering, and Reno’s son Jimmy
Mack, along with Mick’s grown sons, all pulled guns too and started rounding up
the Gabrini and Sinatra women and children and hurrying them into the back room
away from the violence.
 
These were the
young guns, and Big Daddy made sure they knew their role.
 
It was a Gabrini wedding.
 
They came prepared.

Once Tommy, Reno, and Sal knew their
women and children were in good hands with Big Daddy and the boys, they pulled
their guns too and followed Mick.
 
They
chased after the gunmen.
 
Mick even ended
up with a pump action sawed off shotgun one of his men, one of his bodyguards
in attendance tossed to him, as they moved against terrified patrons who were
running toward the front of the cathedral as they ran, against the tide, toward
the doors.
 
They ran down those long
aisles in their expensive white tuxedos, each man bearing the kind of hardware
unthinkable in any ordinary wedding.
 
But
this was a Gabrini wedding.
 
They came
prepared.

But as they headed toward the exit to
demonstrate just how prepared they were, and saw that their guards out front
had all been shot down, undoubtedly with silencers sneaky gangsters knew how to
deploy, Backdoor Tommy broke off from the foursome, made his way along the side
aisle that led to a side exit, running as fast as he could with a gun in each
hand, to launch his own sneak attack.

But the sneak attack was already
on.
 
Mick ran out first, followed by Reno
and Sal, as the gunmen jumped into their getaway car and tried to get
away.
 
The threesome ran out into the
street, firing after the car as if their lives depended on their accuracy,
angry that any motherfucker would be crazy enough to take them out all at
once.
 
Mick hit one.
 
Reno and Sal hit a couple.
 
They even took out a tire.
 
But two other men, including the driver, was
still alive and getting away.

But then the side door to the massive
church sprang open, and Tommy ran out with both guns blazing.
 
His tuxedo coat blew in the wind, his thick
hair puffed up, as he fired on the getaway car that was quickly getting out of
Reno, Mick, and Sal’s range.
 
Tommy hit
the two additional gunmen inside of that getaway car, including the driver,
causing the car to careen wildly, flip once, and then crash into a utility
pole.
 
But just as it was crashing, just
as it seemed as if victory was in their grasp, a second car came up behind
Reno, Sal, and Mick.
 
Tommy turned just
as the tires began to squeal, and he saw it coming.
 
He began running toward his brethren and
waving his gun.

“
Get
down
!” he yelled.
 
“
Get down
!”

Reno, Sal and Mick all knew that if
Tommy was telling them to drop, they had better drop and ask questions
later.
 
They dropped, and rolled onto
their backs, their guns at the ready to take out any new motherfucker who
thought they were going to outsmart men like them.
 
But they returned fire too late.

Tommy was running toward the car,
firing both of his weapons all at once.
 
Their bodyguards that had been inside the church were running down the
steps of the church, stepping over their downed fellow guards, and were firing
too.
  
All trying to give cover to the
three bosses that were being ambushed.

But Tommy was the surprise
factor.
 
The gunmen didn’t expect him to
be out of place.
 
And as he fired
unrelentingly the car started reversing, speeding backwards in a swerve that
was one swerve away from losing total control.
 
The mastermind behind this attack was in that car, Tommy concluded, and
he became even more determined to stop them.
 
His hail of bullets chased after that car.
 
One of the men inside of the car was hit, but
it wasn’t the driver.
 
The car spun
around wildly, nearly out of control, but then corrected itself and took off
around a corner, going so fast that nobody could catch it.

But when the dust cleared, and Tommy
ran up to his family members, those hit-and-run asshole gunmen were the least
of his worries.
 
Reno Gabrini had been
hit and was down.
 
Sal Gabrini had been
hit and was down.
 
And Mick Sinatra,
though he didn’t realize it at the time, was hit too.
 
And it was serious.
 
The pain took him to his knees.
 
He was down too.

And Tommy couldn’t believe it.
 
The only thing kept him standing was knowing
that he had to stand.
 
He knew Big Daddy
Sinatra and his sons, and Jimmy Mack and Mick’s sons had the women and children
safe and sound and out of harm’s way.
 
He
knew Grace and Destiny were in good hands.

But as sirens could be heard in the
distance, as help was on its way, Tommy stood guard over the three downed
giants, watching his back, his sides, and instructing their bodyguards who
hadn’t been hit to do the same.
 
Reno and
Sal were both unconscious.
 
Both had been
hit multiple times.
 
Blood poured from both
of them as if they were riddled with holes.
 
Mick was hit too, but his consciousness had not yet faded.
 
But he would soon be out too.

Tommy felt all kinds of warring
emotions as he stood before the carnage.
 
But mainly he was angry.
 
He was
mad as hell.
 
What crazy fuck, he
wondered, was crazy enough to hit Reno Gabrini and Sal Gabrini?
 
What fool of fools was fool enough to shoot
them down like dogs in the street?
 
And
to try to take out Mick Sinatra?
 
To try
and take out Mick the Tick too?
 
What
stone cold fuck did they have on their hands?

And as Tommy held the hands of his
fallen kin, and promised each one of them that they were going to be alright,
he somehow knew this was only the beginning.
 
Somebody wanted to bring down the Gabrini and Sinatra dynasties in one
swift swoop, and they planned it and double-planned it to near-perfection.
 
And Dapper Tom, the supposedly lover not the
fighter of the four great men, was the one still standing.
 
Backdoor Tommy was the one who had to
represent.
 
They had brought the fight to
him.
 
Now he had to take it to them.
 
Grace told him, before the wedding, that she
could handle it now.
 
She told him she
knew what it meant to be a Gabrini now.
 
Life circumstance, and this bat-shit crazy hit, was about to test her resolve.

Eleven Months Earlier

He felt her kiss on his lips.
 
He knew it was her without opening his
eyes.
 
Nobody kissed like her.
 
He smiled and placed his arms around her
sleek black body, and enjoyed that kiss.
 
And when it was feeling so good, and feeling so right, he guided his
penis inside of her, and pushed.
 
And
began to groove.

“
Aaah
,
he moaned as his fully erected cock rubbed against her ridges.
 
At long last he had her.
 
At long last he was moving deep inside of
her.
 
At
last.

And then the phone was ringing.
 
Why was a phone ringing at a time like
this?
 
Tommy opened his eyes.
 
At first it shocked him.
 
Her naked body was not on top of his naked
body.
 
His penis was nowhere near
her.
 
He was naked, but alone in his bed.
 
What in the world was wrong with him?
 
Why in the world was he dreaming, yet again,
about
Grace
?

He reached over and grabbed the phone
off of his nightstand.
 
He had to
hesitate before he answered because his sleepiness still hung heavy over
him.
 
“Yeah?” His voice was hoarse.
 
It was barely audible.

It was his secretary.
 
“Sorry to disturb you this early, sir,” his
assistant said over the phone, “but we were finally able to track down Miss
Logan.
 
I just received the call back.
 
I have her on the other line right now.
 
May I send the call through?”

Tommy removed the phone from his ear
and continued to lay there.
 
He wasn’t
even sure if he wanted to take the call.
  
But he knew they had to resolve this.
 
He put the phone back to his ear.
 
“Put her through,” he ordered.

He hadn’t heard from Liz in nearly a
month.
 
She ran a foreign affairs news
magazine that took her out of the country often, but this was getting
ridiculous.
 
She was out of the country
more often than she was in the country and Tommy was well tired of it.
 
Changes had to be made if their relationship
was going to survive.
 
He’d already told
her so repeatedly.
 
But she had not heeded
any of his warnings.

When the call came through, the phone
reception wasn’t the best, but clear enough.
 
“Tommy, hey.”
 
Liz Logan’s voice
could be heard through the static sounds.
 
“I was going to phone you.”

It sounded almost lame to Tommy.
 
It was the same line he used to lay on his
women when he hadn’t bothered to check up on them.

“How are you?” Liz asked.

“How are
you
?” Tommy asked.

“I’m good.
 
Busy, but good.”

Tommy could hear what sounded like a
lot of outdoor activity in her background.
 
A lot of commotion.
 
And Liz
sounded winded, as if she was walking as she spoke.
 
“Where are you?” he asked.

“We’re on the move.
 
It’s a lot going on.”

But it was a non-response as far as
Tommy was concerned.
 
“Where are you?” he
asked again.

“It’s a tough area, but I’m okay.”

Tommy wanted to ring her neck.
 
“Where, Liz?”

There was a hesitation.
 
“Syria,” she said.

Tommy couldn’t believe it.
 
“
Syria
?
 
Liz, are you nuts?
 
What are you doing in that hellish place?”

“I’m a war correspondent, Tommy.
 
Going to hellish places is what I do.”

“You own the magazine.
 
Let somebody else go!”

“I can’t.
 
It’s too crazy right now!
 
Vladimir Putin is sending ground troops in to
prop up Bashar al-Assad’s regime, the U.S. and NATO forces are dropping bombs
on ISIS, and the Shias and Sunnis are fighting the shit out of each other.
 
This is the only show in town.
 
All hands have to be on deck right now.
 
That means me and every available reporter I
have.
 
We’re all here.”

Tommy rubbed his forehead.
 
“Let somebody else handle it, Liz.”

“There is nobody else.
 
Aren’t you listening to me?
 
There is nobody else.”

Tommy suddenly heard an explosion
through the phone that caused even him, from the safe confines of his Seattle
estate, to feel its force.
 
What the
fuck?
 
“Liz?
 
Liz?
 
Elizabeth
?”

“I’m okay!” Her voice came back onto
the phone, but it sounded strained.
 
Then
Tommy heard her talking to somebody with her: “Raj, Raj!
 
You okay?
 
Any of our people hit?”

“We . . . all . . .,” Tommy heard
someone, a male’s voice with a middle-eastern accent, respond back to her, but
it wasn’t clear.
 
“We are all okay,” he
said again, but this time Tommy could hear him clearer.
 
“But they say hospital bombed.
 
They say they have bombed hospital.”

“Good Lord,” Liz said to Raj.
 
“Which one?”

“Women and children,” Raj
continued.
 
“The people are saying it is
women and children at hospital!”

Liz sounded as if she was running
now.
 
“Who bombed it?” Liz asked the
man.
 
“The Russians?”

But what Raj responded was so mangled
and unclear Tommy couldn’t make it out.

But when Liz said, “we’ve got to get
over there,” Tommy heard it loud and clear.
 
“Liz, don’t you dare!” he said.

“Can you arrange a car?” Liz asked
the middle-easterner.

“Car’s over there,” Raj
responded.
 
“Let us get there now.
 
We could be first journalists on scene.”

“I’ve got to go, Tommy,” Liz said
into the phone.
 
She sounded as if she
was running even faster now.
 
“This could
be an exclusive.
 
I’ll call you
later.
 
Love you.
 
Bye!”

“Liz?” Tommy was astounded.
 
The idea of his woman smack dab in the middle
of a war zone stunned him.
 
She said she
was going to her magazine’s overseas bureau, not to the front lines! “Liz?
 
Liz?”
 
But he knew she had already gone.

He ended the call too, and leaned his
head back.
 
He didn’t want this
shit!
 
Every fiber of his being hated
that he was, once again, saddled in a relationship with a woman who craved
danger.
 
He wanted to call her again and
order her to get her ass back to the states right now, but he knew it would be
a waste of time.
 
But this shit was
getting serious now.
 
This was getting to
be a matter of life and death.
  
It had
been going on too long, and they both had avoided the truth of their troubled
relationship even longer than that.
 
He
was going to have to put his foot down.
 
He was going to have to give her an ultimatum.

Or, he thought again, he was going to
have to give himself one.

He picked up the phone again, and
called his pilot.

“Which way?” Mike Dobson asked Narly
Fann as he drove his Jeep Cherokee through more high thickets of weeds and
grass, their bodies bouncing with every trek across the uneven terrain.

“Turn right,” Narly responded.

“We’re getting deeper and deeper into
these woods.
 
You’re sure this is the
right way?”

“What are you asking me a question
like that for?
 
How the fuck can I be
sure?
 
You think the Google truck go into
this hellhole?
 
You think there’s GPS
back here?
 
I’m not sure about any of
this.
 
Just keep turning right.
 
That’s the way I was told.
 
That’s the way we’re going.”

“And what about this guy anyway?”
Mike asked.
 
“This Ed Jefferson?
 
I never heard of him before.
 
And he’s a doctor?
 
What kind of doctor would do something like
this?”

“Just shut your trap and drive,”
Narly responded.
 
“Don’t you worry about
who he is.”

“But you trust him?” Mike looked over
at Narly.
 
If Narly trusted this
so-called doctor, that was good enough for Mike.
 
But Mike needed to be sure.

“Yeah,” Narly said.
 
“I trust him.
 
Just drive.”

Narly trusted Ed Jefferson about as
far as he could throw him, mainly because he didn’t know him like that, but he
was promised a big payday.
 
He didn’t know
what he and Mike would be asked to do for that pay, but for fifty grand it
didn’t much matter: he’d do anything for that kind of dough.
 
Including journeying all the way to this
cabin in the boonies just to get his instructions.

After yet another right turn, and
more questions from Mike, the Jeep finally arrived at its destination.
 
It was a cabin in the woods, alright.
 
But it looked spooky even to hardened
criminals like Narly and Mike.
 
This was
nobody’s vacation home.
 
This was a
hideout.

“Should we take extra hardware?” Mike
asked as he turned off the motor.

“Not yet,” Narly said, getting
out.
 
“Let’s see what we have to do
first.”

As Mike got out too, Narly walked up
to the door and knocked.
 
Within seconds
it was opened by a tall, distinguished-looking African-American male in round
specs.
 
Neurosurgeon Ed Jefferson.
 
“What took you so long?” he asked
snappishly.
 
“I said twelve-thirty!”

“We got here as fast as we could,”
Narly snapped back.
 
“We’re no fucking
magicians.
 
This place is in the
got
damn jungle!”

“Just come in,” Ed said irritably,
and began turning away from the front door.
 
These crackers better know what
they’re doing
, he thought as he turned.

But Narly wasn’t following his
lead.
 
“Not so fast, Doc,” he said.
 
They weren’t going into any cabin until they
saw the money.
 
“What exactly are you
asking us to do?
 
And where’s the
cash?
 
Money upfront.
 
That was the deal.”

Ed exhaled.
 
It was only then did Narly see how
overwhelmed he looked.
 
And he could tell
it wasn’t just because they came late either.

“Well talk motherfucker,” Mike said,
noticing Ed’s wariness too.
 
He was
standing behind his partner in case some funny stuff went down.
 
He was looking over Narly’s shoulder.
 
“What is it you want us to do, and where’s
the money?”

“It’s a kill,” Ed said in a way that
let both men know this area of life was new to him.
 
This, they believed, was Ed’s first
rodeo.
 
“You guys up for a kill?”

“Fifty grand still the price?” Narly
asked.

“It’s still the price,” Ed said.

“Then hell yeah we’re up for it.
 
How many?”

Ed frowned.
 
“How many what?”

Narly and Mike looked at each
other.
 
Narly looked back at Ed.
 
“How many people do you need us to take
out?
 
How many on the kill list?”

“Oh,” Ed said.
  
The idea of a kill list?
 
Were they serious?
 
“Just one,” he said.

“Who?” Mike asked.

“A guy.
 
A very rich and powerful guy.
 
I heard you two took out the rich and
powerful before.
 
That’s no turnoff to
you, right?”