Tommy Gabrini 4: Dapper Tom Begin Again (23 page)

“That’s
right.”

“And
you told me that she is nice.”

“Yes.”

“And
I asked you if she was fat, and you said no.”

Liz
was mortified.
 
Tommy smiled.
 
“You think she’s fat?”

“No,
but I asked you if she was small, and you said yes.”

Tommy
was puzzled. “She’s small.”

“But
she’s not, Daddy.
 
She’s this much bigger
than me!”
 
Destiny lifted her hands as
far up as they could go.

Tommy
and Liz both laughed.
 
“Yes, that’s
true,” he said.
 
“Compared to you, she’s
in the giant range.
 
I’m sorry, baby,” he
said, kissing her on the cheek.
 
“I was
comparing her to me.”

“To
you?” Destiny asked.
 
“Compared to you
everybody’s small.
 
Even Uncle Sal.”

Tommy
laughed.
 
“Oh, he’ll love that!”

Then
Destiny looked at Liz.
 
“I have one
question,” she said.

Liz sat
erect.
 
“Ask away,” she said, impressed
with the child’s mastery of the language.

Destiny
thought about what she was going to say, then she looked at Liz again.
 
“Be good to my daddy,” she said.
 
“I have mommy and Ed, and mommy has me and
Ed, but Daddy only has me.
 
He should
have an Ed too.
 
Will you be his Ed?”

Liz
knew that Tommy’s ex-wife’s husband was named Ed, so she completely understood
the import of the question.
 
But the
meaning behind it warmed her heart.
 
And
she took Destiny off of Tommy’s knee and put her on her own lap.
 
And she nodded her
 
head. “Yes, Destiny,” she said.
  
“I’ll do everything within my power to be
your daddy’s Ed.”

Destiny
smiled, and hugged Liz’s neck.
 
Liz
looked at Tommy.
 
He smiled too.
 
She could tell he was pleased.
 
They had a long road of trust to go, but both
of them, that night, felt as if they were getting started in the right
direction.

Sunday

September 28, 2014

That fateful
night

Tommy
and Liz arrived in Chicago late that Sunday night.
 
Tommy couldn’t stay; he had to be in Spain
Monday morning.
 
And he had every
intention of dropping her off, and then heading back to the airstrip.
 

But
when they entered her quiet home, and began kissing goodbye in the foyer, his
grand plan flew out the window.
 

“Um,”
he said as he kissed her.
 
Liz knew Tommy
well enough now to know that whenever he started with the moans while he was
only kissing her meant that more was to come.
 
More came. Much more.
 
Tommy began
rubbing her ass as he kissed her.
 
Then
he was lifting her skirt, tearing the seat of her panties, pulling it out and
entering her before they left the foyer.
 
He had her back against the wall, her legs were wrapped around him, and
he was fucking her hard as he continued to kiss her.
 

For
several minutes they remained in that foyer as Tommy pumped into her and she
rubbed his hair and held onto him.
 
She
came, and her clenched muscles caused him to cum, and he poured into her before
they could fully enter the home.

But
Tommy still didn’t leave.
 
He carried her
upstairs, they showered together, and then he put her to bed.
 
But instead of putting on his clothes and
leaving then, he lingered.
 
He didn’t
want to leave her, not for a day,
 
not
for an hour, and it was a powerful feeling.

He
got in bed with her. After she fell asleep, he told her, he would then go catch
his plane.
 
She smiled and welcomed his
presence.
 
And eventually, she did fall
asleep.
 
But as she lay on top of him, and
as he continued to rub her ass, he couldn’t help himself.
 
He did her one more time.
 

When
he put it inside of her, she was barely awake.
 
But Tommy was wide awake.
 
He
fucked her with slow, lingering strokes.
 
He didn’t want to disturb her rest, but he needed to cum again before he
left.
 
And he came.
 
He shoved into her deepest pocket, released,
and felt the chills he always felt in his climax.
 
The white overflow came out between her legs.

After
pulling it out and allowing the last of his cum to leak, he got out of bed and
headed for the bathroom.

Outside,
Liz’s home was hidden from view by tall hedges and a long driveway.
 
But on the street, in front of her home,
Luke, Joey, and Sonny had been watching Tommy Gabrini make love to his woman
from the comfort of their automobile.
 
While Liz was in Dubai, and then later in Seattle meeting Tommy’s little
girl, they entered her house and was installing the video feed they needed to
keep tabs on their subject.
 

Now
they were ready.
 
Tommy returned to the
bedroom dressed in his fine suit.
 
He
cleaned his lady’s vagina with a cloth, put her naked body on one of the dress
shirts he kept at her home.
 
Then he
kissed her goodbye on her sleepy forehead and left.
 
When he eventually made it outside, got into
his Maserati, and drove out of Liz’s elongated driveway, the three men were
prepared.
 
They fired on him as if he and
his automobile was their target practice.
 

Inside
the house, Liz’s eyes flew open as soon as she heard the first shot.
 
Then she jumped out of bed, ran to her
window, but she could see nothing.
 
But
she continued to hear the gunfire.
 

Outside,
Tommy was hit.
 
Luke, the driver, saw it
first when Tommy’s long body went limp and he slumped against the steering
wheel.

“We
got him!” Joey was screaming and pumping his fist into the air.
 
“We got that motherfucker!”
 
Then he nodded his head.
 
“Now that’s getting somebody, you hear me?
 
That’s getting somebody!”

But
Luke knew they had to make sure.
 
Just
shooting Tommy Gabrini was not their mandate.
 
They were instructed to kill the bastard.
 
And to make sure he was dead.

“Let’s
go,” he said to his partners, and all three slowly got out of their vehicle
with their weapons drawn.
 
Liz’s home was
the only home in that section of the street, so there were no
eyewitnesses.
 
But they knew they did not
have a wealth of time.
 
They picked up
some speed.

When
they approached the car, and looked in and saw Tommy still moving slightly
inside the car, Luke knew he had made the right call.
 
The bastard still had some life in him.
 
And all three of them saw it.
 
They moved in closer, raised their weapons,
and was about to let go a fantastic volley of outgoing fire.

But
they didn’t realize they had incoming fire.
 
Liz, in nothing but the big shirt Tommy had put on her before he left,
was standing bare feet in the middle of the street, with her gun drawn
too.
 
And she fired in rapid succession
before they could get off their first shot.
 
Luke was the first one hit, and then Sonny, and then Joey.
 
All three were down.
 
All three of their weapons were out of their
hands.
 
But she was no fool either.
 
They would not only finish off Tommy if she
didn’t take them completely out, but they would take her out as well.
 

She
took them out instead.
 
Another round
into them just to be certain.
 
And then
she hurried to Tommy’s car.
 
She could
hear the police sirens already.

Tommy
was slumped over the steering wheel, but she could tell he was still
alive.
 
She knew it had to be Matthew
Tennyson and his flunky police commissioner behind this attack, so she knew she
couldn’t call 911.
 
If she was right, the
commissioner would order his men to cart Tommy off somewhere and finish the
job.
 
She wasn’t about to let that
happen.
 

She
used every bit of strength she had to push Tommy’s body over into the passenger
seat.
 
He had some strength left, saw
what she was trying to do, and moved with her push.
 
Then she got in behind the wheel, put his
fast car into gear, and took off.

She
didn’t know where she was going, but she drove as far away from the sound of
those sirens as she could go.
 
She wasn’t
panicking, but she was close.

“What
do I do, Tommy?” she cried as she drove.
 
“Where do I go?”

Tommy
could barely speak.
 
“Call Sal,” he
managed to say in a voice so drained of energy she could barely hear him.
 

But
she heard Sal’s name.
 
She pressed the
phone button, said “Call Sal,” to the computerized operator, and the operator
did as she was told.
 
Liz continued to
drive through the streets of Chicago, knowing she needed to get Tommy to a
hospital, but also certain the powers that be would not let him live through
it.
 
So she drove aimlessly, but she
drove.
 
When Sal’s voice came onto the
car phone line, she at least felt she had some help.

“Do
you realize how late it is?” Sal voice asked as soon as he got on the line.

“He’s
been shot, Sal!” Liz yelled out as soon as she heard his voice.
 
“Tommy’s been shot!”

“Who
is this?”

“Liz!
 
Tommy’s been shot!”

“Where
is he?” Sal asked with sudden hysteria in his own voice.
  
“Where’s my brother?”

“In
the car with me.
 
In Chicago.
 
I’m driving his car.
  
He needs a doctor, Sal, but I think the
mayor and police commissioner were behind this attack.
 
He won’t survive if I take him to the
hospital.”

“You
see his GPS keypad?”

Liz
looked on the dashboard.
 
“I see it.”

“Type
this address in.
 
Are you ready?”

“An
address?”

“Type
it in,” Sal said.

“Okay,”
Liz responded.

“Type
in 15414 Amhurst Drive.
 
Got it?”

“Yes,”
Liz said, attempting to drive and type, and succeeding at both.

“Take
him there,” Sal ordered.
 
“ Take him there
right now.”

“But
he needs a doctor, Sal.”

“I’ll
have him a doctor there.
 
Just get him
there!”

“Okay,”
she said, and began following the GPS prompts.

“I’m
on my way,” Sal said, and she could tell he was getting out of bed, “but I’m
going to stay on this phone until you get him there.”

Liz
was reassured by that.
 
And she drove
like a bat out of hell to the address Sal had ordered her to go, but she drove
carefully too. The last thing they could afford was to be stopped by police.

As a
line of black SUVs waiting across the tarmac, one private plane arrived at the
Chicago airstrip, and then a second private plane arrived just behind it.
 
Sal got out of the first plane, and Reno
Gabrini and his African-American wife Trina, and his biracial son from a previous
relationship Jimmy Mack, got off of the second plane.
 
Sal’s wife Gemma got off of Reno’s plane
too.
 
They all hurried to the waiting
SUVs, jumped in, and were quickly whisked away.
   

They
drove in a convoy of SUVs to a big, secluded house near the outskirts of
Chicago.
 
Reno and Sal were up front,
Trina and Gemma in the middle seats.
 
Jimmy in the back.
 
The driver was
flooring it.

“Who
is this Liz again?” Trina asked, leaning forward.

“Tommy’s
old lady all I know,” Reno said.

“You
haven’t met her?” Trina asked her husband.

“No.”

“What
about you Sal?”

But
Sal couldn’t speak.
 
He couldn’t say a
word until he saw that his brother was okay.

Gemma,
as he knew she’d do, spoke for him.
 
“Sal
met her at my parents’ anniversary party,” she said.
 
“I’ve known her since childhood.”

“Really?”
Trina asked.
 
“What kind of person is
she?”

“She’s
a firebrand alright, but she’s loyal and trustworthy and a sweet person beneath
her tough exterior.”

Trina
leaned back.
 
“She’d better not be behind
this attack,” she said.
 
“That’s all I
have to say about it.”

“Amen,”
Reno agreed.

Sal
couldn’t hold back any longer either.
 
“Amen,” he said too.

When
they arrived at their destination, the security gate opened and their SUV drove
up toward the massive home.
 
Reno
frowned.
 
“Well damn,” he said.
 
“Who owns this?
 
Sal, who owns this?”

“I
do,” Sal said.

Reno
looked at him.
 
“You own it?”

Sal
looked at Reno.
 
On their best day they
did not get along.
 
“Yeah, I own it.
 
You got a problem with that?”

“Why do
you own a fucking house this big in a town you’ve never lived in?”

“I
don’t live here, but I have business interests here.”

“So
you bought a house?”

Sal
nodded.
 
“Yeah, so?”

Reno
stared at his cousin.
 
He always
suspected Sal was a mafia boss, although he denied it, and buying a house in a
town he barely visited didn’t ease his suspicions.
 
But he, like Sal, was too worried about Tommy
to even debate the issue.

Just
as the SUV was rolling to a stop at the front door, the car doors opened and
Reno and Sal, Jimmy, Trina and Gemma jumped out, and hurried into the
home.
 
When they entered the foyer, they
saw Liz coming down the stairs.