Tony sinatra if loving y.., p.1
Tony Sinatra: If Loving You Is Wrong, page 1
TONY SINATRA
IF LOVING YOU IS WRONG
BY
MALLORY MONROE
Copyright©2021 Mallory Monroe
All rights reserved. Any use of the materials contained in this book without the expressed written consent of the author and/or her affiliates, including scanning, uploading and downloading at file sharing and other sites, and distribution of this book by way of the Internet or any other means, is illegal and strictly prohibited.
AUSTIN BROOK PUBLISHING
IT IS ILLEGAL TO UPLOAD THIS BOOK TO ANY FILE SHARING SITE.
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WITHOUT THE WRITTEN CONSENT OF
THE AUTHOR AND AUSTIN BROOK PUBLISHING.
This novel is a work of fiction. All characters are fictitious. Any similarities to anyone living or dead are completely accidental. The specific mention of known places or venues are not meant to be exact replicas of those places, but they are purposely embellished or imagined for the story’s sake. The cover art are models. They are not actual characters.
BIG DADDY SINATRA SERIES
IN ORDER:
1. BIG DADDY SINATRA
THERE WAS A RUTHLESS MAN
2. BIG DADDY SINATRA 2:
IF I CAN’T HAVE YOU
3. BIG DADDY SINATRA 3:
THE BEST OF MY LOVE
4. BIG DADDY SINATRA 4:
CARLY’S CRY
5. BIG DADDY SINATRA 5
PAPA DON’T PLAY
6. BIG DADDY SINATRA 6
CHARLES IN CHARGE
7. BIG DADDY SINATRA 7
BRINGING DOWN THE HAMMER
MALLORY MONROE SERIES:
THE RENO GABRINI/MOB BOSS SERIES (21 BOOKS)
THE SAL GABRINI SERIES (12 BOOKS)
THE TOMMY GABRINI SERIES (9 BOOKS)
THE MICK SINATRA SERIES (13 BOOKS)
THE BIG DADDY SINATRA SERIES (7 BOOKS)
THE TEDDY SINATRA SERIES (4 BOOKS)
THE TREVOR REESE SERIES (3 BOOKS)
THE AMELIA SINATRA SERIES (2 BOOKS)
THE BRENT SINATRA SERIES (1 BOOK)
THE ALEX DRAKOS SERIES (9 BOOKS)
THE OZ DRAKOS SERIES (2 BOOKS)
THE MONK PALETTI SERIES (2 BOOKS)
THE PRESIDENT’S GIRLFRIEND SERIES (8 BOOKS)
THE PRESIDENT’S BOYFRIEND SERIES (1 BOOK)
ALSO
THE RAGS TO ROMANCE SERIES (6 BOOKS):
BOBBY SINATRA: IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES
BOONE & CHARLY: SECOND CHANCE LOVE
PLAIN JANE EVANS AND THE BILLIONAIRE
GENTLEMAN JAMES AND GINA
MONTY & LASHAY: RESCUE ME
TONY SINATRA: IF LOVING YOU IS WRONG
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
“You know the drill.” She grabbed her phone and her keys and hurried for the front door.
He rolled his eyes. It was an every night thing with her. “I know the drill, Ma. You know I know the drill.”
“Tell it to me.”
“Ma!”
“Myles!”
“That’s my name. Although every kid in school wants to pretend it’s spelled with an I instead of a Y. As in Miles. As in Myles, how fast can you go per hour? Myles, do you have miles to go before you sleep too?”
“Just tell me, Myles!”
“Lock both locks,” he said.
“And?”
“Don’t open the door for strangers.”
“Or?”
“Or for anybody else except you.”
“And?”
“Don’t answer the phone for anybody unless it’s you.”
“And?”
“Ma!”
“And Myles! Tell me what else!”
“Don’t laugh, cry, or fart because you don’t want the neighbors to hear shit from this apartment.”
Samantha “Sam” Carmichael stopped walking and gave her son a hard look. “Watch the language.” Then she frowned. “What’s wrong with you?”
“But that’s what you say every night.”
“That don’t mean you get to say it, too, dammit!” Then she caught herself as they stood at the door. Couldn’t even bite her tongue around her own kid. She was a horrible mother!
But she still needed him to understand beyond a shadow of a doubt not to disobey her. She needed him to stay safe. She placed her hand under his small chin and lifted his beautiful brown face up to her face. “You hear me and you hear me well Myles Carmichael. Don’t you dare open this door for any motherfuc--”
“Ma!”
“For anybody, you hear me? Don’t open that door for anybody and don’t answer the phone unless it’s me calling you. And keep that TV turned down low--”
“Ma!” He interrupted her again. “You’re already running late, and you know I know the drill. What time you get off tonight?”
She released his chin and stood up straight. And then she exhaled. Myles knew how to calm her back down. “Not until closing unfortunately,” she said to him. “Kenny knows I got a kid to raise but he still gives me these fucked-up hours.”
Myles shook his head. “You aren’t supposed to cuss like that in front of this kid you got to raise. Remember?”
“I know,” Sam said as she shook her head too, with guilt all over her anxious face. “I know. I’m such a terrible mother!”
“You’re the best mother,” Myles quickly pointed out. “You just have a potty mouth.”
Sam smiled and then kissed him on the forehead. “Whatever did I do to deserve a great kid like you?”
“You’re late, Ma.”
“Right!” Sam hurriedly opened the front door. She looked back at her kid. Eight years old and already forced to be older than his years the way she was forced to be when she was his age. She hated herself for putting him through it too. But it was just the two of them, and she was struggling just to pay the rent. She had to work.
But when she looked back at him, she was ready to make him recite the drill all over again. That was how worried she was about him. That was how guilt-ridden she was. But he pushed her toward the exit. “You’re late, Ma. Just go! You can’t afford to lose this gig too.”
Sam smiled at him. Gig. What would an eight-year-old know about a gig? But then she realized he was right, and she hurried on out and closed the door behind her.
But she still took time to stand there to make sure she heard him lock both locks. He locked them both. And then she took off.
But as soon as she got into her old Nissan Sentra that just recently began blowing blue smoke from the tailpipe, that guilt returned. But she pushed back the strands of hair that had fallen across her forehead and drove on. It wouldn’t be this way always, she told herself. Just a matter of time and she’d find that good job where she’d be able to take care of her kid right, and finally make a real living wage. Maybe even be able to buy a house for herself and Myles, and finally get herself a real car rather than those piece of shit cars she’d only been able to afford.
And maybe she’d finally find herself a real man. Now that would be something! A man who didn’t need her to shoot him a few for his light bill, or to help him pay his rent, or who wanted to move in with her until he got back on his feet when he was never on his feet to begin with. But she’d have herself a real man striving with her, not against her. A man who wanted a better life, too, and would love her son as if he was his own.
And she found herself smiling just thinking on those things. Because Samantha Carmichael was nobody’s victim, nor would she ever allow herself to become some cautionary tale about how not to live your life. She was a prayerful, hopeful young woman doing all she knew how to do. And she was determined to make her way in this world if it was the last thing she did.
Things were going to turn out just right for her and Myles. She was convinced of it.
It was just a matter of time.
CHAPTER TWO
Anthony “Tony” Sinatra did not care for liars. A lying person, he felt, was a person you could never trust. He’d take the worst criminal around, but one who was willing to own up to his wrongdoing and tell the truth, over a liar any day of the week. Truth was the gold standard for him. Truth was the premium for him.
That was why his decision to volunteer at Jericho’s new jail near the outskirts of town said a lot about his state of mind.
His lo
He was seated behind the small desk in the small room on the services ward and was still writing notes from the last prisoner when they sent the next prisoner in. His services were sorely needed after the edict came down from the state of Maine that every prisoner should have a brief psychological assessment, if a staffer determined it was suitable, before their bail hearing. That ridiculously overbroad regulation put a lot of strain on the system, and the call went out for volunteers. Tony, anxious to keep himself busy although he was already a very busy psychologist with a very busy private practice and an early morning radio show to boot, took up the call.
“Have a seat,” he said to the prisoner as he continued to write his final note.
The prisoner plopped down in the chair so loud that Tony looked up at him. He looked as if he would rather be facing a firing squad than in front of a psychologist. Which meant, Tony’s long experience had taught him, that he needed a psychologist most of all.
“My name is Doctor Sinatra,” Tony began the way he always did. “And you are?”
“Innocent,” the man said. Something they all said.
“What I mean is,” Tony said, “what is your name?”
“Innocent,” the man said again.
It was the same mantra almost every single prisoner he saw said to him. Not that there weren’t innocent men behind bars. He knew there were. But everybody?
“What name do you go by?” he asked the prisoner.
“Innocent,” the prisoner said again.
“Look,” Tony said, “I’m not here to determine your guilt or your innocence. That’s for a court of law to decide. I’m not here to determine if you should be granted bail or not. That’s for the bail commissioner to decide. I’m here to determine if you understand why you’re here, what the process will look like, and if you have any issues you need to address beyond your court case. Those are the only reasons I’m here. Okay?”
“I hear you, Doc.”
“Good. Now that we understand each other, let’s start over. My name is Doctor Sinatra. And you are?”
“Innocent,” the prisoner said yet again.
Tony gave up and grabbed the man’s file from the stack of files on his desk, and he opened it. “Your name, in fact,” he said as he looked at the prisoner over his reading glasses, “is Melvin Russell. Perhaps Innocent is your middle name, but it’s not written in the record.”
“I’m innocent. How many times I got to tell you that? I’m innocent!”
“According to this file you confessed to the armed robbery.”
“They made me do that, man, are you serious? You know them police.”
Tony turned the page to the photographs of the prisoner in the actual commission of the crime. And the photos were clear. The prisoner was a dead ringer for the perp if ever there was such a thing. “According to your file there’s a video of you stealing those laptops,” Tony said as he looked his big, sharp green eyes at the prisoner. “And these photographs here.”
“What photographs? Them ain’t me. And what video? They lyin’ man. Let me see them shits. They lyin’ man!”
Tony knew somebody was lying, alright, and he had a fairly good idea who. He closed the file. How was he going to help somebody when that person couldn’t even own up to what anybody with any sight at all could clearly see was him robbing that store? It was hopeless to Tony. Just as life was beginning to feel to him. Hopeless and draining. He once was in seminary school. Thought he wanted to be a priest. Then he went from pillar to post trying to find himself. But it all got away from him. Finally found a good woman, but he let her slip away too. It was the story of his life.
And he called himself a psychologist? He got his doctorate in clinical psychology well over a decade ago as a backup plan. It was supposed to be a last result should all else fail. Now his life was his backup plan. All else failed. And then the woman he thought he just might be able to spend the rest of his life with left Maine, found herself a good man, and got herself married. Got on with her life. And what was he doing? He was surrounding himself with crooks and liars who lied so easily they could deny, with a sincere, straight face, the obvious truth. And he could do nothing but listen to their garbage, a whole week every month, which made him a garbage receptacle. Which made him full of garbage too.
He had to get out of here.
He’d try his hand on the women’s wing next month, he decided, to see if they at least would have a better relationship with the truth. Maybe there, he reasoned as the prisoner continued to confess his innocence when that wasn’t even the question, he’d find some answers.
Or at least better liars.
CHAPTER THREE
“One whiskey tutti-frutti coming up!”
“Make it a double, honey.”
“You’ll be seeing double when you finish it.”
“Sounds like a winner to me!”
Sam laughed. An hour into her shift and she was behind the bar acting as if that job was the highlight of her life. She was mixing drinks and mixing it up with the customers, almost all of whom were males who hung around the bar just to mix it up with her. She was one of the most popular bartenders in the whole club and everybody seemed to gravitate to her.
But even though she was smiling like a pageant queen and vigorously shaking that cocktail shaker and joking happily like she did every night, her heart was home with her kid. Her heart was trying to figure out how in the world was she going to finally get a handle on her life when she was already twenty-eight years old and still trying to figure it out. When her twenty-one-year-old coworkers were driving better cars and living in better apartments than she ever lived in. But they had family backup. They had parents willing to help give them that start in life she never got.
Although her mother wasn’t worth a damn, just a strung-out junkie looking for her next fix, her father did the best he could. He raised her to be a strong, independent woman who didn’t take crap from anybody. Especially men. But he struggled to make ends meet all his life, working menial jobs that didn’t want to pay him fair wages.
And then, when she was fifteen years old, her dad got bad off sick with Lou Gehrig’s disease that became so progressively worse that it forced her to quit school to take care of him. And for three straight years his wellbeing consumed every faucet of her life until he finally succumbed to that dreadful disease and died. And it shattered her. She never got back on track. She went from job to job and man to man and finally ended up pregnant, at twenty, by some slick joker who claimed to love her before she got pregnant, and then claimed it wasn’t his kid when she told him the news. He was just another loser in a string of losers she’d been fooling with. None of them compared to her dad. She lost a good man when she lost her dad.
But she got on with her life. She had to try to make it happen for herself and her son by whatever means necessary. But now, eight years later, she was still trying to make it happen.
“Lou the Creep just walked in.” Her coworker Tiffany, her fellow bartender, whispered in her ear.
Sam looked where Tiffany was looking and saw Lou Montera walking in. “Don’t call that man a creep,” said Sam, admonishing Tiff. “He’s one of our regulars. He’s what keeps our asses employed. Hiya Lou,” she said with her bright-white, high-wattage smile as Lou walked up and sat at the bar. “Want your usual?”
“You know what I want,” Lou said with that reptilian smile and blotchy white skin that always made Tiffany’s white skin crawl.
It made Sam’s black skin crawl, too, but he’d never know it. “I know what you want. Don’t I know what you want.”
Lou laughed.
“You also, however,” Sam said, still smiling, “want your usual, right?”
“I want you and my usual,” Lou said. “How’s that? Can’t I have both?”
“One thing at a time, big boy. One thing at a time!”
Lou laughed again. But after Sam mixed his drink and sat it on the bar counter in front of him, he slid what looked to her like a ticket in front of her. “What’s that?” she asked him.
