Page 50 of Nikki Sinatra: For Her Lover
Roz got angry. “Okay now hold the fuck up. Hold. The. Fuck. Up! Somebody better tell me what’s going on up in here and they’d better tell me now.”
“Talk Nicole,” Mick said, “before I kick the shit out of you.”
Ted angrily stood up ready to battle his own father, but Nikki wasn’t about to be responsible for him and Mick going toe-to-toe too. She stood up and reached over and grabbed Teddy’s arm. “I’ll talk,” she said. “Please sit back down. I’ll talk.”
Teddy exhaled, still staring at his father, but he sat back down. Nikki sat down too. Then she looked at her father-in-law. “Emilio was lying.”
“About what?” Mick asked her.
“All of it. I was in Jersey last week, yes I was, but I did meet with Monk Paletti. You can call Frankie right now and ask him.”
“Did you also go to that hotel with Juda Gavin?”
Teddy looked at Nikki. When she hesitated, his heart squeezed.
Nikki didn’t ever want her past to come to light. She would have done damn-near anything to not have to deal with any of it. But that was impossible now. “Yes,” she admitted, “I went to that hotel.”
Marco frowned. “Ma, you didn’t!”
“Yes, I went,” Nikki answered Marco. Then she looked at Mick. “But it was nothing like what Emilio claimed. We didn’t get a room or none of that shit. I met Juda in the bar at that hotel.”
“Why?”
“He called and asked if I would meet with him. He was selling weed but was tired of that life. He wanted a job on the docks where he knew he could make the kind of money that would make giving up weed worth it to him. He asked me for a job before, but I turned him down then, and when we met up I turned him down again. I told him to leave me alone and to stay out of my life. I told him I didn’t want to have anything to do with him or anything else related to my past. And then I left. And that was all there was to that meeting at that hotel.”
“If that was it last week,” said Mick, “then why did I see you having a drink with him at that restaurant this week when I made your ass get in my truck?”
Teddy and Roz glanced at each other. What were they talking about? Mick nor Nikki had mentioned any confrontation at a restaurant to either one of them. Marco gave up. He couldn’t keep up with his elders. They had more drama going on in their lives than he ever had in his. It was even more confusing to him.
But Teddy had an additional concern. “If that was it last week,” he said to Nikki, “then why were you at Juda Gavin’s trailer last night, hugging on him on his porch, if you didn’t want him in your life?”
“Hugging on him?” Mick was astounded.
“Hugging him?” So was Marco. “Come on now, Pop. Ma ain’t like that and y’all know it.” But then Marco looked at Nikki. “You aren’t like that, Ma, right?”
“No I’m not like that,” Nikki yelled out. She knew she deserved some of their disdain. But this was getting out of hand. She felt as if she was on trial. “I met with Juda after I saw Emilio the night before. I was spooked when I saw Emilio. I hadn’t seen or heard from him in well over a decade. That’s the only reason I contacted Juda and met with him. I hired him to get rid of Emilio just like I told y’all.”
“You wanted to get rid of Emilio,” asked Mick, “without finding out why he was even in town?”
“I didn’t want to have to deal with that part of my past. I just wanted him gone. I knew he was bad news. He tried to kill me on that road, he wasn’t playing with me. I didn’t need to know why he was here.”
But Mick was shaking his head. “Not good enough, Nikki.”
Nikki looked at her skeptical father-in-law. Although she never bought the family line that she was his favorite and all the rest of it, she always thought they had a bond. She hated that he would even consider the fact that she had it in her to try to undermine the family. She would never do that.
But Mick was unrelenting when the facts weren’t factoring. He looked her squarely in the eyes. It would break his heart if Nikki wasn’t who he thought she was. It would be a hard blow for him to take.
But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to pursue the truth to the ends of the earth and rip her in two if that truth led where it was currently leading. “Why do you have offshore accounts?” he asked her bluntly.
They all looked at Nikki as if they were The Enquirer. As if their inquiring minds wanted to know too.
And Nikki knew she had to just tell it. It was her business, she thought, but she put herself in a position to no longer have that liberty. Men,Mick’s men, had already died because of her business. She had to talk and hold nothing back. “It’s my own money that I earned working for you, and all the money Teddy gave to me. Teddy pays all my bills. He won’t let me pay for anything. So I put my money away, yes I do. But I didn’t get a dime of that money from any drug cartels. That’s a lie!”
“That wasn’t my question,” Mick fired back. “You can put money away, and you should. But why do your ass have offshore accounts?”
Nikki decided the only way to deal with Mick Sinatra was to fight fire with fire. “The same reason you do,” she said boldly.
Teddy, Roz, and Marco all wanted to grab Nikki and run her out of that house. Nobody came back at Mick like that except for Roz. They all looked at Mick. But Mick was staring at Nikki.
