But as Junior was about to leave Brent’s side and go to Tony, Charles stopped him. “Wait,” he said, and took the child by the arm. He pulled the child to him and sat him on his lap.
Jenay and Brent fought back tears as Charles held the child that could very well be his very first grandchild.
When Charles looked at the youngster up close, and held him in his arms, he knew. Lord help him, he knew. And he was fighting tears too. “I’m your grandfather,” he said to the boy. The boy stared at him. “I know it’s hard to believe. I’m barely old enough to be your father, let alone your grandfather, but it’s true.” Charles frowned. “It’s true.”
He held him a few moments longer, and then he let him go. Tony sat Bonita down as Junior approached them.
Bonita looked hard at the young man. “I am your aunt,” she said to him. And for the very first time, the boy actually grinned. Bonita was smaller than he was, and looked younger.
But Bonita was serious. “I am,” she said. “Do the math!”
“He doesn’t want to do math,” Tony said, taking Junior’s hand, “he wants to play. Come on you two.” He led them out of the dining room.
Charles looked at Brent. “What crime scene?” he asked.
Brent leaned back in his chair and stretched his legs under the table. “Eddie Rivers and a couple uniforms responded to a disturbance call at the Super Fin motel.”
“The Quick Hit?” Donald asked.
“Yes,” Brent said.
“What was he doing at the hooker motel?”
Brent looked at his brother. “Don’t you and Ash have jobs to get to?”
“Oh so it’s like that?” Ashley asked. “Donnie and I can’t hear the juicy part?”
“They never let us in on anything,” Donald agreed.
“If you didn’t tell everything you heard,” Jenay said, “maybe that will change.”
“We won’t say a word,” Ashley assured them.
But Charles was not impressed. “Get going,” Charles said. “Brent’s right. You both have jobs to get to.”
Ashley and Donald both rolled their eyes, but they knew not to argue with Charles. They got up, said their goodbyes, and left.
“Go on,” Charles said to Brent. “Ed responded to a disturbance call at Super Fin.”
“When he entered the room,” Brent continued, “he saw the butchered body of a dead white guy.”
“Oh, my,” Jenay said.
“He also saw the boy, my son, sitting beside that dead body with a blood-soaked knife in his hand.”
Charles and Jenay looked at each other. Charles then looked at Brent. “He killed that man?”
“No.”
“What do you mean no? Then what was he doing with that knife?”
“I think he picked it up after the killer dropped it. I don’t know. But I know he didn’t kill that man.”
Charles ran his hands across his face. It would have been too much like normal for them to welcome a new addition to their family with no drama attached.
Then Charles thought of something. He looked at Brent. “Does Makayla know?” he asked him.
Makayla, Brent thought. Other than worrying about Junior, he’d been worried sick about her. And how she was going to handle this. She signed up to be his wife, but she hadn’t signed on as a stepmom too. He wasn’t sure if she would.
“No,” he responded to his father. “I haven’t spoken to Makayla yet. This is her first day at work. We’ll talk tonight.”
“So he was in the Super Fin with a dead man,” Charles said, “and with the knife that killed the man in his hand?”
“And my name written on a piece of paper in his pocket. Brent Sinatra, Jr. was written on that paper, to be exact.”
“I’m with Donald,” Jenay said. “Wow.”
“Where will he stay?” Charles asked.
“With me,” Brent said without hesitation.
Jenay and Charles exchanged another glance. But Jenay was super-concerned. “With you?” she asked. “But Brent, what if he? I know you said he didn’t do it, but what if he did?”
“He didn’t,” Brent said firmly. “No son of mine would do something like that.”
He sounded like Charles, Jenay thought. “I don’t mean to burst your bubble, but you aren’t a hundred percent sure he’s yours.”
“He’s mine.”
“Just because he looks like you?”
“He feels like me,” Brent said. “He’s mine. And he told me so himself.”
Charles nodded. “Yeah. He’s yours. Because I feel all my children too, and when I held that boy in my arms, it felt as if I was holding my baby. It felt as if I was holding Bonita.” He looked at Jenay. “A man knows when it’s his,” he said.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Acura drove into the winding driveway of Brent’s beautiful home, and Makayla stepped out feeling relieved. Her first day as Deputy D.A. for Jericho County went off without a hitch. The older attorneys in the office, and some of the younger ones too, were trying to disrespect her, but she called a meeting. She knew she was going to be a bitch in their eyes forever, but she had to put a stop to it from day one. Ira tried to, but his style was, in her eyes, too weak. Those tough ladies wasn’t paying him any attention.
And, at first, they wasn’t paying her any attention either. Until she dropped the bombshell. “As Deputy D.A.,” she said, “I have been given authority over quite a few things, but hiring, firing, pay raises and promotions are four of those responsibilities that now rest with me.”
And when she said that, she could hear a pin drop as the room became deafly quiet. But then, as it settled in their brains, she didn’t have to say another word. They were skinning and grinning and welcoming her aboard. Behind her back, she knew they were going to talk that talk about how she was Brent’s girl and how she slept her way to the top. And the fact that Brent had made a deal with Ira didn’t help that perception at all. But at least they now respected her authority. They may never respect her. But she believed, if she continued to work hard and prove that she was fair and just and her own woman, that level of respect would come too.
But as she made her way to his steps, and then walked up onto his front porch, there remained that little fly in her ointment. He didn’t tell her about the deal he struck with Ira. He didn’t tell her that when he suggested she apply for the Deputy D.A. job, he had already sealed the deal.
She had a key to his house, but she appreciated the way he did it whenever he came to her house. He always rang the bell first, and then unlocked the door. So she did exactly that, and walked in.
“Hey there,” Brent said as she walked in. He was coming from the patio door that led to his backyard. “Don’t you look refreshed for a woman who has been working hard all day. Or hardly working?”
“Speak for yourself,” Makayla said with a smile. She was still on cloud nine about the proposal. She was still elated to know that this gorgeous hunk of human being, looking even sexier in his jeans and pullover sweat shirt, was going to be her husband. Hers. “It was hard work, but I love it.”
Brent pulled her into his arms. “Good,” he said, and kissed her. “What about your coworkers. Did they try to give you a hard time?”
This was the fly-in-ointment part of her happiness. She hesitated.
“What did they do?” Brent asked her.
“Nothing more than would have been expected,” Makayla said.
Brent was puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“They call me your girl. Brent’s girl is my nickname. Or B.G. as one of them put it.”
Brent smiled. “You are my girl. So what?”
Makayla eased out of his arms. “They know about the deal you cut to get Ira to hire me.”
Brent frowned. “What deal?”
“They call it skipping the line. Cheating. Wrong.”
“What deal, Makayla?”
“Your promise to testify in crucial cases if Ira hired me. That deal. Or are you still denying i
t?”
“I wasn’t denying it before. I didn’t know what you were talking about.”
“Is it true?” Makayla asked him.
“It wasn’t a deal to hire you. I agreed to testify in more cases if he agreed to grant you an interview. And the only reason I went that route was because he planned to hire from within and was not going to interview anybody from outside. I knew if he interviewed you he would hire you.”
Makayla looked at him. “So there was no quid pro quo?”
“None. He could have very easily hired somebody else. One of his veteran prosecutors. Anybody. But he didn’t. He hired you because you were the most qualified. He hired you because he liked the work you did when you were a special prosecutor on my grandfather’s case. Being my girl helped to get you that interview. Being your own person, with your own credentials, got you that job.”
Makayla smiled and hurried back into his arms. Her faith in him was restored. “I knew you wouldn’t do something like that!”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Brent said pointedly, and Makayla looked at him.
“I’m wrong?”
“Yes, you’re wrong. I wanted you in Jericho. If Ira Stockton would have asked me to do cartwheels to get you here, I would have done it. I relied on your experience to pull you through, but if you would have been unimpressive to him, I was willing to do whatever I had to do.”
Makayla didn’t like the sound of that. “But Brent, that’s wrong. I shouldn’t get a job or anything else just because I have a relationship with you. I have to earn it.”
“Fortunately we won’t have to cross that bridge.”
“But you would have crossed it if you had to?”
Brent looked her dead in the eye. “To get you here with me? Yes, I would have. And I know you’re thinking that’s why they hate the Sinatras in this town. We press our advantage too damn much. And you’re right. We do.” He pulled her closer. “But you’re a Sinatra now.”
Makayla laughed. “Not quite yet, Brent,” she reminded him.
“Just a formality,” he said with a smile. “You’re a Sinatra now. This is our world.”
“This is how you roll?”
Brent laughed. “This is how we roll. Get used to it.”
Makayla shook her head. “I thought the Gabrini side of your family was the gangster side. Now I’m not so sure.”
Brent laughed, and kissed her. But then his laughter dissolved into a kind of sorrowful look on his face. Makayla saw it.
“What’s wrong?” she asked him.
He exhaled and raised his eyebrows as if to say, where do I begin?
“Is that why you text me and asked me to drop by after work?” she asked him.
“Yes.”
“So what is it? What’s the problem? I can tell there is one.”
Brent took her hand and began to escort her toward his patio doors. “I want you to meet somebody,” he said.
Makayla’s heart began to pound. Her first thought was a woman. Ever since she’d known him, women had been insinuating things to her as if they had been or, in some cases, were still were in a relationship with him. It bothered her early in their relationship, but as he denied it, she got over it. She thought she was long over it. But that slither of doubt returned, as he walked her toward his patio.
When he opened the door and they stepped outside, she had a different reaction. There was no woman anywhere in sight, so that was positive. But there was a child in the backyard playing on the swing that she knew Brent had built for his baby sister. A green-eyed, black-haired, beautiful little biracial boy. A boy with very familiar features. Brent’s features.
She looked at Brent. Her eyes asked the question even if her mouth remained mute.
He held her hand tighter. “Yes,” he said. “He’s my son.”
Makayla’s heart began to hammer. “Your son?” Her voice was a whisper. “You have a son?”
Brent pulled her against him. “I didn’t know about him, sweetie, until this morning. I had no idea until this morning.”
And just like that, Makayla’s heart went out to Brent. And she pulled him into her arms. She had so many questions, so many pressing questions, but right now she could feel his agony.
As she held him, she looked at the child who was swinging on the swing. He wasn’t twelve or thirteen yet, she didn’t think, but he looked to be at least ten or so. Long before Brent met her. But still painful to know that she was not going to be, as she had hoped, the first and only woman to birth him a child.
As Brent held her, he felt a wellspring of gratitude. He was grateful that Makayla was his woman on this day in his life. She didn’t know the half of it yet, but he was still betting on her.
When they stopped embracing, he explained it all. Found in the motel. The dead man. The knife. “And the only words he spoke so far,” he said, “was that I was his father, and that he knew my name was Brent.”
Makayla was surprised. “So he acknowledged you as his father?”
“He said so, yes.” Then Brent looked at Junior. “But it didn’t take any acknowledgement for me to already know it.”
“And what about the dead man? Who was he?”
“We don’t know yet. We’re running everything we can through the system. We’re also searching for any missing child from the east coast to the west. Nothing’s turned up yet.”
“But why wasn’t you told that you had a son sooner? And where’s his mother? Who’s his mother?”
“That’s the part I don’t know. I asked him, but he wouldn’t say. I named the names of the possibilities I could remember, but he only gave a flicker when I said one name.”
“Whose?”
“Candace. But it was a very mild flicker.”
“Who’s Candace?” Makayla asked. “Have you tried to contact her?”
“I called her already,” Brent said. “She still lives here in Jericho. She’s married, has children of her own.”
“Maybe that’s why she didn’t tell you. Her husband might have thought the child was his.”
But Brent was shaking his head. “She was stunned by the question itself. She didn’t know anything about a child. She’s not the one.”
Makayla exhaled and looked at Junior too. “But he was named after you?”
“We don’t know that either.”
“But I thought you said he had a piece of paper in his pocket with your name on it?”
“He did. But he didn’t say that was his name. I call him Junior for now.” He looked at Makayla. His heart swelled with love and emotion for her. “Ready to meet him?” he asked her.
“Am I ready to meet your son? Am I ready to meet the child who will someday be my stepson? No,” she said honestly and looked at Brent. “This is hard.”
Brent nodded and pulled her closer. He would not have believed her if she would have said otherwise. “I know it’s difficult. I know. I’m still reeling. But we’re going to get through this.”
“And children first, right?” Makayla said, echoing Tony.
Brent nodded. “Right. Children first.”
And with that, Brent called Junior over.
Junior walked over, but leaned against his father.
“I want you to meet somebody very special to me,” Brent said. “This is Makayla.”
Makayla knelt down to Junior’s level, and smiled. “Hi.”
Marcus didn’t speak, but he slightly nodded his head.
It didn’t dissuade Makayla. “You’re a very handsome young man. I’ll bet you’re smart too. What’s your name?”
There was a long pause, but then, to Brent’s shock, Junior spoke. “Marcus,” he said.
Brent was astonished, but Makayla kept going. “Marcus? What a nice name. What’s your last name, Marcus?”
Brent held his breath. But to no avail. As quickly as Marcus felt comfortable, he just as quickly clammed back up.
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Marcus,” Makayla continued. “My name begins with an M a
lso. Makayla. But many of my friends call me Mal. What does your friends call you?”
“Marcus,” Marcus said.
Makayla smiled. “Okay. Marcus is good. My last name is Ross. Does your last name begin with an R too?”
Marcus shook his head. Makayla looked at Brent.
“Does it begin with an A?” Brent asked, ready to run through the alphabet if he had to. But Marcus wasn’t interested in running through it with him. He ran back to the swing, and climbed on.
Makayla stood up. “Well. At least we know his last name doesn’t begin with an R. If he’s telling the truth.”
“Yeah. Prayerfully he is. And we know his first name,” Brent added. “Thanks for that, babe.”
Makayla smiled weakly, and looked at Marcus. What in the world did they have on their hands, she wondered.
“Your bath is ready, Marc,” Brent said as he came out of the bathroom. It was adjacent to the guest bedroom. Marcus was sitting on the bed. “You heard me, Marc?”
When Brent realized Marcus was looking at the telephone on the nightstand, he got an idea. “You want to call your mother?” he asked. “You can call her. I’ll wait in the hall.” And then Brent would trace the call.
But Marcus didn’t bite. He stood up. “Marcus,” he said.
Brent looked at him. “What?”
“My name is Marcus. Not Marc.”
Brent nodded. “Okay, Marcus, come with me.”
Brent walked him into the bathroom. But when Marcus saw the tub and saw it filled with water, he ran out of the bathroom.
“Marcus!” Brent ran after him. “What the hell? Marcus, wait!”
But Marcus didn’t wait. He ran out of the bedroom, down the hall, and down the stairs. He would have ran out of the front door but Makayla, in the kitchen cooking, ran into the foyer and grabbed him and stopped his getaway.
Brent ran downstairs and up to his son. He turned him around and knelt down to him. Marcus was crying.
“What’s wrong?” he asked him. “Son, what’s wrong?”
But Marcus didn’t speak. And Brent pulled him into his arms. He looked at Makayla. She was as confused as he was.
Later that night, rain poured across the county. Makayla did not plan to spend the night, but after dinner, and especially after Marcus reacted to the tub filled with water previously, she changed her mind. She couldn’t leave Brent.
Brent Sinatra: All of Me Page 14
