Big Daddy Sinatra: Papa Don't Play

by Mallory Monroe

  Jenay, Charles also noticed, was in the room, but she was standing in the corner alone. She knew what he had to do, and it terrified her. She didn’t want him to go, and could have been stubborn about it. Let Mick and the Gabrinis handle it. They went on these kind of missions every week seemed like. But she knew her husband was not allowing another man to fight his battle. That was why, instead of arguing with him, or dissuading him, she went to him. He wrapped his arms around her waist. For the sake of their children, they had to be a united front.

  “I want you to know,” Charles said to their children, “how proud I am of each and every one of you.”

  Usually there would be jokes or some other lightheartedness whenever Charles would get serious like this. But not this time. They knew something big was up. Uncle Mick and his army would not still be there, and the Gabrinis would not be back with their manpower, if it wasn’t. Brent especially knew the risks. He’d been on a few missions with the others. He hated that he couldn’t go now.

  “While I’m gone,” Charles continued, “Uncle Tommy and Brent will be in charge.”

  “Brent?” Donald asked. “He’s still bed bound.”

  “And even bed bound he still stands as one of the toughest men in this house,” Charles said. “And don’t any of you forget it. Uncle Tommy and Brent will be in charge.”

  When there was no more discussion, Charles continued. “I don’t want anybody leaving this house until I get back. And that includes you too, Robert.”

  “You mean Mayor Sinatra,” Donald said with a smile. “I still can’t get over how that happened.”

  “Dad,” Robert said with a smile. “Dad made it happen. He made my dream come true.”

  Ashley frowned. “Your dream was to be mayor of little Jericho?” she asked him.

  “His dream is to progress in the political world,” Makayla pointed out. “Dad made that possible for him.”

  “The idea that Cruikshank would resign is what I’m still getting over,” Tony said. “That was welcomed news. Even having Bobby in charge, a scary thought, beats Cruikshank at the helm.”

  “Thanks,” Robert said. “I think.”

  They laughed.

  “Listen to your father,” Jenay said, getting them back on point. “He doesn’t want any of you leaving this house, no matter what, and he means it.”

  “I mean it,” Charles reiterated.

  “Sorry I can’t go,” Brent said to his father. “Or I would be there.”

  Charles and Jenay knew it too. “We know, son,” he said. “Thanks.” Then Charles exhaled. “Take care of each other, and take care of your mother. You hear me? Anything happens to me, every one of you better take excellent care of Jenay. That includes you too, Bonita. And you too Junior.”

  “Nothing’s going to happen to you, Daddy,” young Bonita, who had no clue what was really going on, said. “It can’t.”

  Jenay and Carly fought back tears, because they knew the peril Charles was about to face, and Jenay placed both hands around Charles’s waist. Charles smiled at his youngest daughter. “Thank you, baby,” he said. “I’ll remember to keep that in mind.”

  But after he said his goodbyes, and he and Jenay made their way out into the hallway, they stopped. Charles turned her to him, with his arms still around her. “They’re waiting for me downstairs,” he said. “I’d better go.”

  Jenay couldn’t help it. Tears were dropping freely. “I wish they could take care of it for you,” she said, “but I know that’s not possible. Not with a man like you. So I’m not going to beg you to stay. But I am going to beg you to come back.”

  Charles held her tighter, fighting back tears himself.

  “If nobody else comes back,” she said, “you’d better be the exception. We can’t go on without you, Charlie. You’re still that man who used to come to Boston courting me. You’re still that man who said I was too old to be an intern, and who attended my trade school graduation. You have to come back.”

  Those words only strengthened Charles’s resolve. “I will,” he said. “But if I don’t,” he added, “you’d better go on without me. You hear me, Jenay? You’re my rock. You’re the one the family will rely on. And you’d better not let me down.”

  His words were harsh, but he knew they had to be said. “I’m relying on you, baby, to pull the family through this. You will have to be strong for Nita, and Carly, and Donnie, and all of our children, you hear me? I’m depending on you, Jenay.”

  Jenay began wiping her tears away and nodding. She understood. “I won’t let you down,” she said. “Don’t you dare worry about us. We will be fine. Just take care of yourself. Just come back to us anyway.”

  “Even in pieces?” Charles asked with a smile.

  “Pieces with life still in them?” Jenay asked. “Hell yes.”

  Charles smiled again and placed his forehead against hers. He closed his eyes. Leaving her was always the hardest thing.

  But he had to go. He kissed her, with a long, lingering kiss, and then he hurried downstairs. He didn’t look back.

  The limousine splashed through the water puddles and stopped in the back of the old, dilapidated barbershop. They were in Boston, and Trevor Reese came out of the shop and got into the backseat. The limo drove away.

  Trevor sat across from Belfast Bellanconti and waited for him to conclude his phone call. Bellanconti had scars in his face and one glass eye. He also walked with a noticeable limp. For a G-man, Trevor thought, he looked awfully gangster. But he was both. And Trevor had to never forget that.

  Bellanconti ended his call and then looked at his passenger. “What do you have for me, Trev?” he asked.

  “Angelo’s family.”

  This interested Bellanconti mightily. “Including Mick the Tick?” he asked.

  “Including Mick the Tick, yes.”

  Bellanconti smiled. “They fell for it?”

  “Every line of it,” Trevor said. “Angelo especially. I took Charles to meet with him and Giuseppe, and Charles and Angelo both fell for it.”

  “Who shot Giuseppe? Ang?”

  “Big Daddy shot him,” Trevor said.

  Bellanconti was surprised. “Why would he put that kind of heat on himself?”

  “Who knows?” Trevor asked. “He loves his children. Don’t appreciate G setting up that hit? Who the fuck cares?”

  Bellanconti agreed. “What plan did they hatch? I’ll bet the Gabrinis will take part.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Trevor said. “You’d win that bet. They all met in Jericho. They’re on their way here to Boston as we speak.”

  Bellanconti nodded. “Good,” he said. “Give me every detail, and I’ll take care of them. If that isn’t enough for Angelo to get his ass back on that plane to Italy, nothing will be enough.”

  “Short of killing his ass,” Trevor said.

  “If all else fails, yes,” Bellanconti said. “But Angelo is valuable to the government. They prefer to keep him alive. But yes. There’s always death for him. But tell me what plan they hatched.”

  “They plan to hit early tomorrow morning,” Trevor said, “at exactly six a.m.”

  “Six? That’s just after my security team changes from the night shift to the day shift,” Bellanconti said. Then he shook his head. “The confusion. The laxity. The fact that the old guard is getting off, and anxious to leave, and the new guard is coming on, and despising that they’re just getting started.”

  “Right,” Trevor said. “There’s bound to be a lot of inattention to small details during shift change.”

  Bellanconti nodded. “Okay, I get that. I get why they would pick that time of day.”

  “And they plan to come with all barrels blazing,” Trevor said. “They plan to be heavily armed.”

  Bellanconti smiled. “So will we,” he said. “So will we!”

  “My suggestion is that you keep the night shift on when the day shift shows up, but have the day shift come in early, like four or five instead of six. And have an arsenal of men waiti
ng for their asses.”

  Bellanconti smiled. “I like that. Yeah. I like that a lot, Trev. I keep telling you that you need to come work for me.”

  “I work for myself,” Trevor said.

  “Yeah, yeah, I heard it all before.” Then he paused, and looked at Trevor. “What about the girl?” he asked. “You care for her, no?”

  Trevor hesitated. “I care for her. Yes.”

  “How will she feel if she knows you are directly responsible for her father’s demise?”

  “The same way I felt when I thought your fools masquerading as gunmen had killed her.”

  “And that feeling is?”

  “She’ll be sad, but she’ll get over it.”

  Bellanconti laughed.

  “Besides,” Trevor continued, “she’ll never know that I had anything to do with his death. Never.”

  “And if she finds out, tough,” Bellanconti said. “She better be glad her black ass is still alive. She needs to start looking out for herself, and to hell with her white daddy.” Then he chuckled. “That would be my attitude if I were her,” he added.

  Trevor smiled and shook his head. “We are not good people,” he said.

  Bellanconti grinned. “Who the fuck is?” he asked.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Two sets of SUV convoys, one six blocks away, and one closer: four blocks away. All reviewing the prepositioned cameras on the monitors in each vehicle.

  “The night crew?” Charles asked, looking at the monitor in their SUV.

  “Yup,” Mick responded. “They’re still there.”

  “And that’s the day crew coming on,” Sal said.

  “They’re getting ready,” Charles said.

  “Little too late,” Mick said, as he pulled out his shotgun. Then he looked at the others. “Ready, gentlemen?” he asked.

  “Ready,” Reno said.

  “Been ready,” Sal said.

  “Let’s do this,” Charles said, and everybody laughed.

  But Charles was serious. “What?” he asked.

  “You’ve been hanging around us too long,” Reno said.

  Mick picked up the Walkie Talkie and pressed the button. “Already, girls,” he said to his men, “let’s get this show on the road.”

  The second convoy of SUVs, four strong, left their location four blocks away and began heading toward the front of the Bellanconti estate. The first convoy of SUVs, six strong, anchored by the SUV carrying Charles, Mick, and the Gabrinis, headed south, toward the back of the Bellanconti estate.

  When Charles’s convoy of SUVs arrived at the back of the estate, Mick, Charles, Sal, Reno, and the thirty men they had with them, got out of the SUVs and placed themselves in defensive positions behind the vehicles.

  “Everybody in place?” Mick asked as he looked around. When he saw that they were, he pulled out the Walkie Talkie and pressed the button. “Go now,” he said to the convoy at the front of the estate.

  Out front, the SUVs began the drive toward the Security gate. When they were met with a barrage of bullets from the guards in place, Bellanconti’s surprise attack, they didn’t shoot back. They, instead, began tossing so many grenades that the guards out front either perished in the explosions, or ran for shelter inside the estate. Once the last of the grenades were tossed, with some decimating the security gate, the men got out of the SUVs and ran inside the estate too.

  Out back, Charles, Mick, the Gabrinis, and their army of men, were ready too. As expected, the alarm sounded and those inside the house began running out back, seeking shelter away from the firestorm out front, as the army of men knocked down the front door and began a gunfight inside the house.

  But Charles and crew were ready for Bellanconti’s crew of escapees out back. They began picking them off one by one, shooting man after man and then advancing as their enemies fell. Charles and company advanced further and further inward until they were inside the home too, in an all-out assault of rapid, unrelenting gunfire.

  Upstairs, Belfast Bellanconti and Trevor Reese were on the top floor, where they were supposed to be secured as Bellanconti’s men fought it out with the Sinatras and Gabrinis, and that army of men they brought with them. But the security had apparently broken down, as they could hear men progressing up the stairs toward them. They had to make a run for it!

  Bellanconti reached into his desk drawer, to grab his gun. He never dreamed it would come to this. He had an army out front, when the Sinatras and Gabrinis were expecting half that number. How could they be so easily defeated?

  But as Bellanconti reached for his loaded weapon, to defend himself against the advancing attack, Trevor Reese suddenly reached for his hand. And stopped him. And grabbed the weapon himself. “Not today,” Trevor said.

  Bellanconti was floored. “What are you doing?” he asked. “I thought. . . What are you saying? You work for them?”

  “I work for myself,” Trevor said, “I told you that. But if you’re asking if I played somebody, the answer is yes,” Trevor added, as the door was kicked open. “I played you.”

  Charles Sinatra entered the room as the shooting continued downstairs.

  “Good job, Reese,” Charles said. “But I’ll take it from here.”

  Trevor, with loaded gun in hand, looked at Bellanconti, who was still reeling from the double-cross, and then left the room. He closed the door and stayed in front of it, standing guard.

  “This isn’t right,” Bellanconti said. “I’m Fed. You can’t touch me! This isn’t supposed to happen like this!”

  “Like what?” Charles asked, walking toward him. “My children weren’t supposed to live? You weren’t supposed to die?”

  “What are you talking about?” Bellanconti asked. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  “You don’t?” Charles removed his weaponry from his person, all five guns, and sat them on the side table. “Then I’ll just have to refresh your memory.”

  Charles went to Bellanconti and walloped him with a right. And then another right. And then another right. Bellanconti tried to fight back, but was out of shape and out of excuses. Charles was beating Bellanconti down.

  So Bellanconti begged. “It wasn’t about you,” he said, his memory now refreshed. “It was about getting my territory back from your cousin, from Angelo DeCoppola. He took what was mine. I was just trying to get his attention!”

  “By using my family as your sacrifice?” Charles asked. “By attempting to murder my children for sport, so that you can prove something to somebody else? And I’m supposed to accept that?”

  Charles continued the beat down. Bellanconti was on the floor, begging for mercy, but Charles was merciless as he beat Bellanconti, as he kicked Bellanconti like a mangy dog, as he treated Bellanconti as if he was lower than the lowest animal. Blood was pouring. Bellanconti was barely conscious, but Charles kept beating him.

  Mick and the Gabrinis made it upstairs, after shooting their way to victory, to assist Charles. They flung open the door and went inside. But Charles didn’t need any assistance. He was handling Bellanconti, just as he said he would, all by himself.

  By the time Charles was finished, Bellanconti, dead and still bleeding out, was too.

  Later that night, when they finally made it back to the Sinatra estate, Jenay and Carly ran out of the house and up to the SUVs. When Jenay saw Charles, she ran into his arms. He was in one piece. He was just fine!

  And when Carly saw Trevor, she ran to his side. He was wiping her tears away. “You made it,” she kept saying. “You made it!”

  But Charles and Jenay didn’t say a word. They didn’t have to. Their actions, as they walked hand in hand, staring into each other’s eyes, spoke loudest and best.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Two weeks later and Charles and Jenay found themselves in Richmond, Virginia, in a rented car, in a motel parking lot. Trevor gave them the intel, and they acted on it. But Charles still couldn’t believe he allowed Jenay to come too.

  “You allowe
d it because it was my life they were trying to snuff out,” Jenay said. She was on the passenger seat, leaned back, looking at motel room 42, upstairs right. “You allowed it because you know I can handle myself.”

  “I don’t know about all of that,” Charles said with a smile, and Jenay hit his big arm.

  “But it’s the same thing you told me about Bellanconti,” Jenay continued. “He came after your children, so you had to stand in the breach for Brent, Donnie, and for Carly, because they couldn’t stand for themselves. But I can stand for myself. Miller used to be my brother-in-law. I have to confront him. I have to know why he would allow some woman he barely knows to drag him down like this.”

  “From what Trevor said,” Charles said, “he was already down.”

  Jenay looked at him. “What do you mean?”

  “That story he told you about being some regional VP for some insurance company, or whatever line he claimed, was bunk. According to Trevor, he used to be a long haul truck driver stationed in Boston, until he got fired for pimping hookers for other truckers all across the US of A. They could have put his ass in prison. When Arianna hooked up with him and made him all of those promises of riches and revenge for his brother’s death, and blaming you for his brother’s death rather than his own boneheaded brother, he was prime for the taking. And she provided him a living, and the money to pay his truck driving friends who ran into your Mercedes that day. He’s still living off of her largess until she gets out of prison.”

  “I wish those two drivers who crashed into me weren’t dead,” Jenay said. “I would have loved to confront them too.”

  “But unfortunately they are dead,” Charles said. “From what Trevor could find out, Miller took care of them himself after Tony and I paid him a visit. He wanted no witnesses of his sordid involvement.”