Page 29 of Nikki Sinatra: For Her Lover
Pop is gonna kill me, Teddy thought when Roz went to check out the rest of the house. But it was done now. She wasn’t about to not get her hands in it. That was just Roz.
Juda was shocked. After Mick left that restaurant, he did his homework and looked him up. Now he knew all there was to know about him. “Ain’t that Mick Sinatra’s wife?” he asked.
“I thought your ass don’tspeakaEnglish,” Teddy said.
“I’ll be damn. That’s Mick Sinatra’s wife,” Juda said again as his eyes followed Roz’s every movement until she was out of sight. It was as if he still couldn’t believe it. “What’s his wife doing here?” he asked Teddy.
“That ain’t the question,” Teddy responded. “What was my wife doing here? That’s the question.”
Juda held up his hands in surrender. “Man, I ain’t got nothing to do with that.”
“Bullshit! I saw you on that porch hugging her. What you hugging on her for if you ain’t got nothing to do with it?”
Juda didn’t respond. He didn’t know they were being spied on.
Teddy knew he had to slow it down or the guy could clam up. He needed answers, not just some guy bloodied up for refusing to talk. “What’s your name?” he asked him.
“Juda.”
“Juda what?”
“Gavin.”
Roz returned from upstairs. “All clear, Teddy,” she said as if she was enjoying herself.
Teddy removed the gun from Juda’s temple and then sat on the coffee table in front of him. Roz sat on the sofa beside Juda, her gun aimed at him at all times.
“I’m gonna ask you again,” Teddy said. “How do you know my wife?”
Juda exhaled. To Teddy he was either thinking up a lie, or afraid to tell the truth. But he didn’t push the guy. He remained patient. He needed answers.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The big white Cadillac Escalade came to a grinding halt and Mick Sinatra hopped out, grabbed his thick briefcase, and made his way towards the front entrance of his mansion. The heavy grounds security staff still found it odd to see the man they all knew as the most powerful, most respected, and most vicious boss of all bosses in the entire underworld carrying a briefcase every day. If they didn’t know any better and they saw him on the street, they’d think he was a Harvard-educated titan of industry conservative country club type. But they knew better. They marveled at how well he could pull it off.
But when Mick turned over the day-to-day running of the Sinatra Crime Family to Teddy, it untied his hands to focus far more on his business empire. Most mobsters had shell companies or front businesses to legitimize their illegitimate tendencies. Sinatra Industries was a Fortune 500, completely legit corporation separate and apart from his criminal enterprise. And he intended, with every fiber within him, to keep it that way.
It was around eleven at night when he walked into his home, made his way around the foyer, and saw his twin teenagers Duke and Jackie hard at work playing their video game. Their eyes glued to the screen, Mick stood there and looked at the screen. Guys and gals were killing each other in outrageous gun battles and Duke and his sister were trying to kill each other with their handheld game consoles and their tenacity. Mick was a video game most of his life and knew the real game was nothing like that cartoon bullshit he was watching, but hischildren loved it. They were going off to college soon to begin real adulthood, but right now they were more than happy to just be kids. And Mick didn’t mind it at all as he looked at them.
But what he didn’t like was their inattentiveness to anything but what was in front of them. He taught them better than that. Never look straight ahead, he taught them. Always look for angles.
That was why he took his thick briefcase and slammed it against the wall so hard that it made both twins drop their consoles and jump straight up. The only thing Mick was pleased with in their reaction was the fact that Duke put his arm protectively in front of his sister as soon as he heard the sound.
“Bang bang you’re dead,” said Mick, and he wasn’t joking either.
But the twins sighed relief. “Daddy you could have given us a heart attack,” Jackie said exasperatingly.
“Why did you scare us like that though?” asked an equally exasperated Duke.
“Why do you think?” Mick asked his youngest son.
Duke knew why, but he was too proud to say it.
But Jackie wasn’t. “Because we weren’t paying attention,” she said.
“There ya go.”
“We were only playing a game,” said a still upset Duke. “Dang.”
