Page 12 of Nikki Sinatra: For Her Lover

Around ten that night, cargo supervisor Mike Driessen didn’t realize Nikki had left her office and was talking with the dock supervisor just outside of the ship.

That was why he felt free to make his little comments.

Although the dock supervisor was a made man in the Sinatra syndicate and ran the entire dock system answering only to Nikki, the cargo supervisor, the man responsible for making certain that the right amount of crates were loaded and unloaded, was usually from the ranks of the deckhands and was not in the syndicate at all.

He, too, worked under Nikki. But when she heard her name mentioned by Driessen, it got her attention.

It got the attention of her dock supervisor as well.

“A woman. Ain’t that something? What a woman know about running these docks,” Driessen was saying to the deckhands.

“She don’t know her ass from her ass, but they put her in charge.

Can you imagine something that fucked? A woman running this massive operation.

A woman? And not even an Italian woman at that!

Not even one of us, but some moolinyan .

And Teddy sits back and let it all happen.

If I was running this I wouldn’t let her fat ass anywhere near my ships.

She’s a joke. They respect me more than they’ll ever respect her, and you can take that shit to the bank and cash it. I run this!”

Sammy Linzarta, the dock supervisor, smiled. “He’s just blowing off steam, Nikki. Just trying to be the big man. Don’t even worry about it.”

Nikki looked at Sammy. “Don’t worry about it?

That don’t worry about it attitude or yours is the very reason why they keep on doing that shit,” she said angrily as she hurried onto the ship.

She was in loose-fitting slacks and a sleeveless tucked-in blouse against her flat stomach, and her beloved heels, but she could get onboard so fast it was as if she were wearing sneakers. Sammy had to hurry to keep up with her.

When she got onboard the laughter and comments suddenly ceased and the men kept on stacking up crates as if nothing was happening.

But Nikki was tired of the disrespect. She’d been the number two long enough for them to get over their prejudices and misogyny, but they still refused. They still acted as if they had a right to question her authority. And Mike Driessen was one of the ringleaders, if not the main one.

She walked right up to Driessen and got in his personal space. They were toe-to-toe. “Say it to my face,” she said to him, causing everybody to stop working and look at them. “Say it to my face, motherfucker!”

But Driessen suddenly looked confused. “Say what to your face? What are you talking, Nikki?”

“Say that shit you just said to my face. That’s what I’m taking! You’re so big and bad, you wasn’t holding back then. Why you holding back now?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. For real.”

“She heard what you said, Mike,” Sammy said. “Just apologize so we can move on.”

Nikki looked at Sammy. “You shut the fuck up!” she said angrily to him. She was tired of him taking this bull for granted. That was the problem.

When Nikki checked Sammy, the deckhands smiled and covered their mouths to muffle their grins. They didn’t like Sammy either.

But Nikki turned back to Driessen. “You’re Mister Tough Guy when I’m not in front of you. So say what you had to say in front of me. I’m just a woman after all. And not even an Italian one, right? So say it to my face, you bastard.”

“Get out of my way, Nikki,” said Driessen as if he was her equal. He even tried to go around her.

But Nikki was determined to call him out and in front of the men. She was tired of calling them into the office, accepting their apologies, and letting it go. That tactic never worked. She wasn’t letting shit go anymore.

“Get out of my face, Nikki,” he said to her again.

“No, you’re the big man around here. You run this shit, according to you anyway. Why you so scared to speak up now? I’m just Fat Ass Nikki. What you got to be afraid of? What your ass afraid of?”

As she was talking to Driessen, Teddy through the always open gate in Marco’s Bugatti and stopped in front of the office.

Although he couldn’t hear what was being said, when he got out of the car he could see Nikki and Driessen toe-to-toe on the ship.

He removed his sunglasses for a better view.

When he saw Driessen pointing his finger at Nikki was if he was defying her, his anger rose. “What the fuck,” he said.

“Get out of my face,” Driessen was saying to Nikki as he pointed at her.

“Come on, you run this,” Nikki was saying to Driessen. “Say what you had to say, but say it in my face this time. Say it to my face.”

“I said get your fat ass out of my face!” Driessen said and then lost his cool, some would say he lost his mind, and violently pushed Nikki away from her.

Nikki should have fallen, which she knew was his intention, but she was too angry to fall. She, instead, stood upright, balled up her fist, and punched him with a roundhouse right so hard that it knocked him out cold with just that one punch. He fell straight backwards like a sack of potatoes.

The entire ship was stunned, and so was Teddy, who had started to run to that ship as soon as Driessen punched Nikki.

He was about to take off running and kick Driessen’s ass all the way across that ocean when he saw him so much as lay a hand on Nikki.

But when he saw Nikki’s roundhouse comeback, he smiled and stayed put.

He was certain it was all about more disrespect.

And he was glad she responded the way she had.

She exerted her authority and it was exactly what those men needed to see.

Now they knew Nikki was nobody’s pushover.

She was hitting heads and taking names from here on out.

Which was what he had long since told her to do.

But she thought that would only alienate them further and make her job that much harder.

Now he assumed she knew better. She handled the situation exactly right.

But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to handle it, too, and handle it privately and on his own terms. No man alive was going to ever think he could put a hand on Teddy Sinatra’s wife and walk away with all his limbs intact. No way was that happening. But that was his business.

After the punch, Nikki looked at the deckhands. “Mike Driessen is officially fired. Get him off of my ship. Get him away from this property. I don’t care where you take him, but take him away from here.”

“Yes ma’am,” one of the deckhands said as he ordered two men to pick up Driessen’s unconscious body and get him off the property.

Then Nikki looked at Sammy Linzarta. He was another problem. He was another somebody, with his cavalier attitude towards her, who made her job much more difficult. “As for you,” she said to him, “you’re demoted.”

Sammy was shocked. “ What ?”

“Effective immediately you’re off the docks.”

Sammy frowned. “What are you talking? You don’t have the authority to demote me!”

But one of the deckhands tugged at Sammy’s shirt and motioned, when Sammy looked at him, toward the office area. That was when Sammy saw Ted. And his heart dropped.

But Nikki didn’t know Teddy was on scene.

“I know you didn’t just say that,” she said to Sammy.

“In case you forgot, I’m second-in-command of this entire organization.

A position Mick Sinatra himself put me in.

And you have the nerve to stand up here and tell me I don’t have the authority to demote you? Are you serious?”

Sammy didn’t respond. He might not have respected Nikki, but he was terrified of Teddy.

“But you know what? Let’s say you’re right,” Nikki said.

They all looked at her, especially the few that were rooting for her. Why would she let up when she was doing so well?

But Nikki kept talking. “Let’s say I don’t have the authority to demote you. But you know what? I have the absolute authority to fire you. So maybe I should just fire your ass. Effective immediately you are no longer a part of this organization. Is that what you prefer?”

Sammy was terrified. Because he knew what it meant.

He knew separation from a syndicate like Mick Sinatra’s came with certain death.

It was a death sentence. He’d leave in one piece alright.

But then suddenly there would be an accident.

Or a suicide. Or a drowning. Or just an out-and-out assassination.

If Nikki fired him, she would be signing his death warrant.

And if the choice was death or life, he was not too proud to beg. “Nikki please,” he said in a voice that carried his terror. “If you fire me I’m dead. You know it and I know it. You can’t fire me, Nikki. Please .”

Nikki knew he had not committed a capital offense.

Unlike Driessen, who wasn’t in the Sinatra Crime syndicate but was just a hired dock worker who got promoted to cargo supervisor, Sammy’s firing was on an entirely different level.

An immediate in-house contract would go out on his life and somebody would take him out.

That was how it was done if a made man ever had to be separated from a syndicate. He knew too much to live.

But she got his attention, which was her goal. Teddy would declare it showed weakness. Nikki believed it showed strength. “Are you ready to accept your demotion now?”

Sammy quickly nodded his head. He was the one that felt humiliated. But he knew it was his own damn fault. “Yes ma’am.”

“You’re no longer on the docks like I said. Teddy will decide where to put you, but you aren’t staying here.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Then Nikki looked at everybody else surrounding her.

“Starting right here and right now, anybody that disrespects me and my authority will be terminated summarily and without hesitation. I gave Sammy a second chance because his situation is different. The rest of you are deckhands. Your situation is the same as Mike Driessen’s.

You will be terminated immediately with no questions asked or answered.

I’ve had it up to here with this insubordination and if it continues you won’t continue making that big fat salary we pay you.

And forget about all those benefits we give you.

You earn more than people with two or three degrees earn.

That’s how well you’re paid. You’d better realize what your inability to accept me as the boss will cost you.

Because it will cost you dearly. Ask Driessen!

But make no mistake about it. This shit ends today,” she said firmly, gave them all another good hard look, and then got off the ship.

She could tell the crew was stunned, but that was exactly what she was going for. They needed to be stunned. All of this disrespect after all this time she’d been their boss was ridiculous.

But when she saw Teddy leaned against his car in front of the office, she exhaled. Just when she needed him most, he found a way to show up for her. She walked faster getting to him.