Page 4 of Nikki Sinatra: For Her Lover
But that was only her cover. She was second-in-command of the Sinatra crime syndicate, the most powerful syndicate in the world, and was the only woman, not to mention the onlyblackwoman, to have ever held such a position. That job gave her drama up the gazoo. Meeting up with her girls used to be relaxing and loads of fun. Now their get-togethers were accusatory and envy-laden and just plain burdensome. She was slowly pulling away from both of them and they didn’t seem to realize it.
As the two ladies continued to argue over which one of their men was less a bastard than the other one, Nikki was about to take another sip of her drink. But that was when she noticed man seated at a table in a corner of the bar, staring unblinkingly at her.
When she saw him, she froze with her glass to her lips as she stared at him. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t. It was a lookalike. Those doppelgängers they talked about. It had to be! But when he waved at her and smiled that reptilian smile she knew so well, her heart dropped to her shoe. She knew it was him. It was him, it was him, it was him!
And panic set in. She immediately jumped up from the table.
“Nikki, what’s wrong?” Deja asked her even as Raven continued to argue.
“I’ve got to go,” Nikki said as she grabbed up her keys and phone and began leaving without paying for her drink. She practically ran out of that bar.
Even Raven stopped arguing. “What’s wrong with her?” she asked.
But Deja had no idea. And both of them were looking so hard at Nikki as she hurried out of the bar that they didn’t notice that the same man that had spooked her in the first place was hurrying out of that bar right behind her.
CHAPTER TWO
Teddy Sinatra drained down half of the beer in his mug and plopped it back down on the table. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and watched as Big Steve sat there eating dinner with his wife and kids. Robbing Teddy blind and was sitting up there eating dinner like he hadn’t done shit. Like Teddy wasn’t going to do shit to him. Teddy was sitting at a table in the back left side of the crowded restaurant and Big Steve was clueless.
But Teddy couldn’t take his eyes off that Ivy League hotshot who worked in his accounting department. He wasn’t Teddy’s lead accountant. He wasn’t even in the top three. But it was his ass cooking the books. It was his ass with the paper trail. Teddy had the receipts. It took all he had not to get up right then and there and kick Big Steve’s ass right in front of his own kids.
But Teddy had a kid of his own. A kid he knew no major mobster like him should have ever brought into this world. They were the true innocents. He had to deal with their father. Nobody stole from a Sinatra with no retribution. But never in front of the kids.
“Teddy T, how you be? I thought that was you!”
Hoke Bianca, the syndicate’s security chief and his wingman for the job they had in front of them, hopped up from the table just in front of Teddy’s table and placed his big hand on the stomach of a scantily clad woman, stopping her advancement.
“Not so fast lady,” Hoke said as Teddy looked beyond the woman to see if Big Steve heard her call out his name. But bythe way he didn’t skip a beat stuffing his big face he hadn’t heard a thing. The restaurant was crowded and noisy and that helped. But Teddy kept his eyes on him just the same.
The woman tried to break free of Hoke’s grasp. “Let me go. I said let me go! Teddy knows me. Tell him, Teddy. Tell this miscreant that you know me!”
Teddy looked at her. Her name was Anita, although he never bothered to learn her last name. He’d known her for years. He remembered when she was young and vibrant and stunningly gorgeous. Every man wanted her, and had her too, including Teddy. But now? Even back then she was too thin. Now she looked skeletal. Why would he want to be bothered with that for?
But Teddy wasn’t the kind of man to turn his back on his old friends. Especially when they were down and out. And Anita had been down for a long time. He gave alet her throughwave and Hoke allowed her to walk on up to his table and take a seat.
Teddy then looked at his capo again and gave the nod he had been waiting for. Hoke slowly made his way to Big Steve’s table.
Anita was smiling when she took a seat. Used to be a perfect smile with teeth almost as pearly white as Nikki’s. Now half were missing and the other half were rotted out. Her crystal blue eyes were bloodshot. “I knew that was you,” she said happily. “I saw you from outside. I said, ‘That’s Teddy T up in there. That’s my old friend right there. That’s the only man ever treated me right.’ And I came in to say hello. How you been doing, Teddy?”
Teddy was staring at her. She had gone down even further than he’d heard she had.
“Quit staring at me,” she said as sadness came in her eyes, as if she knew she was a horrid sight to behold. “How you doing, Teddy?” she asked him again.
Teddy realized he was being rude. “Living,” he said. “You?”
“Barely living,” she said and laughed.
That was Anita. Always good for a laugh. But everybody knew Teddy didn’t fuck around with people, friend or no friend. He didn’t lie to them either. “I see you’re still on the junk,” he said with disappointment in his voice.
Anita’s smile grew faint. “I been getting clean, Teddy.”
“Gettingclean? What that mean? You’re either clean or you’re aren’t.”
“I’m getting there. Honest, Teddy. I been trying to stay off, but it ain’t easy like that. And you dumped me.”
“I told your ass to stay away from that shit in the first place. But you wouldn’t listen. I told you I don’t fuck around with meth heads. But you wouldn’t listen.”
She started rubbing her matted blonde hair. “I’m gonna get clean real soon though. Be just like my old self again. I’m gonna check myself into one of them places. One of them rehabs. But they ain’t got no beds right now.”
