Teddy Sinatra_Chains For Love

by Mallory Monroe

  TEDDY SINATRA

  CHAINS FOR LOVE

  BY

  MALLORY MONROE

  Copyright©2018 Mallory Monroe

  All rights reserved. Any use of the materials contained in this book without the expressed written consent of the author and/or her affiliates, including scanning, uploading and downloading at file sharing and other sites, and distribution of this book by way of the Internet or any other means, is illegal and strictly prohibited.

  AUSTIN BROOK PUBLISHING

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  THE AUTHOR AND AUSTIN BROOK PUBLISHING.

  This novel is a work of fiction. All characters are fictitious. Any similarities to anyone living or dead are completely accidental. The specific mention of known places, venues, or laws of various states are not meant to be exact replicas of those places or laws, but are purposely embellished or imagined for the story’s sake.

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  EPILOGUE

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  CHAPTER ONE

  He was running. He didn’t know where. All he knew was that he was in a dark alley. But not just any alley: an alley with no end. Because he kept on running.

  Behind him were the bad guys. He thought they were. Why the fuck else would he be running like some fucking fool? He was no coward! He knew the game better than the best of them. If he was running the way he was running, there had to be bad guys.

  But when he looked back, to see just who those bad guys were, all he saw was his father. Every one of them had the face of his . . . father?

  He stopped running and stared at them. What the fuck! “Pop?”

  But then they pulled out guns. All those big-ass Micks of this world pulled out guns and started gunning for him. “Fucked up again, Teddy,” they started saying all at once. “You fucked up again!”

  When he heard what they were saying, and he saw nothing but anger and disappointment in each and every one of their eyes, he knew he couldn’t wait for mercy. What kind of mercy his father ever had? He kept running!

  He ran and ran until he was able to turn a corner. It felt as if he’d gotten away from the Micks, and that gave him some relief. But then he saw Gloria and Joey. Glo and Joe? What were his kid sister and kid brother doing in some fucking alley?

  Only they weren’t in the alley. He realized he wasn’t in one anymore either. Gloria and Joey were in a car, but the car was careening out of control toward a cliff. A cliff? Where did a cliff come from? But there they were, in the back seat, their hands up to the back window like kids on a road trip. Only they were screaming for their lives. They were screaming for him to save them. They were screaming for him!

  He reached for them. The car was that close. The cliff was that close! But the car wouldn’t slow down. It wouldn’t stop for him to catch it.

  And it took them over. He reached, but he couldn’t reach far enough to save them. He didn’t have enough reach to save the two siblings he loved more than he loved himself! And then the Micks were coming again, and gunning for him again.

  He had to go. He had to keep running. Or he was going over that cliff too.

  He kept running. And turned what seemed like another corner. But then he saw Nikki. Nikki Tarver. The one woman in this world he couldn’t stop thinking about. And she needed him too! But she wasn’t in an alley. She wasn’t on a cliff. She was in the middle of an ocean. A fucking ocean! And she was sinking fast. She was crying for him to save her. She was crying and reaching and sinking. And he knew, like he knew his name, that if he didn’t succeed this time, and save her, he was going down too.

  He tried. With all he had he tried. He ran on water, splashing it up as high as his waist, trying to get to her. The Micks were behind him, still gunning for him. Glo and Joe were still in that car, careening down that cliff, screaming for him. And he was running on water. He couldn’t run on water. How was he running on water?

  And that realization did it. Reality hit him like a ton of bricks and caused him to lose all footing. And then, and only then, he began to sank. He was drowning. The Micks were still coming. Those screams were still echoing in his ears. Nikki was still going under. And he drowned. He went under, too, and went down, down, down, down, down!

  Until he jerked up.

  Teddy Sinatra frantically lifted his upper body to a sitting position, as if he was lifting out of water that had aimed to take him out, and he let out a breath of life that only the most desperate could breathe. His thick chest was pushing in and out to the point of hyperventilation. His naked, muscular body was drenched in sweat.

  He looked around, startled, and discovered that he wasn’t in the middle of some damn ocean, but was in his own bedroom, in his own home, and there were no Micks gunning for him. There were no careening cars or damsels in distress he had to rescue. There was nothing. Just darkness.

  Just loneliness.

  Just his life.

  He looked at the clock on the wall. Three am. He laid his head back down on his pillow.

  It was then, after he laid back down, did he realize his cell phone was ringing. The sound of his cell phone was apparently the reason he woke up from that crazy-ass nightmare to begin with. He grabbed it off the nightstand.

  He answered without looking at the Caller ID. He didn’t care who it was. Anybody, any news, would be preferable to dreaming that dream again. “Yeah?”

  “We got trouble, Teddy.” It was his kid brother, and his capo, Joey Sinatra.

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “Real trouble. Trouble that could lead to more trouble.”

  Teddy rolled his eyes. That brother of his! “Just tell me what kind of trouble you’re talking about.”

  “The kind where stupid-ass fuckers working for me put Boss Bovenconti’s son in the hospital.”

  “Shit!” Teddy lifted up again. “What’s his status?”

  “How the fuck should I know? He’s in intensive care though. He’s in bad shape. I know that.”

  Teddy laid back down and pinched the bridge
of his nose. “Who did it?”

  “They’re saying Khaki. They’re putting it all on one person. But I’m not saying yet. I’m still investigating.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “With me. At Copperfield. I got their asses right here in front of me.”

  Teddy couldn’t believe it. Another fuck up. What was wrong with Joey’s crew? But who was the old man going to blame? He was going to blame me, Teddy said to himself. Not Joey. Not Joey’s men. Me! “I’m on my way,” he said to his brother, and ended the call.

  He remained where he was, without moving a muscle. Sometimes he wished he could get away from all of it and just keep running. But that dream already showed him what he would be running to.

  He got out of that bed.

  CHAPTER TWO

  While Teddy Sinatra was on the east coast in Philly, waking up from a bad dream at three am, Nikki Tarver was on the west coast, at midnight west coast time, inside a Beverly Hills hotel bar she once managed, mixing a bad drink her boss called the Overdrive. Get them drunk enough to want a woman, was that drink’s sole purpose.

  It was that end of the business, the getting-them-drunk-so-they-would-want-a-woman part, where her boss made his real money. It was that end of the business that Nikki made it her business to have nothing to do with. Even when she was bar manager. Especially now that she was just the bartender. But when the customer asked for an Overdrive, it was her job to mix that drink, and to give it to him.

  “It’s the kind of drink that always, and I mean always, gets me in the mood,” the already half-drunk customer said as he sat at the bar. “Why is that always the case, Nikki?”

  “Because that’s what certain drinks are designed to do,” responded Nikki honestly. Then she stopped shaking the cocktail, removed the top, and was about to pour it in his glass. “Sure you want this?”

  “Yeah, I want it!” The customer wasn’t even hesitant. “I’ve had the Overdrive before. It’s the best drink in this whole gotdamn bar!”

  The man sitting beside him, a guy Nikki knew as Rick, smiled and sipped his own drink. “Give it to him,” he said. “Then after that woman he’s going to want so badly takes him for all he’s worth, he’ll wake his butt up.”

  But the near-drunk dismissed Rick. “What do you know? You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  “I know why they call them hookers. They hook fools like you. Give it to him, Nikki. Give it to him. His hook is waiting.”

  Nikki didn’t respond to that. What her boss was doing was illegal as hell, and Rick was right: it was a prostitution ring. She knew it and Rick knew it, too. But she wasn’t about to verbally confirm it. She did her job, and she poured his drink.

  The half-drunk customer took one sip, and then another sip, and then he smiled. “Sing for us, Nikki,” he said.

  Rick laughed. “And it begins.”

  “Sing for me, Nikki,” the customer asked again.

  But Nikki was already shaking her head. “Not on your life, buddy,” she said, as she wiped down the counter.

  “But you can sing, right?”

  “Wrong.”

  “You can’t sing? What big black girl can’t sing?”

  Unoffended, Nikki smiled. “This big black girl,” she said.

  “Actually, she’s not what you would call big,” Rick said to his bar mate. “Big implies fat. Nikki’s not fat. Nikki’s what you call full-figured. Voluptuous. Curvaceous. Names like that. Right, Nikki?”

  “Whatever you wanna call me, Rick.”

  “Nikki!”

  Nikki knew that voice. And she went momentarily still. That was Pablo’s voice, and he was none too happy. As usual.

  “Excuse me, guys,” Nikki said with a smile, but that smile was gone by the time she walked over to the opposite end of the bar, where her boss, Pablo Sands, was leaning over the counter. “What’s up, Pab?” she asked him.

  “Two guys from the Dodgers, and I’m not talking benchwarmers either, saw you earlier tonight.”

  “So?”

  “So, they’ve invited you upstairs.”

  Not again, Nikki thought. “What for?” She was playing dumb.

  “What do you mean what for? To talk to you. To get to know you. What the fuck difference does that make? Get up there. It’s Room 1747.”

  “No thanks, Pab.”

  Pablo couldn’t believe it. “No thanks? Are you out of your mind? You don’t get to tell me no thanks!”

  Some patrons glanced at them, causing Pablo to lower his voice. “I demoted your ass for this very same reason. You would still be bar manager today if you didn’t keep pulling this shit.”

  “You hired me as bar manager because I wouldn’t sleep around with the customers. You told me so yourself. You said because your bar is located in a swanky hotel, all of your other managers fell in love with some rich guy passing through, and then they left you. You knew that wouldn’t happen to me. That’s what you said.”

  “Because I figured no rich guy would want your ass,” Pablo said bluntly. “That’s why I said it! How was I to know there were that many men in Beverly Hills who wanted their women with meat on their bones? I’m from Malibu. We don’t play that shit! But every time I turn around, another rich fucker wants to fuck you.” He lowered his voice again, and he leaned closer. “You’re messing with my bread and butter, Nikki. You’ve got to go up there.”

  But Nikki’s eyes were hard and sincere. “I’m not going,” she said. “You hired me to leave those guys alone, and that’s what I do.”

  “I hired you because I figured those guys didn’t want you. You know why I hired you! Don’t twist that shit around. I didn’t think it was a Beverly Hills thing. But it is. They like women who look like you.” Pablo couldn’t hide his confusion. “It’s a fad, probably.”

  Nikki couldn’t believe it. Her body type was a fad to this idiot!

  “Get up there, Nikki,” Pablo said.

  “I told you I’m not doing that, Pab. I’m not doing that.”

  “What if I said you don’t have a choice?”

  “What if I said I do?”

  Pablo knew when Nikki wasn’t kidding. Her eyes showed that spark of outrage that he used to see in her old man’s eyes. And he knew she would not be persuaded. He angrily hit his palm on the bar counter, causing a few others to look their way, but he left the bar area in search of, Nikki presumed, another unfortunate female to sacrifice on the altar of the rich and famous.

  “Eh, Nikki,” Rick said. “Hit me again, will you?” And he held out his empty glass to her.

  Nikki made her way back toward him. “Sure you don’t want an Overdrive, Rick?” she asked jokingly, causing him to laugh. She smiled and hid her pain, as she took his empty glass and then headed for the pumps. She still had a job to do.

  But she knew Pablo. He used to work for her father: that was another reason why he hired her. And she knew he was going to take her bullshit just so long.

  Her days at that bar, nobody had to tell her, were numbered.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Copperfield was a massive warehouse owned by Mafia kingpin Mick Sinatra. The youngest of his grown children, Joey Sinatra, was upstairs, in a room on the fifth floor, with three men that worked on Joey’s crew. Two of the three, Ron and Big-Eye Bevin, the twins, were standing beside Joey. The third, Khaki, was sitting in the hot seat. And he was sweating bullets.

  “I didn’t mean to do shit, Joey!” he cried. “You know I don’t go around pulling that shit!”

  “Then why did you pull it last night?” Joey was angry. “Why you had to pull that shit last night?”

  “It wasn’t like I went up to the guy and woo-woo started something. I was in that club chilling. He started in on me. Didn’t he, Big? Didn’t he Ronnie? Ask the twins. They saw it!”

  “He started with a little bragging,” Big-Eye said. “That’s all I saw him do. But Khaki kept it going. He wouldn’t leave it alone. He wouldn’t let it go! It was his ass that got up in that kid’
s face.”

  “We told him not to do it,” Ron said. “We told him over and over, don’t do it, Khaki. Don’t do it, Khake! But he did it anyway.”

  But Joey was still upset. “What the fuck I care about what you told him? You should have stopped him. You knew who he was fucking with. You knew what kind of heat that could bring on us. You should have stopped him!”

  “We tried,” Big-Eye said. “I’m telling you we tried! But you know how Khake is when he gets that liquor in him.”

  The door to the room flung open, and Teddy Sinatra, their boss and Mick’s heir-apparent, walked in. But he didn’t walk in casually the way his father would have. He didn’t walk in with that cool Mick was known for. He’d gotten the background on exactly what happened in that nightclub from a man who was also there, but he wasn’t on Joey’s crew. Teddy knew exactly what went down. He walked in mad as hell.

  He was dressed in jeans, and a sleeveless sweatshirt that highlighted his muscular form. Normally he was in suit and tie. As the underboss of the Sinatra crime family, a suit was always required. But it was too fucking early in the morning. And after he heard what happened in that club, he didn’t give a shit.

  He hurried up to Khaki. Khaki, knowing what Teddy was capable of when his anger was unleashed, jumped to his feet ready to defend himself.

  But as soon as he stood, Teddy was upon him. And without any kind of discussion; without any kind of asking for any explanations, Teddy grabbed Khaki, lifted him all the way up above his head, and threw him out of the closed, upstairs window.

  Joey and the twins, stunned, ran to the window as Khaki’s big body sailed down each and every one of those five stories, until he landed in the middle of the warehouse floor with a thump that kicked up dust. And with every bone in his body undoubtedly broken.

  The workers, all working in Mick Sinatra’s gunrunning business and tasked with checking the crates before shipping out, looked at the dead, broken body, and then up at the shattered, fifth floor glass. They were stunned but not surprised. None of them were choirboys either. And when they saw Joey and the twins looking down, all three of whom were their superiors, they got back to work.