Monk Paletti: Commanding Love Read online

  MONK PALETTI 2

  COMMANDING LOVE

  BY

  MALLORY MONROE

  Copyright©2020 Mallory Monroe

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  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. The cover art are models. They are not the actual characters.

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  BIG DADDY SINATRA SERIES

  IN ORDER:

  1.BIG DADDY SINATRA: THERE WAS A RUTHLESS MAN

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

  3.BIG DADDY SINATRA: THE BEST OF MY LOVE

  4.BIG DADDY SINATRA: 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

  TEDDY SINATRA SERIES

  IN ORDER:

  1.TEDDY SINATRA: CHAINS FOR LOVE

  2.TEDDY SINATRA: HER PROTECTOR

  3. TEDDY SINATRA: A HOLD ON ME

  ALSO BY MALLORY MONROE:

  MAEBELLE MARIE

  AND

  ROMANCING MO RYAN

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  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

  CHAPTER ONE

  Old men talking old nonsense. That was how Monk saw it when he walked into the Don’s parlor and saw senior leadership gathered together again. Another problem with the city refusing to issue permits for their construction projects. Another city inspector raked over the coals because he had morals and refused to be corrupted by them. Another suggestion, by the Don himself, that they threaten to cement the guy and his whole family if he didn’t cooperate with what they perceived to be their reasonable demand: that he give them their permits and get the fuck out of their way.

  Francis “the Monk” Paletti was tired of it. But it was his life since he was a kid. And whenever the Don decided to make it official, it was going to be his world. He was soon to be installed as the head of the Bonaducci Crime Family. All of that shit was soon to be his problem.

  “The Monk is here!” Don Bonaducci said happily when Monk walked in. “Everybody, Frankie’s here!”

  They all spoke to Monk as he took his seat among them, but there was a severe split in senior leadership. Half hated Monk with a passionate hate. They thought the Don was leapfrogging him over the rest of them when they were much older than Monk and had been loyal to the family twice as long as Monk.

  But the other half of senior leadership loved Monk. They wanted their families safe. They wanted their businesses secure. They wanted to know they wouldn’t be the target of an assassin’s bullet because of the weak-kneed leadership they’d been subjected to ever since the Don’s age and bullet wounds forced him into retirement. That wing of the family saw Monk, with his steely toughness and cautious style, as their best bet. They were all onboard for a change.

  But either side’s love or hate for Monk wasn’t the issue to the Don. It wasn’t the issue to Monk either. All of them respected Monk because they knew what he was capable of. All of them feared Monk because they knew what he was capable of. That was the issue.

  But Raymond Paletti, Monk’s father and the current head of the family, the very man he would be supplanting as the new boss, would tell anybody the truth who asked him. Of Monk, of his own son, he wasn’t a fan. And it wasn’t about love and hate with Raymond either. It was about old school. It was about right and wrong. It was right for the father to lead the son. It was wrong for the son to even have the balls to lead his old man. But old man Bonaducci was running that end of the show. And he loved Monk. And he found Raymond’s leadership decisions sorely lacking. He hadn’t made any official announcement yet, nor had any installation ceremony been scheduled yet, but the Don had long since telegraphed his intentions. Even Raymond knew Monk as boss was inevitable.

  Not that Monk was looking forward to it. It wasn’t a career choice for Monk by any means. Had it been left up to him he never would have went anywhere near that profession. But it wasn’t left up to him. His old man introduced him to the mob when he was a little boy. He became a made man before he was even a man, at seventeen. And the fact that one day he would take the reins of leadership from the aging Don, and from his own irresponsible father, wasn’t a surprise to Monk. With his natural leadership ability, and with his father’s natural propensity for recklessness, even he knew, if the family was going to survive, he would have to take over. But for the first time in his life he was in love, and was actually considering a family with the girl. It could not have come at a worst time.

  “You’re late again, Frankie,” Bonaducci said. “Why you always running late?”

  “He had to drop his girlfriend off at the airport,” said Raymond in a voice dripping with sarcasm.

  Monk wanted to knock the shit out of him. That was his business and his old man knew better. He knew Monk didn’t discuss his private life with anybody. But that was Raymond, or Rain Man as they called him because of his poor decisions. He wasn’t the kind of man, or father, Monk could ever depend on.

  “This is whatta you call amazing,” Bonaducci said. “We went from Monk being just like what we nicknamed him, a monk, because he was never seen with a girl ever, to what are we calling you now? The playboy? Are you kidding me? Who’s the girl this time?”

  The hate crowd was laughing, and milking it up. “Yeah, I always knew that monk shit wasn’t real,” Boozer Rome, one of the leaders of the hate crowd, said with a grin. “Now we finally have evidence!”

  “Now, now, Monk is a good boy,” the Don said. “He ain’t like us. He don’t play that shit.”

  Boozer leaned against Raymond. “What does he know?” he whispered to the boss. “His old lady used to give pricks like DeGarno blow jobs every day of the week and he used to go around saying what good pals they were.” br />
  Raymond laughed out loud. Monk heard Boozer’s little comment, as did many others in the room. Maybe even the Don heard it himself.

  At least that was why Monk figured Bonaducci gave Raymond and Boozer a hateful look. “What’s so fucking funny?” he asked Raymond.

  “Nothing,” said Raymond. “Nothing at all.”

  Bonaducci looked a few seconds longer at Raymond and Boozer, and then he looked at Monk and smiled. “Tell me, Francis,” he said. He was in his wheelchair, with his attendant standing behind him to wheel him out quickly if he had another one of his coughing fits, and he was smiling too. They were all having fun at Monk’s expense. “You haven’t told me yet,” he added. “Who’s the girl this time? Who is it this time?”

  “It’s the same girl,” Raymond said. “She just left town.”

  “That black girl?” Bonaducci asked. “You’re still fooling around with that black girl?”

  Monk looked at the Don. He never took him for a racist. “What does the fact that she’s black have to do with it?”

  “It has nothing to do with it,” Bonaducci said. “You could have told me she was blue for all I care. But she ain’t Italian. That’s what I care about. All these nice Italian girls around here and you have to go pick yourself a mulignan. Which is your right. I got nothing against that. Some of the best fucks I ever had was from black women. But you don’t go making a big production out of it. You keep her nice and safe, and parade the Italian girl out front. That’s how it’s done.”

  “And you keep those same wonderful Italian girls down in the basement, where all of your wives are at this very moment, while you fuck ladies that aren’t your wives? Real classy. Got it.”

  Bonaducci gave Monk a hard look. That attitude of his, the holier than thou way about him, was the one thing that was holding him back from installing Monk today as the new boss of the family. Would he stop the guys from being guys? Would he cut all of the fun out? Would he expect them to live like monks too?

  “So what are you here for,” Raymond asked, looking hard at Monk too, “if not to have some fun?”

  Monk looked at the Don. “I just got the word from Newark,” he said. “Everything closed without a hitch. We own another city block.”

  Everybody in the room was happy. They began clapping and clanging their glasses of champagne. Even Raymond and the Don were impressed. “How did you pull that off when we can’t get permits to build around here?” the Don asked Monk.

  “I have my contacts,” Monk said, “and I know how to work the system. You have to know how to work the system. We’re in. We own another block.”

  The Don smiled. “That’s why you’re the best Francis. You know how to handle shit. You have brains with your brawn. You’re whatta you call brilliant. A genius compared to us.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” said Raymond, and everybody laughed.

  One of the Don’s assistants peeped in. “The ladies are here, sir,” he said.

  The men became even more animated. Some even began rubbing their hands together as if they were about to score in a poker game.

  Monk stood up. Those men’s wives were in the basement having their little cabal, while their husbands were upstairs about to fuck hookers. Monk wanted no parts of that. “I’ll bring over the paperwork as soon as the lawyers send it over,” Monk said.

  “Leaving so soon?” said Boozer Rome. “Your ass just got here.”

  “And my ass is just leaving,” said Monk, and he left without looking back.

  Raymond leaned over to the Don. “Sure you want him in charge? Bad mistake,” he warned.

  “Don’t you worry about that,” the Don said. “Just get those broads in here!”

  And the ladies came in. Raymond was smiling, too, but he was also taking peeps at Bonaducci. He expected him to be upset with Monk. He didn’t look upset to Raymond.

  And Monk didn’t care. He was long gone. He eventually made it to his big, empty home, went into his theater room, and began watching a movie so old it wasn’t even a talkie. He was there. His eyes were glued to the screen. But he didn’t see a thing.

  He was soon to be installed as the head of the Bonaducci Crime Family. He was soon to marry a woman so unlike him in so many ways that it was a startling attraction. And this from a man who swore off marriage with every breath in his body. His life was changing in ways he saw coming, and never saw coming. And he was scared to death.

  He’d never admit it to a living soul.

  But he was.

  His phone rang. Which was nothing new to Monk. It was always ringing. He wasn’t boss yet, but he was still underboss. And as underboss he was still in charge of all the day-to-day operations. But as he lifted his downturned phone to look at the Caller ID, he also knew it could be Ashley again. She’d already phoned him three times since she got on his plane to head back to Maine. He had just proposed to her before she hopped his plane, and she was still excited. But even if he hadn’t asked her to marry him, she would still be excited. Unlike any woman he’d ever been with, and he’d been very selective about the women he’d been with, Ashley was always excited about something regarding their union. She made him happy.

  But even that fact made Monk uneasy. He loved her, but at what price would it cost her, he wondered, for his love?

  But it wasn’t her. It was Crawley, one of the capos in the family.

  Monk leaned his head back. He was hoping not to be disturbed for once in his life. After the loudness of having somebody spending weeks in his house for the first time ever, and after that visit to the Don’s parlor, just a quiet day of reflection was what he was after. But he was soon to be the boss, whether he liked it or not. He’d better get used to double the trouble. He answered the call.

  “This better be worth bothering me,” he said into his phone.

  “We got eyeballs on Checky Lonza, Boss.”

  “Where?”

  “Dry cleaners on Park.”

  Monk knew that was one of Checky’s hangouts when he needed to lay low. “Is he alone?”

  “A couple guys with him. Paid bodyguards who we figure.”

  “Bodyguards,” said Monk, with bitterness in his voice. “His ass knows what he’s done, that’s why he’s got hired hardware.” He began rising from his seat. “I’m on my way. I’ll call when I’m nearby, and I want you to take off. If his bodyguards are worth a damn they would have tagged you by now.”

  “No can do, Boss,” Crawley said.

  Monk frowned. “No can do? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “The Don specifically ordered us to ride or die with you. Any assignment, we got to pick you up and stick by you like white on rice. His words. I’m on my way,” Crawley said, and ended the call.

  Monk’s jaw tightened at the thought of being manhandled like some delicate prom queen. What the fuck was Bonaducci thinking? Because he was soon to be the head of the family he had to be treated carefully? But Monk didn’t like that shit. He wasn’t like his old man. He could take care of himself. Had been taking care of himself his whole life.

  But he understood what his godfather was up to. Don Bonaducci wanted a smooth transition from father to son. He wanted Monk in one piece. Since Monk wanted it, too, and since it would have been fruitless to argue with the Don about it anyway, he let it be.

  Then his phone rang again. He looked at the Caller ID again.

  This time it was Ashley.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The jet touched down with a loud roar and spent several minutes in deceleration. Then the steps dropped down and Brent Sinatra smiled when he saw his kid sister walk out.

  “There she is,” his wife Makayla said, smiling too. “She looks different already.”

  “Think so?” Brent didn’t see it. “She looks the same to me.”

  “Oh, how would you know?” Makayla asked. “You don’t think I’ve changed, either, when I clearly have.”

  Brent looked at his wife. “Changed how?” He looked her up and down. “Y
ou’ve lost weight?”

  Makayla shook her head. Like Teddy Sinatra’s woman, she was a full-figured gal too. And it was always what seemed to define her to men: her curves. To them, if anything changed about her, it had to be more, or less, curves. “No, Brent,” she said. “I’m not talking about that kind of change. Women change when they’re in love. It’s a glow they have. Ashley has it.”

  “And you can see this glow all the way from over here, can you?”

  “Yes, I can. You could, too, if you knew what you were looking for. Ash is in love. And it shows.” And then Makayla laughed when Ashley saw them waiting for her and began waving and running down the steps of the plane toward Brent’s big four-door pickup. The man behind her, carrying her luggage, could hardly keep up.

  But Ashley Sinatra was happy. Makayla was right. She was happy and in love. Back in Jersey, before she boarded his plane, Monk had just put a ring on it. They agreed that she would take it off, however, until he had a chance to get to Maine and personally tell Ashley’s parents. They should be the first to know. But that was Monk. Old fashioned to his core. Ashley lived her life in color. Monk? In black and white. Right and wrong. Decently and in order. Her parents needed to know before any announcement was made because that, in Monk’s mind, was how it was done.

  Ashley thought it was kind of corny. Her parents were more hip about things like that than Monk gave them credit for. But she agreed to go along because it meant so much to Monk. “Kayla! Brent!” she yelled as she ran toward them.

  “The wild girl is back!” Brent said affectionately as she ran into his arms.

  She looked up in his sexy green eyes. They kissed. “Miss me?”

  “Like a man misses hemorrhoids,” Brent responded, and Makayla laughed. Ashley playfully pushed him away from her.

  “Hey, girl,” Ashley said to Makayla as they both hugged too. “Now I know you miss me. You miss all that good gossip I used to tell you.”

  “You know it,” Makayla said happily, as they hugged. Brent took her luggage from Monk’s man and the man made his way back to the plane.