Tommy Gabrini: The Grace Factor (7 page)

“I will not
knock it off
,” Grace responded.
 
“You waltz up in here looking like some wild man on my child’s birthday,
and I’m not supposed to be concerned?
 
You look like you’re high on something.”

Ed wanted to lash back at this stupid
cow, but he didn’t.
 
He smiled instead,
and pulled her closer against him.
 
“I’m
only high on our love,” he said to her.

“Oh, please,” Grace said in her own
irritable tone, and pulled away from him.
 
Tommy saw that too.
 
“Don’t
patronize me,” she added.

“Okay, okay,” Ed said.
 
“I’m getting a little worried, to be honest
with you.”

Grace looked at him.
 
“Worried about what?”

“Donors.
 
I expected the GOP to get behind me by now
and provide the funds I’ll need to mount a successful campaign.
 
But they aren’t making that move yet.
 
They say they’re still weighing their
options.
 
Weighing their options, as if
any of those other bums in the GOP primary could compete against a man of my
stature?
 
But they aren’t ready to back
me yet.
 
If I don’t get the backing of
the Republican Party, if I’m not seen as their guy, I’m going to need damn near
a miracle to win.
 
Tens of millions of
dollars.
 
It’s troubling, Grace, I admit
it.
 
It’s bothering me.”

That at least made more sense to
Grace than his
high on our love
explanation, but it still seemed like he was telling her only part of the
truth.
 
But the full truth would come out
eventually she knew.
 
With Ed, it always
did.

After the ride was over and Destiny
ran over to the ice cream stand to get ice cream with her friends, Tommy made
his way toward Grace and Ed.
 
Ed watched
Grace as she watched Tommy.
 
She still
had a thing for lover boy, he didn’t care what she said.
 
He’d heard how Tommy knew how to put it down
on the ladies, with some joking how they couldn’t walk for days after he did
his thing, and Ed believed it.
 
He had
one of the largest penises around, and Grace enjoyed getting some from him, but
there was always that disconnect.
 
There
was always that sense, whenever they made love, that she was thinking about
somebody else.
 
About how Dapper Tom used
to put it on her, no doubt.

“Tommy, hey,” Ed said with a grand
smile as he extended his hand.
 
“It’s
great to see you again.”

Tommy smiled and shook his hand.
 
“How are you?” he asked.
 
They were cordial with each other, but hardly
friendly.
 
Mainly because Tommy just
couldn’t get there.
 
Mainly because,
although his people could find nothing in Ed’s background that would give him
any pause, there was something about the man that just rubbed Tommy the wrong
way.
 
It bothered him to such an extent
that he once told Grace that he did not ever want Destiny to be left alone with
Ed.
 
Grace wanted to object vehemently.
 
Ed was her husband and she trusted him.
 
But because it was their daughter, their
precious baby, she knew she couldn’t take any chances.
 
There were just too many horror stories out
there of men who women trusted with their lives, but that trust ended up
costing their babies their lives.
 
She
agreed to the restriction and never allowed Destiny to be alone with Ed, or any
other man, besides Tommy.

“Great spread out here,” Ed
said.
 
“I’m sure our little girl loves
this set up.”

Tommy still felt a twinge of
something whenever he referred to Destiny as
his
little girl too.
 
But he
was her stepfather.
 
“I think she likes
it,” he responded.

“What kid wouldn’t?” Ed asked.
 
“She’s spoiled rotten, but who am I to say?”

“Exactly right,” Tommy said, staring
Ed in the eye with such a chilling stare that Ed almost flinched.
 
But he knew Tommy.
 
He knew that Tommy had a zero tolerance
policy when it came to anyone questioning how he handled his own daughter.
 
Ed backed off.

“So,” Ed said, “been on any good golf
courses lately?”

“Not lately, no,” Tommy
responded.
 
“I’m overdue.”

“Maybe we could join forces one day,”
Ed said.
 
He still had unfinished
business.
 
He still had to figure out a
way to get rid of this waste of space so that he could gain control of all of
his money.
 
Maybe if he could lure him
somewhere?
 
“Maybe we can play a round of
golf together?”

But Tommy wasn’t exactly a fan of
Ed’s either.
 
“I doubt if that’s going to
happen,” he said bluntly.

Grace looked at Tommy.
 
She could understand the friction between the
two men, but sometimes Tommy took it to another level.

“Well,” Ed said with a smile, playing
off the insult, “if you change your mind let me know.”

Tommy agreed to that.
 
“How’s the campaign coming along?” he asked.

“It’s coming along,” Ed said.
 
“We plan to put it in high gear within the
next few weeks.
 
You know what would help
an awful lot, however?”

Tommy and Grace both looked at
Ed.
 
“What’s that?” Tommy asked.

“An endorsement from Tommy
Gabrini.
 
Now if I got a hold of your
endorsement that would open a lot of doors for me.
 
Donors, and I mean deep-pocket donors, will
be lining up to give me their money.
 
That’s the kind of weight your name pulls around this state.
 
What you say?
 
You wouldn’t have to campaign on my behalf, or anything like that.
 
Just lending your name to the cause will be
enough.”

Tommy looked at Grace.
 
He wasn’t about to lend his name to any such
thing, but he was curious.
 
“What say
you?” he asked with a smile.
 
“Think I
should endorse this joker?”

Ed smiled too.
 
In his mind, Tommy was considering the
possibility.
 
That would be genius.
 
Nobody would suspect him of anything if Tommy
endorsed him.
 
He could get away with
murder if Tommy endorsed him.
 
He would
be home free, and the very man he would destroy would be the very man to set
him free!

But Grace, to his shock, wasn’t going
along.
 
“No,” she said to Tommy.

Tommy was shocked too, but
pleased.
 
He looked at her.

“No?” Ed asked, looking too.
 
“What are you saying, Grace?”

“I’m saying no, he shouldn’t endorse
you.”

“Why the hell not?”
 
Ed spoke in a strident voice, but he smiled
to blunt the force of his anger.
 
But
Tommy was watching him.
 
He wasn’t fooling
Tommy.

“I’m going to vote for you because
you’re my husband,” Grace said, “but that doesn’t mean I think you should
win.
 
You and your Party want to repeal
Obamacare.
 
You and your Party want to
defund Planned Parenthood.
 
You and your
Party are climate change deniers.
 
You
and your party want to privatize Social Security.
 
You and your Party want to do everything it
can to disrupt the social contract the government have with its’ people.
 
That’s why,” Grace said.

Ed knew he had to act fast.
 
He smiled.
 
“Oh, don’t listen to her, Tommy,” he said dismissively.
 
“What does she know?
 
She’s a bleeding heart liberal.”

Tommy grinned and gave what Ed saw as
an almost effeminate shoulder shake.
 
“So
am I,” Tommy said with delicious joy.
 
“So am I!”

Ed laughed and played it off, but the
remainder of that afternoon was tortuous for him.
 
He kept taking peeps at Grace, with malice in
his heart, but every time she looked his way he smiled and waved.
 
But Tommy saw the malice.
 
He saw it!
 
He was keeping his eye on Mister Ed.

And later that evening, after he said
his goodbyes to Grace and Ed and the overjoyed birthday girl, feeling as if he
was leaving something behind when he left that house, he was back on his car
phone as he drove away.
 
He had a problem
to resolve.
 
And it involved Ed.

“I want another background check on
Ed Jefferson.”
 
He was talking to Branson
Nash, his security chief.

“But we did that already, boss,”
Branson responded.
 
“He’s clean.”

“That guy is clean the way a sewer is
clean,” Tommy said.
 
“I’m not buying
it.
 
My gut is never wrong.
 
You dig deeper.
 
No more of that surface shit.
 
Something’s going on there and I need to know
what it is.
 
I need answers.
 
And if you and your men can’t provide me with
those answers, then I’ll just have to hire a crew that can.”

“Say no more,” Branson said.
 
“I’ll get on it personally.
 
If there’s something to be found, I’ll find
it.
 
I promise you that.”

“Good,” Tommy said, although he
remembered that same promise on the first background check, when Ed first
hooked up with Grace.
 
But Tommy wasn’t
going to take
he’s clean
for an
answer this time.
 
Something was wrong
with that guy.
 
Tommy felt it in his
gut.
 
And he felt it stronger tonight,
for some reason, than he’d ever felt before.
 
“I’m heading to Vienna tonight,” he said.
 
“Have answers for me when I get back.”
 
And before Branson could say another word,
Tommy ended the call.

Ed was rubbing his big cock against
Grace’s tight ass as soon as she got in bed with him.
 
There used to be so much foreplay.
 
There used to be a lot of romance and
cuddling beforehand.
 
But now, and
especially when he was upset, Ed didn’t care.
 
He just went to the main event.
 
He put on a condom, not because he wanted to, but because Grace insisted
on it.
 
It started a few months ago.
 
She dropped by his office unexpectedly one
day and saw him a little too affectionate with one of his nurses.
 
He denied anything was going on, and the
nurse denied it too, but Grace wasn’t taking any chances.
 
She didn’t have any hard proof, accept for
that time her husband had an affectionate arm around the woman’s waist, but it
was enough to put Grace on notice.
 
And
forced him to wear condoms ever since.

Not that it mattered to Ed.
 
Just as long as he got some, he didn’t care
what parameters were put in place.
 
It
was so different, she thought as he did her, when Tommy used to do her.
 
Even when he was troubled, he still
considered her too.
 
He was a selfless
lover.
 
Ed was too, when times were
good.
 
Ed was too, when she was attending
this doctor’s party or that elected official’s get together.
 
When she was being the perfect wife, he knew
how to treat her in bed.
 
But ever since
he started running for office, and ever since things remained at a standstill
in terms of endorsements and donors, he didn’t give a damn.
 
He was wham, bam, thank you ma’am.
 
And within five minutes, like now, he was
ejaculating.

“You said no,” he said to her as he
came.
 
“How could you say that,
Grace?”
 
He started pounding her now,
forcing his release to squirt out.
 
“I’m
running for office for us, for our family, and you tell him no?”

His pounding was getting
painful.
 
“You’re hurting me, Eddie,” she
said to him.
 
“Stop.
 
Eddie, stop!”

“I’m trying to make something
wonderful happen for our family,” Ed said as he ignored her plea and continued
to pound, “and you tell that cracker not to support me?”

Grace threw him off of her, forcing
his penis to fall out and his loaded condom to nearly fall off, as she sat up
in bed.
 
“What the hell is wrong with
you?” she asked angrily.
 
“I told you to
stop.
 
You were hurting me!
 
And don’t you use that racial slur to
describe Tommy.
 
He’s the father of my
child.
 
Of your stepchild!”

Ed knew he was blowing it, but he
couldn’t help himself.
 
The nerve of this
woman!
 
“I’m your husband,” he said.
 
“Not him!
 
I’m your husband.
 
You should
support me no matter what, Grace!”

“I do support you,” Grace retorted,
“but I’m not going to lie for you.
 
I’m
not going to pretend I support your positions because I don’t, and you knew
that long before you decided to run.
 
But
you decided to run anyway.
 
That’s not my
problem.”

“Like hell it’s not!” Ed fired
back.
 
“You can’t go around discouraging
people from endorsing me, are you out of your mind?
 
I need that money!
 
My campaign can’t survive without big donor
money! You don’t have shit.
 
I don’t have
shit!
 
My practice is barely turning a
profit and your company is barely staying afloat.
 
All you have to give me is a good piece of
ass, and it’s not all that good!”

Grace couldn’t believe he had just
spoken to her that way.
 
“A piece of
ass?” she asked.

Ed was immediately in the land of
regret, and exposure.
 
“I didn’t mean it,
sweetheart,” he said quickly.
 
But Grace
was already attempting to get out of bed, to get away from him.
 
“Sweetheart, I didn’t mean it,” Ed said
again, reaching for her.
 
“I swear I
didn’t!”

But Grace had already pulled away
from him, got up, and began putting on her bathrobe.

“Babe, I’m sorry, okay?
 
You know I didn’t mean it!”

But Grace wasn’t thinking about
him.
 
She went into the bathroom and
slammed the door.
  
See if he ever got
another piece of her ass again!

Ed fell onto his back, angry and
frustrated.
 
He didn’t regret what he
said, but he regret that he had said it.
 
Now he had to win her back into his corner.
 
More work for him to do!
 
But she had angered him so completely.
 
When she told Tommy not to endorse him, he
wanted to slap the shit out of her plain-Jane ass.
 
Why the fuck did she think he married
her?
 
She was supposed to be his come up.
 
She was supposed to take him to that next
level, not keep him where he already was.
 
He was a doctor, for goodness sake.
 
He already had clout and pull.
 
Having Tommy Gabrini’s child as his stepchild, having Tommy Gabrini’s
ex-wife as his current wife, was supposed to be his springboard.
 
Now her stupidity had stopped him
mid-jump.
 
He wanted to beat the shit out
of her.
 
And he would have.
 
He declare he would have.
 
But he thought about Tommy and the amount of
shit he would beat out of him if he laid so much as a hand on Grace.
  
She was the man’s ex-wife, yet he still kept
her on a pedestal.
 
That was why Ed was
keeping his hands to himself.
 
He still
had to learn how to keep his words to himself too.

He got out of bed, put on his pants
and shirt.
 
He wanted to get away from
there.
 
He wanted to go see one of his
other ladies, and forget Grace existed.
 
But he knew he couldn’t leave the house like this.
 
He needed to keep her on his side until he
got what he wanted.
 
And now that the GOP
wasn’t backing him; now that Gabrini wasn’t going to endorse him, his need to
have Grace in his corner was more urgent than ever.
 
He couldn’t lose Grace.
 
Not until Gabrini was dealt with, and
Gabrini’s fortune was in his care and control.

He walked over to the bathroom door
and knocked.
 
“Grace,” he said in his
best apologetic voice.
 
“Come on,
Grace.
 
You know I was just running my
mouth, sugar.
 
You’re my world.
 
You know that.”

He turned the knob to open the
door.
 
But when he realized it was
locked, his anger returned tenfold.
 
And
he began banging on the door.
 
“What the
fuck are you locking the door for?” he asked.
 
“Open this door, Grace.
 
Open this
got
damn door!”

Grace was in the bathroom, washing
her hands at the dual sink, when the banging started.
 
She grabbed the towel to dry her hand,
anxious to sling open that door and give that fool a piece of her mind, but he
beat her to the punch.
 
He rammed the
door open with his shoulder, causing his compact body to nearly fall in,
stunning Grace.

“What are you doing?” she asked
incredulously.

“You’re locking me out?” Ed asked,
coming toward her.
 
He didn’t give a damn
in that moment about keeping her in his corner.
 
“And you’re asking me what I’m doing?
 
What the fuck are you doing?”

“Man, get out of my face,” Grace
said, tossing the towel and moving past him.

But he grabbed her by her hair and
yanked her head backwards.
 
The pain was
excruciating.
 
“I’ll get out of your
face, alright!” he said.
 
“I’ll get out
of your face!”

He slung her around, leaned back, and
punched her so hard in her face that it buckled her knees.

As soon as he punched her, he
regretted it.
 
She could see it in his
eyes.
 
But her eyes were different.
 
They were filled with rage.
 
The pain still stung as she grabbed the first
thing she could get her hands on, her blow dryer on the vanity, and slammed it
against the side of his head.
 
Grace hit
him so hard it staggered him.

But Grace wasn’t finished.
 
He might have hit her one time and regretted
it.
 
She hit him one time and felt it
wasn’t enough.
 
While he staggered, Grace
grabbed the shower curtain rod, flung it down as if it was the easiest thing in
the world to handle, and began beating the shit out of Ed Jefferson.

“I’m sorry, alright?
 
I’m sorry!” Ed was backing up, holding his
hands in front of him in a defensive pose.
 
“I didn’t mean it, Grace!
 
I didn’t
mean it!”

“But I mean it,” Grace said, beating
him out of the bathroom.
 
He fell but
quickly got back up, and Grace kept beating him with that rod.
 
When she wouldn’t let up, when she continued
to beat the crap out of him and he couldn’t take the rod away from her, he
turned to run.

But Grace ran too, behind Ed.
 
She was determined to beat his ass.
 
No man had ever laid a hand on her before,
and she wasn’t about to let him be the first.
 
They made it downstairs, with Ed practically falling down the stairs, as
Grace continued to plummet him.
 
But when
they made it downstairs, Ed had had enough.
 
He turned, and found the strength to snatch that rod away from her.

“Cut it out, Grace,” he yelled as he
tossed the rod aside.
 
“Now I mean
it!
 
Cut it out!”

But Grace was just getting
started.
 
Her eye was swollen, and
closing shut.
 
She could barely see out
of it.
 
But she hurried into her kitchen.

Ed, thinking it was over, went into
the powder room off from the foyer.
  
He
wanted to see if he was bleeding.
 
He
looked in the mirror.
 
When he saw where
he had a small cut just above his eyebrow, his anger rose.
 
“Stupid bitch,” he said mostly to himself, as
he grabbed a piece of tissue to dab his wound.

Grace, in the kitchen, pulled open the
utensil drawer, pulled out a butcher’s knife, and hurried out of the
kitchen.
 
Ed was out of the powder room
when he saw her coming back.
 
And he had
the nerve to smile.
 
But that was before
he saw the knife.
 
When he sat that knife
in her hand, he couldn’t believe it.
 
“What the hell?” he asked, amazed that mild-mannered Grace would do such
a thing.
 
“What are you doing?”

“I’m tired of your shit,” Grace said,
as she hurried toward him.

He was backing up, still unable to
fathom it.
 
“This is not funny, Grace!”

“Am I laughing?
 
Ask the last bitch who fucked with me,” Grace
said.
 
“Ask her if I thought it was
funny.
 
Ask her if I was laughing.
 
I’m tired of people thinking I’m some damn
doormat they can just walk over!
 
I’m
tired of this shit!”

She lunged at Ed, just missing him,
and he realized at that moment that Grace was a long way from mild.
 
He took off.
 
She was past reasoning now.
 
Grace
seemed to be reacting to pinned-up frustrations Ed wasn’t sure had anything to
do with him.
  
He headed for the front
door.
 
She almost got him when she lunged
again, but he got out of the door and slammed it behind him.

Grace didn’t open it back up.
 
She didn’t follow him.
 
She wasn’t about to leave her child, not even
for revenge.
 
She closed and locked her
door.
 
And leaned against it.
 
Tears wanted to come, but she was too angry
to cry.
 
She had been holding it together
for months on end.
 
She had been trying
with all she had to be the dutiful wife.
 
But nobody was going to punch her as if she was some dude and she
pretend it was okay.
 
It was never going
to be okay.
 
She saw that hatred in his
eyes when he punched her.
 
He regretted
it.
 
She saw that too.
 
But his regret didn’t mean shit to her.