Romancing Sal Gabrini 2: A Woman's Touch

ROMANCING SAL
GABRINI
2

A WOMAN’S TOUCH

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

THE GABRINI MEN SERIES

IN ORDER:

ROMANCING TOMMY GABRINI

ROMANCING SAL GABRINI

TOMMY GABRINI 2:

A PLACE IN HIS
HEART

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

COMING SOON

FROM

MALLORY MONROE
:

A
BRAND NEW, STANDALONE

INTERRACIAL
ROMANCE NOVEL

ROMANCING TOMMY
GABRINI

BOOK THREE

RENO AND TRINA:

MOB
BOSS SERIES

BOOK TEN

ROMANCING JIMMY
GABRINI

BOOK ONE

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ONE

Salvatore
Luciano Gabrini sat the briefcase on the dusty tabletop and looked at the men
standing across from him.
 
These were his
men: strong, loyal, and willing to drop everything on a moment’s notice if he
asked them to.
 
It was rare nowadays to
find men he could trust, and Sal was grateful he still had most of his crews
intact.

“You
guys did a good job,” he said as he stood in the dilapidated abandoned
building, far on the outskirts of Jersey, looking as out of place in his
Valentino suit as the men looked at home in their jeans and filthy sweat
shirts.
 
“You got in, you got out, you
got it done.”
 
Then he slung the
briefcase across the table.
 
“Good work.”

Chazz
Charski, the leader, stopped the sliding briefcase from sliding off the table,
turned it around, and then opened it.
 
Ninety thousand dollars, in stacks and rows of fifties and hundreds,
were staring him in the face.

“We
like working for you, Sal,” Chazz said with delight in his heart.
 
“You treat your men right.”

The
men, all Italians, smiled too and nodded their heads, their eyes transfixed on
the sizeable payday they were about to receive.

But
Chazz closed the suitcase.
 
It would be
an insult to Sal Luca for them to count it or divide it up in front of
him.
 
“Anything else on the map, boss?”
he asked.

“Nothing
right now,” Sal responded.
 
“Lay
low.
 
Take a vacation even.
 
Relax.
 
We don’t want any heat.
 
And I
mean none.”

“Yes,
sir.”

“If anything
else goes down, I’ll give you a call.”

“First?”

When
Sal turned toward him with that look in his blazing blue eyes, Chazz realized
quickly that he had overstepped his bounds.
 
“What are you talking first?” Sal asked him, suddenly peeved.
 
“Don’t you worry about who I call first.
 
You keep doing good work, you’ll keep getting
work from me.
 
You fuck up, that’s
it.
 
It’s over.
 
That’s all you need to worry about.”

“Sure
thing, Sal.”
 
It wasn’t the guarantee the
men had wanted, but it wasn’t a total rebuke either.
  
“We appreciate how you treat us, that’s all
I was talking about.
 
In our line of
work, you can meet---”

Suddenly
the room went black.
 

And
gunfire erupted.
 

And
the almost slow-motion action, turned desperately fast.

Sal
and Chazz and all of the men hit the floor fast and hard, pulling out their
guns as they did.
 

“Flip
the table!
 
Flip the table!” Sal was
yelling as they dropped, and they flipped the table sideways, with the top
facing the direction of the gunfire, for cover.
 
They all knew the briefcase would fly off, which was undoubtedly the
reason for the gunfire, and it did sail to the floor, an easy pickup target for
the gunmen.
 
But it was the price they
had to pay for their lives.
 

And
it became a life or death gun battle as they kept firing at an unseen
target.
 
They shot back just as fast and
furiously as the incoming bullets sailed around them.
 
It was surreal, even to these men, who had
seen it all.

But
then the incoming stopped.
 
No more shots
fired from that unseen enemy.
 
It was all
over in a matter of seconds.
     

When
Sal realized the gunfire was no longer being returned, he yelled for his men to
hold their fire.
 
They did.
 
And there was silence.
 
But Sal had been in enough situations like
this to be extremely cautious.
 
He knew
the silence itself could be the trap.

“Cover
me,” he said to Chazz, and they all began firing again as Sal leaped from the
table and landed, butt on the ground and his back against the wall, on the
other side of the room.
 
He wasn’t a kid
anymore, and he felt a burst of pain when his back hit the wall, but he was as
agile still as any younger man.
 
He had
his gun pointed and was firing too, but was finally confident that the perps
had gone.
 
He quickly pulled out the
small flashlight on his key ring, clicked it on,
 
and anxiously surveyed the room.
 
The coast, he felt, was clear.
 

He
and his men stood up, pleased just to be alive.
 
But they didn’t relish that pleasure long.
 
Just as quickly as the men realized the
briefcase was gone, and Sal came to the realization that some jokers had the
nerve to ambush him as if he was their punk, they all took off running, with
Sal leading the pack.

They
jumped down the three flights of stairs as if they were jumping down three
stairs alone, and slung their bodies through the metal door that led
outside.
 
Sal had wondered why his men
downstairs, his lookouts, didn’t alert him of the danger.
 
But as soon as they made it outside, he realized
why.
 
Both of them were dead.
 
Shot through the forehead execution-style.
 
They were in Jersey, in a deserted industrial
park in the wee hours of the morning, outside a half-completed building that
was long since abandoned when the recession hit.
 
It didn’t take a genius to ambush somebody in
a place like this.
 
But genius or fool,
Sal was getting their asses.

Especially
when he saw that his two men were dead.
 
It was personal now.
 
Stealing
money from him was one thing.
 
Icing his
men was something completely different.
 
Then he saw the getaway car, swerving wildly and then straightening as
it rounded the driveway and began heading for the only way out: the rusty, open
gate.

Sal
didn’t hesitate.
 
He took off running,
barking orders as he did.
 
“Three men
that way!’ he yelled as he ran, waving his gun at the longer route on the back
side of the fence.
 
Chazz and three of
his men headed that way.
 
If the car
cleared the gate, and Sal hadn’t managed to stop it, Chazz and his crew could
orchestrate a retaliatory ambush.
 
But
only if they could get there fast enough.
 
They would be the backup plan.
 
Sal and the two men running with him, was the main.

Sal
and his men ran across the sidewalk, jumped the fence, and then ran fast as
they could across the open field.
 
Sal’s
expensive suit coat was flapping in the early morning wind, making him look
more like a businessman than a gunman, but he was outrunning the younger men
easily.
 
He was determined to cut the car
off at the path, but the car was going so fast that he knew it would be a
matter of inches.
 

By
the time they made it up to the front side fence, the car was just approaching
with recklessly fast speeds, almost swerving out of control with every passing
second.
 
And it was just about to pass
Sal and his men altogether.
 
But Sal
couldn’t allow that to happen.
 
He jumped
that fence like a pole-vaulter and then jumped on top of the hood of the
car.
 
The three passengers, stunned by
his sudden presence, started firing their weapons, but the momentum of Sal’s
body was moving in so many directions that they were missing badly.
 
Sal was holding on for dear life, swerving
and swerving and unable to gain traction.
 
Then the car gave Sal an assist when the driver cleared the gate,
propelling the nearly out-of-control car into the dark street.
 
And Sal was able to still hold on.

But
the driver wouldn’t let up.
 
He kept
swerving in his attempts to sling Sal off the hood as it turned onto the
street, swerving, at one point, nearly on two tires.
 
But Sal’s muscular arms and brute
determination to stop this asshole kept him hanging on.
 
His body slung one way as the car slung the
other way, and then it slung the other way as the car slung back again, but his
hands held onto the windshield molding and he avoided falling off.
 
He was also using the swerving itself as a
weapon, as the erratic motions of the car helped him to avoid their volley of
bullets.
 
Then Sal was able to position
his body enough to take his expensive, imported shoe and bash in the
windshield, causing the driver to drive blindly, and swerve even more
recklessly.
  

Then
Chazz and his men took over.
 
They jumped
the fence further down the road as Sal had ordered.
 
They almost missed their chance when they
jumped onto the road just as the car was passing by.
 
They started firing inside of the car,
hitting the driver first and then the two gunmen.
 
Sal jumped from the vehicle just as it
careened, flipped over several times, and then skid all the way across the road
and ended upside down in the ditch.

Chazz
ran up to Sal, while his men ran up to the car.
 

“You
okay?” Chazz asked him.

“If
anybody’s still alive,” Sal ordered, barely able to regulate his breathing,
“find out who sent him.”

“Yes,
sir.”

“Then
ice him too,” Sal added.
 
“Not one of
those fuckers gets out of here alive.”

Chazz
took off, to secure the briefcase first and foremost, and Sal, too drained to
wait, headed back toward his two downed men.
 
He never left a man on the field.
 
He would have their bodies moved to a more respectable setting.
 
He would also anonymously send money to their
widows and children and make certain no bad news surrounds their deaths.
 
As far as the families would understand, when
Sal’s men finished staging it, those two downed men were the harmless victims
of some random act of violence.
 
Not
lookouts outside an abandoned building.
 
Choirboys even, if Sal Luca had his way.
 

And
Sal Luca usually did.

Gemma
Jones entered the side door of the Clark County courtroom where her client,
Kenny Winston, was waiting to conference with her.
 
They had just completed the morning session of
his trial and he was agitated.
 
He wanted
to talk, and Gemma knew he did, but she forced him to wait until they were in
the privacy of the lawyers’ room, and away from the prying ears of the
prosecutors, before he did.

Once
in the room, and the door closed, she immediately held up a hand.
 
“Don’t panic,” she urged him.
 
“It’s only the first day.”

“Why
didn’t you fight harder?” Kenny’s voice was distressed.
 
“That prosecutor made me look like some kind
of animal!
 
They made it sound like I was
the worse criminal in the history of the world!”

“He
was only doing his job, Ken.
 
Don’t worry
about that.”

“What
the fuck you mean don’t worry?
 
My life
is on the line!
 
They’re trying to send
me away for twenty years, Miss Jones!
 
I
can’t do that kind of time!”

Gemma
saw the fear in his eyes.
 
“Sit down,”
she said to him.

He
didn’t want to, that was obvious, but he eventually did as she asked.

“I
suggest again, Kenny, that you at least consider the plea deal the prosecution
has offered.”

But
Kenny was already shaking his head.
 
“No,” he said.
 
“No way.
 
Five years?
 
No way.”

“Five
is better than twenty.
 
And if you lose,
that’s the least you’ll get.
 
It could be
Life.”

“What
you mean if I lose?
 
I’m not losing!
 
You’ve got to get in there and tell them
people what kind of person I am.
 
I
didn’t shoot nobody.
 
Yeah, we were
fighting, but he was alive when I left him!”

“I
can tell them that all day long,” Gemma said.
 
“But the evidence is telling them differently.”

“Fuck
the evidence!” Kenny yelled as hysterically as she was calm.
 
“I’m telling you what you’ve got to tell that
jury!
 
Why haven’t you called my mama and
my brother’nem to the stand?
 
They can alibi
me.
 
They can tell you I was home when
the prosecution said that man died.”