Page 35 of Nikki Sinatra: For Her Lover
Teddy placed his hand across her body and on the side of her hip as if he wasn’t just bracing her, but bracing himself for what was to come next.
And the most distressed look Teddy had ever seen on Nikki appeared on her face. “So I panicked,” she said. “And it was like I woke up. I knew if my black ass got caught I was going away to prison for the rest of my life, I just knew it. It was one thing to drop off packages to local drug dealers. It was another thing altogether to fly to a foreign country to pick up drugs and bring them into America. I knew it was over for me.”
“How did you panic?”
“I went into the restroom, and when I saw that nobody was in there I put the bag that had the drugs in it in the bottom of the big garbage can. I figured maybe Emilio could send somebody to go pick it up later, when the cop dogs weren’t hanging around anymore. And so I left.”
Teddy leaned his head back. He knew what was coming next. He crossed his legs.
“Emilio was waiting for me in the parking lot and when I told him what I had to do, oh man.” Teddy could see that she looked sad and scared. “He went ballistic. It was the first time he laid a hand on me ever, and he knocked me so hard that my face slammed against the passenger door window.”
Teddy’s entire face was enraged.
“But I fought back,” Nikki said. “And when I slapped him for slapping me, he stopped hitting me.”
“Then what happened?”
“I told him I would have gone to prison for life if I’d been caught with those drugs, but he told me they wouldn’t have found them. I told him those dogs would have sniffed them, but he claimed they couldn’t. He ordered me to go back into that airport and pick them up. Or get the bag and hold it in one of the bathroom stalls until the cops left. As if I was gonna be able to know when those cop dogs left. I couldn’t keep peeping out of the bathroom doors, they’d know something was up.”
Nikki hesitated. Teddy was even more terrified. He wanted to pull her into his arms and protect her from every Emilio out there, but he had to hear the whole, unvarnished story. He remained still.
“When he told me to go back into that airport even though cops were there and those drug-sniffing dogs were still there, it was like the veil was lifted. I woke up earlier, but now I was wide awake. All that love I thought I had for that man just disappeared in that very moment. I knew then that he didn’t give a damn about me. Nobody did and he sure as hell didn’t either. And the way he slapped me like I was his whore not his woman woke me up too. He was desperate to get those drugs back. Just desperate. He even pulled a gun on me and told me if I didn’t come out of there with those drugs in my hand, he was going to kill me.”
Teddy’s jaw tightened. Wait until he got his hands on that motherfucker. “What did you do?”
“The only thing I could do. I went back inside. I sure did. And I went straight up to the ticket counter and bought a ticket right then and there. A ticket to the next plane heading out I didn’t care where it was heading. One was boarding, heading toPhoenix, Arizona, and I got my ticket in time and ran and got on that plane. While Emilio was waiting in that parking lot for me to return with those drugs, I was buckling up. He had no idea, but I was out of there.”
“That was smart, Nikki. Real smart.” Then Teddy exhaled. “But dangerous too.”
Nikki nodded. “Oh how I found that out. But I thought I had it licked. I couldn’t let nobody know where I was, not even my parents, and I wasn’t going to let them know either.”
“What happened to the drugs?” Teddy knew that was the crucial point.
“When Mill realized I wasn’t coming back out, I found out years later from Juda Gavin, who used to work for him, that he went and got another one of his girlfriends to go in that ladies room, go in that trash, and to dig out those drugs. But she came back and claimed the trash had already been emptied.”
Teddy’s heart dropped. “Was that true?”
“Juda said it wasn’t. He said she apparently called her brother or some other dude and she handed the bag to them before she made it back outside to Emilio. She went out one way, they went out another way. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I do know Emilio never got his hands on those drugs again.”
Teddy studied her eyes. That was bad, but it wouldn’t have her anguished the way she’d been lately. “What aren’t you telling me, Nikki?”
And that was when he knew the heart of the matter had arrived. Tears appeared in her big eyes. “When I got to Phoenix and got a job waiting tables, I followed articles online about the story. I found out that those cartel boys had Emilio’s young sisters, and three of their friends who were at the house for a sleepover, murdered. They killed all of them, Teddy. Every single one of them.”
“Gotdamn, Nikki!Gotdamn!” Then he looked at her. “What about Emilio? Did they get him?”
“No. He and his mother weren’t home when it happened. And when he found out, I heard he disappeared too. I didn’t know, until I saw him here in Philly, if the cartel caught him and disposed of him, or if he got away.”
“Wait a minute. You saw Emilio here in Philly?”
Nikki nodded. “He was chasing me. That’s why I wrecked my car. It was like seeing a dead man alive. It shook me. It took me to a place the terrified me.”
“You think he was the one with that army at Juda’s trailer tonight?”
Nikki nodded her head. “I’m certain he was. He’s out for vengeance, he has to be.”
“But what did Juda do to him?”
“Juda skipped town around the same time I did. He figured we were in on it together. There were rumors that he thought we stole those drugs and that I lied to him. But all those kids were killed, Teddy. All because of what I did.”
