Big Daddy Sinatra: There Was a Ruthless Man (The Sinatras of Jericho County Book 1) (24 page)

“Don’t
do that.
 
Don’t try that
let’s play dumb
shit on me.
 
Yes!
 
It would cheapen me!
 
You told me
that Jericho was the kind of town that put great stock in family values.
 
That’s why Donald had to get married when he
impregnated Susan.
 
That’s the kind of
moral code that exists in this family values kind of town.
 
But when it comes to me?
 
Oh no!
 
None of the rules apply with me.
 
You can just move her in.
 
You can
just treat her like a wife without any of the trappings of marriage.
 
Don’t buy the cow, just get the milk for
free!”

Tears
were flowing freely now.
 
“I thought you
were different, Charles.
 
I thought you
were really a righteous guy.
 
But you’re
not.
 
You’re no different than every
other man I’ve ever known.
 
It’s never
about what I want, and what I need, and what I desire.
 
It’s always about the guy.
 
And what he wants, and what he needs, and
what he desires.
 
And my stupid ass has
allowed it.
 
Relationship after relationship
after relationship!
 
But I’m done.
 
I’m out of the allowance game.”

She
turned to reopen the front door, but Charles grabbed her from behind and
wrapped her up in a big bear hug.
 
His
heart was pounding.

“Oh,
my baby,” he said as he held her.
 
And
then he turned her back around.
 
“I
didn’t mean to imply any disrespect, Jenay.
 
I wasn’t . . .”
 

But
that look on her face said it all.
 
She
was done.

He
let out a heavy sigh of regret.
 
“I’ll
take you home,” he said.
 

And
even the term
home
, when she was
actually living in a hotel, in
his
hotel,
made her cringe.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Charles
drove slowly along the low, rolling hills that led them back into town.
 
While he was upstairs getting his keys and
his wallet, his sons had left the house, knowing the last thing he needed was
to have them hovering around right now.
 
But it was obvious to Charles that Jenay couldn’t wait to leave that
house either, and possibly him.
 
It felt
as if they were going along just fine, and then bam.
 
They ran into a brick wall.
 
A wall he didn’t realize he had erected.

He
glanced at her as he drove.
 
She seemed
so flustered that it broke his heart.
  
Normally, he would let people think whatever the hell they wanted to
think.
 
But he couldn’t leave her this
way.
 
“I wasn’t trying to disrespect you,
Jenay,” he said.

“So
what were you trying to do?” she asked him.
 
“Disregard me?
 
Did you decide you
wanted a bed warmer full time and you were giving me the job?”

“You
know better than that!”

“No I
don’t know better than that!” she shot back.
 
“I thought I did.
 
You’ve shown
nothing but kindness towards me, Charlie.
 
I thought we were heading in the right direction.
 
And we were.
 
Only different directions.
 
I’m
thinking we’re heading in the direction of marriage, while you’re thinking
shacking up will do.”

“I
thought it would help both of us, Jenay.
 
Not just me.
 
I haven’t lived with
a woman for over fourteen years!
 
I
needed to ---”

“You
needed to what?” Jenay asked.
 
“You
needed to know if I was good enough to live with you?”

“I
needed to know that you were alright,” Charles admitted.
 
It was a devastating admission for a man like
him.
 
“I’m out of town often, you know
that.
 
Hardly a week goes by when I don’t
have to handle some business out of town.
 
I thought you’d be safe at the Inn, but you see what happened
there?
 
So I decided I should move you
into my house.
 
And yes, I decided
unilaterally.
 
That’s how I
function.
 
It was wrong, but that’s how
I’ve handled my life all of my life.”

Jenay
looked at him.

“So I
made the executive decision to move you into my house.
 
Nobody was going to come anywhere near my
home without permission.
 
Nobody was
going to set you up there, or even think about harming you there.
 
I knew it was too soon for us to talk about
marriage.
 
I knew that wasn’t on your
radar screen right now.
 
But what
happened to you three weeks ago, the way they so easily set you up, and how it
could have turned out so differently for us, did something to me, Jenay.
 
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but other than
daytrips to Boston and New York, I’ve stayed close to you since then.
 
It affected me like that.
 
I wasn’t trying to be disrespectful. I wasn’t
trying to disregard your wants and needs.
 
I was trying to protect you.
 
I
did it clumsily, and because I didn’t talk to you first, I did it wrong.
 
But I swear to you I wasn’t trying to
disrespect you.”

Jenay
turned her gaze upon the dark, back roads they traveled.
 
She didn’t know what to believe.
 
But it was a fact.
 
Other than a couple of daytrips to handle his
business over the past month, after that jewelry fiasco, Charles was a constant
in her life.
 
They slept together at the
Inn, or at his house, every night.

She
looked at him.
 
“I appreciate your
concern,” she said, “but I’m not moving in with you or anybody else.
 
And just like you handle your life; just like
you function the way you function? I function that same way, too.
 
I have to have the only vote in where I live
and whom I live with and how I live my life.
 
I gave up that right when I married Quince.
 
I’m never giving that up again.”

Charles
glanced at her, and then back at the road.
 
He should have known better than to think she could be handled.
 
He should have known better.

“I’m
not the village idiot, Charlie,” she said, and he laughed.
 
“You didn’t put an idiot in charge of your
hotel.
 
You didn’t decide to get in a
romantic relationship with a fool.
 
Treat
me right, treat me fair, treat me respectfully, and we’ll make it just
fine.
 
Treat me wrong, treat me like some
piece on the side, treat me in anyway disrespectfully, and it’s over.
 
I’ll be so out of here you won’t believe how
quickly I leave.
 
You feel me?”

Charles
looked at her.
 
“So you’re tough.
 
Is that what you’re telling me?”

“I’m
tough enough.
 
That’s what I’m saying.”

And
Charles could appreciate exactly what she meant.
 
She wasn’t trying to be the boss, but she
wasn’t interested in being the patsy either.
 
“Okay,” he said, and nodded his head.
 
“I feel you.”

Jenay
smiled.
 
“I’ll bet that’s the first time
in your entire life you used that line.”

Charles
laughed.
 
But she was right.
 
Feelings
and Charles Sinatra were as dissonant to each other as oil was to water.

But
just as he turned to head into town, where Jericho Inn was located, his car
phone rang.
 
The screen showed that his son
Tony was phoning.
 
He pressed the Answer
button on his dash screen.

“What
is it, Tone?” he asked.

“It’s
Donnie,” Tony said.
 
He was on
Speaker.
 
Jenay could hear the entire
conversation.

“What
now?”

“After
I left your house, I decided to swing by his place to see why he was a
no-show.
 
Good thing I came.
 
He did it this time, Dad.
 
I had to pull him off of Susan.
 
She’s in pretty bad shape.”

Charles
could barely contain his fury.
 
“I’m on
my way,” he said, pressed off to end the call, and then completed a U-turn and
headed back toward the interstate.

“Isn’t
she pregnant?” Jenay asked, horrified.

“Yes!”
Charles yelled.
 
“That damn boy!”

The
hallway in Donald’s house was narrow, as Charles and Jenay headed for the
master bedroom.
 
Tony closed the front door
and followed them, but they were moving so fast that they were already in the
room by the time he caught up.
 
And when
Jenay saw the woman she remembered as Donald’s bride, and saw her face so
battered that her eyes were swollen shut, she stopped in her tracks.
 

Charles
hurried to the bed and checked out his young daughter-in-law.
 
But she jerked away from him.
 
She was crying, and was doubled-over in pain
on the bed, and did not want to be touched.

“You
okay?” Tony asked Jenay when he came up behind her.
 
All she could do was nod.
 
Donald did this, she asked herself.
 
How could Charles’s son do this?

“Tony,”
Charles said as he looked at Susan.

Tony
hurried past Jenay, and went up to his father.
 
“Yes, sir?”

“Call
911.”

Tony
looked at him.
 
“You mean call Dr.
Dross?”

“Call
911,” he ordered again, and then left the room.

Tony,
surprised that Charles wasn’t in the
protect
Donnie at all cost
mode anymore, did as he was commanded.
 
He pulled out his cell phone, and called 911.

Charles
walked past Jenay, walked back down the hall, and into what she assumed was one
of the guest bedrooms.
 
Unsure what she
should do, since the female did not seemed to want anybody around her, she
followed him.
 

Donald
was sitting on the bed, like some beautiful angel, and he stood up when his
father walked in.

“She
deserved it, Dad,” he said self-righteously.
 
“I caught her again with that same guy, with Paul again.
 
They claim they were just talking.
 
But I don’t want him here talking to my wife,
and I told them that countless times!
 
But instead of beating his ass this time, I kicked him out and beat
hers.
 
She deserved it.”

Charles
began walking up to his son.
 
Donald was
still defiant.
 
He was still filled with
that rage it took to nearly beat his own pregnant wife half to death.
 
But Charles had a different kind of
rage.
 
The kind of rage that wouldn’t
touch a woman, but that could beat grown men into submission. And that was
exactly what he did.

He
beat the shit out of his youngest son.
 
Jenay tried to stop him. Tony ran into the room and tried to pull him
away.
 
But it was no use.
 
He was giving Donald the kind of beating
Donald had given his wife.
 
And when he finished,
when he finished beating Donald down so decisively that he was crying in a
corner like the spoiled brat he had become, he then stood straight up.
 
It was only then did Jenay and Tony realize
he wasn’t out of control at all.
 
He knew
exactly what he was doing.

He
walked out of the room, and then out of the home altogether.
  
Jenay followed him, certain he was devastated
by what his son had done, and what he had just done to his son in
retaliation.
 
But when she made it out
into the warm night air, devastation was the last thing she saw on his face.
 
There was no anger there either, nor that
rage.
 
But sadness.
 
Pure
 
sadness.

She
wanted to go to him, but for some reason she sensed he needed space right now,
not her empathy.
 

And
sure enough, he began pacing, as if he still could not get over, not what he
had just done, but what his son had done.
 
Beating down a woman like that.
 
A
pregnant woman!
 
Then, just when she
thought he was ready to say something, ready to voice his feelings, he pulled
out his own cell phone.
 
To Jenay’s
shock, he called Chief Joffee himself.
 

“Come
and arrest my son, Joff,” he said, “before I kill his sorry ass.”

And
when he said that, and he killed the call, tears welled up in his eyes, and he
began to sob.
 

Jenay
was blown away.
 
Charlie crying like
that?
 
But she did not hesitate.
 
She hurried to him, and pulled him into her
arms.