Teddy was hoping he wasn’t hearing what he thought he was hearing. “What do you mean?”
“You know what the fuck I mean. You need to end it.”
“End it?”
“Yeah, end it, Teddy! Somebody’s not doing their job, what would you do?”
Teddy exhaled. “Fire him,” he said.
“Joey isn’t doing his job. You’re the underboss. You run each and every crew working in the syndicate. And you are in charge of each and every crew leader. A crew leader isn’t keeping his men in check, you need to fire his ass.”
Teddy leaned forward. Did he realize what he was asking of him? “Pop, he’s just young,” he said. “If we give him some more time--”
“Time is up!” Mick yelled. “What the fuck you think I’m running? An apprentice program? The action of that one fucker last night could have led to a war. A war, Teddy! You think that’s a little thing?”
“No, it’s not a little thing, but what you’re asking me to do is no little thing either, Pop! Joey works hard. Yes, he needs to hold his crew feet to the fire more. Yes, he does. And if we just wait and give him a chance to do it, he will.”
“I’m not waiting around for him to do shit,” Mick said and grabbed his desk phone, ready to make a call. “You have my order.”
Teddy knew he was being dismissed, but he also knew he was being asked something he couldn’t do. He rose to his feet. “I listened to you,” he said, “now you listen to me. Joey’s leadership style is a train wreck sometimes. Yes, it is. And he panics and make rash decisions in tough spots. He does that too. But he’s still the best crew chief we have when it comes to making sure those ships get out on time, which is the biggest part of the business. Nobody runs the docks better than Joey. You put me in charge of every crew. You put me in charge of every crew chief. I’m not firing Joey,” he said boldly.
Mick just sat there, staring at him.
“I’m not firing him,” Teddy continued, to justify his blatant insubordination, “because there’s nobody better to replace him. If I fired Joey it would be a decision based on anger rather than good sense, which you taught me was to never happen in your organization. I have your order, but I can’t carry it out.”
“You can’t,” Mick asked, “or you won’t?”
“I won’t,” Teddy said boldly.
Mick continued to stare at him. Then he leaned forward. “Your reasoning is sound,” he admitted, “and your ultimate decision, based on that reasoning, is the right one.”
Teddy inwardly sighed relief. This could have gone all kinds of wrong!
“But if there’s any more fuck ups,” Mick added, “you own it. Joey will not be in the discussion. His name, regardless of his actions, will not come up. It’ll be on you. And then I’ll get rid of both of your asses. But it’ll all be on you.”
It was a responsibility Teddy didn’t want to take on. His plate was already overflowing with pressure points. But he couldn’t back out now. “Yes, sir,” he said.
Then Mick leaned back again. Silence ensued.
“Is that all, sir?” Teddy asked.
“Why did you have to go get her?” Mick asked, and then he looked at his son. “What has she done?”
Teddy paused, but knew his father had a right to know. “The super in her building broke into her apartment and tried to rape her. She fought back and shot him.”
Mick frowned. He hated to hear that. “Was she injured?” he asked.
“No, sir. Thank God.”
“Did she kill him?” Mick asked.
“Nearly,” Teddy said. “I had to finish him off.”
Mick exhaled. He wished he could have shielded his sons from his line of work. But they wanted in so badly. “And you cleaned up the mess?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“You didn’t call in any crews?”
“No, sir.”
Mick nodded. “Good. That could have complicated matters. They may swear allegiance to you, but they may not feel any such obligation to her.”
“That’s how I saw it too,” Teddy said.
“Now you own her problems too,” Mick said. “Not very wise.”
“I didn’t do it because it was the wise thing to do,” Teddy said.
Mick stared at his son, waiting to hear those words. “Then why did you do it?” he asked.
Teddy hesitated. “Because I think she’s worth it,” he finally said.
Mick had never heard his son speak this way about a woman. It was about damn time. “She’s clean,” Mick said. “I ran an extensive background on her.”
“I figured you did when I realized you knew her name. Joey had Enzio run a background on her too. She’s been well vetted.”
“Her father and ex-husband believe she snitched on them. It’s not true,” Mick added.
Teddy nodded. “Yeah, my sources confirmed that too.”
“But they think it is. So be careful.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You need a strong woman, Teddy. No little innocent virgin girl is going to work if you expect to someday run my organization.”
“I agree with that.”
“She’s strong,” Mick said. “She’s got meddle in spades. She’s a tough lady all right. But does she have the will? Does she want this kind of life? That’s what you’ve got to assess with a clear head and heart. I see that ass on her. I see those tits. I see her gorgeous face. You’ve got to forget how good it feels to fuck her and stay clear-eyed about whether or not she can hang in this lifestyle.”
Teddy smiled. “Damn, Pop, you’re marrying us off already?”
“When you find the right woman in our world, Teddy, you can’t fuck around. You have to grab her hard and grab her fast. Or you might lose her.”
“Same advice Tommy Gabrini gave me.”
“But first put her to the test,” Mick added. “That’s what Tommy didn’t do, and it almost cost him his woman. You baptize that bitch by fire. If she doesn’t pass the test, kick her ass to the curb now, before you’re in too deep. But if she passes, you grab her and keep her with everything you have.”
Teddy was shocked by his father’s passion. He’d never seen him this animated about a woman who wasn’t Roz or Gloria. But he also heard that other thing.
“Call her a bitch again,” Teddy said, “and I’ll kick your ass.”
Mick inwardly smiled. That’s my boy, he thought. “Get the fuck out of my office,” he said.
And Teddy, smiling because Nikki had his old man’s tentative approval, gladly left.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The drive to his place was quiet. The sound of his car’s engine was louder than they were. Teddy took glances over, but he couldn’t tell if Nikki was happy, sad, overwhelmed, angry. It was hard to tell with her. She was probably so used to keeping her own counsel, he presumed, that she kept her feelings to herself too. But he was dying to know.
“What did you think?” he asked her.
Nikki didn’t try to pretend she didn’t know what he meant. She knew. “Your stepmother is awesome,” she said. “She really made me feel at ease. Which isn’t easy to do, by the way.”
“Yeah, she’s great. My dad lucked out when he hooked up with her.”
Nikki looked at him. “He didn’t luck out when he hooked up with your mother?”
“Hell no! Their relationship, like the rest of my Dad’s baby mamas, was toxic. He’s closest to Gloria’s mother, and they’ve had some hard times too.”
“Gloria’s mother?” Nikki asked. “I thought Roz was Gloria’s mother?”
“Why would you think that?” Then Teddy realized why: their ethnicity. “No. Glo’s mother is Bella Caine. And she’s a handful, believe me. She’s nothing like Roz.”
Nikki smiled. “So, your dad’s down with the swirl for real,” she said jokingly.
“Not like my Uncle Tommy Gabrini, who dated black women exclusively, but yeah. He’s been known to be an equal opportunity destroyer of women. Not to mention the chi
ldren they hatch for his ass.”
Nikki looked at Teddy. “That’s harsh.”
Teddy stared into the black night in front of them. “I know,” he said.
“Are you telling me he wouldn’t win any father, or husband of the year awards?” Nikki asked.
“He might now. He’s great with his two younger kids Roz had for him. But when me, Glo, and Joey were kids? No way. He was never around. And when he did come around all he did was argue with our mothers. My mother, to this day, does all she can to stay away from him.” Then Teddy looked at Nikki. “What about you? What was your impression of him? Is he as scary as you thought he would be before you met him?”
“As scary as I thought? No,” Nikki admitted as she, too, looked out of the car’s window at the long, dark road ahead of them. “Scarier,” she added.
Teddy smiled. And then laughed. “Don’t worry. The one thing about my father? He gets better with age. And then you’ll love him more than life itself.”
Nikki smiled too, wondered if Teddy was really talking about his evolution with his father, but didn’t dare go there. She wouldn’t win any daughter of the year awards either, and her father sure as hell wasn’t anybody’s father of the year. Better, she thought, to move on.
And both of them did, as quietness returned.
The Corvette turned onto the long, sweeping driveway that led, deep back, to Teddy’s modern-chic, contemporary house on the lake. From its angled rooflines to the clerestory windows everywhere, this was the image Nikki had in her mind when she pictured Teddy’s home.
And when they stepped out of the car and entered the bachelor pad, she wasn’t disappointed inside either. There were glossy floors, log beams on the vaulted ceiling, and gorgeous lake views seemingly from every room of the house. Nikki loved it!
And while Teddy made them drinks, she even settled on one of the many sofas in the wide-open floor plan, the one that sat right in front of a floor-to-ceiling window, overlooking a sweeping water view. It might be, Nikki thought, the most gorgeous view she had ever seen. She even removed her heels, tucked in her feet on the sofa, and enjoyed every second of that view.
Teddy handed her a glass of wine and, with his own glass, sat beside her. It felt strange having someone in his home who wasn’t related to him. But because it was Nikki, it felt good and right. He sat beside her and enjoyed the view too.
“I’d bet this is your favorite spot in this house,” Nikki said.
“I don’t know if it’s my favorite,” Teddy admitted, “but it’s one of my favorites for sure.”
“It’s a far cry from your father’s colonial-style mansion. I love it.”
“You do? Great! Because this is where you’re going to be staying until--”
Nikki smiled, but it wasn’t a joyous smile. “Until I go back to my great life in L.A.?”
Teddy didn’t smile at all. “You didn’t tell me you got demoted.”
Nikki looked at him. “How did you know?” she asked him. Then she realized whom she was dealing with. She looked out of the window again. “You had stopped calling me by the time that happened.”
Teddy leaned forward. “About that,” he said. Then he looked back at her. “I shouldn’t have just dropped it like that. I apologize. You deserved an explanation.”
“Which was?”
“Too much work. That’s always the reason. I had too much responsibility. I had too much going on.”
Nikki took a sip from her glass to shield her level of interest. “And I was thinking there was a female involved.”
“There was,” Teddy said, “and her name was Work.”
Nikki smiled. Then she asked a question she had a feeling she’d never get a straight answer to: “What kind of work do you do, Teddy?”
“It’s just work,” Teddy said. “But enough about that,” he added, as he sat his glass of wine on the side table. “What about you? How do you feel here in the city of brotherly love?”
“Adrift,” Nikki said. “Lost. Strange.” Then she looked at Teddy. “I’ve gone from a terribly acrimonious divorce, to a job demotion, to attempted rape, to what you saved me from this morning.”
A distressed look appeared on her face. “If you wouldn’t have come to L.A. to get me, and to help me, I don’t know what I would have done. I had nobody I could turn to. And when I say nobody, I mean nobody! I realized, after I did what I did to Louie, just how alone in this world I am. It was like waking up from a fog. From a pretend life. It’s a real scary feeling. It’s a really--”
Teddy leaned back, placed one arm around her body and rested his hand on the side of her long, soft hair. He laid her head on his broad shoulder.
Nikki closed her eyes. “I’m okay,” she said.
“No, you aren’t,” Teddy said.
Tears appeared in Nikki’s eyes. “No, I’m not,” she admitted. And Teddy held her even tighter.
And they sat there, in that same spot in Teddy’s home, for hours.
Until Nikki was asleep, and Teddy carried her upstairs to bed.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Teddy woke up at six that next morning, while Nikki was still asleep. She was still naked and laying on her stomach. It felt good to have her in bed with him. He felt almost kid-like, a way he hadn’t felt since forever. Even as a kid, because he was responsible for his mother, because he had an absent father with a reputation he knew he had to live up to, he didn’t feel like a kid.
But with Nikki, he felt as if a load was being lifted. She was a free spirit opening his cage. He just had to be willing to fly out of his familiar habitation. His familiar prison. After last night, after the way she allowed him to hold her, despite her father’s display of anger, he was more than willing!
Everything about Nikki turned him on. The way she stood up for him at his Dad’s house still astounded him. He’d never had that happen before. Teddy the Tower in need of a woman to stand up for him? His men wouldn’t believe it! And they’d be right. He didn’t need it. But it felt good to have it. It felt good to know that somebody could be in his corner for a change. All his life, and especially after he started working for his father, it was always the other way around.
And what a woman to have in his corner, he thought. Nikki was so unlike anybody he’d ever met, he was still processing just how different and forthright she was. Even Mick the Tick, the most unromantic man on the face of this earth, gave her a passing grade. He’d also commented on her ass and breasts, as if he knew she was special in those departments too. And she was, Teddy thought, remembering last night on the plane, as his eyes began to trail down to that plump ass that was right there, at his disposal, hardening his dick, and weakening him again.
She began to wake up, as if she sensed danger. Teddy smiled when she opened her big, happy eyes, and smiled too.
“Good morning,” he said.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“Around six.”
“Dang, Teddy. And you look as if you’ve been awake for hours! I’m used to keeping late hours. I can’t remember the last time I was awake at six am. Last night notwithstanding,” she added, with another smile.
He was glad she was getting past it, although he knew it would take some time. “You work at night. I work day and night. I’m up all hours of the night. This was the first time in a long time that I actually had a good night’s sleep. I had to turn off my phone,” he added, “but still!”
Nikki smiled. “Come to think of it,” she said, “I slept really good too.” She placed her hand on the side of his face. “Thanks again, bud.”
Teddy placed his hand on her ass. “No need to thank me,” he said, and began rubbing her.
They laid there, with her hand on his face, and his hand softly rubbing her ass, and the feelings returned. Not those feelings of lust that was always just beneath the surface when they were together. But those feelings of need. Of satisfaction. Of uninhibited happiness. Of being on a great vacation, and never wanting to leave!
H
e got on top of her, and then entered her from behind.
That pain returned because of his size, but it was bearable. The side of his face rested on the side of her face as they made slow, achingly beautiful love. He took his time, fucking her by massaging her, and they lasted longer than they thought they could. Especially after that marathon session on the plane.
And then she came. He had next. He was just on the verge of a powerful cum, when his doorbell rang.
“Shit, shit and shit!” he yelled angrily.
So angrily that Nikki looked up at him, to make sure it was the same person. She saw that it was, but that he was frustrated out of his mind. And despite the doorbell ringing, he continued to fuck her. He continued to lay on top of her and fuck her hard. He wasn’t going to stop, or get out of her, until he came. He was that close.
He was groaning as he did her. He was grunting as he pushed in deeper and deeper and stroked her harder and harder. And even with the distraction of that darn constant doorbell ringing, he came with a hard and heavy outpouring.
“Ahhh,” he moaned in a sing-song voice as he relieved his tension inside of her. “Oh, yes, baby. Ah yes!” He drenched Nikki’s vagina.
And then he laid there, as the doorbell ringing gave way to heavy door-knocking.
Nikki waited for him to get up. But he just laid there.
“You want to get that, babe?” she asked him.
“Hell no,” Teddy responded. But he knew he had to. He knew Nikki was asking a rhetorical question. He pulled out of her, causing her to immediately feel his huge absence, and then he got off of her.
He grabbed his cell phone off of the nightstand and pulled up his home’s security monitors. When he pressed the Front Door icon, and he saw who it was banging on his front door, he tossed the phone back onto the stand.
Nikki got up too, in case there was trouble, as Teddy quickly put on a pair of discarded jeans that was already on his bedroom floor. She put on one of his discarded dress shirts, that was thrown over a chair, and got dressed quickly too. Teddy kept a neat and tidy house downstairs, Nikki thought, as she followed him downstairs. But that was probably because he wasn’t down there that much. Because upstairs, in that bedroom, where clothes and shoes were everywhere as if they had been quickly discarded for what appeared to be days on end, he needed a maid!
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