Until You Come Back To Me, Book 5 (22 page)

It
was about Sal holding his wife as he fucked her.
 
It was about how she sighed against his
chest.
 
It was about her wonderful
perfume smell, and her happy eyes, and her small, fragile body.
  
It was about her refusal to take any shit
from him, even early in their marriage, and how she demanded respect from every
human being alive.
 
It was about how odd
she made him feel when he first laid eyes on her at the PaLargio that fateful
day.
 
It was how he respected her too
much to sugarcoat his racist past, or minimize it, or pretend he was really a
good guy underneath all that baggage.
 
He
was an asshole underneath all that baggage, a cop who treated minorities like
crap, a hardhead who wasn’t above manufacturing evidence to get the result he
wanted, or profiling people just because of the color of their skin.
 
And she changed him.
 
She didn’t work at it.
 
She didn’t tell him the error of his ways or
how ridiculous his worldview was at that time.
 
She showed him.
 
She showed him
what decency acted like, and what morality looked like, and what love felt
like.
 
It was about Gemma to Sal.
 
And all she meant to him.

It
was such a relaxing fuck that they both closed their eyes and nearly went to
sleep.
 
Not because it wasn’t intense: it
could not have possibly been more intense.
 
But because there was no desperation anymore.
 
There was no fear and anguish and distress
anymore.
 
They were in their beautiful
home, in their marble-top bathtub, doing what they wanted to do.
 
And the world be damned.
 
Problems be damned.
 
Sal and Gemma were back together.
 
They were at peace with the world.

And
after they came, after a pour-out that felt like a purge of all the pain and
negativity they had endured, they fell into each other’s arms.
 
And for the first time since her ordeal,
Gemma fell asleep.

Sal
cleaned her vagina, and cleaned his dick, and then found the strength to lift
her out of the tub, pull the covers back, and put her in their bed.
 
When he got in behind her, and pulled her
into his arms, it only took two minutes.
 
Two minutes tops.
 
And for the
first time since their ordeal, Sal was fast asleep too.

Nine
that next morning, as a rainstorm thundered outside, Tommy entered Sal’s
bedroom.
 
Somebody had to tell him, and Tommy
knew it had to be him.
 
But he didn’t
knock.
 
He didn’t want to wake
Gemma.
 
He, instead, walked quietly
across the floor, and up to their bed.
 
It was an intrusion, but it couldn’t be helped.
 
Sal would not forgive them if they went to
deal with Rory Calhoun, and left him behind.

Tommy
tapped his brother’s shoulder.

Sal
opened his eyes.
 
When he saw that it was
Tommy, he already knew.
 
“They found
him?”

“There
was a shootout,” Tommy said.
 
“Screw and
his crew were killed.”

“And
Calhoun?”

“They
took him alive.
 
Barely.
 
But he’s alive.”

Sal
looked at Gemma. When he realized she was still sound asleep, he kissed her on
the forehead, removed his arm from around her body, and got out of bed.

Two
SUVs arrived at the safe house in the woods, a safe house that was one of their
most secluded.
 
The rain had completely
stopped by the time Sal, Reno, and Tommy got out of the first SUV, and a group
of their men got out of the second one.
 
Sal went to the trunk, pulled out a steel rod, and headed inside.

“Everybody
wait here,” Reno said to their backup.
 
They knew and loved Gemma and wanted a piece of the guy too.
 
But somebody had to be Plan B if Plan A
failed.
 
Their back up was always Plan
B.
 
Reno and Tommy, a part of Plan A,
followed Sal inside.

Rory
Calhoun, his face already bruised and his pants bloodied from Gemma’s bite, was
seated in a chair in the middle of the near-empty room.
 
Unlike their cozier safe houses, this one
wasn’t meant to soothe anybody.
 
Subjects
were brought to this house when the last thing the Gabrinis wanted to do was
soothe.

And
as soon as Sal walked into the house and up to Rory, he kicked the leg of the
chair from under him, causing Rory to hit the floor hard.
 
And then Reno held him down and turned him
onto his stomach, Tommy pulled down his pants and boxers, and Sal took the
steel rod and rammed it up Rory’s rectum.

Rory
howled in pain as soon as the steel pushed in, but if he thought the Gabrinis
would ease up now, would let up, would set him free, he was mistaken.
 
Sal thought about his polluted dick in his
wife’s beautiful mouth and he twisted the rod.

“No!”
Rory was crying and screaming in pain.

“Who’s
your boss?” Sal asked him through his howls.

“Please
stop!
 
Please pull it out, pull it out,
pull it out!”

Instead
of honoring Rory’s request, Sal twisted the rod again, causing Rod to cry out
again.

“Who’s
your boss, motherfucker, I’m not playing with your ass!”

“You
are playing with his ass,” Reno said, “but we get your point.”

“Who’s
your boss?” Sal asked Rory again.

“Johnnie,”
Rory screamed.
 
“Johnnie!”

Sal
looked at Reno and Tommy.
 
They didn’t
know him either.
 
Sal looked back at
Rory.
 
“Who the fuck is Johnnie? Johnnie
who?”

“
Jonnell
Keith.
 
She’s
the one.”

Sal
remembered that name.
 
“
Jonnell
?”

“Yes,
Johnnie,” he said.
 
If he talked, he
didn’t think Sal would twist the rod.
 
He
talked.
 
“She’s the boss.
 
She’s the one you want.
 
She’s Karen’s sister.”

Tommy
looked at Sal.
 
“Wasn’t that the name of
Chelsey’s girlfriend?
 
The one you had to
take out?”

“That’s
her,” Rory said.
 
“Karen Johansson.
 
She was
Jonnell’s
sister.”

“What
the fuck,” Sal said, remembering.
 
“
Jonnell
Keith was the chick at my in-laws house, talking
that shit about me killing Chelse instead of Reno.”

Tommy
was remembering the name too.
 
“You mean
the one you told me about?” he asked.
 
“The one who had that police report claiming you were the shooter?”

“Yeah,
her.”

“But
I thought you said she was a friend of Chelsey’s,” Tommy said.
 
“You never mentioned she was Karen’s sister.”

“Because
she never said she was,” Sal replied.
 
“I’ll be damned.”
 
He looked at
Rory.
 
“What the fuck does she have to do
with this?”

“She
wants revenge for what you did to her sister,” Rory said.
 
“She wants you to suffer the way she did and
her brother did.”

“Her
brother?”

“Her
brother.
 
Carmine Fontaine.”

“We’ve
been looking for that bastard,” Sal said.
 
“Where the fuck is he now?”

“I
don’t know,” Rory said.
 
“Johnnie says
he’s in hiding in Europe somewhere, that’s all I know.
 
He’s too terrified to show his face anywhere
near the States.
 
But Johnnie isn’t.”

Sal
and Tommy looked at each other.
 
“Why did
you call her the boss?” Reno asked.

Rory
smiled a smile that wasn’t meant to be joyful.
 
“She’s the boss,” he said.
 
“She’s
the boss of me.
 
We met after her sister
died.
 
She’s a very gorgeous lady.
 
And I fell hard for her.”

Reno
shook his head.
 
“You old fool!
 
That woman didn’t want you.
 
She wanted to use you to get to Sal.
 
She did her homework, and found out your ass
used to mentor Gemma.
 
She got you to
leave the bench, to move to Vegas.
 
She
was using your dumb ass!”

But
Rory was shaking his head.
 
“She loves
me.
 
She’s going to marry me, after this
is all over.”

“You
mean after she kills Gemma?” Sal asked.
 
“Ain’t gonna happen!
 
Where is
she?”

Rory
didn’t respond.
 
Sal twisted the rod
again. Rory screamed out again.
 
“Where
is she?” Sal asked.
 
“Where the fuck is
Jonnell
Keith?”

“I
don’t know!” Rory’s pain was renewed, and tripled.
 
“Please stop!
 
She was supposed to come to Vegas, but I haven’t seen her.
 
Please stop!”

“Does
she know Gemma got away?” Sal asked.

“Yes,”
Rory said.
 
“Please let me go.
 
I was only helping her.
 
I didn’t do anything to Gemma.”

Sal
knew that was a lie.
 
“You paid those
goons to kidnap her.
 
You held her
against her will.
 
You mouth-fucked her.
 
But you didn’t do shit to her.
 
Man get the fuck out of here!
 
Get the fuck out of my face!”

Then
Sal angrily shoved that rod so far up Rory’s rectum that it split his
colon.
 
Rory screamed and cried and
thrashed until his eyes bugged out.
 
And
he finally, mercifully, died.

Then
Sal pulled the blood-soaked rod out, stood up, and tossed the rod aside.
 
“Motherfucker,” he said, looking at
Rory.
 
Then he looked at Reno and Tommy.
 
“We’ve got to find that bitch,” he said.

“Don’t
worry,” Reno said.
 
“We’ll find her.
 
If it’s the last thing we do, we’ll find
her.”

And
they all headed out to the SUVs, got in, while their men stayed back and
cleaned up the mess.

But
something was bothering Tommy.
 
He
couldn’t put a finger on it until they were almost home.
 
Until they were turning into the gate at
Sal’s estate.
 

“What
if she’s in town?”
 
Tommy asked him.

Sal
looked at him.
 
“He said she was coming
this way, so what are you saying?
 
You
want us to set up some roadblocks?
 
Have
men stationed at the airport, the train stations, the bus stations?
 
How the hell we gonna pull all of that off?”

But
Tommy was thinking a different way.
 
“What if she’s heading, not just to Vegas, but to your house, Sal?”
Their SUV drove up to the closed gate.
 
“You said she presented herself to Gemma’s parents as a friend of
Chelsey.
 
What if she tries it again?”

Sal’s
heart dropped through his shoe and he jumped out of the van just as it was
slowing at the security gate.
 
The gate
opened and Sal took off running, with Tommy and Reno and the entire security
team running too, but much farther behind him.

Jonnell
Keith had had enough.
 
She sat impatiently inside of Sal and Gemma’s luxurious home and
chitchatted with Gemma’s parents.
 
Rodney
and Cassie had cleared her for entry as a
friend
of the family
, and Security had allowed her passage in.
 
Now all three were in the living room, the
Joneses seated on the sofa and
Jonnell
in the
flanking chair, and
Jonnell
looked
atsy
.

“I’m
just glad they found her,” she said.
 
“You guys just lost Chelsey.
 
I know
you couldn’t afford to lose your other child too.”

“No,
Lord,” Cassie said. “That would be the end of us.
 
We couldn’t bear it.”

“When
I called, to see if you had Gemma’s phone number so I could look her up, and
talk with her, I never dreamed she’d been through so much.
 
Thank-you for inviting me over.”

Rodney
smiled.
 
“Any friend of Chelsey’s is a
friend of ours.”

“What
about a friend of Karen’s?”
Jonnell
asked with edge
in her voice.

Rodney
caught her change in tone, but he was still trying to figure out the
question.
 
“Who’s Karen?” he asked.

Jonnell’s
jaw tightened.
 
“Karen
Johansson.
 
Chelsey’s fiancée,
remember?
 
The wonderful lady she was
going to marry?”

“Oh,
please,” Rodney said.
 
“That’s just a
bunch of nonsense!
 
Chelsey had turned
her down was my understanding of it.
 
That woman was putting Chelsey up to that.”

“So
you didn’t like
that woman
?”

“We
didn’t know her,” Cassie said.

“And
didn’t want to know her,” Rodney said.
  
“I don’t even remember her name.”

Jonnell
stood up.
 
She
couldn’t take it anymore.
 
“I’ll bet
you’ll remember it now,” she said, and pulled out a loaded gun.

“Good
Lord!” Cassie said as she leaned back, her hand to her heart.
 
Rodney was too stunned to move.

“What
are you doing,
Jonnell
?” he asked her.

“I’m
doing what Sal did to me.”

Rodney
frowned.
 
“What are you talking about,
child?”

“He
killed my sister.
 
Yeah, Karen Johansson
was my sister.
 
The nobody?
 
The woman you didn’t want to know?
 
She was my sister!
 
It was three of us.
 
Me, our brother Carmine, and Karen.
 
And Sal killed all of us when he killed
Karen.
 
Carmine’s in hiding, afraid of
his own shadow, and I’m ready to die for what I believe in.
 
Because I’m killing all y’all asses today.
 
Nobody’s getting out of here alive.
 
Not you.
 
Not your wife.
 
And especially not
your precious daughter upstairs.
 
Sal
Gabrini’s wife.
 
She’s going to get it
good.
 
I’m going to kill everybody he
loves.”