Big Daddy Sinatra_Bringing Down the Hammer

by Mallory Monroe

  BIG DADDY SINATRA

  BRINGING DOWN THE HAMMER

  BY

  MALLORY MONROE

  Copyright©2018 Mallory Monroe

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  AUSTIN BROOK PUBLISHING

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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, venues, or laws of various states are not meant to be exact replicas of those places or laws but are purposely embellished or imagined for the story’s sake.

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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

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  EPILOGUE

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  PROLOGUE

  She knew better than this. She also knew Hammer would kill her if he found out. Not to mention her brother, mob boss Mick Sinatra, and her big brother, Big Daddy Charles Sinatra. She told all of them it was over. That it was behind her. That she got out and was staying out. Now to be told she was back in? That they were still moving product under her name? Were these fools crazy? Were they trying to get her black ass killed?

  The SUV stopped in front of what was once Valtone Distributors, a massive warehouse in the woods that had been the hub of her operation, and her driver and bodyguard hurried out and opened the door for her. Amelia Sinatra stepped out, in chinchilla coat and heels, and stepped hard as she made her way toward the entrance.

  Targe Montalis, a man Hammer Reese hired to lead her security detail, met her at the door. “I would say good evening,” he said, “but I know it’s not.”

  “Where is he?” Amelia asked as she stepped in. “Where the fuck is that motherfucker?”

  “Upstairs,” Targe said. “This way.” They began heading toward the stairs.

  “So it’s true?” Amelia asked as they walked. “It’s still up and running?”

  “It’s not only up,” Targe replied, “but it’s in full operation. It’s like it never shut down. That fucker’s got an entire crew working for him. He hired an entire crew!”

  Amelia couldn’t believe it. Of all the underhanded, stupid shit Bone pulled through the years, this had to top them all! He wasn’t even supposed to be there. She fired his ass a long time ago. And he was running an operation under her name? An operation she’d already shut down? Oh, hell no!

  With Targe on her heels, she made her way up the stairs to the second floor. The first floor was as it should have been: completely empty and devoid of any evidence that a thriving drug cartel had once operated there.

  But upstairs was a different story. Amelia’s cartel, an operation she shut down completely a few days ago, was in full swing again just as Targe had said. Complete with a full staff. A full fucking staff! Amelia couldn’t believe it!

  The head of the operation, a redneck they called Bone Crush, was being held at gunpoint by two of Targe’s men, while the rest of Targe’s men had Bone’s crew, some thirty-people strong, lined up against the wall. Crates and crates of drugs were being readied for shipment. It wasn’t Amelia’s product. She destroyed all her shit. But it was going out under her name.

  She opened her coat, placed one hand on her hip, and made her way over to Bone. He was a defiant asshole, with his head held back, as if staring down the barrel of a gun was just another day at the office in his world.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked him.

  “I thought I was minding my own business,” he responded as some of the tobacco juice in his mouth spilled down the side. He was the most unlikely drug dealer Amelia had ever known. But he might have been the deadliest.

  But his defiance didn’t mean shit to Amelia. He roped her into his madness. She had to know why. “You know me, Bone,” she said. “So, don’t try that dumb act with me. You’d better tell me something. You’d better tell me what you’re doing, on my turf, pulling this shit?”

  “You gave up your turf. That’s not my fault. I have a product to move, and I’m moving a product. You had international orders that had to be filled, so I’m filling them.”

  Amelia’s anger flared. “Where do you get off? Who the fuck gave you permission to fulfill my orders, Bone? I didn’t give you permission to pull this!”

  “I don’t need your permission,” Bone replied. “You’re out of the game, remember? This is my operation now.”

  Amelia could smell more at work here. Bone Crush was tough and deadly and crazy as a motherfuck. He was hillbilly and loved to be thought of as hillbilly. But he wasn’t stupid. “Who’s behind this operation?” she asked him.

  Bone smiled, showing tobacco-stained teeth. “Wouldn’t you wanna know,” he said.

  Amelia slapped him hard across his face. So hard that even Targe’s men looked over in shock. So hard that Bone held the side of his face in shock. “What the fuck?” he yelled.

  “Who’s behind this operation?” she asked again. “And I’m not asking your ass a third time!”

  But Bone remained defiant. He wasn’t about to say.

  Amelia knew him too well. He used to work for her deceased husband. If he didn’t say already, he wasn’t going to say. “Shut it down,” she ordered him. “And I mean right now.”

  But Bone had changed. He was taking defiance to an entirely different level. “I ain’t shuttin’ shit down,” he said.

  Amelia couldn’t believe he was defying her that way. Didn’t he remember who she was? Didn’t he remember the family she came from? She pulled out her Glock, got even closer in his face, and placed the gun at his head. “What did you say?” she asked him. “Tell me that again, motherfucker. Tell me that again!”

  Bone was surprised by her display. When he worked for Bulldog Valtone, Amelia’s deceased husband, she was young and scared out of her mind of Bulldog. Would do anything that sadistic fuck told her to do. Now she was pulling a gun on the man who used to be one of Bulldog’s top dealers?

  “Tell me again, Bone!”

  Bone stared at that gun, and then looked into her eyes. That black bitch meant it, was the conclusion he reached. She meant it!

  And he told her.

  “Hammer,�
� he said.

  Targe looked at Bone. He figured his ass would snitch. Then he looked at Amelia. But Amelia was still reeling too. She was staring at Bone. “What did you say?” she asked him.

  “You wanted to know who’s behind my operation, didn’t you? I just told you. Hammer Reese is behind it. Your baby daddy is behind it.” Then he smiled. “Ain’t that the bitch, bitch?”

  Normally Amelia would never allow anyone to call her that name and get away with it. But she wasn’t normally dealing with a situation like this either. Because she knew Bone Crush from way back. He wasn’t a liar.

  “Why would Hammer authorize this?” she asked him. “You’re slinging drugs in my name. Your product is going to market in my name. And you expect me to believe Hammer Reese gave you permission?”

  “I don’t expect you to believe shit,” Bone said. “But Hammer Reese gave me permission.”

  “That’s a lie!” Targe said. “Don’t believe that shit, Boss. He’s lying.”

  “Yeah, sure I am,” Bone said. “Lying my head off. Sure. Believe him. He doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about, but you believe him. What is he? A bodyguard? Yeah, believe the bodyguard over me. Yeah, do that. Do that please!”

  But it was obvious who Amelia believed. “Why would he give you permission?” she asked Bone.

  Bone grinned that stained-teeth grin again. “Wouldn’t you wanna know,” he said. But she could see something else in his eyes. And it wasn’t joy. Or even defiance anymore. It was fear. Abject fear. As if he knew it was all over for him, either way the wind blew.

  Amelia was also certain his fear wasn’t of her. She might just use that weapon, but he knew she had more questions for him and wasn’t stupid enough to kill him without getting answers. But why was he so scared? She was baffled herself.

  But her puzzlement caused her guard to drop, and before Amelia could figure out why in the world he would have put this operation at Hammer’s feet, Bone leaned back with a huff, as if he was about to spit his mouth full of tobacco in Amelia’s face, but he grabbed her Glock instead. Before Targe and his men could react at all, Bone placed that gun to his own head, and fired.

  Amelia stepped back in shock, and Targe and his men stepped back too, as Bone’s knees buckled, the gun fell from his hand, and then he fell too.

  Targe and his men couldn’t believe it. And neither could Amelia. What the fuck was going on?

  But her big brother, Big Daddy Sinatra, taught her one thing. If something smelled fishy, she had better not stick around to find out why. Get out and find out later, he told her.

  She was getting out.

  “I want this shit cleaned up,” she said to Targe, “and this entire operation shut down tonight. Not tomorrow. Tonight.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Amelia picked up her Glock from the floor, looked at Bone’s dead body one more time, and then began leaving the room.

  “You heard the lady,” Targe said. “Shut it down now,” he said.

  But Targe hurried out of the room just as Amelia was walking down the stairs. “Boss, wait up,” he said urgently, as he pulled out his gun and hurried across the landing.

  But Amelia could feel the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. This was that get out now time Big Daddy had warned her about. And instead of turning around to see what he wanted, or if those hairs on her neck were correct, to possibly get into a gun battle she might lose, she lifted her body over the stairs rail, and jumped.

  As she jumped, what she had suspected came true. Targe, the man Hammer hired to protect her, began shooting at her. And he wasn’t shooting to wound either. He was shooting to kill. He barely missed her as she jumped over.

  She landed on the first floor of the warehouse, her chinchilla coat flaring out, and hit the ground running. But she didn’t run around front. There could be another ambush out front. She ran around back.

  Targe hurried down the stairs and jumped over the rail when he was nearing the bottom too. And he took off after her, firing several more shots that almost hit her as she ran toward the back exit.

  “Around back!” he yelled to his men who had come onto the landing after hearing the gunshots, and all of them, an army seemed like, ran down the stairs to stop her too.

  But Amelia was fast. She ran out of the back of that warehouse and into the woods. She knew she stood a better chance in woods than she would ever stand out in the open. Her heart was pounding as she ran. Because of the danger, which was as real as the cold wind that whipped across her face, but also because of what it would mean if it was true. How could Bone claim Hammer was behind all of this? Hammer was her lover, and the father of her child. How could anybody think he would do something like this to her?

  But Targe was Hammer’s man. Hammer hired him to lead Amelia’s security detail. All of those other men chasing her and shooting at her were his men too. That was why she kept running. She had no time for sentimentality. No time for a broken heart. No time to wonder if her own lover had set her up.

  All she knew to do was run.

  CHAPTER ONE

  One Week Earlier

  The Jaguar stopped in front of the VFW banquet hall entrance and “Big Daddy” Charles Sinatra leaned over the steering wheel. He’d rather eat nails than spend his evening with these people. But it was Citizenship night in Jericho, which was ridiculous on its face to Charles, but every business leader was expected to attend.

  Charles only started attending after his oldest son Brent became police chief and, later, after his son Robert won the special election and received a full term as mayor. Only because of them, and because they begged him to at least make an appearance, would he have even considered it.

  He looked over at Jenay. She was dressed beautifully in a pearl-white mermaid gown that made her dark skin glow. Her hair was in an up-do that highlighted her high cheekbones, and her pretty face betrayed her inner delight. She seemed to be looking forward to this night. She was up for several awards, as was Charles, but she had to know none of those city leaders were about to give a Sinatra a damn thing. Wasn’t going to happen! They only nominated them, in Charles’s mind, because they felt they had to. His only hope was that Jenay would enjoy herself, and that none of those arrogant jerks would try to demean her or hurt her. Then he caught himself. Hope his ass. He wished one of those motherfuckers would try to hurt her!

  “Here goes nothing,” he said as he unbuckled his seatbelt.

  Jenay looked at her husband. He wore a black tux, had his thick hair freshly cut, and looked gorgeous sitting beside her. But she knew him. “Just be nice, Charles,” she said.

  “To these vultures?” he asked. “Not a chance!” And he got out of the car.

  The valets, all very young men, knew to stay back when Big Daddy stepped out, because he was a gruff man who was a legendary tormentor, based on the horror stories their parents had told them. He was Jericho’s official bogeyman. The man you avoided at all costs. The man who was so heartless and greedy that he made children homeless just because their parents were a few dollars short, or a few days late, paying his rent.

  Charles could see the valets stay back as he got out and made his way around to the passenger door, and he didn’t give a shit about that either. He used to try and explain himself. Those children weren’t homeless over a few dollars short on rent, but months and months of nonpayment of rent by their deadbeat parents. If he was running a charity, he’d understand the sentiment. But he was running a business. And not even those valets would continue to show up for work, and not get paid.

  He opened the car door for Jenay and took her hand as she stepped out. She looked regal, he thought, as he closed his door, placed the hand on the small of her back, and escorted her toward the entrance. One valet stepped forward to hand him a ticket and accept his keys, but he could tell the kid was trembling as he did even that. It used to bother the hell out of Charles when he saw how afraid the townspeople were of him, especially the young people, when he knew he was n
othing like the devil they made him out to be. Strict? Yes. Unyielding in upholding his moral code and a person’s responsibilities? Damn right. But he’d also give his last to help everybody and anybody who was trying to help themselves.

  Charles accepted the ticket, handed the kid his keys, and whispered to Jenay that they were about to enter the lion’s den.

  Jenay smiled airily and clutched her small purse tighter as they entered the banquet hall. But Charles wasn’t kidding. He knew those people far longer than Jenay did. He grew up with them. Although they accepted Jenay as one of them now, that wasn’t always the case. There was a time, when he first brought Jenay to Jericho, when the townspeople treated her like crap. But he wasn’t having it. And he told them so every chance he could. He even got himself into many disagreements and out-and-out brawls protecting Jenay’s honor.

  But it was Jenay’s rock solid work ethic and steely determination, and her refusal to give them the satisfaction of rattling her, that gained the town’s respect. Now she was far more liked and respected than Charles had ever been, and she’d found some good friends in the bargain.

  But it was a fragile peace, Charles felt, because it was Maine and they fancied themselves bleeding heart progressives who celebrated diversity. Until diversity appeared at their front door and intruded itself into their lives. Then Kumbaya was over. And Charles knew it.

  He held his wife close as they entered the banquet hall and made their way to the Sinatra table. Every prominent family in town had a table. Theirs was all the way up front.

  “See,” Jenay said as they walked. “They aren’t so bad after all. They put us all the way near the front, which is progress.”

  “That’s because of Brent and Bobby,” Charles said, leaning against his wife, “and the fact that they like you. If it was just me, the Sinatra table wouldn’t even be in the building. It would be outside!”

  Jenay laughed.

  “Don’t talk to me about progress,” Charles added, with a smile of his own.