Page 59 of Tommy Gabrini: All Fall Down
Tommy nodded. “Good call,” he said. “I’ll get dressed and come on down.”
Sal looked at him bathrobe, and then looked at him. “Feel better?”
Grace hated when they discussed those personal matters like that. But to Tommy’s credit, she thought, he didn’t go there. “I’ll be down,” he said again, and closed the door on a now-smiling Sal.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Grace didn’t even ask if she could come along with Tommy. She just got dressed just as he was getting dressed, and they went downstairs together. When he placed his hand on her lower back escorting her downstairs, and she didn’t refuse his touch, he knew that was progress. Mick, Reno and Sal, along with Big Daddy and Amelia, were waiting to go to the guest room with them.
“Where’s Trina and Roz?” Grace asked. They were usually the leaders of the pack when anything was going down in the family.
“Jenay talked them into helping her cook a meal for everybody tonight,” said Big Daddy. “I said good luck with that.”
“Gemma had enough sense to refuse,” said Sal. “All these different tastebuds, nobody is going to be satisfied. But you can’t Roz and Trina anything. Jenay either,” he said and glanced at Big Daddy.
“Let’s just get this over with,” Tommy said. He wasn’t looking forward to Grace meeting Vera. He never liked when his ex-lovers met his wife.
“Then let’s do it,” said Mick, and they all headed out a side entrance, around the pool area, to the first of several guest houses.
But before they went in, Robby Yale hurried up to the group. “Hammer just called. He said he should be here in a few shakes. He said nothing deep until he gets here.”
“Why’s he coming?” asked Amelia. “He has news?”
“He wouldn’t say,” said Robby. “He just said nothing deep until he arrives.”
“Okay, Robby, thanks,” said Tommy. Then he looked at Mick. “What you think that’s about?”
“Apparently he knows something,” said Mick.
“How deep should I go then?”
“Deep enough. His ass can catch up,” Mick added. “But not too deep. Pace yourself until he comes.”
Tommy exhaled. It was tough enough. But then he took Grace’s hand, looked at her to make sure she was willing to hold his hand, and then he took a deep breath and they all entered the guest house.
Grace knew she would be beautiful before she laid eyes on her. Uniquely beautiful ladies were all Tommy fooled around with before he met her. And this Vera Lang, with her perfect black skin and her sultry green eyes and her high cheekbones definitely fit the type. And more beside. Grace would be lying if she said she didn’t feel some level of jealousy, because she did. But she knew she had to face facts. It was no secret that Tommy went against type when he chose her. What kept her going was that he could have just as easily chosen this woman, this Vera Lang, or any of those other beauty queens he favored. But he didn’t. He not only chose Grace to be his woman: He chose her to be his wife. And in that moment of knowing that she and she alone was Mrs. Tommy Gabrini no matter how it came to be, she knew she had nothing to be jealous about.
Vera was seated on the sofa inside the guest house. Although she wasn’t tied up like their prisoners usually were, she knew she wasn’t free to leave. The fact that another black woman, Nikki Sinatra, the underboss of the Sinatra Crime Family, was sitting beside her like a prison guard proved that. The fact that Mick Sinatra’s capos were on guard at the door outside proved it too.
“It’s about time you get here, Tommy,” Vera said. “Fatty over here wouldn’t let me make a simple phone call.”
If she thought her little putdown was going to rile Nikki Sinatra, a proud full-figured woman, she was wrong. Nikki smiled at the silliness of it. But Mick the Tick, her boss, didn’t find it funny at all. “Disrespect her again,” he warned Vera, “and I’ll shove that phone call up your ass.”
“And I’ll help,” added Sal.
Vera sat erect. She’d forgotten the close relationship Mick had with Nikki, and the fact that Nikki and Teddy ran his entire syndicate. She even heard that Mick loved Nikki like a daughter, orlike a girlfriend. She’d heard it both ways. “I was just joking,” she said with a sudden, nervous smile. She knew Tommy was a tough guy. She knew Sal was even tougher. But she definitely knew that Mick the Ticking Time Bomb was not the one to cross. Once he started in on your ass, she’d heard, he wasn’t going to stop. “Even Nikki knew I was just joking around.”
Nikki knew no such thing, but she wasn’t about to make this about her. She let it slide.
“Decided to take a vacation, Vera?” Sal asked her snidely. “We pay you a visit, then boom. You need a break. Got to get out of town. That’s how you roll?”
Vera rolled her eyes at Sal instead. Then she looked at Grace. Everybody could see the contempt in her eyes when she looked at Grace. “What’s she doing here?”
Tommy frowned. “What do you think? She’s my wife. This is her house. She owns this guest house you’re sitting in. You had to be dragged into her backyard, not the other way around. That’s why she’s here.”
The mere reminder that Grace had beat her, and beat all those far-more worthy women Tommy could have had, that Grace of all people did that, was too much for Vera to even wrap her brain around. “Can I smoke?” she asked Tommy. “Nikki wouldn’t let me do that either.”
“Why no jokes about Grace?” Sal asked Vera with a smile on his face. “Or I should say why no jokes about Mrs. Tommy Gabrini? Can’t joke about that, can you Vee?”
