Bobby Sinatra: In All the Wrong Places (The Rags to Romance Series Book 1) Read online

  BOBBY SINATRA:

  IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES

  (THE RAGS TO ROMANCE SERIES BOOK ONE)

  BY

  MALLORY MONROE

  Copyright©2019 Mallory Monroe

  All rights reserved. Any use of the materials contained in this book without the expressed written consent of the author and/or her affiliates, including scanning, uploading and downloading at file sharing and other sites, and distribution of this book by way of the Internet or any other means, is illegal and strictly prohibited.

  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.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  RAIN’S PROLOGUE

  BOBBY’S 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

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  EPILOGUE

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  BIG DADDY SINATRA SERIES

  IN ORDER:

  1. BIG DADDY SINATRA: THERE WAS A RUTHLESS MAN

  2. BIG DADDY SINATRA 2: IF I CAN’T HAVE YOU

  3. BIG DADDY SINATRA 3: THE BEST OF MY LOVE

  4. BIG DADDY SINATRA 4: CARLY’S CRY

  5. BIG DADDY SINATRA: PAPA DON’T PLAY

  6. BIG DADDY SINATRA: CHARLES IN CHARGE

  7. BIG DADDY SINATRA: BRINGING DOWN THE HAMMER

  RAIN’S PROLOGUE

  Eleven Years Earlier

  Why did I get in this stupid-ass car?

  I’m regretting it as soon as I sit down. Because once again he’s denying it. He always denies it. What made me think it was gonna be different this time?

  “Why you looking at me like that?”

  He always says that to me when his ass mess up. That’s his guilt coming out.

  “Yeah, I said it’s not true,” he’s saying. “Cause it’s not true! People tell you something and you run all up in my face with that bull like you believe them. When you gonna start believing me?”

  “When you stop lying. That’s when I’ll believe your ass. When you stop lying.”

  “I don’t be lying though.”

  “Boy please. You’re so full of shit you make me wanna puke.”

  “Then why your ass got in my car if I’m so terrible? Answer that, Rain. Why you wanna be with me if I’m that dude? I could have left you standing at that bus stop right alongside those other losers, but did I do that? No, I didn’t. I offered you a ride, and you took it. You took it. And been taking it for years. I ain’t got no gun to your head!”

  “Just tell me the truth, Tyrell. All I want you to do is tell the truth.”

  “I’m telling you the truth.”

  “Why would all those people be lying on you if you’re telling the truth?”

  I can see the guilt in his eyes, but he still wanna bullshit me. “People talk all the time,” he says. “You be all buried in them books. Reading shit that won’t amount to a hill of beans in your life. But I’m out here in the real world. And out here, people don’t be knowing shit, but they run their mouths anyway. They always got something to say. Your ass the one wrong for listening to all that. You know me, girl. You know I wouldn’t do nothing like that to you. You know me.”

  “I know your ass alright. I know all these people ain’t out here lying on your butt, I know that too. So, don’t even go there. I don’t even wanna hear that shit.

  “Stop cussin’ in front of the baby!”

  That’s another game he plays whenever I confront him. He tries to make it look like I’m the problem.

  “Every word out of your mouth a cuss word,” he says. “What’s wrong with you, though?” He looks through the rearview at our two-year-old sleeping in the backseat like he’s so concerned all of a sudden. And I’m so pissed I don’t know what to do. He can cheat on me, sell that shit he knows I hate, don’t hardly come and see this baby he’s suddenly so concerned about, but I say a few cuss words and I’m the bad one? When his own ass cuss all the time too?

  “Fuck you, Tyrell!” It’s juvenile, I know it is. My brain always knows what my heart won’t admit. But up until a couple years ago that’s exactly what I was. A juvenile. A seventeen-year-old child with a baby. And with a baby-daddy that wasn’t worth a damn then, and ain’t worth a damn now.

  But I still stay with his ass. Yes, I stay! Because I love him – so pathetic. But the fact that I’ve been taking his bullshit for all these years, and I’m still with his ass, says all you need to ever know about how I feel about myself.

  I look at him. I have so much pain in my heart I wanna cry out. But that would really show just how far I’ve come since he first cheated on me. Nowhere, in other words. But I have to know!

  “Is she pregnant?” I ask him that, because I heard that too. “Just tell me that, Ty. For once in your miserable life, just tell the truth. Is she gonna have your baby?”

  He doesn’t answer until he stops at a red light. Then he looks at me. Those big, brown eyes staring into my eyes reminds me why I fell so hard for him in the first place. It wasn’t his body- he was skinny as all get-out. It wasn’t his life plan cause his ass didn’t have one. It was those eyes. Those big, beautiful, soulful eyes.

  Then the earth shifts. He admits it!

  “Yes,” he says. “Alright? Yeah, I’m sleeping with her ass. Damn right she’s having my baby.”

  I stare at him, because he’s saying it like it don’t matter. Like my heart ain’t breaking. Deep down, I would have preferred the lie.

  It’s like he realizes it, too, when he sees the pain in my eyes, so he tries to soften the blow. Not for me. I’m not sure if he ever gave a damn about me. Nobody ever has, why should he be any different? But he’s doing it for himself, and this image he has of himself as some righteous
dude.

  “I’m just messing with you,” he says, and then tries to smile. To smile! I’m dying over here, and he’s smiling?

  “You said it’s true,” I say to him. My voice is softer now, because I can’t hide my hurt. “You said it was true.”

  “Yeah, I said that. But I only said it cause I know that’s what you wanna hear.”

  I know I shouldn’t let him take it back. I shouldn’t let him even go there. But my heart and brain, like I said, don’t get along so well.

  “You accuse me of being with her last night,” he says. “You claim I just left her bed a few minutes ago. So, I say fuck it. Believe what you wanna believe. But I can’t do that to you, Rain. I’m not that kind of dude. I’m not fooling around with that crazy girl. I don’t wanna have nothing to do with her. You the one I want. For real though.”

  I’m just staring at him now. And being the fool that I am for this fool, I wanna believe him. Can you believe that? I wanna believe this lying sonafabitch so bad I don’t say a word. I just stare at him.

  But he doesn’t like that either. “Stop looking at me like that,” he says to me. “It ain’t true, aw’ight? I was telling you what you wanted to hear. That’s what you wanted me to say. So, I said it. Girls like you ain’t gonna never be satisfied until y’all got y’all man like he’s some puppet admittin’ shit that ain’t even true. Just because people saying it. Fuck that shit. But you wanna believe those people, don’t you? Then go ‘head on. Believe all those so-called friends lying on me. They just jealous females who wish they had what you got, and you don’t even realize that. But believe’em all you want. Believe them over me! But one day I’m gonna get tired of your bullshit and leave your ass for good.”

  A car pulls up beside Tyrell’s car. It comes to a sudden stop, like the driver was gonna run the red light and had to slam on his brakes. Tyrell looks first and then I look too. But as soon as those tinted windows on that car roll down and I see this dude named Dance with hardware in his hand, and some other dudes with guns too, I’m unbuckling my seatbelt so fast I nearly snatch it off. All I can think about is my baby. All I can think about is these fools got guns, and I got my baby in this car!

  Tyrell sees the guns, too, and don’t press down his window. He yells, “fuck!” and slams on his gas petal. He speeds off so fast he throws me against the dashboard. A car’s coming through the same intersection we’re going through and Ty has to swerve hard to avoid broadsiding that bitch and throwing us both up out of here. But his swerve throws me again.

  But that’s the least of my worries. That car that was beside us is now speeding behind us and those niggas ain’t playing. They’re shooting! And Tyrell’s panicking.

  “Get down!” he’s yelling and pushing my head down. “Get down!”

  “But Ayden,” I’m yelling at him. “We got to get Ayden, Tyrell!”

  But then he slumps over sideways. And I’m screaming now. His big eyes are looking at me and he’s holding his stomach, like he can’t believe this shit. A bullet must have hit him. Or more than one bullet because he’s not moving at all. And in a split second the car is driving itself and before I can even think about reaching over Ty to steer the wheel, the car runs off the road and keeps going across what sounds like gravel until it runs smack into a tree that throws me again.

  I’m sad for Ty, and scared for Ty, but it’s my baby I got to protect. But when I look behind us, I see that car still coming. And I know what that means. I’m from the hood. I been around gangbangers all my life. They’re coming to make sure they finish the job. And to finish off any witnesses that might still be alive to tell. Witnesses like me!

  I jump over the front seat and start unbuckling my baby boy out of his car seat. I hear footsteps running toward Ty’s car as soon as I open the backdoor. We’re in a ditch and I’m small so I have to carry my baby up high and fight through knee-high water trying to make it to the woods in front of me. I’m praying because my grandma raised me in church and I know what God can do, but it’s not about won’t He do it, and all about God, you have to do it. You have to save my baby!

  But Dance and his boys are already at Tyrell’s car firing shot after shot like they’re crazy people, and me and my baby are just making it in the woods. But they had to have seen me. How could they not see a grown-ass woman running with a baby in her arms into the woods?

  But they don’t shoot at us. Or I don’t feel any shots coming our way. I don’t know which it is, I’m so scared. I just keep running!

  And then I hear police sirens. I’m no fan of cops, but I thank God they’re on their way this time because I know those fools aren’t foolish enough to hang around with cops coming. But any man who would kill another man? There’s no telling what he’ll do. I keep my ass in the woods.

  Then I realize a wonderful thing. He didn’t cry. My baby didn’t cry and give us away! I pull him down from against my chest to thank him. “Thank you, Ayden, for not crying. Thank you, baby, for not giving us away.”

  But that’s when I see the blood on my baby’s clothes. They shot me? Have I been shot and don’t even realize it, like in the movies? I look down at my blouse, and I see blood on it. Now I’m panicking for real and slinging that blouse up so I can feel where the bullet went. I know you can bleed-out if you don’t stop the flow. I know I have to stop the flow!

  But it’s not me. There’s nothing there. I feel nothing. It’s not my blood.

  But if it’s not my blood, is it Tyrell’s?

  Or is it . . .

  My heart stops. I tell you it stops when I look at my baby again. Now I know why he didn’t cry. I know why he didn’t give us away. I know whose blood it is!

  And I scream. I don’t give a fuck if they hear me. I scream and I scream.

  It can’t be true! It can’t be true!

  Then I slump to the earth.

  It just can’t.

  BOBBY’S PROLOGUE

  Another slick-ass motherfucker messing with my money.

  That’s all this run is about. Fucker gonna sell our shit and pocket the money and expect no retribution? He thinks that little of me? How many more out there thinking that little of me? How many more out there stiffing us too?

  We got to make an example of his ass!

  But that don’t mean I’m happy about it. I’m not. Especially when it’s one of my best dudes. Tyrell Jenkins. I like Ty. He’s been on our payroll for six months now and we never had problems with him. Until we started having problems with him.

  “I wouldn’t say that if I were you.”

  Those were the very first words Ty ever said to me. We were at Moby’s club. Moby is my boss and I was managing his club at the time. At least that’s what my family back in Jericho thought. They thought I was working in Boston managing a club. My old man was glad I was trying to do something different with my life. And I was, but that was only part of what my ass was up to.

  Ty heard me and my boys conversating about I don’t even remember what. But that’s when he says he wouldn’t say that if he were me.

  I remember looking at him, ready to check his ass. Smoke-black, good-looking dude all the ladies trying to get next to. “You wouldn’t say what if you were me?” I asked him.

  “Nigga. I wouldn’t say that word if I were you.”

  “And why not? Every nigga in this joint saying nigga. What exempts me?”

  “Just because you hang with the brothas,” he said, “don’t make you a brother. Some of these real brothas up in this bitch may take it personally. They may not think it’s what you call appropriate for a white boy like you trying to perpetrate. It’s like white folks calling themselves rednecks. That’s fine for them. It’s a term of endearment for them. But let my black ass go up in their trailer park calling them that, in a place where all around me are those aforementioned ‘necks, and I’ll just say it wouldn’t be advisable, to say the least. You using the term nigga like color don’t matter, ain’t advisable either. Know what I’m saying?”

 
I smiled. I knew what he was saying, although I didn’t agree with that shit. Arn Moby, the boss I work for, and the organization in which I am second-in-command, is black. All our guys are black. My best friend Gerard, my running partners, and many of the ladies I fool with: all black. But because he had the balls to clue me in, I took notice of him. And next thing I know he’s in my inner circle. Lots of laughs and good times we had together. He was a righteous dude.

  I met his girl Jureka many times. She’s cool as hell too. I also knew he had a baby from some side chick I never met, because he was trying to keep that shit from me. He knows I don’t like our guys getting caught up in that kind of two-timing drama. You don’t play with ladies’ hearts, I tell them. But that’s why he kept it from me. His ass would never listen to me, mainly because I didn’t exactly have a great track record myself when it came to ladies’ hearts.

  But this shit he pulled is unforgivable. Redirecting the boss’s stash for his own pockets? Selling our shit and not paying us? Is he out of his fucking mind?

  Our guys are driving in the front car, and me and Moby’s in the second car: the back car. We just found Ty’s ass, driving in his Beamer on Menard Street, after losing him for something like ten minutes. Now Ty’s back in our view, and our guys pull up beside his Beamer. They slam on brakes, causing the driver of the car I’m in, a bulldog-face dude name Max, to slams on brakes too. We’re still behind them, and the boss is impatient. He just wants them to pull Ty’s ass over and be done with it. He doesn’t like this side of town. Too white for his taste.

  Then the shit goes sideways.

  They were supposed to press down their windows, order Ty to pull over to the side of the road, and then bring his ass to the car me and boss are in.

  But it doesn’t happen that way. First, our guys have to show their hardware to get Ty’s attention, which pisses me off, too. It’s as if my guys rolling up on his ass isn’t enough to scare him. As if I’m not enough to scare him!

  But then, to make matters even worse, that fucker pulls off. He defies our guys and pull the fuck off! I can’t believe it. I never took Ty for a stupid man, what the fuck is he doing?