Charles and Jenay both stood up to leave. They weren’t about to sit here and listen to this nonsense. And they would have left right then and there. Until Charles’s father went there.
“I could sue you,” he said to Charles.
Charles stopped all movement. Jenay looked at Luke in amazement too. “You can what?” Charles asked.
“I can sue you. That’s what! You lied on me that night. You told that jury I just came down there and shot Cobb Zaxby, and then just shot your mama for no good reason. You knew I had a reason, and it wasn’t because they were doing what they were doing. I shot both of them because they were trying to kill you.”
Charles couldn’t believe it. “That’s a gotdamn lie,” he said.
“It’s the truth!”
“My mother was trying to kill me?”
“Yes, she was! Because you were beating on her lover. So I protected you and snuffed out both of them.”
Charles couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You’re so full of shit it’s a wonder you can sit down.”
“You know it’s true! And you owe me! You owe me for every year I’ve had to rot in this place! I can’t wait to get out. I can’t wait to get out of this hellhole and make your life a living hell. I made you the man you are today, who do you think you’re talking to? All of your success is because of me! I toughened you up. I did that!”
Then Luke smiled. “Know why you hate me so much? Know why you didn’t even speak to me at that hearing? Because you’re just like me and you can’t stand it. We’re two of a kind. You’re probably gonna end up killing your old lady too when she fucks around on you. And she’ll fuck around. There’s not a bitch ever been born that didn’t fuck around. Especially not a black bitch.”
Jenay immediately held onto Charles’s arm. Because she knew him. And she was right. Charles wanted to charge his father, he wanted to beat the shit out of him. But he thought about his wife, his children, his baby girl Bonita. Beating his father’s ass, as satisfying as that would be, couldn’t compare.
Luke was surprised that Charles didn’t take his bait. “So you’re a punk now?” he asked him. “That money softened you? I can call your wife every kind of bitches and you do nothing about it? That’s not the boy I raised! I was wrong. You’re nothing like me!”
At first it felt like vindication. Then it felt ironic. And then just plain silly. And Charles and Jenay couldn’t help but smile. They looked at each other and began to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Luke asked as they began to leave. “You heard me, boy! What’s so freakin’ funny?”
But Charles and Jenay kept laughing and leaving. Because they realized he wasn’t worth an ounce of any other kind of emotion. He just wasn’t worth it.
They left. They did not look back.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“You’re so pretty,” Willie said as he continued to kiss her. “You’re a lovely girl.”
Ashley was over-the-moon as Willie held and kissed her. He was such a wonderful kisser! They were at his secluded home in Boston, after she arrived and discovered that no one else had shown up for his party. At first she felt eerie about it, and almost wanted to turn around and run away. But then she felt good about it. He wanted her all for himself. He might even introduce her to some of the biggest players in the game. She smiled.
“Did you invite anybody else?” she teasingly asked him.
He smiled. “You know I didn’t. Why would I when I could have you all to myself? Come here girl!”
And that was how they ended up on his sofa, talking, and now hugging and kissing. And it was all good. He was gentle, and expert, not like those desperate boys she dated, and she was actually enjoying herself. Until he went too far.
Willie had no intentions of doing anything with Ashley but to make love to her to gain her confidence. She would fall for him and he would have an insider in the Sinatra household. But it went left on him. The turn came when he began to unbutton her blouse.
“None of that,” she said with a smile, and removed his hands.
“Ah, come on, beautiful lady,” Willie said, kissing her still, and reaching for her buttons again.
“No now,” Ashley said again, still enjoying his kisses, still playful. But he continued to try to undress her. She wasn’t about to go all the way with him, she didn’t know why he was tripping. But then even his voice changed from that soft playfulness, to seriousness.
“You’re going to give me some,” he said with an edge in his tone.
“No, I’m not,” Ashley said, equally edgy. But she was still smiling between the kisses because she thought it was a game.
Only it was no game. Willie was getting seriously horny and he wasn’t going to wait. But he knew he had to be delicate. He didn’t want to scare the girl. But he wanted to fuck her hard.
“Yes, you are,” he said, and attempted to unbutton her blouse again.
“I told you no,” Ashley said, “and my no is final.”
Willie didn’t like her tone. He had a thing against arrogant women, and he never liked when they spoke to him that way. He didn’t try to unbutton her blouse this time, he took her buttoned blouse and ripped it open.
Ashley shoved his hands away from her blouse, stunned by his action. “Look what you’ve done,” she said angrily as she looked down at her now open blouse. She moved to get up, but he pulled her back down.
“Yes,” he said. “Look what I’ve done. And I’m about to do more.” He opened her torn blouse wider, lifted her bra, and began sucking her breasts with an angry suck that had Ashley yelling and beating on him. She squirmed and did all she could to get away from him. But he was three-times her size. She might as well had been boxing air.
And he reached beneath her skirt.
“Are you nuts? What are you doing, you creep? Stop! I said stop it!”
But he didn’t stop. He couldn’t. He wanted her and he always went for what he wanted. “You’re giving me some tonight,” he said, as he grabbed the top of her little skirt, slung it down along with her panties, and then tossed them aside. Then he stood up over her.
Ashley was beyond panic now. She was horrified. She looked in his eyes. All she saw was hate and lust. And she was willing to beg. “Willie, You can’t do something like this,” she said. “Please don’t do it. What about my mother? She’ll kill you if she knew what you’re doing to me!”
“Then she’ll just have to kill me,” Willie said as he unbuttoned, unzipped, and dropped his pants, “because I’m fucking you. You gonna give me some. So turn your ass over.”
Ashley knew she had to make a run for it. This man didn’t care. She had to get out of his house and get out now!
So she jumped up and almost got away from him. He reached for her, but she was too fast, and she almost made it to the front door. But he reached again and caught her, and he not only slung her back, but he picked her up, carried her to the sofa, let her scream all she wanted because his neighbors were three acres away, and he laid her wiggling body on her stomach.
Without any prep, without giving her pain a second thought, Willie Stiles slammed his thick dick into her asshole and fucked her that night.
Ashley was screaming in pain, but he didn’t care. He was getting some. At that moment, he didn’t even care about the money he needed. His house was in foreclosure. His car was soon to be repossessed. But all he cared about at that moment in time was fucking Ashley Sinatra. And he fucked her. He fucked her hard.
When it was all over, and she was still lying there, still crying, unable to scream because she was too exhausted and knew it would do no good, Willie pulled her into a sitting position.
He knelt his naked body in front of her, and held her by the neck. He had to make this clear. “You hear me, and you hear me well,” he said. “You tell Jenay or anybody else about what happened tonight, and I’ll kill you. You hear me, girl? I will kill you. And then I’ll go over to that apartment of yours and kill your sister too, and then your parents,
your brothers, and everybody else you love. And I can do it. I have ex-cons who are very close friends of mine. They’d love to terrorize a family like yours. So what are you going to tell your sister or anybody else when they ask you what went on in this house tonight?”
Ashley stared at him.
He slapped her hard across her face. “Did you hear me, bitch? What are you going to tell your sister---”
“That we talked.” Ashley’s face was filled with distress. “I don’t know!”
“You’re going to tell her that we talked, that we made love, that you had the time of your life. You hear me? If you even dream about mentioning rape, or any crazy thing like that, then your life is over. Don’t you ever forget that. Your life, her life, Jenay’s life, will be over.”
To prove his point, Willie got up, walked over to a drawer, and pulled out a pistol. When he walked back to the sofa and pointed it at Ashley, she nearly jumped out of her skin. He pointed it at her forehead. “Just in case you doubt me, I wanted to make sure you didn’t. You will do exactly what I tell you to do, you got it, Miss Ashley?”
“Yes,” Ashley said, tears streaming down her face. “I got it.”
“Everything I tell you to do. You got it?”
Ashley nodded, staring at that gun. “I got it.”
Willie actually smiled. “Good. Now go clean yourself up. I want to fuck you again before you leave.”
And Ashley didn’t delay this time. She didn’t try any quick getaways this time. A gun was involved. Threats that could be carried out were involved. And all Ashley could do was think about all those times Jenay, and Charles, and even Donald had tried to tell her to stop the partying. To stop hanging out with all of these men she barely knew. To stop being so easy. She knew it wasn’t her fault. She knew that crazy man in that living room was the only person to blame here. But knowing all of that other stuff, remembering all of those other warnings, did nothing to stop her pain.
She went into the bathroom and wanted to lock the door, but Willie yelled out. “You lock it, you’re dead.”
She didn’t even bother trying. She cleaned herself up, and prepared to be devastated again.
But early that Saturday morning, when she woke up still in pain, she wasn’t crying anymore. She wasn’t sad and filled with despair anymore. She was just mad. She was so angry she could barely contain her rage. And she knew what she had to do. Carly was spending the weekend with their folks, and Donald was working all day. But she took a train to Jericho without telling either one of them. And when she arrived in town, she didn’t go see Donald, or Carly, or even their folks. She would see all of them later. She went to Aunt Sprig’s house first. She went to the home of the one person she knew who had what she needed.
And after Sprig opened the door of a home that reeked of alcohol, and after Ashley sat on her sofa and explained to her what Willie Stiles had done to her, Sprig stared at her niece.
“You came to me,” she said, “so obviously you haven’t told Charles and Jenay.”
“I’m not going to tell them either,” Ashley said firmly. “Dad will try to get him arrested. And Mom will too. I don’t want that.”
Sprig stared at her. “You want more?”
“Yes. And I know you have what I can use.”
Sprig leaned back on her sofa and smiled. “So Charles is raising murderers now?”
“I’m not playing, Aunt Sprig! You should have seen what that man did to me, and made me do! I want him dead, and I want to be the one to kill him!”
“Sure, Ash.”
“I mean it!” Pure rage was in her eyes. “I want him dead! And I want to do it. I have to do it.”
“What if you get caught?”
“I won’t get caught.”
“But what if you do?”
“I won’t! Now are you going to help me or not?”
“How do you know I can help you?”
“You own guns. I heard Mom and Dad talking about it. They said you own all kinds of guns.” Ashley stared at her aunt. “I need one,” she said. “If you don’t give it to me, I’ll get one some other kind of way. But I’ll get one.”
Sprig had never thought of Ashley as a serious person. Carly, yes. Ashley? Never. She and Donald were two of the most unserious people she’d ever known. But Ashley was a revengeful person. That was different. She could relate to revenge. But she knew the risk. It would be a slap in the face to Charles if he ever found out she supplied his daughter with a weapon. But when did she ever have a problem with pissing off Charles?
“Come on,” she said to Ashley, and carried her into a locked bedroom that contained her little arsenal.
“Why do you have so many?” Ashley asked her as she looked at the collection of handguns and rifles.
“You have to protect yourself,” Sprig said. “When those fools in Washington tries to turn this great land into a dictatorship and take over this country by force, I’ll be ready for their asses. Some people collect cars. Some people collect people. I collect guns.”
Ashley reached for a small one, but Sprig slapped her hand. She gave her a different one instead. One with what she called a silencer on it. “That way,” she said, “when you fire, nobody will hear the shot. And that’ll give you time to go undetected and get away.”
“Really?” Ashley asked. “You mean nobody will hear it?”
“Nobody,” Sprig said. And then she turned tougher than Ashley had ever seen her. “So the next time you see that motherfucker,” Sprig said, “you pull out this little pistol and put a cap in his ass. Then you walk away as if nothing happened. He’ll drop dead, but nobody would know why. But make sure there are no cameras around when you do it.”
“No cameras,” Ashley said, still staring at the gun. “Okay.”
“You have to be slick with your shit.” Then she stared at Ashley. “Do you even know how to fire a gun?”
Ashley knew. Donald had taken her and Carly on the gun range many times, and taught them how to shoot. But Dad wouldn’t allow them to purchase a gun.
“I know how to shoot,” Ashley said.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Inside Jenay’s office at the Jericho Inn, she and her husband sat on one side of the conference table, and Matt Dellum sat on the other side. He admitted nothing, but he needed it to stop.
“You need what to stop?” Charles asked him.
“You know what you’re doing,” Matt said. “I’m losing bids, my Bed and Breakfast is being scandalized. It’s got to stop. You know what you’re doing.”
“You know what you’re doing too,” Charles replied.
“I told you I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“And we have no idea what you’re talking about. You want to play that game?”
Matt exhaled. “It won’t work,” he said.
“Apparently it already is,” Charles replied. “Whatever is is.”
“That bid in Idaho? I really needed that to go through. I’m not fucking with you on that. I really needed that to go through!”
“That bid in Akron?” Charles asked. “I needed that to go through too. Did you give a damn about that when you outbid us? No. Why should we give a damn about outbidding you?”
“Okay!” Matt said, defeated. “Call off the hounds. And I’ll call off mine. But you have to rescind your Idaho acceptance and force them to reopen bidding. You have to do that.”
“We don’t have to do anything.”
“I’m losing my shirt here.” His desperation was beginning to show. “You don’t understand. If I lose that bid, I’m done for.”
“Give it back,” Charles said, “and then we’ll see.”
Matt frowned. “Give it back? Give what back?”
“Our good name,” Charles said. “You defamed our good name. You started this shit, but now that we decided to play your game, your game, you want to take your marbles and go home? My wife worked her ass off to make Jericho Inn the envy of New England, and you destroyed that. Now she’s buildi
ng it back up. And you think we’ll just forget about that and play nice with your ass? Get the fuck out of my hotel. You played with fire and lost your shirt. You started the shit. We finished it. You’ll get no sympathy here.”
Matt stared at Charles a moment longer, and Charles could tell he wanted to beg, but he wasn’t that far gone yet. He left.
Jenay looked at her husband. “Well said,” she said.
Brent was in his office when Eddie came in with the news.
“I just left the D.A.’s office and you aren’t going to believe this.”
Brent looked up from the papers on his desk. “What?”
“A reversal has come down.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The Attorney General’s office is no longer recommending a new trial. The Attorney General’s office has notified the judge that they are recommending immediate release for your grandfather.”
Brent was stunned. He stood up from his desk in shock. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m telling you I saw the recommendation with my own two eyes.”
“Was Makayla there?”
“No! Her ass skipped town after the hearing yesterday. According to Ira, she was summoned back to Augusta. The Attorney General himself ordered her back. And then this changed recommendation came down.”
Brent stared at Eddie as if he was still in shock, but even Eddie knew he wasn’t thinking about him. He was thinking about Makayla.
Jenay and Charles were still going over the fallout from Matt Dellum’s sabotage, when Donald entered the office.
“Don’t believe in knocking anymore?” Charles asked him.
“Mom don’t require it,” Donald said as he walked toward the conference table. “What are you doing here?”
“I thought I owned the joint.”
Big Daddy Sinatra 3: The Best of My Love (The Sinatras of Jericho County) Page 18
