Mick Sinatra: No Love. No Peace. (The Mick Sinatra Series Book 9) Read online

  MICK SINATRA

  NO LOVE. NO PEACE.

  BY

  MALLORY MONROE

  Copyright©2017 Mallory Monroe

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  AUSTIN BROOK PUBLISHING

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  THE AUTHOR AND AUSTIN BROOK PUBLISHING.

  This novel is a work of fiction. All characters are fictitious. Any similarities to anyone living or dead are completely accidental. The specific mention of known places or venues are not meant to be exact replicas of those places, but are purposely embellished or imagined for the story’s sake.

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  Young Mick Sinatra

  The Trans Am sped up, swerved to the curb in front of Leon’s poolhall, and came to a stop. Young Mick Sinatra, in his do-rag, knee-high leather jacket, and knuckle gloves, stepped out of the sportscar like a man on a mission. His lieutenant, a muscle-headed ex-con named Santo Vichy, stepped out, too, and got behind Mick. Although nobody in that West Philadelphia neighborhood knew Santo that well, they all knew Mick the Tick very well and made a point of speaking to him even if through clenched teeth. The men hanging around Leon’s did too. Not because they liked him: they couldn’t stand his ass. But they all knew, because most of the people who hung around Leon’s poolhall were thugs themselves, that Mick the Tick was one mean Italian you didn’t want to fuck with.

  “What up?” The young dude who kept watch at the door didn’t like Mick either, but he had enough sense to keep it to himself.

  Mick ignored him, which was fine by the young dude, and he and Santo made their way into the poolhall. Most of the mob guys who came around Leon’s were good guys: friends even. But not Mick. While most who came around would smile and put on a friendly face, going along to get along, Mick didn’t give a shit. He wasn’t there to make friends. He was there to collect his money.

  There was only one game going, near the center of the poolhall, and Mick and Santo made their way toward those guys. They were the men in the know, unlike all of those hangers-on and flunkies that sat against the walls in dilapidated chairs sucking up every word the big men spewed. But Mick needed the biggest man.

  He walked up to the table just as a badass named Rooni aimed his cue stick and broke game. The racked balls un-racked and went sailing across the table toward the various holes. The only ball with a chance of falling in, the red one in the left corner pocket, was the ball Mick snatched up mid-roll and stopped in its track.

  Rooni stood erect. He was a big man himself, black as a shoe, with a lot of street cred too. He wanted to slam that pool stick across Mick’s thick skull so badly he could taste it. But he knew he couldn’t set that fucker straight, and live to tell about it. “What you want?” he asked him.

  “Jay here?” Mick asked.

  Rooni frowned. “What’s it to your ass?”

  Mick didn’t respond. He began tossing the ball in the air with one of his knuckle-gloved hands, and stared at Rooni as if he was diagnosing him; as if he was looking to see just what the cure for that ailment called Disrespect could be. Even Mick’s sleepy eye, the one the women thought was so damn sexy, was wide open. “Jay here?” he asked again.

  When Rooni fixed his mouth to make another smart remark instead of answering the question, Mick’s anger flared from out of nowhere. He threw that red pool ball at Rooni so violently that it split Rooni’s lip and knocked out his front teeth. The men against the wall gasped with words like damn! and shit! and rose quickly, in a defensive, fight-or-flight stance. They knew the only reason Rooni didn’t hit the floor was because he held onto the pool table. They knew the only reason Rooni was still alive was because Mick the Tick wasn’t there for that.

  But Mick was leaned over the table, ready to inflict more damage if he had to. And he asked Rooni for the last time. “Is Jacky here, you slumped-mouth motherfucker?!” he yelled.

  Rooni was burning with rage. He looked at Mick with the look of a man who would love to catch his ass in an alley alone. The men were looking at Rooni, too, and were feeling the same way. But they were hoping Roon wouldn’t go there. They liked a fight as well as the next guy, but not with Mick the Tick and his all-out, crazy-ass self.

  To their relief, Rooni came to his senses in time. “Yeah,” was all he would say in answer to Mick’s question, but everybody knew it was enough to deescalate the crisis. Even Santo, who liked a fight more than most, was relieved. They were outnumbered and outgunned, although that never seemed to stop his boss.

  Mick stood erect. “Where?” he asked.

  Rooni hated that he still had to deal with that fucker at all. But he motioned, with his head, toward the back room.

  Mick stared at Rooni a moment longer, to make sure he got the message, and then lumbered his way toward the backroom. Santo stared at all of them, to make sure nobody was even thinking about making any false moves, and followed Mick.

  When they left the main room, one of the men against the wall, a blood-lusting young blood, looked disappointingly at Rooni. “You gonna let that Rocky-Balboa-mafucker get away with that, Roon?” he asked him. “You gonna let him get away with that, though?”

  Rooni angrily looked at the young man, as if he was the real source of his despair, and then picked up the now bloody red ball and threw it violently at the young man, missing his head by mere half-inch. The young man, startled, looked at Rooni; and then looked with horror at the ball that could have taken him out. The ball had been thrown so hard that it wedged into the paneled wall like grotesque artwork, and stuck.

  As Mick and Santo made their way down the long back hall, Mick had no idea what had happened up front and how horrified the young man was feeling. But he felt like the biggest asshole alive. He hated what he allowed his crazy-ass temper to do to Rooni; he had no real gripe with the guy. But he had a reputation to uphold, and Rooni should have known better. He knew you didn’t backtalk Mick the Tick. He knew you didn’t try to get smart-ass with a guy like him. What the fuck was his problem? But even the reality of their street rules didn’t make Mick feel any better. He knew he didn’t have to go that hard.
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  But he never learned how to calibrate. There was no middle ground for him. He either went hard, or didn’t go at all. All-out war, or no war. Total peace, or no peace. He stayed alive, he felt, because everybody understood that dangerous quirk about him.

  The man he had come to see, Jacky Flam, was sitting in the office at the end of the hall. He and his two goons were looking at some Michael Jordan highlight reel on the 12-inch TV that sat high atop a file cabinet, and they were ooh-ing and ah-ing and high-fiving at every move Jordan made. They were unsuspecting fools. The door was even open: that was how comfortable they were back there. That was how sure Jacky Flam was that no motherfucker in that neighborhood had the balls to take him on. His only problem: Mick wasn’t from that neighborhood. Mick walked right on in.

  Jacky was the first to see him, and immediately the look on his dark face changed. “Mick the Ticking time bomb,” he said with his best fake smile, and his goons quickly stood up when they heard that name. They knew about Mick’s rep, too, but they had reps of their own. And a job to uphold. Protecting Jacky was their job.

  Protecting Mick was Santo’s job, although he felt as if they had just walked into an impossible situation. But he stood by the door. He had Mick’s back.

  Jacky smiled at Mick. “What brings your ass to the southside?” he asked him. “Santo said you was out of town.” He looked at Santo. “Am I right?” Then he looked at Mick. “Santo said you had to take care of some business and was out of town. He said you was out of town.”

  “I’m back in town now,” Mick said. “So what are you going on and on about that for?”

  “I was just telling you what Santo said.”

  “You told me. “

  “I know I told you. But I thought you were out of town, that’s the point. Santo said you were out of town, and I took him at his word.”

  Mick was tired of this shit. He closed and then locked the door behind them. When he turned back around, he saw where the goons had placed their hands in position to draw their weapons. What they didn’t realize: Mick had already drawn his weapon when he turned to lock the door. “Where’s my money?” he asked Jacky Flam. “Fuck that shit about what Santo told you. Where’s my fucking money?”

  Jacky tried to smile it off. “I was gonna have it right here for you today, Mick. I swear I was. Ask anybody! But I thought you were out of town still, and my people didn’t come through yet.”

  Mick shook his head. “Nope,” he said.

  “Nope? What does that mean? Nope?”

  “That’s not going to work, that’s what the fuck it means. I want my money. And I want it right now!”

  “What are you talking about?” one of the goons had the nerve to ask. “You heard, Boss. You heard what the man said. Read his lips: he ain’t got it.” Mick could see both goons make moves for their weapons. The goon on the right, in fact, was about to pull his piece out. “What part of he don’t have it don’t you understand?”

  The goon to his right pulled out his gun, taking Santo completely by surprise. But Mick, suddenly revealing the J-frame pistol he had in the palm of his hand, shot the goon through the throat. The goon to his left was quickly reaching for his weapon, as Santo was reaching for his weapon, too, but Mick was faster than both of them. He shot the second goon between his eyes. Santo finally pulled out his piece and shot him again, just for good measure, but he was getting pretty useless to Mick.

  But Jacky, stunned that Mick had taken out both of his guys, rose to his feet in fear and shock. “Now, Mick, wait a minute,” he said as he began backing back against the window. “I didn’t tell them to pull guns. You know me! You know I wouldn’t do that to you. I never told them to pull no fucking guns!”

  But Jacky was an old hand with thugs like Mick. He could tell by that look on Mick’s face that he wasn’t trying to hear any cry of innocence. Jacky knew he couldn’t fight, not a fucker like Mick, and not with Santo right there, so he decided on flight. He hurried to the window behind his desk and foolishly tried to lift it up. But Mick jumped over the desk, hurried up to Jacky, and then slammed his head all the way through the glass of the window, shattering the glass and bloodying Jacky’s head. He put his gun against Jacky’s face. “Where’s my money? You hear me? Where’s my fucking money? I’m not asking your ass again!”

  Jacky’s entire voice sounded like a plea. “I’ll get it,” he pleaded. “I promise you, Mick. I never stiffed you before. All these years you been collecting from me and I never stiffed you once! You never had to come down here to get your money from me. I never stiffed you in all these years, Mick, not one time! I’ll have it, I’ll have it tomorrow. This time tomorrow. I swear I will. I’ll have every cent!”

  Knocks were heard on the office door. Then Rooni’s voice. “You alright in there, Jack? Jacky?”

  Mick pointed the gun harder against Jacky’s face, and Santo stood at the door ready to open it and fire.

  But Jacky got the message. “I’m alright,” he yelled back at Rooni.

  “What you doing in there though?” Rooni asked.

  “What the fuck is it to you? I’m handling my business. Keep your ass out of it!”

  It wasn’t as if Rooni and the others wanted to get in it, anyway. They didn’t work for Jacky Flam. They had their own hustles going. They headed back up front where they belonged.

  Mick stared at the man whose life was now in his hands. He and Jacky had been doing business for a long time. They were once teenagers slinging drugs on street corners together, that was how far back they went. Now they were both in their twenties still trying to find a place for themselves in this harsh and cruel world. And both were still young enough to distinguish business from rage.

  Jacky, for Mick, was good business. He removed his gun from Jacky’s face. “I’ll be back tomorrow,” Mick said. “You fuck with me again,” he added, “you’ll be joining your goons.”

  Relief washed over Jacky’s face. “I’ll have it tomorrow,” he said. “I keep my word. You know I keep my word.”

  Mick knew he was just blowing smoke. Thugs like Jacky didn’t know the meaning of keeping your word. But they’d done some big deals in the past. It wasn’t his word, but that past history, that kept his ass alive.

  Mick looked at the TV just as Jordan leaped from the foul line with a slam dunk that not only had Jordan’s tongue wagging out of his mouth, but had the commentators who were calling the play flapping their chops in adoration. “Jordan slammed it home! Jordan slammed it home! Michael Jordan slammed it home again, folks!”

  Mick wondered how the hell could anybody jump that high, and then he and Santo left the office.

  But Jacky didn’t give a fuck what Michael Jordan slammed home. He didn’t give a fuck how high he was jumping. He angrily slammed his fist into a side wall. He felt so humiliated, and was so enraged, that he could barely see straight. He looked at his crew, two goons he thought could handle anybody, and fumed even more. But he saw his way clear enough to pick up the phone, and give a shout-out to one of his associates.

  “I want you to get a group together,” he ordered. “I have a job I need you to handle. And you’d better handle it right!”

  ****

  Bella Caine sat in her Audi in the driveway of the bungalow-styled home on the outskirts of town. She was a beautiful African-American model in high demand; a woman who could have her pick of the litter, and ended up picking Mick. She gave him back, when she realized he was a man who couldn’t be depended on. But the lasting marks of that relationship were real, in the form of her own broken heart and their beautiful little girl Gloria, who sat on the passenger seat beside Bella. And even with a child this wonderful, she thought, Mick still couldn’t be depended on!

  She looked at Gloria. They’d already been waiting for well over an hour, and it was getting dark. “Think we should go, sweetie?” she asked her little girl.

  Gloria looked her big eyes up at her beautiful mother. Even she, despite her young age, had enough sense to know that
this wasn’t normal; that little girls shouldn’t have to track down their own fathers. “If we leave,” Gloria said, “I won’t get to see him for another long time.”

  It broke Bella’s heart that her precious baby had to go through this. She could just kill Mick!

  “Why doesn’t he come around more, Mommy?” Gloria asked. “Why doesn’t he like us?”

  Bella looked at her little biracial child who had her father’s eyes. “This isn’t about how he feels about you,” she said. “Your father loves you, baby. He loves you very much.”

  Gloria looked as if her hope had been confirmed. “He does?” she asked.

  Bella nodded. “Yes! Of course, he does! Don’t let anybody ever tell you otherwise. He loves you. Don’t you ever forget that.”

  Gloria, who was barely old enough to formulate compound sentences, let alone deep thought, thought about what her mother had just said. It still didn’t seem as cut and dry to her as her mother was making it out to be. Then she looked at her mother again. “Does he love you, too?” she asked.

  Bella hated to draw her daughter into her and Mick’s nightmare. “We aren’t together anymore,” she said as if that said it all. But when Gloria continued to stare at her, as if that didn’t say a thing, Bella exhaled. “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “Sometimes he does. Sometimes he doesn’t.”

  But Gloria would not relent. “Do you love him?” she asked.

  Bella hesitated. She really didn’t want to have this conversation with her child. But she wasn’t going to lie to her, either. “Yes,” she admitted. “Am I disappointed in him, which I think is what you’re really asking? The answer to that question is also yes.” Then she tried to explain it clearer. “Sometimes people you love don’t live up to the person you know they can be. Sometimes they let you down.”

  “Like Daddy?”

  Bella nodded painfully. “Yes. Like Daddy.”

  Gloria thought about it some more. Bella loved that she was a thoughtful child, but her constant questions as a result of those thoughts were a little infuriating too. “I think he loves me,” Gloria concluded.