Mick Sinatra_Heat Wave Read online

  MICK SINATRA

  HEAT WAVE

  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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  MICK SINATRA SERIES

  IN ORDER:

  1.MICK SINATRA: FOR ONCE IN MY LIFE

  2.MICK SINATRA: LOVE LIES AND JERICHO

  3.MICK SINATRA: HIS LADY, HIS CHILDREN, AND SAL

  4.MICK SINATRA: IF YOU DON’T KNOW ME BY NOW

  5.MICK SINATRA: THE HARDER THEY FALL

  6.MICK SINATRA: NOW WILL YOU WEEP

  7.MICK SINATRA: BREAKING MY HEART

  8.MICK SINATRA: LOVE AND SHADOWS

  9.MICK SINATRA: NO LOVE. NO PEACE.

  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

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  “Like it was yesterday.”

  JD sat his beer mug down, on the bar counter, and tapped the ash off of his cigarette.

  “It was real tense that day, because everybody in Jericho were on edge. His grandson, Brent Sinatra, was the chief of police and was in charge of Security. Which was a joke. What his small-town ass knew about Security? But he was in charge.”

  Another swig of his beer. Another drag on his cigarette.

  “I was on edge, too. Not because I was scared of those Jericho motherfuckers. But because I knew that town. Charles was king of Jericho. He ran that whole rathole. Still does to this day. Most of the town works for him, and they’re all scared of him. That was my concern. Luke killed Charles’s mother, and was about to be released from prison for that crime he paid dearly for. I didn’t want no shit from Charles, or his flunkies in that town. That was my concern.”

  Another drag on his cigarette.

  “I didn’t get any flack. Not from any of them anyway. Charles believed in the rule of law, and if the law said his father was a free man, and that he had served his time, he was going to uphold that law. I should have known not to worry about Charles pulling shit.”

  His look changed. It was already hard. Now it was menacing. “It was Mick’s ass I should have worried about.”

  There was a long pause, as if he was staring into the distance. Then he shook his head. “Like yesterday,” he said. “I remember every detail, every second, as if it just happened yesterday.”

  The day it happened, JD had been waiting in his car, an old Plymouth, that was parked down from the courthouse in Jericho, Maine. Luke Sinatra had just been exonerated, after decades in prison, because of what some crooked DA had done, and was walking down the courthouse steps a free man. JD was there to drive him to freedom.

  And then boom!

  It happened so suddenly that it seemed unreal, even to a seasoned pro like JD. Luke Sinatra was shot down like a dog on those courthouse steps, and the people screamed and scrambled, and ran for their lives.

  But not JD. He kept looking. He leaned forward, over his steering wheel, and searched the hell out of building tops, storefronts, that laundromat on the corner. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing!

  And then he saw him. At the end of the street. Mick the Tick Sinatra. In the backseat of some old-ass Town Car. Pulling his assault rifle back inside. He had killed his own father, and then drove away like it was just another day at the office. Like Luke was nothing to him.

  “Yep,” he said. “Mick the Tick was my problem.” Then JD rubbed his eyes, and then rubbed what was now his cigarette butt between his fingers, still staring into the distance, still remembering that day as if it happened yesterday. Then he smashed the butt into the ashtray and pushed it down with an anger within himself, until it became ash itself.

  Then he exhaled, as if he was steeling himself for battle. “I’ve got business with that motherfucker.” He drank the last of his beer, belched, and slammed the mug on the countertop. “But it ain’t gonna be the kind he’s used to.”

  He wiped the liquid from his lips, tossed a five-dollar bill on the counter, and walked out of the bar he owned. One of hundreds of businesses the disheveled, unfamiliar, talkative old billionaire owned.

  He got into that same rusty old Plymouth Barracuda he’d owned for decades, and drove away.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Two Months Later

  As the headlights of the big Cadillac Escalade tore through the fog and headed toward the docks, Joey Sinatra was glad his big brother was with him. Not because it was early morning, or cold as hell; or because he was scared: there was little that scared Joey Sinatra. But he was glad to have Teddy beside him because it was their father who was in that Escalade. Because whenever shit went wrong, Teddy knew how to reassure their father, and soften his blows. Joey wasn’t scared of much in this world. But he was terrified of his old man.

  Teddy Sinatra glanced at his skinny kid brother. He was moving around and behaving like some punk. Like a hot mess. But he knew Joey would never admit it. “You need to calm your ass down,” he said to him, “and take it easy.”

  But Joey, as he expected, was offended. “What are you talking? I am taking it easy. Why would you say something like that? This shit ain’t my fault!”

  “Just calm down, Joey.”

  “I am calmed down! Why you keeping putting that shit on me? Calm down. Calm down. Take it easy. Calm down. What do you keep saying that for? I am calmed!”

  Teddy rolled his big green eyes. Joey was shifting his weight from side to side, was hitting his hand against his pant leg in rapid succession as if he was keeping time in a band, and was a general asshole of a nervous wreck. Teddy knew their father was going to see that weakness in him as soon as he made it to the spot on the docks where they stood.

  But let Joey tell it, he was cool as a cucumber. Let Joey tell it, he had nerves of steel. Teddy took a final drag on his cigarette, and then tossed it into a wat
er puddle across the parking lot.

  Steel his ass, Teddy thought, as he wrapped his gloved hands around his big body, a body almost twice the size of his skinny kid brother’s, and placed those hands beneath his armpits. Teddy wore a suit, Armani like his old man always wore, but realized after he left his house that he should have grabbed an overcoat too. Now his ass was freezing. And Joey was getting on his last nerve. This was not a good morning.

  But Joey, being Joey, didn’t see a thing wrong with himself, or the fact that both his big brother and his father had to come to handle a part of the business he was responsible for. Joey, instead, was smiling at the cigarette Teddy discarded. A cigarette discarded just as the Escalade drove closer.

  “Yeah, I thought so,” Joey said, grinning and nodding his head. He wore big chains around his tattoo-covered neck; chains that clanged as he nodded, and baggy, hip-hop-styled clothing: big jeans, an oversized sweatshirt, and bright red Jordans. But unlike his brother, he was prepared for the weather: he wore a leather jacket too. “I knew as soon as you lit up you wasn’t going to let Dad see you take a single puff. Dad will kick your ass, and we both know it, if he sees you smoking that shit.”

  “Ah, fuck you, Joey,” Teddy said with irritation in his voice as he moved over to the left side of the parking lot, where the passenger side of the SUV would end up. “If it wasn’t for your stupid ass I wouldn’t have to be out in this cold this time of morning anyways. Daddy either. So watch it.”

  “You don’t tell me what to watch,” Joey said with equal irritation as he moved to the side too. “Telling me to watch it. You don’t tell me what to do.”

  “Actually, I do,” Teddy responded in a way that wasn’t meant to sound snarky, but did. He was Mick’s underboss. Joey, and everybody else in the intricately-woven Sinatra crime family, reported to him. “But fuck it now,” Teddy added. “Dad’s here.”

  As the Cadillac Escalade drove toward his two sons, Mick Sinatra, sitting on the front passenger seat, was pissed. He didn’t want to be there. It was the third morning in a row where he had to get out of his warm bed, and leave his warm woman, to deal with shit going wrong at the docks. One day it was a shipment error. The next day it was damaged goods. And now this.

  He pressed down the window as soon as the SUV rolled to a stop where his two sons were waiting. Teddy and Joey. As different as night and day. Whereas Teddy was a born leader of men, and great looking to boot; a son who wanted nothing more than to be like Mick, Joey was the direct opposite. Not particularly good looking. Not particularly a leader. Didn’t give a shit about being like anybody, especially his old man. But Joey was scrappy. That was why Mick took him on to run the docks. You needed to be as cunning and conniving as those slick-ass longshoremen could be. That was Joey.

  Although Mick loved both of his sons dearly, he loved both of them differently. If Joey was his heart, and he was, Teddy was his heart and brain. Mick viewed Teddy, for reasons even he couldn’t explain, as an extension of himself.

  “Which container?” Mick asked Ted, although Joey was in charge of the docks.

  “Number nine,” Teddy said.

  Mick only had to think for a moment. “Europe?”

  Teddy nodded. “Yes, sir. It shipped in from Europe.”

  Mick hated to hear that. “Any explanations from the crew onboard?”

  “No, sir. None.”

  “You’re telling me nobody saw anything suspicious at any port of call from Europe to here?”

  “Nobody,” Joey said. “And I grilled the shit out of the whole crew. Everything went without a hitch, they said. Everything was signed for. There were no issues at all.”

  “Only there was a big damn issue,” Teddy said. “They just didn’t catch it.”

  Mick sat there. He was thinking hard in that brooding way of his. Teddy and Joey were accustomed to their father’s pensive moods and didn’t interrupt his silence. They felt like a pair of dunces standing there; but they did it. Not for anybody else would they just stand there like that.

  But they always felt inadequate around their father. Even Teddy, who was the big man in the Sinatra crime family organization, felt lacking too. It was a childhood issue, dating back to their father’s general neglect and total absence in their lives when they were growing up, and they both knew it. And they were angry and embarrassed that it kept creeping in.

  The driver of the Escalade remained behind the wheel when Mick finally stopped thinking, and began getting out.

  “I ordered the crew to remain on site until you got here,” Teddy said as Mick climbed out.

  “I told Teddy that wasn’t necessary,” Joey interjected. “Those men have been sailing for weeks. They’re cold and tired and want to get home to their families.”

  “Fuck their families,” Mick said as he buttoned his Armani suit coat. “Nobody goes anywhere until I find out what went wrong.” He began heading toward the ships, with his sons hustling to keep pace. Like Teddy, he didn’t wear an overcoat either. But unlike Teddy, he didn’t need one. “They’re paid good money to be cold and tired.” He looked at Joey. “What the fuck I care about them being cold and tired? And until I find out where my shit went, you’d better not care either.” He stared at Joey. “Understood?”

  Joey knew what he meant. His father expected his sons to be in complete lockstep with him always. “Yes, sir,” Joey said belatedly, although Teddy could tell he hated when their father put him on the spot like that. Teddy reached over and placed an arm around Joey’s neck. Joey would normally jerk away from it, and Teddy would grin. He didn’t jerk away that morning.

  The big cargo ship in question was docked and waiting, with massive containers already unloaded onto the pier, while those bound for further port of calls still onboard. The unloaded containers were filled with the organization’s legal trade.

  The crew was also standing around and waiting: feeling like cargo themselves. They’d been all over Europe and back, and Joey was right. They wanted to go home to be with their families before they had to ship out again.

  But they also knew who they worked for. They knew they weren’t going anywhere until the boss said they could leave. And the boss wasn’t saying shit to them that early morning. Not with his shipment out of whack and their asses responsible for it. With his two sons close on his heels, and both of them looking, from what the crew could see, as terrified as they were, Mick made no eye contact with any of them as he boarded the massive ship. He and his sons headed downstairs.

  Once they made it down into the cargo hold, where his illegal trade shipment was housed, they walked over to number nine, the container batch in question, and Mick nodded. Joey quickly moved in front, swiped his keycard, and opened the outer shell of the container. Then he entered a combination, turned the lock, and then the huge container opened. It was an elaborate system, but given what they were hauling: a necessary one.

  The entire container was filled with steel rods rather than guns, and was so obviously wrong, weight-wise, that Mick wondered how in the world could the crew not catch it at port. He opened his suitcoat and placed his hands on his hips. “Damn,” he said with anger. This “mistake” was going to cost him upwards of ten million dollars.

  “Somebody should have caught this,” Teddy said, equally angry, as if he was channeling his father.

  But Joey disagreed. “How were they supposed to catch it, Teddy?” he asked. “Tell me that, Mister Genius? The bosses and their men in every port of call pack the crates and lock’em down. The crew’s not allowed to touch the stuff, don’t know what’s in those crates, don’t even have a key.”

  “They could have pointed out a problem from the weight alone,” Teddy said.

  “What are you nuts?” Joey asked. “You think those bosses are going to let some deckhand tell them what they should be packing? As I recall, it was on your orders that the crew not be informed about cargo to avoid any breaches. They know a mistake was made because I told them when they arrived back, but they don’t know
what that means. So how were they going to know something was wrong? Hun, Teddy? Hun, genius? Yeah, I thought so. Get the fuck out of my face!”

  “You get the fuck out of mine,” Teddy fired back. “I told your ass to have one capo on every ship with a keycard and the code; somebody who would know what we were carrying and if we had what we came for. I told you that months ago! This could have been caught at the scene if you would bother to follow my orders. But I see your ass didn’t follow them once again.”

  “Because that shit you be telling me to do ain’t practical!” Joey was seething with anger. “Do you realize how many shipments we have coming in and out of this dock every day? We’re in the import/export business. This is what we do down here! And you expect me to have one of Dad’s hotshot lieutenants on every ship? Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “Cut the bullshit,” Mick warned calmly enough for both sons to know next time wouldn’t be calm at all. “Which port in Europe packed number nine?” he asked.

  Joey exhaled. He was so tired of getting into it with his brother that it was affecting his ability to think straight. He couldn’t even remember who the sector chief was. He had to pull out his phone, go to the app, and look it up.

  Teddy wanted to say Joey should know that shit by heart, after all this time, but he held his tongue. He was tired of bickering with his kid brother too. They used to be thick as thieves. Real close. But after Mick made Teddy his underboss, their relationship began to strain.

  “Number nine is the Netherlands, Pop,” Joey finally said after looking through the ledger on his phone.

  “Where in the Netherlands?” Mick asked.

  Joey had to look at the app again. “Holland province,” he said. “In Amsterdam.”

  “That’s whose sector?” Teddy asked.

  “That’s Turk’s sector,” Mick said.

  “But it had to come through Rome first,” Joey noted.

  “Rome wouldn’t pull this shit,” Teddy said. “They’d been dealing with Pop for over a decade. There’s no way. But Turk and his crew? They’re newlyweds compared to Rome.”