Page 20 of Nikki Sinatra: For Her Lover
“Well sir, to be honest with you: I wouldn’t go that far,” Nikki boldly said and Mick, caught off guard by her boldness, laughed out loud. She was amazed at how heartily he laughed.
“Get your ass out of my truck,” he said playfully, which warmed Nikki’s heart, but she got out of his truck. And he pulled away.
She was still smiling as she made her way to her car. But when she remembered her car was totaled last night and she was actually driving Teddy’s car, her smile slowly dissolved. Reality returned. And that dread of being found out, and wondering if Mick would still be fond of her once he knew the truth, overtook her again.
CHAPTER TEN
Emilio Cabrera walked out of that dentist office, hopped the elevator to the ground floor, and made his way across the parking garage. Imagine a man like him at the dentist. It seemed like child’s play to him. But he would have been screaming like a woman had they not numbed that tooth area. He didn’t like dentists or any other kind of doctor. They were too arrogant. Too pompous and full of themselves. They were too much like him.
But this dentist, at least, did his job because he didn’t feel a thing after that tooth extraction. But he was no idiot. He knew the pain would come later, after the dope wore off. But while the pain was at bay, he wanted to get back to his hideaway. He knew where Nikki was – which was his main job – although it would have been better had she cooperated.
But not Nikki. She didn’t even want to talk to him. Her ass was the one that messed up, but she didn’t even want to talk tohim? Wrecked her own car trying to get away from him. She had some nerve. But he knew it was going to require more of him than just finding her. That shit cut deep for all of them. But none more so than him.
But his walk slowed as he approached his car. His Maserati got mangled in that chase with Nikki, so he ended up ditching it and getting a rental car. Which meant his wheels weren’t as fast as they could have been. They rarely rented the kind of cars he preferred to drive. So he knew what his options were.
And although he didn’t see the threat, he could sense one was there, lurking, ready to strike at a moment’s notice. But it wouldn’t be with a gun. Not in that parking garage. It had to be more subtle than that. It had to be a quick strike attack.
That was why, as soon as he opened his car door, he closed it back quickly and hurried across the seat. He stooped down and got out on the passenger side of the vehicle just as the assassin hired by Juda Gavin opened the driver side door within seconds of Emilio closing it because he knew he had to strike before Emilio started the car and was in position to get away.
But as soon as the assassin opened the door with the tranquilizer bullet he was ordered to use to bring Emilio in rather than kill him outright, he was shocked to find that Emilio wasn’t in the car any longer.
“What the fuck?” the assassin said, confused.
But just as he was about to turn around to see if he missed something, Emilio came up behind him, with the rope he always kept on his person, and flung it around the man’s neck. The man began choking, but that was the point for Emilio. He tightened tighter and tighter until the guy was gone. Then he tossed him away from his car, got into his car, and took off.
And that sorry attempt raised the stakes. He didn’t think, when he first hit town and saw her, that Nikki could possibly know how high the stakes were. But he was wrong. She knew, alright, or she would have never ordered a hit on him.
He was determined to never be wrong like that again.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Around ten that night, cargo supervisor Mike Driessen didn’t realize Nikki had left her office and was talking with the dock supervisor just outside of the ship. That was why he felt free to make his little comments. Although the dock supervisor was a made man in the Sinatra syndicate and ran the entire dock system answering only to Nikki, the cargo supervisor, the man responsible for making certain that the right amount of crates were loaded and unloaded, was usually from the ranks of the deckhands and was not in the syndicate at all. He, too, worked under Nikki. But when she heard her name mentioned by Driessen, it got her attention. It got the attention of her dock supervisor as well.
“A woman. Ain’t that something? What a woman know about running these docks,” Driessen was saying to the deckhands. “She don’t know her ass from her ass, but they put her in charge. Can you imagine something that fucked? A woman running this massive operation. A woman? And not even an Italian woman at that! Not even one of us, but somemoolinyan. And Teddy sits back and let it all happen. If I was running this I wouldn’t let her fat ass anywhere near my ships. She’s a joke. They respect me more than they’ll ever respect her, and you can take that shit to the bank and cash it. I run this!”
Sammy Linzarta, the dock supervisor, smiled. “He’s just blowing off steam, Nikki. Just trying to be the big man. Don’t even worry about it.”
Nikki looked at Sammy. “Don’t worry about it? Thatdon’t worry about itattitude or yours is the very reason whythey keep on doing that shit,” she said angrily as she hurried onto the ship. She was in loose-fitting slacks and a sleeveless tucked-in blouse against her flat stomach, and her beloved heels, but she could get onboard so fast it was as if she were wearing sneakers. Sammy had to hurry to keep up with her.
When she got onboard the laughter and comments suddenly ceased and the men kept on stacking up crates as if nothing was happening.
But Nikki was tired of the disrespect. She’d been the number two long enough for them to get over their prejudices and misogyny, but they still refused. They still acted as if they had a right to question her authority. And Mike Driessen was one of the ringleaders, if not the main one.
She walked right up to Driessen and got in his personal space. They were toe-to-toe. “Say it to my face,” she said to him, causing everybody to stop working and look at them. “Say it to my face, motherfucker!”
But Driessen suddenly looked confused. “Say what to your face? What are you talking, Nikki?”
“Say that shit you just said to my face. That’s what I’m taking! You’re so big and bad, you wasn’t holding back then. Why you holding back now?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. For real.”
“She heard what you said, Mike,” Sammy said. “Just apologize so we can move on.”
Nikki looked at Sammy. “You shut the fuck up!” she said angrily to him. She was tired of him taking this bull for granted. That was the problem.
When Nikki checked Sammy, the deckhands smiled and covered their mouths to muffle their grins. They didn’t like Sammy either.
But Nikki turned back to Driessen. “You’re Mister Tough Guy when I’m not in front of you. So say what you had to say infront of me. I’m just a woman after all. And not even an Italian one, right? So say it to my face, you bastard.”
