Big Daddy Sinatra: Charles In Charge (Big Daddy Sinatra Series Book 6) Read online

  The house was at least livable and surprisingly clean considering the condition of the porch, Charles noticed, as Jesse dropped his wood in front of the fireplace. He began removing his gloves as he pointed to the cause of the leak. Charles removed his shades and looked up too.

  More like a hole was an understatement. Shania was right. The size of a basketball pretty much summed it up. It was a massive opening in the living room ceiling, right near that fireplace, and Charles could actually see a sizeable portion of the sky through the shabby tarp that tried to cover it up. He looked at Jesse. He was amazed that he was just being notified. “When did this happen?” he asked him.

  “A few months back I had a leak,” Jesse said. “So I went up on the roof to try and patch it myself, since waiting for any of your people to show up is like waiting for the tooth fairy. It caved in when I tried to hammer in a shingle.”

  But Charles heard what he said. “This happened a few months ago?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” Jesse said. “So?”

  “So why didn’t you call my office when it first happened, Jesse?”

  “Because I didn’t mind it so much then. It brought in a cool breeze. But winter’s coming, and we ain’t gonna need any cool breezes.”

  These yahoos, these yahoos, Charles thought irritatingly. He exhaled, put back on his shades, and began heading out. “I’ll get a crew on it,” he said as he walked.

  But Jesse wanted more. “When?” he asked.

  Charles looked back at him. “When they can get here,” he replied. “You should have phoned it in when you first had an issue and when it was just a one-man job. Now it’s’ a big-ass problem that’s going to require an entire crew. I’ll send one over when one can get over here.”

  “I was only looking out for you,” Jesse said, which was laughable to Charles.

  “Oh, yeah?” Charles asked as he kept walking.

  “I’m telling you the truth,” Jesse said, following Charles. “You have too much property. You know that, Big Daddy? You own this whole town. Everybody who works for you say they’re stretched too thin because of all the properties you own. So I figured, since my house ain’t one of those ritzy places, I would be last on the totem pole, anyway. I figured I’d give your guys a break.”

  Charles ignored that comment. Everybody was always claiming he owned the town, he owned too many properties, blah, blah, blah. That was why they first started calling him Big Daddy. It was a play on Big Brother and wasn’t meant, by any stretch, as a compliment. It morphed, over the years, to just being his nickname. But Charles knew the original origin.

  But when he and Jesse walked out of the house and onto the porch, a nickname became the last thing on Charles’s mind. His adopted daughter’s name became front and center. Because she had just walked up and was standing right in front of him.

  “Ashley?” he asked, as if he couldn’t believe it was her. He removed his shades, as if he was seeing a mirage.

  Ashley Sinatra had just walked from around the side of the house with Shania. Shania was pushing a wheelbarrow filled with firewood, and Ashley, even though she was decked out in Dior head to toe, had a few logs in her skinny arms too. But when she saw her father standing on that porch, she nearly dropped her load. She had not expected to see him at all. She was careful that way. Especially since she worked for him and had phoned in sick. She decided to smile and play it off. “Hey, Daddy!”

  But Charles was not playing along. “What are you doing here?” he asked her, his frown a fixture on his face.

  “What’s the big deal?” Jesse asked as he moved from behind Charles and walked sideways down the steps and over to Ashley. He saw this as his moment. This was his chance to get the better of Big Daddy. “She’s my woman,” he said. “Why wouldn’t she be at my house?”

  Ashley would have preferred a subtler way to tell her father, because she knew how he was.

  And she was right. Charles looked at Jesse as if he’d lost his mind. “Your woman?” he asked him.

  “Don’t pay him any mind, Dad,” Ashley said, knowing that her father’s temper was rising. “We’ll talk about it later.”

  But Jesse was more than eager to talk about it now. “That’s what I said,” he said, placing his arm around Ashley as if she was some trophy he’d won. He knew Big Daddy Sinatra would hate the fact that a man like him was fucking his daughter. “She’s my woman. Your daughter is my woman. You got a problem with that?”

  Ashley jerked away from his embrace. “Knock it off, Jess,” she said frowningly. “I was sick,” she said to her father, “that’s why I didn’t go to work today. But I started feeling better. And since Jesse needed some help around the house, I decided to help him out. That’s all. We’ll talk later.”

  Charles was disgusted that she’d fall for this clown. She should have known better than to hook up with a loser like Jesse Colbert. But the ladies loved his arrogant butt. Charles would never understand why, but they did.

  “See that you get that man over here to repair my roof, Big Daddy,” Jesse said with a smile and in a tone that everybody listening knew was only utilized to get a rise out of Charles.

  Charles looked at him, made a mental note to tell his “man” to put Jesse’s house repair last on his list, and then headed for his Jag. When he got in, he tossed his repair booklet on his dashboard without bothering to put in an entry, flung his gear in reverse, and began backing out fast.

  As Charles backed out, Jesse looked at Ashley with clenched teeth. “Why you wanna show me up in front of your old man?” he asked her. “Who the fuck you think you were talking to? Hun, Ash?” And then he backslapped her the same way he had backslapped his daughter. “You better watch yourself, bitch!” he yelled.

  Charles had backed out to the road, and was about to switch gears and take off, when he saw Jesse backslap Ashley. That fool had backslapped Charles’s daughter! If he wanted a rise out of Big Daddy, that stupid move was the move to make.

  Although Ashley pushed Jesse away from her after he slapped her, that didn’t matter to Charles. He flung his gear from Reverse to Drive, floored his gas pedal, and sped back onto Jesse’s property so fast that by the time Jesse bothered to look, the car was racing straight toward him. Ashley and Shania were shocked when Charles didn’t stop, but sideswiped Jesse enough that Jesse’s entire body flew over the hood of the car and landed in the dirt.

  But Charles wasn’t finished with his ass. He got out of the car, hurried over and lifted Jesse up by the catch of his collar, and punched him repeatedly in his pinched face. “Hit a man, motherfucker!” he yelled as he continued punching him. “Hit a man!”

  Jesse was flailing, trying to fight back, but it was like a boy trying to fight a man. It was no contest. Charles stopped hitting him and pushed his sorry ass away from him. Jesse fell to the dirt like a rag doll. Ashley and Shania, still stunned, looked from Jesse to Charles. They didn’t seem to know what to do.

  Charles was breathing heavily. He knew what to do. “Get in the car,” he ordered Ashley, and began getting in himself.

  At first, it appeared as if Ashley was going to run to Jesse instead. But she knew her father. She got in the car.

  As they drove away, Shania just stared at Charles. This man beat her mean daddy, and her daddy didn’t do anything about it? She inwardly smiled. She’d never seen her father handled like that.

  But then her father started moaning and yelling for her to help him, what was wrong with her fat ass, and she ran to his aid.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Charles drove a considerable distance away from Jesse’s house before he even looked at Ashley. He was going to evict that bastard if it was the last thing he did, was all he could think about. But when he looked at Ashley and saw how confused and hurt she was, he angrily pulled over to the side of the country road, put his Jag in Park, and turned to her. “I know you’re a grown woman, Ash. If you want to be with that loser, help yourself. I don’t ever tell any of my children who they have to love. But
I will not have any man beating on any daughter of mine. You hear me? I won’t allow it.”

  Then he pointed his finger at her so close that she had to move back to avoid touching it. “Don’t you EVER, and I mean EVER, let a man lay a hand on you in violence. He touches you, you try to beat the shit out of him. If that fails, you call me or one of your brothers, and we’ll beat the shit out of his ass. You hear me?”

  Ashley knew her relationship with Jesse was toxic. She knew she could do better than him. But . . . “Yes, sir,” she said.

  Charles, however, could see the but all over her face. “What is it?” he asked her. “What is it about that loser that makes you so hesitant?”

  Ashley looked out of the side window. He wouldn’t understand!

  “What is it?” Charles asked again. “You love him?”

  Ashley looked at her father quickly. “Love him? No, I don’t love him!”

  Charles was lost. “Then what is it?”

  “He’s good,” Ashley said.

  “Good? That prick?”

  “In bed, Dad,” Ashley said, not at all surprised that he didn’t understand what she meant the first time.

  Charles looked at his daughter. She was a beautiful girl with soft brown skin, a happy disposition, and the kind of small, thin body those yahoos in Jericho seemed to crave. And she liked herself some men. But Charles could relate more than she would ever know. Because, before Jenay, he used to like himself some ladies. He used to fool around with most of them for that very reason too: they were good in bed. He understood more than Ashley realized. But that wasn’t the point. “I don’t care if he was great in bed,” he said, moving back in gear. “He assaulted you. And you’re going to report it.”

  Ashley was surprised. “Report it? To whom?”

  “Brent. The police. That bastard isn’t getting away with laying a hand on my child.”

  “But you hit him back for me,” Ashley pointed out.

  “That’s not good enough!” Charles responded. “I want a public record. I want your brother in on this.”

  Ashley leaned her head back in frustration. She knew, as soon as her father showed up, he wasn’t ever going to let well enough alone. He was going to get his revenge. Sinatras were notorious for it. From her uncle Mick to her aunt Amelia, they didn’t know how to let sleeping dogs lie. And her father, as their oldest sibling, was the leader of the pack.

  Charles continued to stare at her a moment longer. She and his son Donald were so much alike. They’d have great periods where they were no trouble at all. And then they’d fuck up big time. But she didn’t deserve to be abused by that man, he didn’t care what she’d done. She was going to handle that.

  He pulled back into the road, and headed for the police station.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “May I join you?”

  Norm Morgan gave a half-cocked smile. “Since your husband owns this joint, I would be a fool to say no.”

  “And if my husband didn’t own this joint?”

  Norm smiled even greater. “I would be a fool to say no.”

  Jenay laughed. “Good answer,” she said and sat down, with a cup of coffee in hand, at the table. Norm wasn’t just head chef and manager of the Jericho Inn restaurant, but he was also one of Jenay’s closest friends. They met in hospitality school in Boston, and she relied on him then, and still relied on him to tell it to her straight.

  “What’s bugging you?” Norm asked as he dipped his biscuit into his tea. “And don’t say you’re fine because you aren’t. I’ve known you too long.” He was a gay chef in a conservative town, but didn’t mask who he was.

  “We have three conventions next week. Three. A medical convention. A government workers’ convention. And a bikers’ convention. All happening at the same time. That’s never happened here before. I need this ship tight so that every one of those conventioneers will want to come back.”

  “But?” Norm asked.

  “I keep finding problems every time I turn around. As soon as I figure we’ve got the protocol right, I get a new wrinkle. A new hiccup. Another employee that has to be off that week. Not enough chairs for the Rose room. Not enough whiteboards for the Castle room. The wrong menu approved, by your staff by the way, for the Green room. It’s been one issue after another one. I don’t know, half the time, if I’m going or coming.”

  “Or,” Norm said, more to the point, he felt, “if that gorgeous hunk of husband of yours is going or coming.” He said this and then looked his blue eyes over at Jenay.

  Jenay was a boss on the job. She didn’t curry favors or allow any disrespect. But Norm was the one employee who was able to take liberties with her. Norm was the only employee who could cut through the crap, and still have a job at Jericho Inn. “Meaning?” she asked.

  “You and I go back a long way, Jenay. You gave me this job, and with it a new lease on life, when nobody else would give me shit. That’s why I’m not going to be cute about it. Is there trouble in paradise, Nay?” he asked her bluntly.

  Jenay hesitated, took a sip of her coffee, and then took another sip. “What do you know about it?”

  “I know, every time I ask Donald how his father is doing, he tells me he’s out of town again on business. That’s practically every week now for the past I don’t know how many months. And every time he’s out of town, you seem to be in a pissy mood. No disrespect, darling, you know me. But the truth is the truth. And I’m just wondering if there’s more to it than just business trips out of town.”

  “More to it? You mean if he’s cheating on me?”

  Norm didn’t mince words. “Yes,” he said.

  It had crossed Jenay’s mind, more times than she would ever admit, but she always dismissed such thoughts out of hand. “No,” she said. “He’s not cheating.”

  “You know this for a fact, do you?”

  “I hope that for a fact,” Jenay corrected him. “I’d be the fool of fools if I pretend to know what somebody else is doing one hundred percent of the time. But I know my boo. That’s not him.”

  “Then why the disenchantment?” Norm asked. “Why the worry and concern?”

  “I just want us to be strong,” she said. “I’ve seen too many marriages around here end in divorce because of stupid shit. I don’t want that to happen to us.”

  “With you involved, girl,” Norm said, “it won’t. You’ll make sure of that. But that husband of yours? That Big Daddy? I don’t know, Nay. He’s a tough row to hoe.”

  Jenay smiled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “He’s one of those alpha males, and a great-looking one at that. The ladies are going to want him. I’m sorry, but they are. And as wonderful a family man as Big Daddy is, I don’t put anything pass these females in this world. Couple that with a man who figures nobody can tell him anything about anything; a man who a powerful man like Mick Sinatra takes a backseat to, and you could have yourself a situation. Prayerfully not, but I’m just saying.”

  Jenay knew it too. She sipped more coffee.

  Then she heard that voice.

  “Jenay?”

  But it couldn’t be. She frowned.

  But when she looked at Norm, and his face was suddenly as white as a sheet, and he was staring in the direction of that voice, she knew she wasn’t hearing things.

  She slowly turned toward the sound. And standing there, as if all those years ago were just a day ago, was Percy Diallo.

  Her heart slammed against her chest and the cup of coffee she held in her hands turned sideways, and slowly poured out.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Jaguar stopped in one of the slanted parking spaces in front of the Jericho County Police Department, and Charles turned off his engine. But Ashley, as usual, had moved on. “That is so stupid,” she said. “You see that Dad? There’re more signs for Bobby’s opponent than there are for Bobby himself.”

  It was only when she said it did Charles notice it. Right in front of the station were many campaign posters signifying that
the town was going to hold a special election in three months to select the next mayor of Jericho. Charles’s son, Robert Sinatra, was the interim mayor competing for his first full term. He was running against Winston Kaiser, a local businessman known to be as ruthless as Big Daddy. But Robert’s incumbency hadn’t been enough to overcome the fact that he was a Sinatra in a town that felt the Sinatras had too much power already, a fact that Kaiser exploited mercilessly. And it was working. The polls were virtually deadlocked.

  “Why would Brent, the chief of police, allow his own brother’s opponent to put so many signs in front of the police station like this?” Ashley wanted to know. “If I ran the show, there’s no way Winston Kaiser would have the first sign anywhere near my office.”

  “And you’d be wrong,” Charles told her. “That’s why Brent is allowing it. He’s going out of his way to make sure Kaiser has more signs than Robert. He doesn’t like to show favoritism. You know that, Ash.”

  “I know,” Ashley said. “He and Tony, and Carly and Bonita, are your saint children. The rest of us? Me, Donald, and Robert?” She smiled. “I don’t know what you’d call us.”

  “I know what I’m calling you,” Charles said. “I’m calling you a woman who’s about to make a statement. To police. About that abusive-ass boyfriend of yours.”

  And just like that, Ashley’s smile left. “Do I have to, Dad?”

  “Yes, Ashley, you have to. He’s not getting away with that.”

  “Why do you keep saying that? You nearly killed him! He got the message not to touch me again. Why do you keep acting like he got away with something?”