Hammer was pleased that she’d agreed. Never before had she so easily allowed him to take JoJo outside of their arrangement. But it concerned him, too. Because her agreement had to mean she understood the danger she was still in. “Or maybe I should stay here, with you,” he said.
Amelia would have loved for him to stay with her and JoJo. Most nights, when he wasn’t with them, she felt an emptiness deep inside. She would love to wake up beside him every morning. Under ordinary circumstances, she would jump at the chance to be with Hammer on a more long-term basis. But these weren’t ordinary circumstances. Her livelihood was being threatened, which threatened her independence. She had to go it alone. “I’ll be okay,” she said. “But it’s a good thing you keep JoJo with you. I’ll notify Nanny, she’s going with him, and I’ll get him ready for you.”
She was about to walk away. But Hammer gently pulled her back. They looked into each other’s eyes. “Take care of yourself, Amelia,” he said. “Or I’ll intervene whether you want me to or not.”
Amelia knew what that meant. Handle your shit, he was telling her, or he would handle it for her. Watch out for herself, or he would watch out for her. Which would mean the end of her illegal trade if he took over. She nodded her head. She had to remind herself that he was only partially hers. “Yes, sir,” she said.
But when she said those words, and that sadness reappeared in her eyes, a sadness that always seemed to come out of nowhere, his heart melted. And he pulled her into his arms. He held her, with his eyes closed tightly.
She held him, too, and wished their relationship wasn’t so damned complicated. But it was. She attempted to pull away. But he pulled her back, and kissed her on her lips.
They kissed long and lovingly, and their passion began to rise. Hammer wanted her desperately, but he knew she was still sore from her ordeal. She couldn’t take a pounding from him. At least not today. But when she came to Montreal tomorrow . . .
Amelia, too, wanted him to take her right then and there. She could feel his penis hardening against her, and his heartbeat accelerating. And the way he tasted. She wanted so much more from him! But he had a divided heart, and she knew it. Mick had already warned her against taking any man’s sloppy seconds. She was a Sinatra now, he’d said to her, after she changed her last name from Valtone. Sinatras never played second to anybody.
She should have never had sex with Hammer for that very reason. She knew what he was about when she caved. But it was easy for her brother to tell her to just walk away now. He had never kissed Hammer Reese. He had never felt that big rod inside of his body. And he never felt the emotions she felt whenever she was anywhere near Hammer. Walking away was like giving away the grand prize because somebody else wanted it, too. She hated the fact that somebody else wanted it, but as long as she had it, she wasn’t giving it up.
It was the one contradiction in her life: she hated to emotionally depend on any man, but she would love to depend on Hammer. But only if she knew her heart would be safe with him. Since she knew it wouldn’t, not at this point, she had to keep her distance, too.
She pulled away from him again, as she looked at him with serious, knowing eyes. And this time, he let her go.
She headed for the nursery.
He was throbbing as he watched her leave. He wanted to pull her back and tell her that he had such strong emotions for her that they scared the shit out of him half the time. He wanted to fuck her to show her what he meant. He wanted to put a workout on her that she wouldn’t soon forget what he meant. But she wasn’t recovered yet, and he knew it. She was in no position to be working out with him. But when she arrived in Montreal tomorrow, he was not only going to show her, but tell her too.
But because telling her involved the kind of emotions battling bad guys never did, and because two people he cared deeply about would be affected, it very well might be the single most terrifying thing he’d ever done.
And coming from a man like Hammer Reese, whose experience with real terrifying events might be second-to-none, that was saying something.
But for Amelia, as she lifted her baby out of his crib, smiled at him and held him in her loving arms, Hammer’s kiss had already said a lot. It said that tomorrow night was going to be terrifying for her, too. It said that tomorrow night, when she finally came face-to-face with that infamous heifer Regina Dell, she was going to have a fight on her hands. She couldn’t lose him. Besides JoJo and the Sinatras, whom she loved with her life, Hammer meant everything to her. He was the best man, outside of her family, that she’d ever known. And she knew what that meant. She wasn’t giving him up just because it was complicated.
If that bitch wanted a fight tomorrow night, Amelia decided as her son smiled at her in tacit approval, she was going to get one.
But as Hammer finished drinking the coffee she had left, and waited for her to retrieve his son, he was still worried sick about her. That shit was no fluke. She might have had close calls before, but never that close. At least not under his watch.
He pulled out his cellphone. He was calling her brother. She wasn’t going to like it, but fuck that, he thought. Maybe Mick could knock some sense into her. Somebody had to.
CHAPTER TEN
The SUV stopped at the curb outside of Newness Massage Parlor in southwest Baltimore, and a beefy security guard jumped out and opened the backdoor. Jerardo Jovanni’s small frame stepped out, and made his way, with bodyguard behind him, across the sidewalk and into the parlor.
“Welcome back, Jerardo!” the owner said grandly as she stood behind the desk and smiled at her newest arrival. “We didn’t expect to see you today. Min again?”
“If she’s here, yes.” Jerardo said.
“She’s here. She’s with another client, but I’ll move some things around. I’ll get her. Room 8B is available.”
As the owner picked up the phone to notify Min, Jerardo made his way to Room 8B. His bodyguard walked in first, saw that there was no threat there, and allowed Jerardo to enter. The guard then waited in the hall, and shut the door behind him. It was routine for them.
Jerardo undressed and got onto the massage table, onto his back. He began massaging his dick, which was the main reason why he came. Men who came to Newness came more to fuck than to be massaged, and he never pretended otherwise with any of the ladies who did him. Especially Minna, who was his favorite.
But as he closed his eyes and massaged himself, to prepare himself for Minna, the window curtains the bodyguard didn’t even bother to look behind, moved, and Amelia stepped out behind them. With an object in her hand she moved slowly, effortlessly, toward the table. She wore leather gloves and a red pantsuit, along with her trademark stilettos. But she knew how to walk soundlessly even in her high heels.
But when she made it to the table, her motion changed. She got in a hurry. She jumped on the table, straddling Jerardo, and stuffed a handkerchief in his mouth just as his eyes flew open. As soon as he realized it was not Minna, but Amelia, he panicked and attempted to lift up, but she took the steel object in her hand and clamped it onto his penis. He screamed out in pain, a scream muffled by the handkerchief, and she continued to twist the clamp.
She leaned down to his ear. “Make one false move,” she warned him, “and I’ll squeeze the life out of this motherfucker. Got it?”
He quickly nodded his head.
“Now I am going to ask you three questions, and your ass better answer truthfully.”
He continued to nod quickly as sweat began to appear on his pink forehead. He was in severe pain.
“Did you know about that ambush?” she asked him.
He nodded again.
“Did you order it?”
He nodded again.
“You’re the one who’s taking over my territory?”
But this time he shook his head.
Amelia knew Jerardo Jovanni. He was a crook and a lowlife two-timing scum, but he was no liar.
“I’m going to unclamp your manhood,” she said. “If
your guard hears anything and comes in here, I’m going to have to kill him and you, too, and any other bastard who tries anything. Understood?”
Jerardo nodded. She unclamped him.
He was so relieved that his entire clenched body relaxed. He grabbed hold of his penis. But then, as if by reflex, he reached up toward Amelia and swung a hard right. He was going to punch her lights out.
But she ducked, he missed, and she clamped onto his manhood again. This time he screamed before she could put the handkerchief back in his mouth, and the door quickly flung open. Without hesitation, and before the guard could even draw his weapon, Amelia had already pulled out her small J-Frame pistol from her suitcoat pocket and shot him between the eyes. He fell straight back, ladies inside the parlor could be heard screaming and running, and Amelia, knowing her time was limited, put then placed her gun to Jerardo’s head. “Who’s taking over my territory? Tell me now or I’ll blow your fucking brains out!”
Jerardo was more afraid of what that clamp was doing to his penis, than what that gun could do to his brains, and he didn’t hesitate. “Those were my men,” he admitted, “but I owed a debt. I was told to hold you hostage while they handled your people, as repayment. That is all!”
“Who did you owe?” Amelia asked urgently. Time was running out. “Who’s taking over my territory?”
Jerardo hesitated.
Amelia tightened her grip on his balls.
He screamed again. Then answered her. “Leo. Leo Tamberelli,” he said quickly.
Amelia couldn’t believe it. “Are you fucking serious? Your ass owed him?” In the mob world, Leo T, as they called him, was almost as big as Mick Sinatra. And almost as feared.
But Jerardo was nodding, with tears dropping from his eyes. He was fucked and he knew it.
“Why my territory?” she asked.
“I don’t know! He doesn’t confide in me! He just ordered me to do that job. We go way back, Amelia. Please release me. Please let me go!”
It sounded like a song she’d heard before. A country song. Maybe even an Elvis song. That was how fucked up this whole situation seemed. Elvis songs, Jerardo crazy enough to get indebted to Leo Tamberelli, and now she had a war on her hands with a fucker that big!
But she wasn’t so confused by the turn of events that she couldn’t realize the urgency. And she didn’t hesitate. Jerardo was dead to her anyway. He didn’t know any more than what he’d told her, and she could hear sirens in the distance. She thought about how one of his men said they could kill her once they got the call. The call from Jerardo that Tamberelli had secured her territory no doubt. And they would have killed her if Hammer had not shown up.
Now she was going to return the favor.
She shot Jerardo through his mouth, and left the clamp on his balls. He nearly caused her her life by agreeing to ambush her in the first place, which made him a dirty rotten bastard as far as she was concerned.
Besides, he was the one who had to tell Tamberelli what territory to take. He was the one who knew about her setup in ways Tamberelli could never know. He did more than just ambush her. He betrayed her.
Big time.
She wasn’t crying any tears for that fucking snitch.
And then she left the building the way she had come: through a side window that led to a back alley.
Her car was waiting two streets over.
She got in it, and took off.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
When she made it back home, she was glad for the peace. But there was an eeriness to the peacefulness that dampened her joy.
She was alone. Hammer had taken JoJo to Montreal with him that morning, and Rowena, JoJo’s nanny, had gone with him. She had security all over the grounds, but they were outdoors, and her household staff did not live in. Amelia was all by herself.
She poured herself a glass of wine, took a couple sips, and then went upstairs to soak in the tub. She nearly fell asleep twice, but was able to soak and bathe and relax. And think. When, she wondered, was she not thinking?
She thought about Jerardo, and his scheming ass. The idea that he would betray their friendship still annoyed her. She thought he was one of the good ones. What did she ever do to him?
She thought about her son, and wondered if he missed her. She text Rowena throughout the day, and was given hourly updates on how he was doing, but it wasn’t the same. She couldn’t smell him through a text. She couldn’t touch him. She missed her son.
And, too often for her taste, she thought about Hammer.
She leaned her head back in the tub and remembered how it felt to be in Hammer’s arms. Ladies would have given their right arms to be in her position last night. She had that gorgeous hunk of man naked and in her bed all night long; a man so confident in his skills that he truly believed his dick could cure all ills, and they didn’t make love. He kissed her, and a couple times he fondled her breasts and grew hard just from fondling her, but he kept his word. He knew she’d been through hell earlier that day. He didn’t want to put it on her too. He cared about her too deeply.
But that was Hammer, she thought, as she grabbed her glass from the tub’s edge and sipped more wine. Mister Contradiction if ever there was one. He was a righteous dude in so many ways, and a world-class thug in so many other ways. He was a man who built his reputation at CIA on torturing criminals to gain intelligence and skirting the law shamelessly, a law he claimed to admire, to catch the bad guys. He was despised by both sides, the bad and the good, for his tactics.
But that was Hammer, she thought again, as she finished her bath and got out of the tub. He had a nasty reputation, and was as gangster as gangster got. He was so underhanded with his thuggery that she had no clue what shit Hammer was into. But she was certain it was big.
He owned JazzLight, which was a big deal in and of itself, but that, in her opinion, had to be his cover. Mainly because he was mega-rich. He had Mick Sinatra and Reno Gabrini kind of money. That kind of cash didn’t flow just from owning a couple nightclubs. That kind of cash only came about undercover, and she didn’t mean the vice cop variety. Shit she was caught up in undoubtedly paled in comparison to whatever Hammer was doing.
But fuck him, she thought. She had to stop thinking about that man!
She dried off, put on one of the big dress shirts he often left at her house, grabbed her cellphone, and made her way downstairs. She had several messages, all from a few of her closest girlfriends, but she wasn’t up to gossiping with them tonight. Besides, their drama was almost certainly going to be about men. Men that beat them. Men that used them. Men that two-timed them. Since Amelia had all of that and more wrapped up in her deceased husband, they took her to be an expert on bad dudes. But her drama was life-and-death shit now that she couldn’t even discuss with them. And she had her own man trouble on top of it, with one particular man she could never seem to get off of her mind. She had what she called big time drama. The last thing she needed tonight was to hear about theirs.
Once downstairs, she made a beeline for the kitchen. But she had to pass the dining room first. And as soon as she entered, she stopped in her tracks. Because she suddenly realized she was no longer alone. Sitting at her dining-room table, as if they owned the joint, were two very familiar faces. But it still shocked the shit out of her.
“Mick?” she asked. “Big Daddy?”
Both men rose to their feet. She was so thrown, but so happy to see them again that she lost all inhibitions and ran to them. The best thing that ever happened to her was to find out that these two men were her half-brothers. It was the first time in her life she had a family to call her own. And even though it was totally against type for Amelia, she just couldn’t hide how pleased she was to be theirs.
She threw her arms around Mick first, who was arguably the most feared mob boss in America, and who was notoriously cold when it came to outward displays of affection. But he smiled, and returned her hug. He seemed to welcome her embrace.
Then she fell into Big Daddy�
��s arms, her big brother, and remained there.
Charles “Big Daddy” Sinatra closed his eyes as he held Amelia. He remembered most vividly of all the night of her birth. She was nearly killed by their sorry-ass father because she came out of the wound a black child, which confirmed his suspicions of their mother’s infidelity. Charles and Mick had to rescue her from their own father, and their aunt, the woman who would raise Amelia, had to whisk her away. It was a traumatic way to enter the world, but that was how Amelia entered it. He and Mick had never heard from her again after that night. Until fate, so many years later, brought them back together.
When they stopped embracing, Amelia had to fight back tears. Whenever she felt especially alone in this world, or lost as their aunt had called her when naming her, she thought about those two big lugs. She was connected to them by blood, and that was an awesome feeling for an outcast like her. One day she was going to find her father, and connect to the African side of her roots too, the side she most identified with. But at least, right now, she had somebody. Before they came into her life she believed she could fall off the face of the earth, and nobody would notice.
“So tell me what’s up,” she said. “I see the front gate allows you two entry onto the property and don’t even bother to so much as give me a buzz, the property owner, to let me know you have arrived. Now that’s either outsized respect, or outsized fear. My money’s on fear.”
They laughed.
“You aren’t happy to see us?” Big Daddy asked.
“I am,” she said. “I’m thrilled to see you, don’t get me wrong. But I have to ask. What in the world brings you two to Baltimore?”
“You bring us here,” Big Daddy responded. “Can’t we come and see about our baby sister?”
“Said Mick Sinatra never!” Amelia added, and Big Daddy laughed. Mick even smiled.
Amelia Sinatra: Hammer Time Page 9
