CHAPTER SIX

SIX MONTHS LATER

Katrill "Katie" Connors plopped down in the booth seat at the busy diner and began removing her gloves. Dak Harris, her colleague, looked at her as if she'd forgotten something. And she had in his eyes: her manners. "And good morning to you too," he said to her.

"It's freezing out there," said Katie. "My hands feel like ice cubes. Wanna feel them?" Then she looked at Dak and remembered he'd said something to her. "What did you say?"

Dak laughed and took a drag on his vape pen.

"What's so funny? I just didn't hear you, Dak. Now what did you say to me?"

"Nothing girl." He took another drag. "Nothing at all. Where's Boss?"

"She's coming. Her car went dead just as we were about to drive up to the valet station. The valets had to push it out of the way. She's on the phone with the Dealership now."

Dak shook his head. "The luck she's been having. And that car ain't even that old."

"Mr. Reese bought it for her like a year ago as a makeup after one of their breakup gifts. But Boss don't take care of no car. And Mr. Reese is never around to make her take care of it. She just drives it."

"That's Amelia," agreed Dak as he took another drag on his vape pen.

Katie looked at him. "You'd better not let her catch you with that stuff. You know she don't like it and you know it's against the Clean Indoor Air Act."

"The Indoor Air Act, child please. What you know about any act ever passed in the history of the United States? Until somebody in authority inside this restaurant tells me I have to put it away, then I'll put it away. If nobody tells me that, I'm vaping all day long."

"It's your lungs. Here she comes," Katie said as if they both had just been caught in some forbidden act, and Dak immediately began putting his vape pen away.

Katie laughed as Dak realized nobody was coming in that moment and that she was messing with him. "Very funny," he said. "And you said she's talking to that car dealership. She needs to be talking to a new client. Because we need one asap."

Katie looked at Dak. "Business is not that bad, come on now, Dak. We have clients."

"Yes, we have clients," Dak admitted. "We have plenty of clients. But we don't have the kind of big dollar clients that drives real revenue like we used to have. Ever since her brothers cracked down on who she can and cannot take on as clients we've been struggling to make ends meet. She owns her own company, but they dictate to her."

"I don't get that either," said Katie. "Boss is the toughest woman I've ever met in my life. If there's ever been a boss bitch, Amelia Sinatra is it. But why does she let those brothers of hers push her all the way around like they do? Just because they're older than her? Give me a break! From what I hear on the streets, they aren't church folks either. Especially Mick Sinatra. I mean come on now. Who is he to dictate to her who she can and cannot do business with? Who does he think he is?"

"The boss of all mob bosses, that's who. The most vicious man in America, that's who. That's a bad white man. Whenever he comes around, I get lost. I don't wanna ever get on that man's bad side."

"But it's not just her brothers trying to push her around either. Don't forget Mr. Reese."

"How can anybody forget his mean ass?" Dak said.

Katie laughed.

"Whenever he used to come to the office, he would sit there staring at me like he just knows I'm up to no good with his wife or whenever he be thinking. He used to drive me nuts with that bull crap. He's the one running around with everything with a skirt on from what I hear, but he tries to turn it around and put that shit on Boss."

"She sees right through his bull," said Katie.

"You know it," agreed Dak. "Probably why he hasn't been to the office in a long time."

"Probably why she's divorcing him," said Katie. "Finally! All these great looking brothers out here and she's got to go get herself some unsavory white man like him." Both he and Katie were African-American.

"But you know how Miss Millie can be," said Dak. "Boss don't do anything small. She wasn't gonna marry just anybody. She had to go and dredge up the meanest, hardest-driving joker on the planet. Used to walk into the Sinatra Detective Agency like he owns it. He don't own shit. I saw the filings. Amelia owns all of that. Hopefully today will be her last court appearance and we can be rid of him forever."

Katie had a yeah, right look on her face that Dak noticed. "What's that look supposed to mean?"

"That man is not going to let Amelia divorce him. I don't care what y'all say."

Dak pulled out his vape pen as he nodded his head. He understood exactly what she meant. "I feel you girl. I'll have to see it to believe it too."

"She's here," Katie said just as he was about to take a puff.

"You think that's gonna work twice?"

"Don't believe me then."

Dak didn't see a smirk behind Katie's comment. And when he looked up for himself and saw their boss entering the restaurant, he quickly put it away again. "Damn," he said. "A brother can't even get one puff in."

Katie laughed as she stared at their boss. "When I grow up," she said, "I want to be just like her!"

"Fat chance of that ever happening," Dak thought as he admiringly watched their boss make her way toward them too. Because nobody styled it like Amelia styled it. It was chilly outside that morning, but not freezing like Skinny Katie claimed. But their boss ALWAYS overdressed: from her full-length, red, cashmere coat, to her flare-leg white pants, to her red-and-white stiletto boots that could sever a toe if it ever stepped on one, she walked in like she didn't just own the joint, but owned you too! And her flawless dark-brown skin. That was what always kept Dak's attention. Her face had the oddest combination he'd ever seen. Because she had the look of somebody as innocent as a lamb, but also as cut-throat as her brother Mick the Tick. As if she was the baddest bitch in the room and the sweetest at the same time. It was the oddest look. And in Dak's opinion, she wore it well.

Katie shared that opinion. Although Katie was beautiful in a way that even Amelia had to take a backseat to, she didn't have the pizzazz her boss had. To Katie, all men wanted from her was a roll in the hay. But because of Amelia's style and elegance and that dangerous look about her, they wanted to possess her. But no man, other than Hammer Reese from what Katie heard, ever had.

She was not to be trifled with if you asked either one of her employees that sat in that booth staring at her as she made her way to their table. Even down to her long, flowing, so-called good hair that was always on-point to Katie, who knew how to style a great-looking haircut herself. Even down to that smoking body that always turned Dak on, even if he would deny to everybody's face that she was nothing but an employer to him. She had that it factor in spades. Hammer Reese wasn't wrong to suspect that he had the hots for his wife. But that would be a secret Dak would carry to his grave. He knew Amelia Sinatra, who came with the baggage of her overbearing, gangster brothers, and that husband of hers, was not somebody he was trying to have.

By the time Amelia sat down in the booth seat across from her two favorite employees, she was starving. "Have you ordered yet, Dak?"

"Yes ma'am, I have. Your usual. My usual. Katie's usual. It's not for nothing that they say private investigators are creatures of habit."

"I am so hungry," said Amelia as she removed her scarf. "I didn't get a chance to eat last night."

"I'm sorry I had to call you last night, Boss," Dak said, "but I was caught up with my own situation over in PG County, and Curtis needed a supervisor onsite then and there because that stakeout went left real quick."

"And it only got worse by the time I got there," said Amelia. "Not only did the perp realize what we were up to and took off, but they tried to arrest Curtis and charge him with attempted burglary! Thank goodness I knew the sergeant at the scene or it could have been even more disastrous. And then the client didn't want to pay us shit because we didn't catch her boyfriend in the act. And I had to resolve that too because that bitch was paying me."

Dak and Katie laughed.

"It was after midnight by the time I made it back home," added Amelia.

"Is it just me or are our cases getting wilder?" asked Katie.

"It's you," said Dak. "Our cases have always been wild."

Amelia smiled a smile that Dak thought lit up her entire face. But it disappeared as quickly as it came.

Dak noticed that too. She looked stressed. "What time is the hearing today?" he asked her.

"Two pm sharp. Think you can give me a lift to the courthouse after lunch, Dak? That damn car broke down on me again. Second time this year."

"You know I'll give you a lift. Need me to wait on you?"

"No, I'll get that dealership to have a loaner car waiting for me after court. But thanks."

"No worries." Then he stared at her. "Sure about this, Boss?"

Amelia looked at Dak. He was a good guy. Very handsome black man with a big heart, a great body, a great work ethic, and smart as smart could get. The exact kind of man she expected to marry someday. He was exactly her type. Until Hammer's slick ass came along and did what he always did: flooded the room with so much of his light that she couldn't see anybody else's. Not even her own. "Yes, I'm sure," she said in answer to Dak's question.

But Kaite was puzzled. "Did I miss something in the conversation? What are you two talking about? What are you sure about?"

Dak and Amelia both smiled. Katie was a sweet, gorgeous girl in her early twenties who knew how to find out what the word on the street was better than any investigator Amelia ever had. But brains are u she was not. "My impending divorce," she said to Katie.

Katie frowned. "When did we start talking about that?"

"When did we stop talking about that?" asked Dak.

"Pardon me?"

It wasn't one of their voices, so all three looked over and saw a tall white woman standing on the left side of their booth.

"Yes?" Dak asked her.

But she was staring at Amelia. "Are you Amelia Sinatra? The owner of the Sinatra Detective Agency?"

"Who wants to know?"

Dak inwardly smiled. Leave it to Amelia the former gangster to always be leery of anybody coming up to her.

"My name is Beth Kucinich," the woman said. "I have a job for you."

"What kind of job?"

"A prove my husband is a cheating pile of shit so that he will agree to every term I set out in our soon-to-be, extremely expensive divorce kind of job."

Dak quickly looked at Amelia. Was this a high dollar client? The kind they desperately needed?

Amelia was staring at the woman. She wore designer everything but she'd known women without a dime in their pocket to do that. It wasn't until she sat her hand on the countertop and Amelia saw that she wore no flashy jewelry except for a Rolex watch that was so exclusive that there were only a handful in existence did she know this woman had means. Serious means. Her brother Mick bought that same watch for Roz after she almost left his ass.

That was why Amelia decided to see just how much means the woman was willing to part with. "It has to be worth my time, lady. If you can't pay, you can't play with me."

"Is a quarter-of-a-million dollars worth your time?" the woman asked her. "Can I play with you then?"

Dak and Katie nearly jumped out of their seats with excitement. They desperately needed a high dollar client. If that woman wasn't bullshitting, she was it.

But Amelia sensed the woman's desperation. And she wasn't above exploiting it. "For a quarter million? No, you cannot play with me. But for half-a-million? Maybe. Depends on how far I'll have to go to get this soon-to-be-ex-husband of yours to comply."

Dak looked at Amelia. Half-a-million dollars for one case? And she was even waffling about that? Was Amelia insane? Didn't she realize how many more investigators they could hire with that kind of revenue coming in? How many more regular cases they could take to keep the money flowing? But then he looked at Beth Kucinich and held his breath until the woman spoke again. Would she just walk away?

But she spoke again. "For that kind of money, I will need you to bend my cheating husband all the way, not halfway, but all the way to my will. Think you can take that on?"

Dak and Katie looked at Amelia. She was the kind of woman that took everything seriously. Was she taking that woman serious? Or did she know she was full of shit? Amelia, above anybody else Dak had ever know, could tell.

And then Amelia said three little words to Mrs. Kucinich that would change all of their lives forever: "I got you," she said.