What Hammer Wants Page 3

  But when she lifted up her head to look at him, to ask the very first one, he was already fast asleep.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “How do you know?” young JoJo asked his mother as he sat at the table and ate his bowl of cereal.

  “How do I know what?” Amelia responded. She sat at the table, too, drinking coffee and still in her bathrobe.

  “How do you know Daddy is the one who put me in my bed if you were sleep, too?”

  “Because, when I woke up, you weren’t in Daddy’s bed like you had been,” Amelia said. “I didn’t move you. You didn’t move yourself. Who else could it have been?”

  “Could have been his butler Watson,” JoJo said.

  “That’s Mister Watson to you,” Amelia said. “And why in the world would that man be putting you to bed? Does that make sense?”

  JoJo grinned. “No ma’am. But Nana could have!”

  Nana was the name JoJo called his nanny/bodyguard since birth, Rowena. But Amelia was shaking her head to that suggestion too. “Nope,” she said. “Nana wouldn’t come in Daddy’s room like that.” Then Amelia looked at her son who was looking more and more like the black version of his white father that it was almost amazing to her. “But can I ask you a question?”

  JoJo looked at her. His mother rarely asked him questions. “What?” he asked.

  “Why are you finding it so hard to believe that your father put you to bed last night when he got home? Why is that so remarkable to you?”

  JoJo scrunched up his face. “Because,” he said.

  “Because why?” Amelia asked.

  “Because he’s never around. He never does anything with me.”

  Amelia felt her son’s pain so deeply that she wanted to jump from that table and give him a big bear hug. It wasn’t just her that Hammer was neglecting. It was JoJo too. And that, alone, was going to be the straw that broke the camel’s back for Amelia. Even if Hammer didn’t think she deserved his full and undivided love, Amelia knew JoJo did.

  But she didn’t hug him or placate him. She wasn’t going to raise a sensitive, soft boy. She couldn’t. Not a boy with a father like Hammer, whose CIA involvement could always create problems for him. And Amelia was no saint herself. A part of her life, and her business, was lived in that underbelly too. And she was a Sinatra! JoJo had to be tough and able to fend for himself when he got older. Her way, she knew, made many other parents feel she was a cold mother to her son. But Amelia knew what life had to offer him. She wasn’t babying JoJo, not ever. “You’re right,” she said to him.

  JoJo stared at her. “I am?” He knew how his mother did not like any display of weakness.

  “Yes, you are,” Amelia said. “Your father is a very busy man. But that’s life, son. Sometimes people will do right by you. Sometimes they won’t. But guess what you’re going to do?”

  “Say it’s their loss and keep it moving?” JoJo asked.

  Amelia smiled. “Damn right,” she said.

  JoJo smiled, too, but Amelia knew neither one of them really meant it.

  Then JoJo looked up, past her, and smiled the biggest smile she’d seen on his face in a long time. “Daddy!” he cried, and hurried from the table.

  Amelia looked back and saw Hammer, in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt he had thrown on, coming into his massive, gourmet kitchen.

  “There’s the champ!” he said happily as JoJo jumped into his arms. Hammer pulled his son close against him and closed his eyes. He missed his son. He missed his son’s smile and voice and even his son’s wonderful scent. “How’s my baby been?” he said as he held him tightly against his chest. And Amelia saw when Hammer, his eyes already closed, squeezed them shut even tighter.

  Hammer squeezed his eyes shut because his son always reminded him of his failings. He had so many regrets in his life that it would take months to complete the list. But not being there for JoJo and Amelia the way he knew he should be, the way he knew the demands of his job wouldn’t allow him to be, were at the absolute top of that list.

  When father and son stopped their hard embrace, JoJo looked at his father. “Mommy said you put me in the other bed last night. Did you?”

  Hammer found that question curious. “I put you in your bed, yes. Why?”

  JoJo hesitated. He wasn’t as comfortable putting his feelings out there with his father the way he was with his mother. Instead of telling him why, he hunched his shoulders. And Hammer, as Amelia knew he would do, didn’t question him any further.

  He carried JoJo over to the table and leaned down and kissed Amelia on her lips. He lingered because he couldn’t forget their lovemaking earlier, and everything within him wanted to do her again.

  Then he sat down, with JoJo on his lap, in the chair his son had been sitting in. JoJo immediately continued to eat his cereal.

  “Want some coffee?” Amelia asked.

  “No, I’m good,” Hammer said and turned his full attention her way. “And good morning to you. Don’t you look wonderful.”

  Amelia’s hair was in a ponytail on top of her head, she wore no makeup, and she wore a bathrobe. “Sure buddy,” she said. “I’m a regular glamour queen.”

  Hammer grinned. “I wouldn’t go that far,” he said, and Amelia smiled and threw a napkin at him.

  “We came to surprise you, Daddy,” JoJo said, “but you weren’t home. Where were you?”

  Amelia looked at Hammer, too, when JoJo asked that question.

  Hammer hesitated, which Amelia knew meant he couldn’t say. “I had to take care of some business,” he said.

  “What kind of business?” JoJo asked.

  “Just business, boy,” Amelia said, “why are you asking your daddy that?”

  “I wanted to see him so bad, and he wasn’t here.”

  Amelia and Hammer exchanged a glance. “Well, I’m here now,” Hammer said and kissed him on the cheek. JoJo smiled and quickly wiped his cheek with the back of his fingers. Amelia and Hammer laughed.

  “Good morning, Director Reese. Good morning, Millie.” It was Rowena, JoJo’s nanny/bodyguard, coming into the kitchen.

  “Hey, Ro,” Amelia said.

  “Good morning, Ro,” said Hammer. “How are you?”

  “I’m good, sir. Alright, JoJo, it’s bath time.”

  But JoJo didn’t want to leave his father that quickly. “Already?” he asked.

  “Already,” Rowena said.

  “But I just got up,” said JoJo.

  “No backtalk, JoJo,” said Amelia. “Or I’ll backtalk you.”

  “Do I have to go, Daddy?” JoJo asked.

  “Boy, don’t you even try that!” said Amelia.

  “You heard mommy,” Hammer said, lifting JoJo off of him. “I’ll be here when you finish. How has everything been going with you, Ro?”

  “It’s going good, sir,” Rowena responded. “Was on the phone all morning trying to explain to that contractor that his men botched that back deck.”

  “What did they do to it?” Hammer asked. Amelia looked at him. He normally took zero interest in what was going on at her house in Baltimore.

  “It was supposed to be eight feet high. It’s in the contract and everything. They claim it is eight feet high. But I measured it,” Rowena said. “It’s barely six.”

  Hammer stretched his eyebrows. “Yeah, that would be an error for sure,” he said.

  “Daddy, after I take my bath will you play catch with me?” JoJo asked him.

  “Absolutely,” Hammer said, JoJo beamed, and he and Ro left the kitchen.

  “I didn’t even realize Ro was with you,” Hammer said.

  “Oh, yes. She’s an asset.” Then Amelia looked at Hammer. “I’m glad you have some time for Jo.”

  “I don’t necessarily have it,” Hammer admitted, “but I’m going to make some time.”

  “Where were you last night?” Amelia asked, and then looked at him.

  “I thought you said JoJo wasn’t to ask me that question,” Hammer said.

  “I’m not JoJo
,” said Amelia.

  Hammer leaned back. “Assignment,” he said, and Amelia understood what that meant. Then he leaned forward. The way Amelia looked at that moment, with no makeup or fancy hairdo, was sexy to Hammer. “What brings you all the way to Montreal?”

  “Your child misses you,” Amelia said.

  Hammer smiled. “JoJo hun? Just JoJo?”

  “Whatever, Hammer,” Amelia said and they both smiled.

  “I know your ass, Millie. What else brings you to my mountain?” Hammer asked.

  Amelia exhaled. “Something my brother said to me.”

  “Which one?”

  “Charles.”

  “Big Daddy Charles Sinatra! Now that’s a good man. Ruthless as all get out. But good. How’s he and Jenay getting along?”

  “They’re doing well. Charles will never give Jenay up. And I mean never. And vise-versa.”

  “Yeah, I know what that’s like,” Hammer said.

  Amelia looked at him. “Do you?”

  Hammer looked at her. “Yes. I said I did.”

  When Amelia looked doubtful, Hammer frowned. “What?” But, as usual, he didn’t wait for a response. Amelia knew he didn’t really want one. “And what did Big Daddy say to you?” he said to her instead.

  “He asked a question I’ve been wanting to ask,” Amelia said.

  “Which is?”

  “Do you plan on making an honest woman out of me, in so many words?”

  Hammer smiled, but Amelia could see it was forced. “He said that?”

  “Yes, he said that. I’m saying it too.”

  Hammer leaned back again. “We aren’t ready yet, babe,” he said. “You know that.”

  Amelia was a strong woman who would never let a man see her cry. But at that moment, she felt like crying. Because it was Hammer all but telling her she wasn’t good enough to be his wife. When was she going to get it through her thick skull?

  But getting it through her thick skull was her problem, and had been for some time. That was why, when he changed the subject, she let him. “How long do you guys plan on staying?” he asked her.

  “Why?”

  “The Secretary of Defense has called me to DC,” Hammer said, “but I should be back later this afternoon. Can you stay?”

  After the answer he gave her when she put it all out there? “Actually, no,” she said. “I’ve got a business to run, remember? I just wanted to make sure JoJo got to see you. He misses you.”

  Hammer stared at Amelia. He knew that was only part of the reason. But he told the truth. They weren’t ready to go down that road yet. “How’s business?” he asked her.

  “It’s okay,” Amelia said.

  “What’s it called again? Sinatra?”

  “Sinatra Solutions,” Amelia said.

  “A private investigations firm.”

  “Right.”

  Hammer knew better than that. “Right,” he said.

  “You make it sound sinister, Hammer. I don’t know why you always try to handle me like I’m one of your operatives.”

  “Didn’t mean to handle anybody. I was just making a statement.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Why are you getting so testy?”

  “I’m not getting testy. Why you always have to claim I’m getting upset when I stand up for myself?”

  “Oh, please,” Hammer said.

  “Yes, please,” said Amelia.

  Hammer knew his answer to one particular question was fueling her fire. He leaned forward. “Listen, Millie,” he started saying, but Amelia jumped up from her seat and grabbed her coffee cup and JoJo’s bowl and spoon.

  “I’d better take a shower and put on some clothes,” she said as she headed toward the sink. “No point in us hanging around here if you’re going to be in DC.” She placed the items in the sink and then hurried out of the kitchen altogether.

  Hammer leaned his head back. She knew he was bullshitting her. He told her we weren’t ready, when she knew darn well there was no we in it. He wasn’t ready. She knew it, and he knew it too.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The next morning and Amelia pulled up in the parking lot of Sinatra Solutions, her three-story business in Baltimore, Maryland, and got out of her Bentley. Although the business did exactly what it claimed to do: they tracked down missing people that their loved ones believed were the victims of foul play, but that the cops closed the books as runaways or voluntary absences. She had a staff of thirty-five investigators who worked those cases for her, and with good results. But Hammer was right. It was also a front company for her real money engine: Amelia was an intermediary that transported, via trucks, various “cargo” from ports of call to various pick up locations. Unlike her half-brother Mick Sinatra, the man known around the underworld as the boss of all bosses, she wasn’t the supplier who sold the items to the highest bidders when she got possession of them. Her people, instead, worked for the suppliers. They trucked the cargo to whomever already paid for them, and was given a cut. But she’d been having more than her share of problems with shipments lately.

  She grabbed her cup of coffee she picked up from McDonald’s, grabbed her briefcase, and headed into the lobby of her building. When she got on the elevator and made it upstairs to her office, her office manager, Sebastian “Seb” McGraw, followed her into her office.

  “If it’s not good news,” she said as she walked behind her desk, “I don’t want to hear it.” She plopped her briefcase down.

  “It’s great news actually,” Seb said and closed the door. “And bad news.” Then he smiled and looked at Amelia. “You sure be styling, girl,” he said as he looked at her favorably.

  Amelia was dressed in an ankle-length fur coat, flare-legged slacks, and stiletto boots. She also wore a fur hat. “Do you ever have a bad hair day?”

  “Give me the good first,” Amelia said.

  “All business all the time,” Seb said. “Why am I not surprised? But the good news. We found the Hernandez girl and the family is grateful.”

  Amelia was surprised. “That’s wonderful news, Seb. Where was she?”

  “In Arizona with this grown-ass man she met on the internet. The cops were called in and he’s been arrested for kidnapping. Her parents told me to personally thank you for helping them bring their daughter back home.”

  “That’s good,” Amelia said, taking a sip from her coffee. “I was worried about that one.”

  “You and me both,” said Seb.

  Then Amelia looked at her highly competent office manager. He was a tall, slender, handsome black man who was fast becoming Amelia’s true ride or die. Seb was somebody she could depend on. “Now hit me with the bad news.”

  “The trucks showed up to pick up the shipment.”

  “Not again, Seb. Don’t tell me they pulled that shit again!”

  “They pulled that shit again,” Seb said. “The ship arrived, our trucks were waiting for the pickup, but the shipment wasn’t onboard.”

  “I’ll be gotdamn!” Amelia said angrily. “What did Nate say?” Nate was her field supervisor.

  “He’s been calling Copenhagen,” Seb said, “but they don’t have any answers either.”

  “I had to cough up nearly three million dollars last month for that missing shipment that our asses still haven’t tracked down,” Amelia reminded Seb. “That nearly wiped me out as it is. Now it’s happening again? How much we owe this time?”

  “If we don’t find out who took that shipment, it’ll be four-and-a-half million this time, Millie.”

  Amelia couldn’t believe it.

  “And the amount is only half the problem,” said Seb.

  Amelia looked at him. “What do you mean?”

  Seb hesitated.

  “What, Seb, tell me?”

  “It’s the person who purchased that shipment.”

  Amelia realized it as soon as Seb said it. “It was that shipment?”

  Seb nodded. “Yes, ma’am. And you know Lenny Buckner, better known as Lenny the
Butcher, don’t play. He wants that shipment or, because it’s you, he says he won’t kill you if you return every dime of his money. But we’ve got to get one or the other and get it like now.”

  Amelia sat down. “Damn,” she said.

  “You know what you have to do, Millie.”

  But Amelia was shaking her head. “No way.”

  “Millie, you have to,” Seb said. “You have to call your brothers.”

  “Are you insane? I keep telling you that is never an option!”

  “But why not? They’ll give you the money, or handle it for you.”

  “They aren’t handling shit for me,” Amelia said. “Don’t you understand? They’ll kill me before they help me stay in the game.”

  “Your brother’s in the game,” Seb said. “Hell, he’s the biggest fish in the game!”

  “I know that. I’m not doing anything different than what Mick’s ass is doing, but because I’m their baby sister they want me untouchable and squeaky clean, when I haven’t been clean a day in my life. I was born in violence, was forced to marry a sadistic mob boss when I was a teenager, but they expect my corrupt ass to be squeaky clean.” She shook her head. “They think I’m running an investigations firm, which I am, and that’s the way I’m keeping it.”

  “Then you need to call Hammer.”

  “Hell no!” Amelia said with a frown. “Are you drugging? He’s worse than Mick and Big Daddy combined! He’ll want to take my child from me if he knew I took Leo T’s operation and turned it into my own.”

  “What did he think you were going to do with that operation when he was the one who gave you that turf?”

  “He thought I sold it and opened up Sinatra Solutions. That’s what I told him I was going to do after I thought about it for a long time. I opened Sinatra Solutions, alright, but I didn’t sell Leo T’s business. I expanded it. There was too much money on the table to sell it. Way too much. You think I make money on those investigations? It’s those side jobs that pays for all of those investigations.”

  “Then what are we going to do, Millie? The Butcher don’t play.”

  Amelia knew it too. She began rubbing her forehead. Then a thought occurred.