Page 33 of Nikki Sinatra: For Her Lover

Hoke Bianca stood in the waiting room as the family members finally finished their questioning of Teddy’s surgeons and they left the room. And then Hoke was able to tell them exactly what he had told Nikki.

But Roz frowned. “Nikki isn’t still in Recovery with Teddy?”

“No ma’am. She was outside this door when I walked up. I think she had just come out of the restrooms across the hall.”

“Well if that’s the case then where her ass at?” Reno asked.

“I thought she was coming in behind me. I told her what I just told you and then she acted as if she suddenly remembered something, and she quickly pulled out her phone.”

“What was it that she remembered?” Mick asked.

Hoke hunched his shoulders. “She didn’t say, Boss. She just told me to go on into the waiting room. So I came on in.”

“But that was fifteen minutes ago,” said Sal. And Mick, understanding Nikki probably better than anybody in that room, jumped up and ran for the exit. Monk Paletti ran after him.

“Who’s staying?” Reno asked as he, Sal, and Amelia jumped up too.

“Go,” said Big Daddy. “Me and Tommy’s staying. You and Sal Luca go.”

But as Reno and Sal ran out of the waiting room, Big Daddy jumped up and pulled Amelia back. “Your ass aren’t going anywhere.”

“Don’t even try that, Charles,” Amelia said as she snatched away from him. “I can handle myself!”

But Big Daddy was firm. “I said you aren’t going.”

“I am going.”

“You want me to call Hammer Reese and let him handle it? That what you want me to do, Millie?”

That seemed to work. Amelia had enough drama going on with Hammer to risk further alienating him. She didn’t like it, but she sat back down. Big Daddy looked over at Marco. He was usually the adventurous type. “You don’t want to go with them?”

“I’m staying with Pop,” Marco said bluntly. And in that moment they all realized, despite the doctors’ good report, just how devastating an effect his father’s shooting still had on him. Roz went over to him, and pulled him into her arms.

Then Alex Drakos looked at Tommy. “You don’t think Nikki would go it alone. Do you, Tommy?”

“If she’s still blaming herself for what happened to Teddy? Hell yeah she would.”

“Lord have mercy,” said a still-distraught Gloria. Now her father and sister-in-law were going into the line of fire. “When will it ever end?” she asked whomever would answer her.

Alex knew the struggles she was experiencing just by being a Sinatra and being married to his kid brother Oz, who had become fully entangled with the Greek mafia again.

It was a heavy load for a young woman to bear, and he knew Gloria was inches away from divorcing Oz and moving on with her life.

He placed his arm around her once more. But he had no answer to her question.

Because there was no answer. He looked at Big Daddy.

Big Daddy was as devastated as Gloria was.