Until You Come Back To Me, Book 5 Read online

  SAL GABRINI FIVE

  UNTIL YOU COME BACK TO ME

  (The Gabrini Men series)

  By

  MALLORY MONROE

  Copyright©2015 Mallory Monroe

  All rights reserved. Any use of the materials contained in this book without the expressed written consent of the author and/or her affiliates, including scanning, uploading and downloading at file sharing and other sites, and distribution of this book by way of the Internet or any other means, is illegal and strictly prohibited.

  AUSTIN BROOK PUBLISHING

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  THE AUTHOR AND AUSTIN BROOK PUBLISHING.

  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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  INTERRACIAL ROMANCE SERIES

  BY BESTSELLING AUTHOR

  MALLORY MONROE:

  THE SINATRAS OF JERICHO COUNTY

  SERIES IN ORDER:

  BIG DADDY SINATRA

  THERE WAS A RUTHLESS MAN

  BOOK ONE

  BIG DADDY SINATRA 2

  IF I CAN’T HAVE YOU

  BOOK TWO

  BIG DADDY SINATRA 3

  THE BEST OF MY LOVE

  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

  MOB BOSS ELEVEN

  THE WRONG ONE

  BOOK 11

  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

  TOMMY GABRINI 3:

  GRACE UNDER FIRE

  SAL GABRINI 3:

  HARD LOVE

  SAL GABRINI 4:

  I’LL TAKE YOU THERE

  TOMMY GABRINI 4:

  DAPPER TOM BEGIN AGAIN

  ADDITIONAL BESTSELLING

  INTERRACIAL ROMANCE

  FROM MALLORY MONROE:

  DANIEL’S GIRL (ROMANCING AN OLDER MAN)

  ROMANCING MO RYAN

  ROMANCING HER PROTECTOR

  ROMANCING THE BULLDOG

  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:

  BRENT SINATRA

  BOOK ONE

  MOB BOSS TWELVE

  TOMMY AND LIZ:

  YOU GIVE GOOD LOVE

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  www.mallorymonroebooks.com

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  Gemma Gabrini was floored. She stood in Judge Michaels’ chambers unable to conceal her displeasure. “My husband?” she asked.

  “Yes, your husband,” Judge Michaels said, undaunted by her displeasure. “I made myself clear.”

  “You were clear, but it still doesn’t make any sense. What does my husband have to do with this?”

  “The witness came to me,” the judge explained. “She refuses to take the stand out of fear of what your husband would do to her if she testified against your client.”

  “My client is a poverty-stricken drug addict accused of smoking crack in a crack house. My husband is busy running an international corporation. Why in the world would he care about a woman testifying at some crack head’s trial?”

  “You know why,” the prosecutor said as he sat confidently in front of the judge’s desk. His name was Brad Kolinsky. Tough, smart, but too smooth by half for Gemma’s liking. She wasn’t all that sure if he didn’t push the witness up to this nonsense in the first place. “You know it’s not about your client,” Kolinsky continued, “it’s about you. Your husband doesn’t want you to lose this case.”

  “You have got to be kidding me.” Gemma couldn’t believe it. These people were getting more absurd by the second. “So what you’re telling me is that of all the cases I lost before this case, and believe me I lost plenty, he didn’t care about those? But a crack head? But a case I’m working for free because my client can’t afford to pay for my services? Oh, yeah, he wants to give me a winning streak, not with my major cases, but with the crack head case. That makes all the sense in the world, Brad.”

  “All I’m talking about is the here and now,” Kolinsky said. “Your husband has mob connections that some people in this town refuses to sweep under a rug and pretend isn’t true. Because it is true! The witness fears for her life. She’s not making this stuff up.”

  “But maybe you are,” Gemma shot back.

  Before the prosecutor could respond, the
judge spoke up again. “I understand your anger, Gemma,” he said to her. “Truly I do. But understand mine: I am the judge on this case. I have to take her concerns seriously, and I will take her concerns seriously. Now you can step down as lead attorney and allow the defendant to bring in a new attorney, or we can conduct a hearing, a public hearing, to determine if you should or should not recuse yourself. Since I have to make that final determination after that public hearing, the odds will not be in your favor. My advice? It’s a simple case just as you so eloquently said. Nobody’s going to miss some crack head if she ends up back in jail where she has been countless times before. Remove yourself now Gemma, and save the county money and time so we can go on with this trial.”

  Gemma gathered up her briefcase and purse and stood up. She wore an above-the-knee skirt suit that so highlighted her long, dark legs that the eyes of both men were immediately drawn to those gorgeous legs. But Gemma was all business. “I will not remove myself from this case,” she said as she stood, “so a public hearing we will have.” Then she looked at the judge, who was actually an old friend of hers, with disappointment in her big, brown eyes. “This is bullshit, Craig, and you know it.”

  The judge looked away from her. He knew it. And Gemma left his chambers.

  Her plan had been to grab a sandwich from the courthouse cafeteria before heading back to her office, but she was no longer in the mood to eat.

  She stepped out of the Las Vegas courthouse and into a cool November wind that had her snuggling against herself. Her BMW was parked on the far end of the parking lot and she headed in that direction. But she was still fuming. They wanted her off the case because she was actually winning what the prosecutor thought was going to be another slam dunk victory for him; a victory that would keep his perfect record perfect and his political ambitions promising. The judge went along with the nonsense because Gemma knew that was how it was done in Vegas: you scratch my back, one day I may be in a position to scratch yours. Bullshit, just like she said.

  Her cell phone began ringing. She pulled it out of her suit coat pocket and looked at the Caller ID. When she saw it was Sal, her husband, she smiled. And quickly answered. “Where are you?” she asked him.

  Sal Gabrini was naked in bed in a house he owned in Chicago. He was there on business, and it had not gone well. Now, instead of being hyped by the possibility of finishing this shit, he was drained and exhausted with more shit to do. He was also still reeling from what had just transpired inside his home, something he would eventually have to reveal to his wife when he returned back to Vegas: which didn’t help his drain. But right now, he just needed to hear her lovely voice. “I’m still in Chi-town,” he said. “I wanted to wrap things up today, but no such luck.”

  “Sorry to hear that.” Although she didn’t know exactly what business Sal was handling in Chicago, since he never went into details with her about his business dealings, she knew it was something he had hoped to complete before today.

  “Where are you?” Sal asked her.

  “In the parking lot. Just leaving the courthouse. A witness refuses to testify unless I recuse myself from the case.”

  “Which case? That crack head case?”

  “One in the same.”

  “Why would they want you off the case?”

  “Because Brad Kolinsky wants to keep his perfect conviction record is my guess, and it wasn’t looking good for him. I may be wrong, but that’s what it smells like.”

  “Then that’s what it is,” Sal said confidently. “Why else would they care so much about some crack head getting a fair trial that they would kick the lawyer off the case?”

  “Exactly,” Gemma agreed. Then she exhaled. “I only wish you were here.”

  “I wish I was there too,” Sal responded. “I’d give anything to see your pretty face, not to mention your pretty body, right about now.”

  “When do you think you can wrap it up?” Gemma pressed her key fob, unlocking her car, and then she opened the back passenger door. “I was hoping you would be back in Vegas today.” She tossed her purse and briefcase onto the backseat and closed the door again.

  “I was hoping the same thing. I miss you terribly.”

  “Ah how sweet,” Gemma said with a grand smile as she opened her driver side door. But she stopped cold when she saw a man crotched down on the floor of her front seat with a gun trained squarely at her forehead. The gun had a noise-suppressing silencer on its barrel, so she knew he meant business.

  “Make one false move,” he warned her, “and you’re a motherfucking dead lady.”

  Gemma’s heart rammed against her chest, and she nearly dropped her phone.

  But Sal, oblivious to her plight, was still talking into the phone, telling her not to call him sweet. “Sweet my ass,” he was saying. “I have a reputation to uphold, what are you talking?”

  “Get in the car,” the gunman ordered Gemma.

  “Can you imagine what my men would think if they heard I was sweet? I’d be a fucking joke!”

  “Get in the car,” the man ordered again. “I’m not playing with you, bitch!”

  Sal frowned. He thought he heard a male’s voice, and heard him call his wife a bitch. “Who the fuck is that?” Sal asked her.

  But Gemma didn’t even hear Sal. Her entire being was focused on the man pointing that gun at her. Because she understood the danger. All that gunman had to do was pull that trigger, and she was dead. She knew it. But she also knew if she got into that car and allowed him to take her to another location, her chances of survival were just as grim. And her logical brain was spinning. Standing there and refusing to obey his order was sure death. Getting in and obeying his order was sure death. Getting away was probable death, but the odds were slightly better. Those were the odds she had to take.

  Instead of getting into the car, she slammed the door shut, causing the man to shoot but to only hit the closing door. The silencer muffled the sound of the gunfire, but not the impact. The doorframe was littered with bullet holes.

  And Gemma ran. Her cell phone flew from her hand because she was pumping her arms so hard to propel herself forward. She ran track in college. She could run. All she could think about was getting away.

  “Help!” she was screaming as she ran. “Help!”

  Sal heard her screams from the cell phone that was now on the asphalt. He jumped out of his bed calling her name. “What the fuck, Gem, answer me!”

  But she couldn’t answer. Because as soon as she thought she had made some headway, a Van drove up, cutting off her path. She tried to backtrack and fill, running down another row of cars, determined to get away. But the Van doors slid open, a man with a silencer rifle fired one shot, hitting her squarely in the back, and she buckled and fell.

  Gemma Gabrini fell.

  And it was the break they needed. Their game plan went into overdrive now. As people near the courthouse were just beginning to come out and move around, two men jumped out of the Van, lifted and carried Gemma to the Van, tossed her inside, slid the door shut, and took off. They stopped only long enough to pick up the gunman who had been crotched down in Gemma’s BMW, and then the Van sped out of the parking lot and out of sight as if it had never been there in the first place.

  The two adductors in the back of the Van, with Gemma’s lifeless body in front of them, removed their black hoods and attempted to regulate their adrenalin-rush breathing. They both looked at the beautiful black woman on the floor beneath their feet, amazed that they had pulled it off without a hitch.

  “If all goes according to plan,” said one, “we’re going to be fucking millionaires!” Then his excited look turned anguished. “Or fucking dead.” He looked at his partner, an older man he trusted with his life. “Which do you think it’ll be, Screw? Rich or dead?”

  But Screw was already in a state of panic at the gravity of what they’d just done. Somehow he didn’t think it would work. It couldn’t possibly be this easy! But it was.

  “When all is said a
nd done,” his partner asked him again, “you think we’re going to be rich, or do you think we’ll end up dead? Which do you think it’ll be, Screw?”

  “We just kidnapped Sal Gabrini’s wife,” Screw responded with irritation in his voice. “Sal Gabrini’s wife! And you have the nerve to ask me if I think we’re going to be rich or be dead after kidnapping his wife?” He looked at his partner. “When Sal Gabrini finds out what we just did, and link it to us, which do you think we’ll be? Now shut the fuck up!”

  Screw’s partner looked at Gemma Gabrini again.

  And shut up.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Three Months Earlier

  Sal Gabrini entered his hotel room without the usual perusal to see if it met his standards. Gemma had picked it out. He knew it would. He, instead, made his way to the bedroom, removed his keys, change and phone from his pockets, and tossed them onto the nightstand. And began undressing. His goal: a quick shower before Gemma arrived in town and they had to face her parents again.

  He hadn’t seen them since their daughter’s funeral four months ago, and he wasn’t looking forward to seeing them now. Not after the pain he saw on Rodney and Cassie’s faces as their daughter’s casket was lowered into the ground. They didn’t at the time, but he knew, overtime, that they would somehow blame him. But this morning they had summoned their daughter to Indiana, and insisted that she bring Sal along, so he came. He left a crucial board meeting in Seattle to make his way here.