Monk Paletti: Commanding Love Read online

  And the gunmen’s theory was right. One bullet connected. Only it connected on Crawley, causing him to hang outside of the Town Car clinging to life.

  Monk, realizing it, grabbed for his lieutenant even as the bullets continued to fly, and used all of his might to pull Crawley inside as the Town Car sped away.

  But it was no use. Crawley was bleeding to death. He didn’t just take one bullet, but several.

  “Hang in there, buddy,” Monk was begging him as he held his head in his lap. “Hang in there. You’re gonna be just fine. You’re gonna get through this. Hang in there, Craw. Hang in there!”

  Crawley was looking up at Monk, as if Monk knew more than he did, and was nodding his head. He always believed every word Monk spoke.

  Until he couldn’t anymore.

  His eyes went blank. And then it was over. Monk knew it, too, but he couldn’t accept it. “No!” he yelled as the driver, well away from the scene, looked through his mirror at Monk. He’d never seen him so animated.

  “Boss, you okay? Boss? Boss?”

  But Monk refused to be comforted. “No!” he yelled. “No! No! No!”

  But as the driver called for backup, and as the miles laid waste before them, and as the reality that Crawley was gone, and Josoni too, Monk gave up. He continued to hold Crawley, but he gave up.

  He had no choice.

  But that was why he hated this shit. Too many dead bodies. Too many close calls. Too many lives hanging in the balance on his word.

  And then Ashley’s happy face flashed across his mind. Her happy, hopeful, endearing face flashed before him. As he looked back down at Crawley’s stiff mug, he kept seeing Ashley. And he realized right then and there that there was no way he could rope her into this kind of life. How could he? In a moment’s notice, it could all be over. Just like it was for Crawley. Just like it was for Josoni. And he wanted the love of his life to have to deal with this? It was too dangerous. It was too unforgiving. It was too damn selfish.

  If he loved her, and he did, he knew when he got to Jericho tomorrow night he had to man up and call the whole thing off. Not for his sake. He needed her like he needed air to breathe. But for hers. She didn’t need a man like him.

  He had to call it off.

  No matter what.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “I’m shocked, girl. Ashley? Not drinking?”

  “Not tonight,” Ashley said with a smile.

  “What’s so special about tonight?”

  “Haven’t you heard? Her boyfriend is coming to town tonight.”

  “Oh, yeah? But I thought you just came back home yesterday from being with him.”

  “I did. But he’s coming to see me today. You got a problem with that?”

  “Good grief she’s talking like him,” said Marina “Rina” Bassett, one of the three friends of Ashley’s at the table, and the other two laughed.

  Ashley smiled too. She knew they were going to needle her forevermore about her relationship. Bring it on, was how she felt. She was in a bar, having drinks with her friends, although she was the only one not bothering to drink.

  “Oh, I get it now,” Rina said. Like Ashley, she was the only other black girl in the group. Unlike Ashley, she barely knew the other two ladies. “Now I know why you aren’t drinking. That man knocked you up, didn’t he?”

  Ashley was shocked. “Are you insane? Me? No way. Frankie’s not that kind of dude.”

  Jane, one of the other girls, frowned. “Wait a minute. Who’s Frankie? I thought you said his name was Monk. I thought I heard you calling him Monk on the phone.”

  “Monk’s his nickname,” Ashley said. “His real name is Francis.”

  “Francis?” Dee, one of the ladies, said with laughter. “That’s a girl’s name!”

  “Don’t be silly,” said Ashley. “Guys have that name too. But that’s why I call him Frankie. It’s short for Francis. Now that he’s my . . .”

  They waited for her to finish. She didn’t say another word. “Now that he’s your what?” Rina asked her.

  Ashley almost said too much. “Now that we’re officially a couple now,” she caught herself, “I’ve decided Frankie fits him better. It’s more endearing than Monk.”

  “He’s Monk to us then,” said Rina, and they all laughed.

  “But who is this Monk anyway?” asked Jane. She already had too much to drink. “Have I even met him yet?”

  “You met him at one night,” Ashley said. “You guys called me over to your table and he got pissed at me and left.”

  “Oh, that guy!” Jane said. Then she frowned. “That old guy with the hat?”

  Ashley laughed. “He’s not old. He’s in his thirties. How is being in your thirties old?”

  “But other than Rina, you, me, and Dee are in our twenties. When you’re in your twenties, anybody who isn’t in their twenties is old, okay?”

  “Only to Jane,” Rina said. “I think he’s cute.”

  “I didn’t say he wasn’t cute,” said Jane. “He is, in a sexy, old man kind of way, very cute. But only if you’re after that brand of sexiness.”

  “Oh, Jane, please,” Ashley said. “You wouldn’t know sexy if it was standing on your head.”

  “It was standing on my face last night, and I knew exactly what it was,” Jane shot back, and they all laughed again.

  “Hey, Ash, what’s up?”

  The ladies turned and saw that Arnie Lectin, a local white boy, was standing at their table with a grin on his face. They all knew what he wanted.

  “Hey, Arn,” said Ashley.

  “It’s been a long time since I last saw you around here,” Arn said. “How you been?”

  “Okay.”

  “You’re sure looking good.”

  “Thanks. You too.”

  “I mean real good,” Arn said, looking down Ashley’s body.

  Ashley ignored that little comment.

  “What you say you drop through later tonight,” Arn said.

  “Can’t,” said Ashley.

  “Ah, come on, Ash. Why not?”

  “Because I can’t,” Ashley said more firmly and looked him in the eyes.

  They all could tell Arn didn’t like rejection. “Why not?” he asked again.

  “Because she can’t,” Jane said, intervening. “Didn’t you hear her the first time? You’re bugging her. You’re bugging us! So bug off, creep,” she added, and all the ladies laughed.

  Arn frowned. “Fuck you, Jane!”

  “Not you,” Jane said. “Not in this lifetime,” she added, and the ladies laughed at that too.

  Arn’s face began turning fire-red. He truly didn’t like rejection. But even he knew he had no choice. He glanced at Ashley, realized she thought stupid Jane was funny too, and he left their table.

  Jane shook her head. “I cannot stand him,” she said.

  “He’s gone now,” Ashley said, as she glanced over at him. “He’s already hitting on another girl. But that’s the men of Jericho, isn’t it? Their asses always have to have options.”

  “Come on, Dee,” Jane said, as she staggered to her feet. “Let’s go freshen up. I think I’m drunk.”

  “I don’t think you are,” Dee said, standing too. “I know you are.” She placed her arm around Jane’s arm. “Let’s go.” And she and Jane disappeared into the crowd. That left Rina and Ashley alone.

  Rina leaned forward. “But for real, Ash,” she said, “what’s going on with you and that guy?”

  “Who? Arn?”

  “No! Forget Arn. You know who I mean. What’s going on between you two?”

  “You mean other than a wonderful relationship?”

  “You spent all those weeks with him in New York.”

  “New Jersey.”

  “In New Jersey,” said Rina. “You just got back in town yesterday. Now he’s coming to see you tonight?”

  “What’s wrong with that? I think it’s sweet,” said Ashley.

  “Don’t you think you guys are kind of moving real fast
like?” Rina asked her.

  Rina was becoming the big sister Ashley always wanted. Ashley had younger siblings, but they were so unlike her that they had too little in common. But Rina got her. “It may seem that way,” Ashley said, “but it’s not. Frankie is a very careful person. He doesn’t allow anybody to rush him into anything.”

  But Rina saw that look in Ashley’s eyes. “I’m not asking about him,” she said. “I’m asking about you. Do you feel rushed?”

  “No! Course not. Why would you even think that?”

  “Why? Because you meet this guy and suddenly nobody hears from you for weeks on end. Suddenly, you’re acting as if you’re carrying his baby or something. Won’t even have a drink with us. Like you’re already stuck to him. I haven’t known you that long, but it’s not like the Ashley I know.”

  “Trust me,” Ashley said, “me falling for guys quick and in a hurry is exactly like me. Ask my brother Donald. He’ll tell you. The difference with Frankie,” Ashley said, “is that he’s not going to hurt me. He’s not going to break my heart. He loves me just as much as I love him.”

  But Rina was still doubtful. “Sure about that?”

  “Yes, I’m sure about that.” Then Ashley frowned. “Why aren’t you just happy for me? Even my brother Brent couldn’t just be happy that I found a righteous dude, and he’s usually very happy for me. I don’t know what more y’all want from me.”

  “Honesty would help,” said Rina.

  Ashley looked at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You aren’t telling me the full story. I don’t know why, but you aren’t. Maybe he beats you.”

  Ashley laughed. “Beats me?”

  “Maybe,” said Rina. “Or maybe he treats you in a way that makes you afraid of him. I don’t know. But something’s going on here. Something you aren’t telling me. But they don’t call me Rina the Rhino for nothing.”

  “Who calls you Rina the Rhino?” Ashley asked. “Nobody calls you Rina the Rhino.”

  “I call me that, okay? I have a nose for these things. And something smells in that relationship with this Frankie, Monk, or whatever his name is. I don’t know what it is, but there’s some trouble in this paradise you’re trying to conceal from us. I’m just not buying it.”

  Ashley knew Rina meant well. Like Brent, she was just trying to get her to face their version of the truth. What they didn’t realize was that they were just confirming for Ashley what she had to face all her life. She wasn’t good enough. It was as if they were really saying if this guy was so good, why would he want her?

  “I’ve gotta pee,” Ashley, who never put on airs, said as she slid off of her seat. She liked Rina and wasn’t going to lose their budding friendship over a man, even if she had Frankie all wrong. She headed for the ladies room too.

  But if she thought there would be a reprieve there, she was wrong. Jane and Dee were still in the ladies room. They both were standing at the big mirror freshening up their makeup, and they both were running their mouths. And before Ashley could even go into a stall, or say a word to them, she realized they were running their mouths all about her.

  “Frankie indeed,” said Jane as she applied more lipstick. “Can you believe that shit? I only met him that one time. I didn’t want to say this in front of Ash, but he’s really sexy. I mean really, really sexy. For an old guy.”

  “She’s acting as if he’s going to ask her to marry her,” said Dee.

  “That’s what I thought! Then I’m thinking please,” said Jane dismissively. “Because that guy she’s talking about, that Frankie guy? He looked like he was rich. I saw those expensive clothes he wore, and his Rolex was real. I remember that. We all were saying later he looked like he was a guy with something going for himself. And she thinks he’s going to marry her? Men don’t marry tramps. They bed them. He’s just bedding her until he gets tired of her. And then that’ll be the end of that,” Jane said, and she and Dee laughed.

  But when Dee glanced through the mirror and saw that Ashley was standing behind them, and she looked as if she heard every word, she began hitting Jane frantically.

  “What?” Jane asked angrily, and then they both turned quickly. But Ashley had already walked back out.

  When she made it back into the bar, she hurried over to the table and grabbed her phone and keys that she had left beside Rina. “I’ve got to go,” she said without breaking her stride.

  “You’re okay?” Rina asked. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “I’m good,” Ashley lied, and then hurried out of the bar before Jane and Dee could show their faces again.

  But it was Ashley who was shamefaced. It was Ashley who hurried to her car, jumped in, and took off. She wiped tears away as she drove. Even her friends viewed her as a tramp. Even her friends viewed her as somebody not good enough for any decent man, let alone a successful man like Monk. Even her friends knew she wasn’t worth a damn.

  Why would Monk think she was?

  She was so overwhelmed with emotion that she blew right through a red light just as another car was speeding through the green light at that intersection. Ashley had to swerve wildly to avoid a collision, which she deftly did without batting an eye, and kept on driving. Another thing about Ashley nobody but Monk gave her credit for: she had nerves of steel.

  But right now, as she sped on down that road, all she wanted to have was happiness. All she wanted was to be with a man who loved her, have a boatload of his babies, and be happy.

  And despite what her so-called friends were saying. Despite what well-meaning, by-the-book Brent was saying. Despite what the world was saying to her everyday of her whole miserable life, she was going to have that happiness. And she was going to have it with Frankie, a man she was convinced loved her. Even as nobody else on the face of this earth felt she deserved that love.

  What hurt Ashley to her heart, and started a new round of tears she had to angrily wipe away again, was why was she falling for it too. Why was she feeling that maybe the world was right. That maybe they just might have a point.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The living room was quiet as they waited for Ashley and Monk to arrive. Charles “Big Daddy” Sinatra sat on the sofa beside his wife Jenay, while his next oldest son, Tony Sinatra, and his youngest son Donald Sinatra, sat in the wingback chairs in the room. He and Jenay’s baby daughter, Bonita, sat on the floor between his legs. Jenay looked at her and smiled. She was turning out to be a daddy’s girl just like Carly.

  But Donald and Tony were taking up all the oxygen with their usual arguments. “A symposium on Armenian genocide?” Donald asked Tony. “That was what you had planned to do tonight?”

  “Yes,” said Tony. “For the third time, yes. That was my plan before Dad and Mom asked me to come to dinner tonight. They said Monk’s going to be here. But I say, if it’s so important that we all attend, where’s Brent and his family? Why does Dad always give them a pass?”

  “I didn’t give them a pass,” Charles said. “They had to attend something at school for their son. At least that’s what they told me.”

  “A school event versus Armenian genocide?” Tony asked. “That’s not fair. What does that say about fairness?”

  “It says nothing about fairness,” Donald said. “But it says a whole lot about you, big brother.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Tony asked. “And what exactly does it say about me, Mister Know-It-All?”

  “It says you need a woman. That’s what it says. You need to get out more. Even boring Sharon Rachel or Rachel Sharon or whatever her name was left your butt. You need a woman, Tony. You need a woman!”

  “There are plenty of women around here who wants him,” Jenay said. “They try to give me their phone numbers to give to him all the time. They think that because I’m his stepmother and not his biological mother, and because I’m close enough to his age group, that I wouldn’t hesitate to help them. I’m one of them, is how they look at it.”

  “They wish they were in y
our category, Ma,” Donald said. “And we don’t see you as our stepmother. We see you as our mother period.”

  “Oh, thanks, baby,” Jenay said with a smile. “That’s so sweet of you.”

  “He’s just trying to butter you up to let him take more time off work,” Charles said. Donald worked for Jenay.

  “You know I know these children,” Jenay said. “He knows he’s wasting his time.”

  Donald smiled. “But do you take their phone numbers to Tony?” he asked her.

  “No!” said Jenay. “I’m not thinking about those heifers. They want Tony, they need to be woman enough to go to him themselves.”

  “But he doesn’t want them,” Donald said. “That’s the problem with Tony. He’d rather go to Armenian genocide meetings. And were they cute girls, Ma?”

  “Very attractive ladies, yes,” said Jenay.

  “Another mark against them,” said Donald. “If they’re really cute, Tony doesn’t want them. If they look like death warmed over, he thinks they’re cute.”

  Charles laughed. “That’s not true.”

  “It is true!” Donald shot back. “He likes homely girls.”

  “He likes girls with good hearts, Donald,” Charles corrected him as they all heard a car drive up. “There’s a difference. He looks at the heart.”

  “Thank you, Father,” Tony said, “for speaking the truth.”

  “Truth my foot,” said Donald as he got up and headed for the window. “Pretty girls can have big hearts too.”

  “Exactly right,” said Tony. “That’s why beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

  “And since Tony has a doctorate in clinical psychology,” said Bonita, “I think he knows what he’s talking about.”

  “I know pretty when I see it,” said Donald. “What’s with the bodyguards?” he asked as he looked out of the window.

  “What bodyguards?” Charles asked.

  “Monk’s just arrived, and there’s a second SUV with him. Filled with bodyguard-looking jokers. They’re outside of the SUV looking around for snipers or somebody.”

  Jenay went to look too. Charles and Tony glanced at each other. Was the heat on Monk? Why would he bring that kind of heat to their home and family? Charles was already fuming.