Big Daddy Sinatra: There Was a Ruthless Man (The Sinatras of Jericho County Book 1) (3 page)

“I
heard what you said.”

She
was accustomed to his impertinence.
 
“So
the wedding’s today?”

“That’s
what the invitation said.”

“I
didn’t get one,” she responded. “So I wouldn’t know.”

Donald
didn’t invite his own mother, Charles’s ex-wife, so he certainly wasn’t going
to invite Charles’s bed warmer.
 

But
Paige kept talking.
 
“He’s entirely too
young,” she said.
 
“Getting married at
that age.
 
Entirely too young.
 
Why don’t you put a stop to it?
 
You know those boys of yours do everything
you tell them to do.
 
You say frog.
 
They leap.”

“He’s
a grown man.
 
He knows what he wants.”

“But
eighteen?
 
Honestly, Charles!
 
I simply would not allow it.”

Charles
didn’t respond to that.
 
She didn’t have
a say either way.
 
He moved slightly away
from her and opened his back passenger door.

“I
heard you invited Abigail Ridge along,” Paige said, which, he knew, was the
main reason she decided to strike up this conversation to begin with.

He
tossed his brief case in the backseat.
 
He hadn’t invited anybody along, but that never stopped the gossip.

“Did
you hear me, Charles?”

Charles
closed his back door and looked at Paige.
 
She was a very beautiful woman, no doubt about it.
 
Nice height, nice size, sparkling blue eyes.
 
But she would also lie, cheat and steal to
get what she wanted, and would be about as trustworthy with his heart as a wino
with a prized bottle of wine.
 
She’d
cherish it, alright, but she’d drink it dry.
 
“I heard you,” he said.

“Well
did you or did you not invite Meg along?
 
Which is it?”

But
Charles gave out that impatient sigh that she knew so well.
 
“What it is, and this is the salient point,”
he said, “is none of your business.”

Paige
sneered at him.
 
“You are such an
asshole,” she said.
 
“Just
insufferable!
 
Why do I put up with you?”

They
both knew why.
 
Paige, as if by reflex,
even glanced down at his penis to confirm why.
 
Then she became so angry with herself for having such a weakness for
that man, that she shook her head and couldn’t say another word.
 
She walked away.

Charles
watched her as she stomped off.
 
She was
good in bed too, that was why he put up with her.
 
But even that was getting old to him.
 

He
got into his Jag, pulled away from the curb, and sped off.

CHAPTER TWO

He
was standing against a sidewall observing the festive crowd.
 
His son Robert, who idolized him, was
standing beside him.
 
Brent and Tony, his
two oldest sons, also stood nearby.
 
Charles Sinatra may have been the most hated man in Jericho, but his
sons, who actually knew him on a personal level, adored him.
 
He raised them alone when their mother left,
and they felt he raised them right.

“I
know I can run one of them, Dad,” Robert was saying as they all stood around
their father and people-watched.
 
Although Charles was dressed in a suit, all of his sons, who were groomsmen,
wore tuxedos.
 
“If you give me a chance,
I know I can run it.”

“Which
one?” Brent asked.
 
“Do you realize how
many businesses Dad owns?”

“Yes
I know!” Robert shot back.
 
He was
nineteen years old, the second youngest of four sons, but he had an edginess
about him that the others didn’t possess.
 
Whereas Brent was the oldest and definitely the most serious, and Tony
was the second oldest and definitely the least serious, Robert was the
wildcard.
 
They never knew what they were
going to get with Robert.
 

And
he looked different too.
 
Brent and Tony
took after their father in seemingly every way, but Robert had their mother’s
blonde hair and blue eyes and general slenderness.
 
He wasn’t skinny like their youngest brother
Donald, but he wasn’t at all muscular like his older brothers and father.
 
And while Brent and Tony were often described
as handsome, gorgeous, attractive, Robert was described as feisty, tough,
hardcore.
 
Mainly because Robert’s
ambitiousness, his need, his drive, were often in overdrive, and his looks
seemed to take a complete backseat to his amped-up personality.
 

“That’s
why I’m telling you to give me a chance, Dad,” he continued pleading.
 
“You own rent homes, a boat rental company, a
car dealership and car rental company, a Bed and Breakfast hotel for crying out
loud, and even a bank!
 
All you have to
do is pick one, and I can run it!”

But
Charles wasn’t nearly as gun-ho as his son.
 
“Get your degree first,” he said, “and then we’ll talk.”

“No
fair!” Robert said.
 
“Why do Brent and I
have to go to college when you let Tony drop out?”

 
“I didn’t let Tony do anything,” Charles fired
back.
  
“He dropped out all on his
own.
 
And he will be dropping back in
when the next term rolls around, I assure you.”

Tony
frowned at his younger brother.
 
“Why did
you have to put me in your conversation anyway?”

“What
about Donnie?” Robert continued to complain to his father.
 
“Donnie was supposed to start college this
semester, but you told him he didn’t have to go.
 
And you made him the manager over all of your
properties too!”

 
“Donald is not managing any of my properties,”
Charles corrected his son.
 
“He’s helping
out at the dealership.
 
That’s it.”

“But
why aren’t you making him go to college too?” Robert asked.
 
“Donnie gets away with murder!
 
You didn’t even try to stop him from getting
married.”

“There’s
a big difference, Bobby, and you know it,” Tony said.

“There’s
no difference!
 
What’s the difference?”
Robert wanted to know.

“He
didn’t want to get married, for one thing,” Tony explained.
 
“He
had
to get married.
 
Susan’s in the family
way, and you know it.
 
He messed up, and
he had to make it right.
 
He has a family
to support now.”

Robert
looked at his father.
 
“So if Brent and I
knock up some female, we can drop out and go to work for you too?”

“Speak
for yourself,” Brent said.
 
“I graduate
in a year.
 
I’m not knocking up anybody
and I’m not dropping out of shit.”

“But
you know what I mean, Dad,” Robert said, ignoring his oldest brother.
 
“If I knock up a girl and marry her, I don’t
have to go to college either?
 
Right?”

“Wrong,”
Charles said.
 
“You’re still going.”

Brent
and Tony laughed.

“But
why,” Robert asked sincerely, “if Donnie doesn’t have to go?”

“Because
I said so,” Charles said.
 
Then he gave
his son that
don’t play with me
look.
 
“Next question.”

Robert
shook his head.
 
“It’s not fair,” he
continued to insist, but in a lowered tone because he knew he was wasting his
time.

Donald
Sinatra, the groom, the man of the hour, came dancing up to his family with a
huge grin on his face.
 
His tux jacket
was off, and his long-sleeve dress shirt was half-hanging out of his
pants.
 
He had a drink in one hand, and,
for some odd reason, a baton in the other hand.
 
“I’m a married man now, Pop!” he said cheerfully as he lifted both his
baton and his drink in time with the loud rock music.
 
“Can you believe it brothers?
 
I have myself a wife now!”

“You
can also have yourself a hefty court fine for underage drinking.
 
Don’t you think you’ve had enough to drink?”
Brent asked him.

“No,
tight-ass,” Donald responded, and his brothers laughed.
 
“I do not think I’ve had too much to
drink!
 
In fact, I’m just getting
started.
 
This is a party, and I’m just
getting started.
 
How do you like
that?
 
This is my wedding day, big
brother.
 
My wedding day!
 
I’m supposed to get plastered!
 
Who could fault me?”

“Your
wife,” Brent said, “the one you were just reminding us how thrilled you were to
have, might find a little fault with that.”

“Especially
tonight,” Tony added.

But
Donald dismissed such caution.
 
He tried
to stand erect, but stumbled against his father.
 

Charles
placed a hand around his son’s waist.
 
“Settle down,” he said.

“Yes,
sir,” Donald said as he stood erect again.
 
Unlike his two older brothers, who took entirely after their father, he,
like Robert, was the spitting image of his mother.
 
Like Robert, he too had blonde hair and blue
eyes and a look about him that bordered more on pretty than handsome.
 
And he wasn’t just the youngest Sinatra, but
was the smallest one too.
 
He was skinny,
without an ounce of muscle.
 
The exact
opposite, in every way, of his father.

“I’m
settled now for sure,” he kept on talking.
 
“I’m married.
 
That automatically
makes me settled.
 
I know what I’m
doing.”

“Sure
you do,” Robert responded.

“Ah,
who are you to talk?
 
At least I have a
woman!
 
Who do you have, Bobby?
 
Who do you have?”

“Several
women,” Robert said with a smile.
 
“Just
like Pop.
 
I learned from the best.”

Brent
and Tony laughed.
 
But Donald found it
disgusting.
 
“Well, you can learn to be a
whore all you care to.
 
You can have all
the women you want.
 
You can have tons
and tons and tons.
 
But I’m not living my
life that way.
 
I have one woman, one
wife.
 
A brand new wife I love.
 
And I’m going to be an amazing husband to
that one woman, and an amazing father to our child.
 
I’m not going to be anything like Pop!”

Donald
didn’t realize what he had said, until he said it.
 
Robert, Tony, and Brent were mortified.
 
They all looked at their father.

Charles
was hurt, but he wasn’t about to reveal it to them.

“I
didn’t mean it like that, Dad,” Donald started saying, but Charles dismissed
any slight with the wave of his hand.

“Forget
it,” Charles said.

“I’m
drunk,” Donald said.
 
“Brent’s
right.
 
I’ve had far too much to drink.”

Charles
looked angrily at his youngest son.
 
“Don’t you dare create an excuse,” he said.
 
“You said it, you stand by it.”

Donald
swallowed hard.
 
“I didn’t mean---”

“The
worse kind of man in this world,” Charles continued, “is a man who doesn’t say
what he means, and means what he says.”

Donald
nodded.
 
“Yes, sir.
 
But I didn’t mean to. . .”
 
But his father continued to give him that
hard, chilling gaze.
 
He gave up trying
to excuse himself.
 
“Yes, sir,” he said.

But
just as he said it, they were interrupted by one of the partygoers.
 
“Bobby!” a man yelled from halfway across the
room, and over the loud music and conversation.

Robert
looked at him.
 
“Yeah, what do you want?”
he responded.

“A
man here to see you.”

Robert,
and his entire family, immediately looked toward the entrance.
 
An older man in a tight slim suit was
standing at the door.
 
Charles looked at
his son.

“I’ll
catch up with you guys later,” Robert said to his family, and then began
walking toward the entrance.

“Any
of you know that guy?” Charles asked as he watched his son leave.

“Never
seen him before,” Brent said, and Tony and Donald echoed him.

Charles
exhaled.
 
“Go and enjoy your reception,”
he said to Donald.

“But
Dad, about what I said---”

“Go
mingle,” Charles insisted.
 
“What are you
hanging around me for anyway?
 
Go.
 
All of you.
 
Go have some fun.”

“You
sure?” Tony asked him.

“Positive.
 
Go.”

They
slowly began to move away, but they also kept looking back at their
father.
 
Especially Tony.
  
But he kept it moving too.
 
Charles even saw Tony hit Donald upside his
head.
 
“Idiot!” he heard him say.
 
“Now he ran us off!”

They
were all grown sons.
 
Donald was the
youngest at eighteen, and Brent was the oldest at twenty-two.
 
But in a lot of ways, whenever they were
around Charles, he felt as if they were still the little kids he used to take
white water rafting and moose hunting.

He
moved around the crowd, not mingling much himself, until he found an empty
seating area near the floor-to-ceiling windows.
 
He walked over to that area and stood at the window, looking out across
the busy highway, and sipped from his dwindling drink.
 
Then he searched out and found the main
reason he was at that window at all: his son.
 
Robert stood outside of that ballroom, on the hotel’s patio, talking to
the man in the slim suit.
 

They
seemed to be arguing at first, but then they calmed back down and began talking
civilly.
 
Soon, they seemed to come to
some agreement and then slim suit went his separate way, and Robert headed back
inside the ballroom.
 
Charles looked over
at him as he entered, as he straightened up his tie and pulled on his tux, and
then he headed back to mingle with the other partygoers.
 

Of
all of his sons, his two youngest, Donald and Robert, worried him the
most.
 
Tony had his issues, he had, after
all, dropped out of college yet again last term, but he was overall a good
kid.
 
And Brent was his own man, as
tough, Charles believed, as Charles himself.
 
But Robert and Donald were different.
 
He didn’t know if they were leaders yet.
 
They were of age, they were eighteen and nineteen respectively, but he
didn’t know if they fully understood that they were men now.
 
When he was nineteen, he was a father of
three children, and was working three jobs.
 
But he also knew that it was a different day and time back then.