Monk Paletti: Taming Ashley Sinatra

by Mallory Monroe

  DeGarno didn’t even bother to get up. Everybody knew Raymond’s bark was worse than his bite. Raymond hesitated, but he sat back down. Monk sat down too.

  DeGarno looked at Monk. “Where’s my daughter, Frankie? You I know I’m not a liar.”

  “Why did you try to ice my lady at that skating rink?” Monk asked him.

  DeGarno frowned. “What lady? You got a lady? Since when? I thought you was a monk or something. I thought they said you was a monk.”

  “You need some education,” Raymond had the nerve to say to DeGarno. “How an underboss gonna be a monk? They pray all day. What underboss in the history of the mob ever been known to pray all day? They call him Monk, not because he is a monk, but because he ain’t like the rest of us. Don’t you get that?”

  “Fuck you,” DeGarno said again to Raymond. “Just tell me where my daughter’s at,” he said to Monk.

  Monk exhaled. “We don’t have her,” he said. “But we had her before.”

  Raymond frowned. “What are you talking, Frankie? Why you lying like that!”

  But DeGarno trusted Monk’s word. He sat up straight. “You had her?” he asked him.

  “But you already knew that, didn’t you, Sammy? Why else would all that shit go down that went down? And I had to ice your underboss. I had to ice Tally.”

  “Fuck Tally,” DeGarno said. “His ass was on his way out anyway.” But DeGarno was only concerned about his daughter. “Where’s my daughter now?” he asked Monk.

  “Your daughter,” Raymond said with mocking in his voice.

  DeGarno looked at him. “She is my daughter!” he yelled, hitting his fist on that table. “Not yours. She’s mine! And I want her back!”

  Monk was puzzled. “Why would you say she’s not Pop’s? Why would you say that, Sammy?”

  “Always trying to take away from me,” DeGarno said to Raymond, with pain in his voice. “But you won’t take her. You won’t take all I got left of the only woman I ever loved. This ain’t Paris. You won’t take her too!”

  “I don’t want her,” Raymond said. “We ain’t got her!”

  “Frankie said you had her before! Didn’t you say you had her before, Frankie? Didn’t you just two minutes ago tell me you had her before?”

  But Monk was frowning. Did his old man take a woman from DeGarno, a woman DeGarno used to love? The mother of his child? Was this what that petty tit for tat his father was known for about?

  “Didn’t you tell me that, Frankie?” DeGarno asked again. But Monk was too busy thinking to respond.

  But Raymond responded. “Listen to Frankie if you want,” he said. “Frankie don’t know shit about shit. I’m the boss here, not Frankie, and I’m telling you how it is here. We ain’t got her. And that’s all there is to it. But if you try to harm any hair on any member of our family, or any woman associated with that family member, you’ll regret you were ever born.”

  “Is that a threat?” DeGarno asked him.

  “No, it’s not a threat,” Monk said, realizing it was getting out of hand. “Let’s just settle down here.”

  But DeGarno was still staring at Raymond. “I said,” he said, “is that a threat?”

  Raymond wasn’t smart enough to back down. “Call it whatever you like. It is what it is.”

  DeGarno stood up, causing Raymond and Monk to stand, too, and causing Knuckles and Noodles to be on the ready. “Then you hear me,” DeGarno said, “if I don’t have my daughter by noon tomorrow, there’s gonna be hell to pay. And you don’t have to call it whatever you like. It’s a threat,” he said plainly, and then he, followed by Knuckles, left the diner.

  Monk looked angrily at his father. “What the fuck is going on here, Pop?”

  “Nothing’s going on. And don’t you talk to me like that! Now get the hell out too!”

  Monk stared at Raymond a moment longer. He realized he could barely stand the sight of his own father, or to be in the same room with him. They were in trouble.

  He left. He got in his car and sped away.

  But he was still fuming. His father’s diner was nearly an hour away from Monk’s home, and he took that time to burn off some steam. But when he was less than ten minutes away from his home, his home alarm was heard on his phone, which meant somebody had come onto his street.

  He pulled up the monitor in his car, where he saw a car, on his street, speeding toward his house. He frowned. “What the fuck?” he said out loud. And when the car sped into his driveway, and men with assault rifles jumped out, his heart fell through his shoe.

  Ashley, he thought, in pure panic.

  And he immediately hit the gas pedal, to drive even faster, and called Ashley’s cell phone with one line, and his onsite security chief with his other line. Both phones rang and rang.

  “Answer the gotdamn phone!” he was yelling repeatedly, nearly jumping out of his seat, as he drove. As he put his pedal to the metal, and flew his way home.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  It was such a huge home that Ashley found herself spending most of that evening roaming through every single room. She started upstairs, on the main landing, and then at all of the rooms that were located down the side hallways. She’d never seen so many rooms in one house in her life. And only one man lived there? To Ashley, it was a little obscene.

  Now she was downstairs, in the back part of the house, checking out even more rooms. What surprised her was that every room she entered was empty. No guest bed. No storage boxes. Nothing. Just empty room after empty room. Other than his living room, kitchen, dining room, and his theater room, which was also downstairs, and his bedroom upstairs, all the rest of the rooms were totally empty. And it wasn’t that it was creepy or weird to Ashley, to see all of those empty rooms. It wasn’t creepy at all to her. It was just sad.

  And then she heard the front door unlock and open. Her heart soared and she smiled a big smile, hurrying up front. “Monk, is that you?” she asked playfully. She knew it wasn’t going to be anybody else but Monk anyway, but she liked needling him.

  But when she saw two men entering the home, and when the cell phone she held in her hand almost simultaneously began to ring, fear gripped her. She began backing up. And she dropped her phone.

  But the two gunmen had already turned toward the sound of her ringing phone. “There she is!” one of them yelled, and as soon as Ashley saw them hurrying toward her, she forgot about fear and got busy surviving, because she saw those rifles. She knew her very existence was at stake.

  She took off running back toward the back part of the house. The two men took off after her.

  But Ashley knew her way around now. She knew there was a back staircase that led upstairs. She knew her gun was in her purse upstairs. She had to get to her gun. She ran as fast as she could run up those back stairs, but those men were running after her.

  When she got to the second floor, she had to run around one side hall that led to the second floor landing, and then she ran into the master bedroom. The men were so close on her heels that she didn’t even have time to try and close and lock the bedroom door. They would easily shoot their way in, and she knew that. Her gun was her only option.

  She ran to her purse on the back side of the bed, on the nightstand. She grabbed it and tried to pull out her handgun with one fluid motion. But she could hear those men running across the landing, and getting closer and closer to the bedroom, and her nerves took over. And she couldn’t get the gun out. She was fumbling trying to get the gun out of her purse!

  As the men were just about to enter Monk’s bedroom, and when she thought she had pulled her gun out of that damn purse, the gun got caught in the fabric of the purse, and she had to snatch it out.

  Just as she did, the men entered Monk’s bedroom. And she didn’t hesitate not even for a millisecond. Because she didn’t have a millisecond. She fired. She leaned back against the nightstand, and with both hands on that gun and her finger on that trigger, she fired repeatedly. She didn’t give a shit. It was kill or b
e killed, and she wasn’t going out like that. She fired and she fired.

  And it worked. She took both gunmen out before they knew what hit them.

  After they went down, she was breathing so hard that she was nearly hyperventilating. It felt as if her heart was going to pound out of her chest. It felt like she was living a movie! But it was a horror movie.

  But instinctively she knew she had to get out of that room. She felt trapped in that room. But she had to step over the two gunmen’s bodies, which she hated doing, as she ran out onto the landing.

  And as soon as she stepped over those bodies and ran onto the landing, that was when she saw two more men with assault rifles running up the stairs. And her fear was once again replaced by her unmatched desire to survive, and she took off running down the second side hall upstairs.

  The two gunmen, who had heard shots fired while they were downstairs making sure nobody else was in the home, made it onto the landing and took off after Ashley. They heard a door slam shut down the side hall, and they turned that corner and ran down that hall after her.

  They saw only one room had a closed door, and they ran to that room. One of the gunmen got on one side of the closed door, and the other gunman got on the other side. And they went hard. The first gunman kicked the door in with all the strength he had, and then they both hurried into the doorway firing away. They weren’t taking any prisoners. They peppered that room with bullets and gun smoke.

  But the room was empty. When they realized it, they stopped firing. There was nothing, not a human, not even a piece of paper, in that room.

  But then one of them, the first gunman, instinctively felt something behind them. And he nudged the second gunman and then, as if they were one, they both turned around quickly to get ready to blindly fire away again.

  But Ashley was standing in the doorway across from the room where the two gunmen stood, and she didn’t have to get ready. She was already ready with both hands on her gun and her finger on the trigger. She didn’t want to have to shoot them too, although, she knew, they had no problem whatsoever shooting her. But when they turned, she had no problem either. She fired before they had a chance to even aim at her. She fired repeatedly just as she had done before. Her brother Bobby, who used to be a big-time gangbanger but was now mayor of their town, taught her that. Don’t stop shooting, he once told her, until you kill their asses.

  But as soon as she stopped firing, and both men were down, she heard her name. And the voice sounded almost as terrified as she was. “Ashley! Ashley! Ashley!”

  And this time, she knew it was Monk. He was calling her, and running up the stairs.

  She ran into the hall. “I’m here, Monk!” she cried as she ran. “I’m here!”

  When she turned the corner onto the landing, Monk had climbed up on the landing. And they ran into each other’s arms.

  “I shot’em, Monk!” she cried. “I shot’em, Monk!”

  But Monk still had his gun drawn, and he pulled back from her. “I saw four guys jump out of that car. Did you get’em all?” he asked her anxiously.

  She nodded. “I got all four,” she said. “I didn’t stop shooting until I killed their asses.”

  Monk was horrified that she had to do that, but was pleased that she knew how. And he felt guilty as guilty could be for leaving her there. He pulled her into his arms again.

  But then he realized he hadn’t left her alone. He had left her with more security than Fort Knox. Where were his guys? “What happened to security?”

  “That’s what I was wondering,” Ashley said, still shaken. “I saw them around the perimeter after you left. But they never came to help me.”

  Monk’s heart dropped again. All she asked him to do was protect her, and he couldn’t even do that right! He pulled her in his arms again, and hurried to his bedroom, stepping over two of those dead bodies.

  He went into his sitting area, where he had his computer desk, and removed his suit coat. He placed the coat over the back of the chair and sat down behind the desk.

  “What are you doing?” Ashley asked him.

  “Pulling up the video,” he said.

  When he pulled up his exterior security cameras and fast-forward, he stopped when he saw his onsite security chief answering his cell phone. When the chief ended the call, he called the entire security detail to him. After he spoke to them, they all began leaving, in three cars in three separate cars.

  Ashley was shocked. “They left,” she said. “Why would they leave?”

  “They got pulled. That’s why the crew chief didn’t answer my phone calls. He was told to leave and not answer his phone. He was told that they were sending in a fight crew from a different family, and they didn’t want anybody from our team involved.”

  “But who would tell him something like that?” Ashley asked.

  “Only two people could pull them off assignment,” Monk said.

  “Who?” Ashley asked. “You?”

  “Me and Pop,” said Monk as he stood on his feet, and began putting back on his suit coat. And then he took Ashley’s hand, and hurried out of the room.

  “Where are we going?” Ashley asked. “To see your father and find out why he called Security away?”

  “No,” Monk said. “Not yet.”

  “But aren’t you at least going to call the police, or somebody, to handle these bodies?” she asked as they stepped over two of those bodies to get out of the bedroom.

  “Not yet,” Monk said again, as he and she hurried down the stairs and out of the front door. His security team had failed him. His old man had to have been the one to order them to leave. Monk had to think this thing through. And the last thing on his mind was what to do about old dead mobsters.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  “What’s this?” Ashley asked as Monk’s Mercedes pulled up to the entrance of a luxury high-rise condominium building in Southampton, New York, a couple hours from his home.

  “This is,” Monk said as he stopped at the curb, “a piece of property I own.”

  Ashley was floored. “You own this whole building? Is that what you’re telling me? That you own this whole thing?”

  Monk was looking through his windshield at the massive structure too. He only stayed there whenever he was handling business on Long Island and needed to be closer to the action should anything pop off. “Yes,” he said to her.

  Ashley couldn’t believe it. She remembered when he told her he owned businesses around the area. She thought he meant a little store or shop like what she owned. She was speechless.

  She was so speechless that she didn’t see the two valets, at her door and Monk’s door, waiting to assist them. Monk unlocked the door, and they both got out.

  The valet assisting Monk was the chief valet, and he already had a key to Monk’s car. “Good evening, Mr. Paletti,” he said as he held the door open.

  “How are ya’?” Monk asked rhetorically, buttoning his suit coat and walking around to the passenger side. On the drive over, he’d made a promise to himself that Ashley was going to stay glued to him until he figured this shit out. Because that guilt was still riding him like a witch.

  As the chief valet got behind the wheel of Monk’s car to park it in his private garage, and the second valet hurried in front of them to open the heavy glassed entrance doors, Monk placed his arm around Ashley’s waist and entered the lobby of his building.

  The general manager hurried from an office off from the lobby, putting on his suit coat as he came, to escort the boss and his lady to his private elevator in back. “Welcome back, Mr. Paletti,” the GM said. “Good evening, ma’am.”

  “Any action?” Monk asked as they walked.

  “No, sir. Everything has been calm as a whistle here. Everything okay on your end?”

  “We’ll see,” was all Monk would say about it. And it was only then did Ashley realize that both valets and the GM himself all looked and talked like mob guys too.

  And when they got on the elevator, alone,
she asked him. “Do you only hang out with mobsters?” she asked him.

  Monk smiled the smile of a tired man. “Probably,” he said.

  Ashley smiled, too, and leaned against him. And when the doors opened on the top floor, and when they both stepped off and into his luxurious condo, a condo with floor-to-ceiling windows everywhere you turned, and so big it had a piano in the living room, Ashley could hardly believe it. “How in the world,” she asked Monk, “could you afford all of this?” She looked at him sincerely baffled. “Where do you get the money?”

  Monk began to move his head around, and she knew what that meant. He was going to answer her question, but it was going to be in that coded kind of language her uncles often spoke. “When you’re in the so-called mob,” he said to her, “it comes when you do the work. While the guys I hang around were busy spending money like big spenders, I was saving, and investing. It comes when you do the work.”

  Ashley understood what that meant. It wasn’t all that coded to her. And she left that subject alone. Besides, she was tired too.

  “Come on,” he said, “let’s get you comfortable.” He then escorted her down a hall to the master bedroom, where he began running bath water for her while she sat on the dressing table bench. He also decided to call Teddy.

  “What up, Monk?” It was Teddy.

  “Your ass sound like you’re asleep.”

  “Yeah, I was.”

  “Damn, Teddy. It’s not that late.”

  “It’s eleven o’clock at night. What do you mean not that late? It’s late enough.”

  Monk didn’t even realize his sense of time was whacked by the events of that day. “I thought it was still early.”

  “Which means,” Teddy said over the phone, “something’s shaking. What is it?”

  “I had a break-in at my house. Four guys iced.”