Tommy Gabrini 3: Grace Under Fire (The Gabrini Men Series)

TOMMY GABRINI
3

GRACE UNDER FIRE

By

MALLORY MONROE

 

Copyright©2014
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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MORE
INTERRACIAL ROMANCE

FROM
BESTSELLING AUTHOR

MALLORY
MONROE:

 

THE PRESIDENT’S GIRLFRIEND

SERIES IN ORDER:

 

THE PRESIDENT’S GIRLFRIEND

 

THE PRESIDENT’S GIRLFRIEND 2:

HIS WOMEN AND HIS
WIFE

 

DUTCH AND GINA:

A SCANDAL IS BORN

 

DUTCH AND GINA:

AFTER THE FALL

 

DUTCH AND GINA:

THE POWER OF LOVE

 

DUTCH AND GINA:

THE SINS OF THE
FATHERS

 

DUTCH AND GINA:

WHAT HE DID FOR
LOVE

 

FOR THE LOVE OF GINA

BOOK EIGHT

 
 

THE MOB BOSS SERIES

IN ORDER:

 

ROMANCING THE MOB BOSS

 

MOB BOSS 2:

THE HEART OF THE
MATTER

 

MOB BOSS 3:

LOVE AND
RETRIBUTION

 
 
 

MOB BOSS 4:

ROMANCING TRINA
GABRINI

 

A MOB BOSS CHRISTMAS:

THE PREGNANCY

(Mob Boss 5)

 

MOB BOSS 6:

THE HEART OF RENO
GABRINI

 

RENO’S GIFT

BOOK 7

 

RENO GABRINI:

A MAN IN FULL

BOOK 8

 

RENO AND TRINA:

GETTING BACK TO LOVE

BOOK 9

 

RENO AND SON:

DON’T MESS WITH JIM

BOOK 10

 

THE GABRINI MEN SERIES

IN ORDER:

 

ROMANCING TOMMY GABRINI

 

ROMANCING SAL GABRINI

 

TOMMY GABRINI 2:

A PLACE IN HIS
HEART

 

SAL GABRINI 2:

A WOMAN’S TOUCH

 

ADDITIONAL BESTSELLING

INTERRACIAL ROMANCE

FROM MALLORY MONROE:

 
 
 

DANIEL’G GIRL:

ROMANCING AN
OLDER MAN

 

ROMANCING MO RYAN

 

ROMANCING HER PROTECTOR

 

ROMANCING THE BULLDOG

 
 
 

IF YOU WANTED THE MOON

 
 

INTERRACIAL
ROMANCE

FROM

BESTSELLING
AUTHOR

 

KATHERINE
CACHITORIE:

 

LOVERS AND TAKERS

 

LOVING HER SOUL MATE

 

LOVING THE HEAD MAN

 

SOME CAME DESPERATE:

A LOVE SAGA

 
 
 

ADDITIONAL BESTSELLING

INTERRACIAL ROMANCE:

 

A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP

YVONNE THOMAS

 

AND

 

BACK TO HONOR:

A REGGIE REYNOLDS

ROMANTIC MYSTERY

JT WATSON

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

ROMANTIC
FICTION

FROM

AWARD-WINNING

AND

BESTSELLING
AUTHOR

 

TERESA
MCCLAIN-WATSON:

 

DINO AND NIKKI:

AFTER
REDEMPTION

 

AND

 

AFTER WHAT YOU
DID

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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PROLOGUE

 

The
double doors of the master bedroom flew open and Grace Gabrini hurried in as if
she was a woman with nothing left to lose.
 
She was tired of this shit now.
 
She’d
had it up to here with these people now.
 
What more did they want from her?
 
How much more of their bullshit did she have to take before they would
finally leave her the hell alone?
 

Not
that she was waiting to find out.
 
She
wasn’t.
 
Talk was over now.
 
Now it was time for action.
 
They didn’t understand respect.
 
They didn’t understand civility and human
decency and working through problems the way normal people would.
 
So now she didn’t understand it either.
 
She went into her husband’s massive walk-in
closet, turned the combination and unlocked the safe, and pulled out the
gun.
 
It was locked and loaded.
 
She removed the safety.

And
she was off again.
 
She walked out of the
bedroom and hurried back downstairs.
 
They wanted a fight, well now they just got one.
 
And they won’t see it coming.
 
Because their insignificant little Grace -
the one woman they thought would never fight back; the one woman they thought
was nothing more than a doormat strategically placed for them to stomp all
over, was about to kick ass and take names.

Tommy’s
man Henry was standing in the foyer as Grace hurried past him in her beautiful
form-fitting white dress.
 
If she didn’t
have a pistol at her side she would look as if she was heading for an evening
at the Opera.
 
But Henry knew
better.
 
He knew where she was headed,
and he had the good sense to let her be.
 
He’d never seen Grace in this kind of state before, not in all the time
he’d known her, but if he was in her position, if he had to take the shit she
had to take, he’d be packing a pistol too.

She
hurried out of the front door, hurried down the circular steps, and then ran
down the long, winding driveway that led to the street in front of the
house.
 
The car was still parked across
the street, with the motor still running, and the woman behind the wheel was
looking at her as she came.
 
But she
still didn’t take Grace seriously.
 
She
was even smiling, as if Grace was some silly young girl who was too
unsophisticated to do a damn thing about it.
 
Until Grace lifted that gun as if she aimed to use it.
 
That smile, that woman’s
I’m superior
bitch of a smile, was gone.
 
And Grace began moving toward the car.

Tommy
Gabrini’s dark red Ferrari drove onto the street just as Grace was walking
toward that car.
 
He was stunned to see
her in the street like that at all, but when he realized she had a gun in her
hand, and had it aimed and ready to fire, his heart nearly stopped.
 
He slammed on brakes, stunned by what he was
seeing, as the woman he loved with all of his heart fired not one, but
successive shots into that vehicle, firing and firing, as if she was killing
the car itself.
 

He
jumped from his own car, yelling his wife’s name as he ran like a maniac toward
her.
 
But she kept firing.
 
She kept moving closer and closer to the vehicle,
and wouldn’t stop firing.

The
female behind the wheel attempted to speed away when the bullets first flew,
but in her panic she forgot that the car was still in Park.
 
She was spinning her wheels.
  
By the time she threw the gearshift out of
Park, it was too late.
 
There were too
many bullets.
 
She’d been hit too many
times.
 
The car lurched and then rolled,
as if the pressure she had tried to apply on the gas petal never materialized,
and was no pressure at all.
 
There was a
whiplash effect as the driver’s head lobed back and then forward, and then her
forehead came to rest against the steering wheel.
 

Grace
was standing there, the smoking gun now at her side.
 
Tommy was hurrying to her side, his heart
pounding against his chest, as he looked back to see if any other cars were
turning onto the street.
 
His mansion was
the only home on the block, so there would be no eyewitnesses of neighbors
peeping through curtains and telling cops what they saw.
 
But his street was sometimes used as a
through-street to other blocks.
 
A car
could pass through at any moment.
 

Grace
turned when she finally heard her husband calling her name.
 
He was running, his suit coat was flying
wildly, and his blondish-brown hair was tossed around his forehead making him
look years younger.
 
But the terror in
his eyes belied that youth.
 
Because she
knew he was devastated.
 
Because she knew
he did all he could to save her from nights like this.
 
He had shielded her and babied her and
coddled her their entire life together.
 
But even she knew it couldn’t work.
 
Not when she had signed on to become a Gabrini.
 
Not when she had proudly married a man who
was so desirous and good that some women would kill to keep him in their beds,
and in their hearts.
 
And Grace, to their
shock and underestimation, was not only willing to do what she had to do to
keep him too, she did it hard and she did it all the way.

 
As Tommy drew closer to his wife, and looked
into her big, brown eyes, he knew she still felt justified.
 
She did what she had to do and was making no
apologies for it.
 
Her eyes were not
filled with regret, but resolve.
 

Now
Tommy took over.
 
He looked at the woman
in the car, a woman he knew well, but she was not his concern.
 
Right now, Grace was the only human being he
was concerned about.
 
He pulled her into
his arms, removed the gun from her hand, and began hurrying her toward his
Ferrari.
 
His man Henry was already
running down the driveway, his face twisted with horror too, as if he had no
idea it would end this way.
 
He had expected
yells and threats, but never an actual shooting.
 

Tommy
handed him the gun.
 
This wasn’t the
first gun Henry had ever had to dispose of, and if he continued to work for
Tommy Gabrini he knew it wouldn’t be the last.
 
Henry was already on his cell phone, contacting Tommy’s men, as he
hurried back toward the mansion.
 
This
was not his first rodeo.
 
He knew what he
had to do.

Tommy
held onto Grace’s small body with the protectiveness of a man holding onto life
itself.
 
His heart was broken.
 
His worst nightmare had been realized.
 
He thought it was over.
 
He had handled their enemies the way Tommy
Gabrini handled all enemies: ruthlessly and without mercy.
 
He thought he had handled them all after word
first got around that he was no longer dating, but had married Grace
McKinsey.
 
He thought he had kicked every
one of those devils right back to hell where they belonged.
 
He had no clue there was another one.
 
He had no clue his wife was wrestling with
another one that would lead her to a night like this.
 

He
sat her in his car, and then got behind the wheel himself.
 
He looked at her.
 
She was emotionally exhausted now, but still
resolved.
 
She looked at him, daring him
to blame himself.
 
But he did blame
himself.
 
How could he not?
 
This was his wife.
 
He was her protector.
 
Something had gone horribly wrong!

He
grabbed hold of her small, trembling brown hand after he backed up, swerved
around, and sped away.
 
He was physically
removing her from the scene, to continue to protect her, but he knew her
emotional connection would always be there.
 
In that place.
 
It always was for
him and for anybody driven to nights like this.
 
He would take her to Sal’s place to assess the blowback.
 
He would take her to Sal’s place to keep her
together before she fell apart.
 
He would
deal with it at Sal’s.

 

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