Page 27 of Nikki Sinatra: For Her Lover

The door to the safe house was unlocked by Nikki as Teddy shoved Emilio inside.

With his hands tied behind his back, he stumbled but didn’t fall.

They were still on the outskirts of Philly in one of their sparsely used safe houses.

The room was small, with a card table inside and chairs all around the walls.

Teddy grabbed one and slammed it down in the middle of the room.

Then he forced Emilio to sit down. Nikki stood in front of him.

Teddy went and stood beside Nikki. Mick took a ringside seat in one of the chairs against the side wall.

Nikki folded her arms. She was dressed in a pair of black slacks, a black blouse, a white blazer and heels.

She looked great, Teddy thought, and was handling with complete professionalism the man he knew she had to despise to her core.

She wanted answers, but Teddy wanted revenge.

He remembered those dangerous drug runs Emilio had her doing, all the way to Thailand.

He remembered how that bastard almost ruined teenager-Nikki’s life.

“Why are you here?” Nikki asked Emilio.

“I told you in that truck and I’m telling you again: I got nothing to say.”

“I’m going to ask you one more time,” Nikki said. “Why are you here?”

Emilio smiled as if she was an insect to him. Then his look turned bitter, as if he was remembering what Nikki’s actions caused him and his family. “Fuck you, bitch!” he said angrily.

Teddy was about to beat his ass on the spot, but Nikki pulled out her Glock and shot Emilio in both knees before Teddy could make his first move.

Although Mick didn’t flinch, even he was surprised.

Teddy, who always knew Nikki to be the levelheaded, calm one of the two of them, was beyond surprised.

Emilio screamed out in pain, his face a mask of anguish, as he looked up at Nikki. “You shot me! You just shot me!”

“What you thought I was gonna do to you?” Nikki yelled back with a fixed frown on her face. “Congratulate you for nearly destroying my life? For forcing me to go on the run? For what happened to all those innocent children?!”

“ They were my family ,” Emilio cried out with a howling wail.

“Not all of them were your family,” Nikki fired back. “There were other children there too.”

“All because of you. Not me. You!”

“Bullshit!” yelled Nikki as she cocked her Glock again.

“Deescalate,” Mick ordered.

When Nikki heard Mick’s voice in the background, only then did she exhale.

She wanted to look over at him, but she was certain, by his one-word command alone, that he roundly disapproved.

She was being unprofessional and far too emotional.

She hadn’t gotten squat out of Emilio yet, and she’d already shot him twice.

She had to forget the past and get answers. She had to pull herself together.

Teddy understood why his father ordered Nikki to stand down, but he hadn’t intervened himself because he felt Nikki needed to go there.

She was carrying around all that shit Emilio put her through for too many years.

She couldn’t ignore it for too long. It had to come out.

But he also knew his father was right to order her to ease up.

They needed answers. They needed the guy to give them answers.

Teddy looked at Nikki. Nikki looked at Teddy. When Teddy nodded, Nikki stopped aiming her Glock at Emilio and rested it, in her hand, at her side.

“I ain’t playing with you, Emilio,” she said in a much calmer voice. “You tell me why you’re in my town and you tell me now, or your knees won’t be the only limbs that’s hurting you. I’m not that kid I was back then. I’m not that kid anymore!” she screamed at him.

Mick stared at her. It was in that moment that he realized just how unrelentingly painful that past was to Nikki.

Mick had thought, by the way she ignored Emilio in the drive over to the safe house, that she had rose above it.

But how could she or any other human being?

All those children died because of the position that very man put her in.

She’d been carrying that guilt for over a decade.

It had to spill out, Mick thought. And he saw that spillage, in the form of great pain, within Nikki’s bright, sad eyes. His heart melted for her.

Teddy placed his hand around Nikki’s waist, which he knew was unprofessional too, but he didn’t give a shit. He wanted that asshole to know that Nikki had family that could kick his ass now. That Nikki didn’t fly solo anymore. “What’s your angle?” Teddy asked him. “Why did you come to Philly?”

“I need help.” Emilio was still in too much pain.

Teddy knew they were getting nothing without concessions. “Tell us the truth and we’ll get a doctor. But you’ve got to tell us the truth. Why are you here?”

Emilio leaned his head back as the pain continued to rip through his body. “They found out,” he said.

Everybody stared at him. “Who found out?” Teddy asked.

“They found out that it was Nikki.”

Nikki frowned. “That what was me?”

Emilio shook his head as he looked at her. “Quit playing, Nikki. Just stop.”

Nikki stared at him. Teddy and Mick stared at her. “What are you talking about?” Nikki asked him with a voice that sounded less assured.

“You know what I’m talking about. I told you last week to give it up, and I wouldn’t bother you ever again, but you wouldn’t do it. Now you gotta pretend in front of these white folks because you know your ass was wrong.”

“Cut the bullshit, Emilio. Nobody wanna hear your lies. Nobody’s playing with you.”

But Teddy and Mick glanced at each other. They found it curious that Nikki didn’t ask the obvious question.

So Teddy asked it. “What was she supposed to give up?”

Emilio had tears coming out of his eyes he was in so much pain.

But Mick felt there was an even more obvious question that needed to be answered. “What did they find out?” he asked Emilio.

Emilio looked at Mick. “Never thought I’d be in the same room with a legend like you.

“What did they find out?” Mick asked him again.

“That Nikki and Juda did it again.”

“It’s bullshit,” Nikki said.

“They did what again?” Teddy asked Emilio. He remembered how affectionately Nikki and Juda were hugging each other on that trailer stoop.

But instead of answering, Emilio smiled.

“What did Nikki and Juda do again?” Teddy decided to ask instead. It was like pulling teeth with this guy. But they had to get answers. “The sooner you answer the questions, the sooner you can get medical help,” he added.

And this time, Emilio answered. “They set it all up. I got my cut. I ain’t gonna lie. I was a part of it too.”

Nikki shook her head. “It’s all lies. What are we listening to this bullshit for? It’s all lies!”

But Emilio’s anger flashed. “I’m telling the truth and you know it!

She don’t want it to come out, that’s why she’s trying to cover it up.

She want y’all to think she’s the victim.

Poor little Nikki who ain’t so little anymore, but still.

That’s what she want.” He looked her in her eyes.

“But I know better. That’s why she hired that hit man to take me out in that parking garage. That’s the reason why.”

“It’s not true,” Nikki said.

“What did Nikki and Juda do again?” Mick asked. Nikki looked at him this time. But Mick was all business when it came to business. He was staring at Emilio.

“They stole their product again,” Emilio said.

“And they found out. I was ordered to bring both of them in alive. Nikki and Juda. They want both of those motherfuckers and they don’t want dead bodies either.

They want live bodies. They want them tortured in every way humanly possible and then killed.

They want to make an example out of them.

I bring them in alive, that’s the only way I’ll get out of this alive.

But then those fuckers I hired went and killed Juda.

Now I got to take Nikki out if I stand any chance of survival. ”

“Who are they?” Mick finally asked Emilio.

“Who are the people that want Nikki and Juda?” asked Teddy.

Nikki realized, in that moment, that her entire interrogation had been completely taken over by Mick and Teddy.

Emilio leaned his head back again in pain.

“I can call a doctor right now,” Teddy said. “But your ass got to tell us more than what you’re telling us. Who are they, got dammit, just answer the question!”

Mick looked at Teddy. He was so worried about Nikki’s involvement that it was getting to him too.

But Emilio answered. “The cartel,” he said.

“That’s a got damn lie,” Nikki said.

“Are you trying to tell me,” Teddy said to Emilio, “that my wife stole product from a South American cartel? Are you shitting me?”

“It wasn’t her first time. That first time, when they killed my family, she stole it then too. Her and Juda. And they just found out.”

“Stop lying, Emilio! I’ve never had anything to do with any cartels and you know it!”

“I know they got it on video! I know that,” Emilio fired back.

Teddy and Mick looked at him. “What video?” Teddy asked.

“In that hotel room. Nikki and Juda. That’s why her ass was scared when she saw me. She knew I knew. She was in Jersey just last week, her and Juda together, in that hotel.”

Teddy frowned. “Jersey?” He knew Nikki was in New Jersey last week to meet with Monk Paletti about a distribution deal they were setting up. But she wasn’t in any hotel. It was a one-day trip.

“They made love,” Emilio said.

“Who made love?” Teddy asked.

“Juda and Nikki. Then they met with their buyer. And sold it to him. You check her bank accounts. The ones in the Caribbean. Then you come talk to me about who’s lying.”

Nikki smiled and shook her head. “This is crazy!”

“Go on and ask her,” Emilio insisted to Teddy. “Ask her if she has any offshore accounts. Ask her, Teddy. Ask her!”

Teddy looked at Nikki. “You don’t have any. Do you, Nikki?”

Nikki stared at Teddy. “You believe him?”

“No.”

“Then why are you asking me that?” Nikki was livid.

But Mick was old school. He never left stones unturned. “Do you have any offshore accounts, Nikki?” he asked her.

Nikki looked at him. “I didn’t steal any drugs from any cartel,” she said.

“That wasn’t my question,” Mick asked her. “Do you have any offshore accounts?”

There was a long pause. Not only did Teddy’s heart dropped, but Mick’s did too. Because her silence said it all. They both stared at Nikki.

But Nikki looked distracted, as if it was true and she was trying to think up an excuse. Or a lie.

But she wasn’t doing either. She saw that red dot on Emilio’s forehead and she frowned. Then she turned and saw that he was seated directly in front of the window across the room. And her heart dropped, too, but for a very different reason.

“Get down!” she screamed from the top of her lungs as she leaped onto Teddy and knocked him down just as gunfire rang out and Emilio was shot repeatedly.

Mick pulled his weapon and began firing volley after volley as he ran toward the right side of the window.

Teddy and Nikki got up and crawled over to the left side of the room as the gunfire continued.

“Stay down!” Teddy ordered Nikki as he ran to the back of the safe house, ran out of the back door, and made his way around the side of the house.

A van was speeding away before he made it to the front of the house.

He ran out into the street, with Mick and Nikki running out through the front door, but the van was gone.

Teddy ran to Mick’s SUV, to try and follow them, but all four tires had been shot and deflated. “ Got dammit!” Teddy yelled angrily as he hit the side of the Escalade. Nikki immediately called for backup.

Then they all seemed to think about Emilio at the same time, and they ran back inside.

When they got inside, they saw that Emilio had been shot several times and was dead.

But Teddy frowned. “If they wanted him to bring Nikki and Juda in alive, why would they kill him?”

“Because he was lying,” Nikki said, and Teddy and Mick looked at her. “When he was chasing after me and we were forced to stop to let a train go by, I saw fear in his eyes. He was in town, not to bring me to any cartel. He was in town because he was running from something.”

“And he thought you could help him?” asked Teddy.

“Apparently so,” said Nikki. “Maybe that was why Juda was in town too.” Then she scrunched up her face. “I don’t know!”

But Teddy was staring at her. “Why would they think you could help them though, Nikki? It can’t be because you’re a Sinatra. Only an idiot wouldn’t know that Pop don’t have any dealings with drug gangs. What could you possibly have that they both needed?”

“I don’t know,” she said, “but I’ve got to find out before we end up in a full-blown war.”

“But a war with who?” asked Teddy. “Regular drug gangs? Or the cartel?”

Nikki’s face was a mask of anguish. Because she knew what it would mean if it was the cartel.

“And you were in Jersey last week,” Teddy reminded her.

Mick looked at Teddy. “She was in Jersey?”

Teddy nodded. “She met with Frankie Paletti to work out a distribution deal we wanted to try through his territory.”

“How would Emilio know that she was in New Jersey last week?” Mick asked and then both men looked at Nikki.

“Maybe he was following me even then.”

“Negative that,” said Teddy. “Whenever you’re out of town I have secret security on you at all times. Two details. One behind you and one much further behind them. They would have spotted anybody interested in your movements a mile away.”

“Then they know I didn’t spend the night at some hotel with Juda.”

“They don’t spy on you. They only report problems. Not your bad habits.”

“What bad habits?” Nikki asked him.

“It was a figure of speech,” said Teddy.

But Mick had a different question. “Do you have offshore bank accounts, Nikki?” he asked her. “And your ass better answer me this time,” he added.

Nikki just stood there. It was as if she couldn’t win even if she tried. She leaned her head back, and then nodded. “Yes,” she said. “Yes!”

And that one word, that little three-letter word, threw Teddy and Mick for a loop.