But either way, Monk was fucked.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“There it is,” Donald said as he drove his Mustang onto the tarmac.
“How do you know that’s his?” Ashley asked as she looked at the private jet too.
Donald placed his car in park and looked at her. “Ashley, look at the plane!”
“I’m looking at the plane!”
“No, you aren’t,” said Donald. “Look at the side of the plane.”
Ashley looked. And there, in bold black letters was PALETTI, INC., written on it.
She smiled. “I didn’t even see that!”
Donald rolled his eyes. “Lord, help her,” he said.
But Ashley was offended. She already felt scared and unworthy without her brother making her feel that way too. “I didn’t look at it, Donny, dang. Don’t make a capital offense out of it.”
Donald continued to look at that plane. “Damn, Ash,” he said, “his plane is almost as big as Uncle Mick’s.”
“It’s no where near that big,” Ashley said. “But it’s big.”
Then they saw two guys get off of the plane and head toward Donald’s Mustang. “Who are they?” Ashley asked.
“How should I know?” Donald said, staring at them too.
When the two men made it up to the front passenger side window, where Ashley was seated, she pressed down the window.
“Miss Sinatra?” the older man asked.
“Yes?” Ashley responded.
“My name is Joe Brady. I’m Mr. Paletti’s flight chief. When you’re ready, I’ll escort you to the plane, ma’am.”
Donald smiled. But Ashley, to his surprise, didn’t even crack a smile. “Thank you,” she said, and pressed back up the window.
But then she just sat there. And then exhaled as if she was fearful of something. Donald looked at her. “What’s wrong?” he asked her. “Why aren’t you getting out?”
Ashley didn’t know how to say it. But Donald knew her too well. “Overwhelming?” he asked her.
She nodded, as she continued to stare at that big plane. “Yeah,” she said. “I don’t understand why. Why me? Why would a guy like him, with all that he’s got going for him, want somebody like me?”
Donald’s heart dropped. He knew exactly what she meant. “You’re worth it, Ash,” he said. She looked at him. “Never forget that you’re worth it,” he added, “or Monk just might.”
Ashley smiled and gave her brother a hug. Nobody in the family gave her much credence, but Donny did.
“When will you be back?”
“Don’t know,” Ashley said as she removed her seat belt. “Do I need a time limit?”
“Not for me you don’t. He gave us just the financial break we needed to keep the store going, and I’ll take time off work from Ma’s hotel and manage it. Take all the time you need. But what do I tell Dad when you don’t show up for work?”
“Tell him I’m visiting a friend, which I am, and that I’ll be back as soon as I can get back. But don’t worry. He’s got enough staff in his office now that he probably won’t even miss me.”
“Yes, he will and you know it. And I will too,” Donald said.
Ashley looked at him.
“At the store,” he corrected himself. “I’ll miss you at the store!”
Ashley grinned. She knew he loved her. She pinched his cheek and got out of the car. Donald got out too, walked around to the trunk, and pulled out her luggage. The second man waiting at the car with Brady took the luggage. And Ashley waved as she, escorted by Brady and the second man, made their way to Monk’s plane.
But Donald still was worried. Ashley was in the big leagues now. She was playing with the vultures now.
His prayer, as he got back in his Mustang, was that the head vulture, Monk Paletti, didn’t eat her alive.
Once onboard, Ashley was given a window seat near the back of the luxurious plane, with Brady bringing her a drink and asking if she wanted anything else.
“No, I’m good. Thank you,” she said with a smile. They were treating her as if she was royalty, and she liked it. But that didn’t mean she understood it.
She sat there, watching the plane lift off and head for Jersey, and she couldn’t seem to get out of her own head. She couldn’t answer why. She just couldn’t. They were just too different. From the way the viewed life. To the way they led their lives. Even down to that elevator music they were playing over the sound system, where some man with a gravelly voice was singing Wake up, Maggie, I think I got something to say to you. It was so not her!
She smiled and shook her head. Why was she even doing this? And why would he even want her coming to see him anyway? Was it just for a booty call the way all of her “dates” ended up being about? She had nothing in common with that man. Nothing!
“Next up,” the radio DJ blared over the sound system, “are one of our old favorites, The Manhattans, singing the Pike/Randazzo-penned, A Million To One!”
Ashley rolled her eyes. The Manhattans? Really? What kind of name was that? Why didn’t they call themselves the Brooklyns? Or the Queens? She laughed. Megan Thee Stallion. Now that was a name! But The Manhattans? She continued smiling and shook her head.
Until she heard the words of the song The Manhattans sang.
“I,
fell in love with you the moment we met.
Never thought that it could happen, and yet:
Here we are, me and you, so in love.
Now,
everybody that I know stop and stare.
Even now they can’t believe that you care.
They’re all saying,
you’re just wasting,
just wasting your time instead of getting bored.
A million to one.
That’s what they said,
would be my chances.
A million to one.
But I found love,
here in the warmth
of your arms.
A million to one!”
And Ashley wasn’t smiling anymore. Tears were in her eyes. Everybody had such low expectations for her. She wasn’t going to amount to anything, people used to always tell her that. And those that didn’t say it, she could see it in their eyes. Big Daddy and Jenay always encouraged her. And her brothers and sisters treated her with nothing but love. But because of how she acted, and because she never seemed able to keep herself out of trouble, even they had low expectations for her too.
But Monk? So far, he seemed to think she was worth more than even she thought she was worth! And she just couldn’t wrap her head around somebody feeling that way about her. Had to be her booty. It always was.
But she thought again. Could this be what she’d been looking for all her life? Could that mobster, of all people, really be the real deal and not just another imposter masquerading as the real deal? Because she had to think logically. Would a man really give up twenty grand, or send his plane to pick her up, or even come and see her last night in an impulsive move he couldn’t explain himself, just for a booty call? A booty he didn’t even ask to have last night? Maybe he was really just that different!
Or maybe, she also thought, he was just different at how he got to the same place as all of those other jokers she fell for. Because the end was always the same: she ended up with a broken heart.
But she knew she had to get over it. She was in it now. She might as well stop the speculating.
She decided to stop thinking about it altogether, and get up and roam. And she did roam around the big plane. But when she got to his bedroom, she halfway expected one of the crew members to tell her that particular location was off limits. She even looked their way. They saw her, and smiled at her, and then they went on about their business. As if she actually belonged there more than they did! Which made her smile. And she went inside.
It was beautiful, his bedroom, and it reeked of Monk’s nice-smelling cologne. It was also very well put together, which was probably a tribute to Monk’s crew rather
than Monk himself. He didn’t appear to Ashley to be any kind of a neat freak. He always had that five o’clock shadow on his face whenever she was around him, and his clothes were never pristine-looking like her uncle Tommy Gabrini’s were, but he looked only slightly better put together than her uncle Reno Gabrini, who always looked disheveled.
Then she smiled again. The crew had placed her luggage in Monk’s bedroom, which made her feel as if they’d already accepted her as somebody special in his life. She wasn’t, but that wasn’t their business.
And she got an idea. After looking at her watch and seeing that she still had just over an hour before the plane would land in New Jersey, she went and locked the bedroom door. She decided to take a shower on his plane.
It wouldn’t be a first for her. But it would be a first on Monk’s plane!
She was excited. She even thought she’d live-stream it on her Facebook page, or call her friends and tell them about it. But then she checked herself.
“Okay, Ash, stop. Just stop it. You’re in the big leagues now okay? You’re playing with the big boys now. College days: over. Show some sophistication about yourself or you’re going to go straight to New Jersey and embarrass that man! Just stop it.”
But as soon as she walked into his en-suite bathroom on that plane, and saw how beautiful and luxurious it was, she couldn’t help herself. She didn’t live-stream it on Facebook. That would have been too country. But she called her friends. Every one she could think to call. And told them where she was, and who she was going to be with. And they all were fascinated that she’d be going to visit a man called Monk.
She wasn’t sophisticated. She just wasn’t. And she wasn’t about to start pretending otherwise.
She took a shower, even though she took one just before Donny picked her up and drove her to the airfield. But she wanted the experience of Monk’s shower. And she got it. Not that showering on his plane felt any differently than showering on a family member’s plane. It didn’t. But at least she tried it.
And then she changed clothes, too, just because she could, freshened up her hair and makeup, and decided to wait it out sitting on his bed.
She crossed her legs and looked at her watch. In another ten minutes, she’d be landing and, if all went well, falling into his big, warm arms again.
She stretched and smiled. She could hardly wait.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Monk’s Mercedes sped onto his father’s estate with a kind of speed that caused the groundskeepers to stop pulling weeds or trimming hedges and look.
But Monk wasn’t looking at them. He came to a stop, jumped out of his car, and ran up the elongated steps, taking three at a time, and entered his father’s home.
His kid brother Michael, known as Mikey to most, was just coming out of the powder room in the foyer when Monk hurried in. “Where is he?” he asked his brother as soon as he entered.
“Upstairs,” Mikey said. “But he’s with somebody.”
But Monk hurried up the stairs, taking them three at a time too.
“What’s the matter with you?” Mikey asked. “Frankie, you hear me? He’s with somebody!”
Monk heard him, but he didn’t care. He hurried up those stairs, walked across that landing, and flung open the door of his father’s bedroom.
Raymond Paletti was on the edge of the bed. A woman, who was not his brand new wife, was on her knees giving him head. And Raymond was pissed. “What are you out of your mind?” he asked him. “Busting in my room like some fucking cop!”
“Get lost,” Monk said to the woman.
The woman looked at Raymond. Raymond reluctantly nodded. The woman slowly got up, angrily looking at Monk as she grabbed up her clothes and walked out of the bedroom. His father put it back in, zipped up his pants, and stood up. “Now what the fuck’s your problem boy?”
“Who does she belong to?” Monk asked his father.
“What are you talking?”
Monk was angry. “Who does she belong to?” he yelled. “Tell me who she belonged to!”
His father realized Monk knew more than he thought he’d ever learn. He exhaled. “Sammy,” he said. “It’s his daughter.”
Monk already suspected it, given who was at that abandoned motel, but hearing it from his father confirmed it. “Gotdamn, Pop!” he said. “Sammy the Ox? Why would you snatch Sammy DeGarno’s kid, Pop?”
“Because of what he did to us.”
Monk was baffled. “What did he do to us?”
“Remember that break-in at the factory?”
Monk stared at his father. “What about it?” he asked him.
“I find out this week that Sammy’s ass was behind that shit.”
“Pop, that happened a year ago.”
“So what? They stole our shit. Nearly five hundred weapons. I’m not letting him get away with that!”
“So you snatched his daughter? His daughter, Pop, over a weapons theft that happened a year ago?”
“I told you I got this information a few weeks ago, see. Good intel too. None of that street corner shit. I get the info, what was I supposed to do?”
“You tell me!” Monk yelled.
“You?” Raymond yelled back. “I’m the fucking boss here. Not you! I run this family. I don’t have to tell you everything that’s going on! You work for me, and don’t you forget that!”
Monk stared at his old man. He had no business running anything. But when they were handing out the positions, he was stronger than all those weak men Bonaducci had to choose from, and he had no choice but to pick Pop. He knew not to even broach it with Monk. Monk wasn’t in that shit to run shit. He was in that shit because there was no way to get out of it! “But why his daughter, Pop? Why would you snatch one of DeGarno’s kids? What were you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that asshole did ours. I’m doing his. He snatched our weapons. We snatched his girl. It’s not like I was gonna kill her or anything. I was gonna give her back, with negotiations to get our weapons replaced. But then--”
Monk stared at him. “But then what?” he asked him.
“But then somebody snatched her from me.”
Monk lifted his hat back from his forehead. “That’s why you sent me to Canada?”
“Yeah. To get her back. But then they moved her. You say it was Vinny Blanks, but I don’t know that yet.”
“I know it,” Monk said.
Raymond looked at him. “How?”
“I found him. And the girl.”
Raymond was excited. “You got her?”
“DeGarno’s people showed up. They killed Vinny. Some of our men too.”
Raymond was surprised. “What the fuck! Why wasn’t I told?”
“It just went down.”
“Did we take out any of those fuckers?”
Monk hated that tit for tat shit. It never went well when you went down that tit for tat road. “Yeah. We got’em all.”
Raymond nodded. “Good!”
“Including Tally,” he said.
Raymond looked at his son, shocked. “Tally? Sammy’s underboss? You killed his underboss?!”
“Yeah, I killed him. He was gonna kill me. What you expected me to do?”
“And the girl? She got out of there alive?”
“She got out of there. I don’t know about the alive part.”
Raymond frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“She took off in the middle of the fireworks. Or somebody came and got her. Lanny was guarding her. They took him out,” Monk said, regret in his voice.
Raymond let out a harsh exhale, and then he sat down on the bed. Then he looked at Monk like he was some lost kid, and Monk was his father. “What do we do now?” he asked his son.
“We?” Monk asked. “Oh, it’s ‘we’ now?”
“Knock it off!” Raymond said. Then he looked at Monk again. “What do we do?”
Monk exhaled. “Set up a meeting. DeGarno, you, and me.”
“Why would he agree to a meeting?
” Raymond asked. “What are you talking? Why would he agree?”
“You’d better hope he does. He shouldn’t want war any more than we do. We’re back on our asses as an organization most of the time. But even on our ass, we’re better than his organization. He’ll agree.”
“I don’t know, Frankie. It’s one thing to snatch one of his dozens of bastard children running around this town. But it’s another matter when you take out his underboss. That’s an escalation.”
“Set up the meeting, Pop,” Monk said impatiently. “That’s all we got. We have no more cards to play. Set it up.”
“And if he says no?” Raymond asked.
“Then beef up our crews and hope and pray he doesn’t have backup. If he doesn’t wanna talk, and if he has another family willing to back him up, we’re screwed.”
Raymond dropped his head. He never dreamed it would get so out of hand that easily. But Monk wasn’t sticking around to reassure his old man. He started that shit. Monk was always forced to finish it. He left.
He walked out of that bedroom, across the landing, and down to the first floor. Mikey was sitting in the living room. He stood up. “What happened?”
“None of your business,” Monk said as he began heading for the exit.
“Fuck you, Frankie. I was going to help you out.”
Monk looked at him.
“Pop’s sending me to Rome to check out some properties. I was gonna ask if you wanted me to check on anything for you while I’m there?”
“Get real!” Monk said and kept on walking. He wouldn’t get Mikey to check on his pet goldfish, let alone any real estate he owned in Rome.
But then Monk glanced up at the clock on the wall. When he saw the time, he panicked. “Ah, shit!” he yelled, hurried out of that door, and ran to his Mercedes. He jumped in and took off. He was already speeding away from his father’s house, and flying through the security gates, by the time Mikey made it to the front door.
“What’s wrong with him?” he said out loud, and not for the first time.
Monk Paletti: Taming Ashley Sinatra Page 10
