Page 63 of Nikki Sinatra: For Her Lover
“Hands where I can see them,” the lead guard yelled again. Nikki quickly placed her hands back in the air.
“What do you want?” the guard asked her.
Amateurs, she thought happily, just like Mick had said. “Jackson Reeves is expecting me.”
“Why would he wanna see you?”
So amateurish that he unknowingly just admitted that she was at the right place and that Jackson was indeed on the property.
“Who are you?” asked a different guard.
“I’m Nikki Sinatra.”
As soon as she said her name, they all went still. “Ah shit!” said one of the guards and all of them suddenly became more animated.
The lead guard pulled out his Walkie Talkie. “Nikki Sinatra is at the gate,” he blared. “I repeat: Nikki Sinatra is at the gate!”
Within seconds, every guard on the property was at the gate surrounding Nikki. An even bigger rookie mistake Mick predicted would happen. And as she distracted the guards at the front gate, Mick, Reno, Sal and Monk entered onto the property around back.
But up front the guards were escorting Nikki up to the main house.
Once inside, the lead guard hurried up the stairs to a room to the right. “Boss, we got her,” she heard him saying out of view. “Boss, she’s here. Nikki Sinatra is here!”
But as the other guards were leading Nikki to a chair in the wide-open, paneled room downstairs, Nikki noticed that the boss wasn’t to the right side of the upstairs, but to the left sideas Jackson Reeves suddenly appeared on the landing. When he saw Nikki and Nikki saw him, he immediately raised his weapon.
Nikki immediately grabbed a guard and flung him in front of her as Jackson began firing wildly from upstairs, hitting his own guard.
At the same time, the side door of the house was busted down and Mick, Reno, Sal, and Monk ran into the living room firing their weapons too. The other guards began firing back at the intruders as Nikki grabbed the rifle of the now deceased guard in front of her, ready to fire on Jackson.
But when she looked upstairs again, Jackson was gone.
Knowing she had to stop him above all else, she kept the dead body in front of her as she made her way around the perimeter of the room.
Mick, Monk and the Gabrinis had pulled back into the kitchen area as their cover, and the other guards began hurrying in that direction, rightly viewing them as their immediately threat. They continued to fire toward the kitchen area as they moved toward that corner.
But Nikki began moving upstairs. She tried to drag the dead man up those stairs with her, to provide her cover, but he was dead weight and no way could she carry him up.
Inside the kitchen area, when Mick saw that the Gabrinis and Monk Paletti had it well in hand, he hurried around the kitchen to the side hall. He made his way into the living room from that hall, and saw that the guards were distracted with his crew. When he saw Nikki hurrying upstairs, he hurried behind her. He was going to be her cover.
But to his relief, she had it well in hand too. As soon as she neared the top of the stairs, the lead guard came out from the right side of the landing and attempted to fire on Nikki as if she was unawares that he had gone up those stairs.
But Nikki was well aware and ready. As soon as she saw the first whiff of him, she began firing. She took him out before he could fire a single shot. He fell down the stairs, right past her and Mick. When she glanced back at his tumbling body, that was when she saw that Mick was behind her. Seeing Mick was all the fuel she needed. She hurried on up those stairs.
When they got on the landing, Nikki looked to the right where the lead guard had gone, but saw nothing worth exploring. She looked to the left where she knew Jackson had come from, and she hurried in that direction. Mick followed behind her, but kept his eyes on the rest of the upstairs rooms.
There were several closed doors upstairs. Nikki kicked the first door open, but nobody was in that room.
She kicked the second door open, but nobody was in that room. The same with the third room too.
But when she got to the fourth room, and she kicked that door open, she saw a leg and immediately moved back to the side, falling against Mick, as gunfire rang out of that room.
Mick moved in front of Nikki and waited for a lull. As soon as the gunman stopped firing, Mick stepped into the doorway and fired, ripping a bullet into the arm of the gunman, not to kill him, but for the sole purpose of knocking the gun out of his hand. He knew Nikki needed answers. And he did too.
It worked. The gun fell out of Jackson Reeves hand, causing him to grab his arm, and Mick and Nikki hurried in. Mick kicked Jackson’s assault rifle away from him, and Nikki grabbed up Jackson and slammed his back against the wall.
She held onto his shirt as she spoke to him. “Why did you try to kill me and my husband?” she asked him.
Jackson Reeves was gaunt, like a little old man when she remembered him as a towering figure the few times she saw him before he got locked up. But now he was a shell of that person. A shell that still harbored hatred in his eyes. “The same reasonI killed Juda and Emilio. They killed my babies because of what you and those two assholes did. I killed your husband, which I’m proud to say, but I was really trying to kill you.”
