“Have a seat,” she offered cheerfully. “You guys want something to eat or drink, or both?”
“No, we’re okay,” Big Daddy said as they sat back down at her table. “You’re the one who needs to eat. You’ve lost a pound or two.”
“Or three,” Mick said, looking down at her slender body.
“It’s been a little hectic around here,” Amelia admitted as she sat in the chair across from her brothers. “But I’m good.”
As Mick and Charles sat at her table, both looking striking, she thought, in Ralph Laurent polo shirt and jeans for Big Daddy, and a tailored suit for Mick, Amelia was touched by their presence. They were both very busy men, with major corporations to run. The idea that they would drop everything and come see about her was something she didn’t know if she could ever get used to. Especially the fact that Mick came. He rarely came around. It just wasn’t his style. But he came this time.
Which made her certain: Hammer had called him.
“How’s everybody doing?” she asked.
“Everybody’s good,” said Big Daddy. “Raising hell like you wouldn’t believe,” he added with a smile, “but they’re good.”
Amelia smiled, too. She loved that man! Although Mick was younger than Charles, and everybody called Charles Big Daddy, it was Mick who seemed more like a father to Amelia. He was so domineering like a father, and always had so many damned questions about what she was up to. But Charles, and his warmth, whenever he came around Amelia, just had love.
Big Daddy looked at Amelia. His family might have been just fine, but that wasn’t why he was there. “What about you?” he asked her. “How’s everything going with you?”
She nodded her head. Tried to stay upbeat. “Everything’s going great,” she said.
Both of her brothers looked at her with that doubtful Sinatra look that made even Amelia know they weren’t buying it. They were there for a reason, and the reason was not because everything was going “great.”
She looked at Mick. “Hammer called you. Didn’t he?”
Mick, never a man to mince words, nodded his head. “Yes.”
“I don’t know what he told you, but I’m fine.”
“He was worried about you,” Mick said. “Or do you take it as more than that?”
“I take it as Hammer getting his nosy-ass all up in my business.” She hated that Hammer had involved her brothers. She was still brand new to that family. She didn’t want them to have to worry about her, or, more to the point, feel as if she was a burden too. They had enough on their plates!
“You may take it that way, Amelia,” Big Daddy said, “but I take it as a very concerned man who felt you may need some help.”
“And if I ever need help, which I don’t; but if I ever do, he can help me.”
“He would love to,” Big Daddy said, “but you won’t tell him what he needs to know. He thought we might have a little more success in that department.”
“I wish he would not have phoned. I got this. I’m good.”
“Fuck that shit!” Mick said in his usual explosive temper. “You were nearly killed. Forgive me if I missed the memo, but what about being nearly killed is good?”
“I didn’t say I didn’t have some situations I was dealing with. I said I got it. I can handle it.”
“What happened on Potomac?” Mick asked.
Amelia should have known Hammer would not have phoned them without telling them at least that much, so she cut the bull and leaned forward. “There was an ambush, alright? But it’s being handled.”
“It wasn’t just an ambush. There was as kidnapping too.”
Amelia hesitated. “That’s right,” she said.
Big Daddy exhaled. Both brothers looked concerned.
“Who was behind it?” Mick asked.
“Some scum named Jerardo Jovanni.”
Mick frowned. “Who the fuck is that? I never heard of him.”
“You wouldn’t have. He’s not in your league. Nowhere near it. But he used to be a friend of mine.”
“And a lover?” Mick asked.
Big Daddy frowned. “What is that our business?” he asked.
“Because it denotes betrayal,” Mick said. “And betrayal puts a sharper focus on the affront.”
“English, please, Mick,” Big Daddy said. “I speak English over here.”
“For a man to betray his lover by ambushing and kidnapping her suggests either revenge, or that he has some serious juice behind his actions. Somebody forced his hand, or paid his ass in gold.”
Amelia looked at Mick. He knew the game as if he invented it.
“Which is it?” Mick asked her.
“Somebody forced his hand,” she said. “He owed a debt. To repay it, he was told to do what he did.”
“What was to be the end result had Hammer not rescued you?” Big Daddy asked. “Did they plan to let you go?”
“Not bloody likely!” Mick responded.
“No,” said Amelia. “If Hammer would not have been able to find me, there would have been no letting me go.”
A depressed look appeared in Big Daddy’s big eyes. “I hate that Mick is involved in all of that gangster shit,” he said. “But he’s been doing it for so long, that I’m used to that lifestyle for him. I really, really hate that you’re getting involved in that shit, too, Amelia.”
“But that’s the question, isn’t it?” Mick asked her. “Just what shit are you involved in, Amelia?”
And that question was why Amelia could never tell Mick what Jerardo told her. Leo Tamberelli was the king of the dope world. If she were to tell Mick that Leo T was after her territory, and had already seized a huge chunk of it, he would automatically know just what shit she was into. And he would automatically beat her ass. He’d already warned her; he’d already given her clear orders to leave that shit alone. He thought she had given it up. She convinced him that she had. But she never did.
“Gangsters want good wine for their various establishments,” she said, “but the regulatory boards make them jump through too many hoops, and the Feds keep them limited. So they come to me to get all the fine wine they need at rock bottom rates, and to get it well out of the eyes of the prying public.”
“They used to have a name for gals like you,” Big Daddy said.
Amelia looked at him. “And what name is that?”
“Bootlegger,” Big Daddy responded, and Amelia laughed. She glanced at Mick. She could tell he knew she wasn’t giving him the full story, and it angered him.
He stood up. She and Big Daddy might have been sharing a joke, but it was no laughing matter to Mick. He knew how dangerous that road was she chose to travel. He walked around the table, and stood next to her chair.
Amelia’s heart was pounding nervously by the time Mick made his way by her side. She looked up at him.
“Answer my question,” he said to her.
Amelia felt intimidated by her older brother, she always had, but that didn’t mean she was just going to sit there and take his shit. She stood to her feet. They were toe to toe. “I answered your question,” she said.
Mick had one sleepy eye, and it looked particularly drooped as if he was bone tired, but he still was determined to confront her. “You answered a question,” he said, “but not the one I asked you.”
Amelia looked perplexed. Why didn’t he just let it be? “What difference does it make, Mick?” she asked him. “You’re into your shit. I’m into mine. What difference does it fucking make?”
“Those drugs you’re trafficking in destroys people’s lives,” Mick reminded her.
“Then people shouldn’t do them,” she reminded Mick. “Nobody’s got a gun to their heads. And speaking of guns,” Amelia added, “what kind of destruction are those guns doing to people’s lives? Since you’re the king of the gunrunning trade and all.”
“Okay, you two,” Big Daddy said. He could sense both of their temperatures rising. “Knock it off.”
But Mick wasn’t done yet. “
You said you were going to leave those drugs alone,” he said to Amelia. “You made a promise to me.”
“I have a business, Mick. Same as you. I’m handling my business! You have to respect that.”
“I don’t have to respect a gotdamn thing!” he shot back. “Especially when you told me you were getting out of that game. Drug dealers are the worse of the worse, Amelia. Why would you want to be a part of that shit?”
“Same reason you’re a part of your shit.”
“Stop comparing your ass to me!” Mick yelled. “There’s no fucking comparison!”
“Whether you like it or not,” Amelia said, “this is what I do. And you have to respect that I can handle what I do. Hammer at least respects that I can handle it.”
“Hammer respects it because Hammer wants to fuck your ass!”
Amelia couldn’t believe Mick had gone there. And it hurt her to her heart. She opened her hand and slapped him violently across his face.
Big Daddy jumped to his feet when Amelia slapped Mick. He knew the temper Mick had. They didn’t call him Mick the Tick, as in ticking time bomb, for nothing!
But Mick had already blown his cool. He grabbed Amelia’s shirt so violently, and jacked it up so high, that her naked ass was showing. And then he leaned back, with his massive hand wide open, ready to slap the shit out of her. He didn’t take shit from anybody. He wasn’t taking it from Amelia either.
Big Daddy was just behind Mick, ready to grab his hand, but he didn’t grab it. Because Mick was right. He agreed with Mick. Amelia was going to get herself killed if she didn’t leave those drugs alone. She needed to understand the gravity.
Besides, Big Daddy didn’t believe for a second that Mick would hit his kid sister.
Big Daddy was right. Mick remained poised to hit her, and Amelia braced herself for the impact, but he backed down. Not because he suddenly agreed with her. But because he saw the hurt in her eyes. His words, that Hammer Reese only wanted her for her body, had hurt her deeper than any slap ever would. And he felt like a shit for causing her that kind of pain.
He put his hand down, and released her shirt from his grasp.
Amelia was shaken. Not because Mick had almost beat the crap out of her. But because she revealed how much she loved, and depended on Hammer. She wanted to convince them that she could handle the dope trade, when she couldn’t even handle her heart.
“Excuse me,” she said as she fought back tears, and then hurried away. She hurried back upstairs.
Mick was angry with himself for taking it to that level. He sighed and ran his hands through his hair, and then began pacing the floor. He loved Amelia. The last thing in the world he wanted to do was hurt her. But that was exactly what he had done.
When Mick paced back toward Big Daddy, he stopped in front of his big brother as if he needed comforting too. Big Daddy squeezed Mick’s arm; he knew Mick was sorry it had gone this far. But then he left Mick’s side and went upstairs: to Amelia.
CHAPTER TWELVE
She was lying, on her stomach, across her bed. Big Daddy stood in her doorway for a moment, staring at her, making sure she was not sobbing, and then he made his way across the floor up to her. He got onto the bed and leaned back, on his side, resting on his elbow. He pulled her shirt, which had gathered up when she had collapsed onto her bed, back down and over her butt.
“Have you tracked down this Jovanni guy?” he asked her.
She looked at him. “Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“Not much.”
Then a hard look came into Big Daddy’s eyes. “I hope you took care of his ass.”
She nodded again. “You know I did.”
Big Daddy hated that she had to take care of people at all, but that was the world she chose to live in. And if she was going to live in it, she had better be good at it. Big Daddy was the one who had always taught Mick that if a man brought the fight to you, you’d better fight back and fight to kill, or he’d bring worse the next time.
“Did Jovanni tell you who he owed his debt to?” he asked. But Amelia didn’t respond.
“What’s with you not answering the question?” Big Daddy asked.
“I’m handling it,” she said. “I got it.”
“I just don’t want them to get you,” Big Daddy said.
“I don’t want them to get me either,” Amelia responded. “We’re on the same team.”
“A team where me and Mick don’t know all the players?”
Again, she hesitated. “I got it,” she said again.
Big Daddy gave up. “I don’t like what you’re doing,” he said to her.
“Not you too,” she said to him.
“But I can’t turn a blind’s eye to what Mick is doing, and excoriate you. I don’t like what either one of you are doing. But I respect and love you both,” he added.
Amelia stared at him. And then she smiled.
But Big Daddy’s look turned ultra-serious. “You know a man loves you,” he said to her unsolicited, “when he claims you as his own. Then he loves you. He may falter later, but at that moment, when he claims you to the world, he’s not playing any game. He actually, at that moment, loves you. Has Hammer claimed you, Amelia?”
Amelia wasn’t going to sugarcoat it. She wasn’t going to pretend that Hammer meant nothing to her and why would Big Daddy even ask her such a thing. She told the truth.
“No,” she said bluntly.
Big Daddy hated to hear that. He really did.
And then Mick entered the room, and that was the end of that.
Amelia sat up when Mick entered the room, because she knew she owed him an apology. Big Daddy sat up too.
“I’m sorry for slapping you,” she said. “I was totally out of line.”
Mick smiled. He was still pacing a bit, and his hands remained in his pockets. “I deserved it,” he said.
Then he stopped and stared at her. “Promise me one thing, Amelia,” he said.
She looked at him. “Go on.”
“Promise to call me if the heat gets too hot.”
Amelia smiled. They were back together again. Unlike Big Daddy, who was a naturally affectionate man, Mick would never tell her in a million years that he loved her or anything approximating that. But she knew he did. “That’s a promise I will keep,” she said. And she said it easily, because it was the truth.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Montreal, Canada was even colder than Baltimore, Amelia thought, as she sat in the back of Hammer’s limousine and rode her up the steep mountain that led to his estate. And the fact that it was high up in the gorgeous Laurentian mountains of southern Quebec, didn’t help matters either for somebody who only liked cold weather because it allowed her to style. Other than that, she hated the cold.
But she had to admit it was a stunning property. Hammer had a lot of issues, but bad taste wasn’t one of them. His home was grand, and tucked far away from civilization, and the sweeping views, driving up those steep roads, was to die for.
His estate was called Charlemagne, named after the ancient Roman Emperor, and Amelia used to wonder what it would be like to be the mistress of a place like that. It was so big and beautiful it seemed almost fairytale-like. But then she realized it was an impossible dream to have. Hammer wasn’t looking for a wife, was she kidding? He had yet to claim her as his girlfriend. He wasn’t about to make her his wife!
Besides, she thought, as the limo pulled up to the main house, she wasn’t exactly looking to marry and settle down, either. Especially to a controlling joker like Hammer!
After the chauffeur opened the door for her, she stepped out. She was styling too, in a smart little black dress beneath another one of her full-length mink coats. Security was everywhere, she knew that for a fact, but she also did not see one single member of Hammer’s security team. At her house, where security was also tight, it was extremely visible. But except for the front gate guards, you didn’t see any security at Charlemagne. But that was how Hammer did it.
His ways were always different from everybody else’s.
She walked up the steps toward the entrance. Hammer’s longtime butler, Watson Reynolds, opened the door as she approached, and gladly escorted her inside.
“It is so nice to see you again, madam,” he said warmly.
“I’ll bet you say that to all the girls who walk through this door.”
“Which girls are those, madam?” Watson asked as he began removing her coat. “You are one of only two ladies that have ever stepped foot in this residence.”
Amelia was stunned to hear such a thing. One of only two? Was the other one Reggie Dell? If it wasn’t, she wanted to ask Watson why not. But she knew that would only give it away. Why should she even care? She decided to leave it alone. “Where is he?” she asked instead.
“He’s still in the shower,” Watson replied, as he flapped her coat over his arm. “Would you care to join him upstairs?”
“In a moment, I shall. But I would rather see my son first.”
“Yes, of course, madam. Right this way.”
Watson escorted her down a long, marbled hall to the oversized nursery. Rowena, a smart, savvy, beautiful black woman, was folding clothes she had apparently washed for the baby, as the baby played on a blanket. When Hannibal looked up, and saw that his mother had entered the room, he smiled greatly and started flapping his toy-clad hands. Amelia got down on the blanket with him, and lifted him into her arms.
“Oh, darling, it’s so great to see you again!” She was near-tears. “I missed you so much last night!”
Hammer took the baby after that ambush, but what hurt her most was the unsettling truth that, now that she knew who the enemy was, he would probably have to remain with his father a little longer. At least until she contained Leo Tamberelli. And the fact that she would even think that she could contain a threat that large was crazy as hell. But she had to do it.
The baby, in her arms, continued to smile at her and fumble with the toys he had in his tiny hands. But soon his big eyes were heavy, and his head was lying on her shoulder. He was asleep.
Amelia held him a few moments longer, and then put him down in his bed.
Amelia Sinatra: Hammer Time Page 10