CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Hours later, Hammer and Amelia woke up. But as they were awakening, they realized Hammer was still deep inside of her. And that realization aroused them again in a way that neither one of them expected, and they went at it once again. Even harder than the first time. But not to completion. Because after only a few minutes of their pulse-pounding, hard-charging romantic coupling, knocks were heard on Hammer’s office door.

Hammer, who had gotten on top this time, stopped pounding her. “Dammit!” he decried. “Yes?” he yelled out loud.

“We need to talk, Hammer.” It was Mick’s voice.

“Dammit!” Hammer said again. He was just getting into his groove.

But he eased out of Amelia, and they both got up, repositioned their clothing, and smoothed down their hair.

“Come on in,” Hammer said as Mick and Charles made their way into the spacious office to find Hammer and Amelia seated side by side on his sofa.

Mick could smell sex in the air and looked at them askance, as if the very notion that they could be making love at a time like this was disagreeable to him, but Charles didn’t care. He was walking on air. He had his Jenay back! He was only there to keep Mick and Hammer from killing each other. Both men grabbed chairs from the conference table and sat in front of the sofa.

“Okay, what is it?” Hammer asked them.

“Zip up your pants,” Mick said, and Amelia and Charles grinned.

Hammer, embarrassed, zipped up his pants. “I told you all I know at this point.”

“Why Jenay?” Mick led the charge. “Why did you pull off this elaborate scheme and bring her all the way here when my brother could have taken care of her? When my brother could have protected her.”

“I already told you why.”

“You told us bullshit,” said Mick.

“Careful Mick,” said Amelia.

“Careful my ass. What you telling me to be careful for? Fuck him!”

“I already have,” Amelia said, which she knew they both already knew. “So watch it.”

“Okay, that’s enough you two,” Charles said firmly before Mick could zing her back.

But the more Mick thought about what Hammer had done, the angrier he was becoming. He was pissed. The very idea that Charles and his children had to go through so much pain and agony was infuriating to him. Roz cried herself to sleep for weeks on end after Jenay’s supposed death. It was just awful. Being at odds with his sister’s husband, though never comfortable for Mick, was completely justified, he felt, in this case. “How could you agree with what he did, Millie?” he asked her. “All the pain he caused. How could you agree with that?”

“I never said I agree with it. But you don’t come at him like that. You disagree, fine. Say you disagree. But he wasn’t bullshitting you.”

“And you know this how?”

Amelia realized she didn’t know shit about the authenticity of what Hammer had laid on them. She realized she was doing what she said she’d never do: blindly defend some man because she loved him, which she always found pathetic and weak in other women. But she was that girl now? And in front of Mick and Charles of all people, who hated weakness? She looked away from Mick. She felt ashamed.

Charles could see how conflicted she was, and he let her off the hook. She loved Hamilton Reese no matter how Mick felt about him or how Charles felt he took her for granted. She wanted to stand by her man because nobody else did. Hammer would always be a pariah in their family because he was Fed. Point. Blank. Period.

“All we need from you, Hammer,” Charles said, “is for you to tell us the truth. Not some story you concocted, but the truth. Were our companies really infiltrated the way you claimed?”

Hammer respected Mick and Charles, but he also loved Charles. “Yes. You are among the top ten percent of property owners in this country. Your Boston office and your L.A. office, your two largest headquarters, were both infiltrated.”

“But not the office I work out of in Jericho?”

Hammer shook his head. “No. Not your local office.”

“Which makes no sense,” said Amelia. “If they wanted to know the comings and goings of the bosses, why wouldn’t they infiltrate the corporate headquarters where the bosses actually work out of?”

“Right,” agreed Charles. “Have you even considered that?”

“Of course I have,” Hammer replied.

“So what did you determine?” asked Amelia.

“The only explanation I could come up with was that it was too small an office for infiltration. They had to work out to work in. Boston was the main event office for them. I think they placed an operative in your L.A. office as a buffer should the unthinkable happen and we figure it out. Well it happened. We figured it out. And that spy in L.A. may be designed to keep us distracted.”

“But you don’t know that?” asked Mick. His face was fixed with a frown as he stared at the man he did not like. The man who expected him to roll over and play dead when his enemies attacked him. Let the government worry about them , was how Hammer always came at Mick in times like that. When Mick felt he should know better than to even fix his mouth to come at him that way. “This sounds like a lot of speculating bullshit to me.”

“What about these secondary attacks?” asked Charles. “Were they only directed at Mick’s corporation and my company? Or were you just saying that?”

Hammer sometimes wondered what planet did the Sinatras live on for them to even ask him a question like that. Did they really think he’d just be saying things for the hell of it? Did they really think he had time to play games with them? “Yes, Charles. Your company and Mick’s company were the only two, so far, with that secondary, low-level, find out the bosses’ schedule infiltration.”

“But even that still doesn’t explain why you would hurry Jenay out of the hospital, airlift her somewhere else, and tell me my wife was dead. I still can’t understand why you wouldn’t let me nurse her back to health. Why you wouldn’t let me protect her. What do you think I am, some freaking weakling? I’ll kick your ass any day of the week.”

Hammer had no doubt in his mind that Charles was as vicious as Mick, if not more so. That Mick learned all his strongman tendencies from Charles.

“Why wouldn’t you tell me she survived that surgery and let me take her to my home, to her own home, and take care of her?”

“Or,” said Amelia, “if it was that important that Aristotle, whomever he is, believes Jenay died, then why wouldn’t you let Charles come here and sit with her while she was still in a coma? Aristotle would not have known it.”

“Yes, he would have,” said Mick, to Amelia and Charles’s surprise. “It was imperative for Charlie to continue working, continue living his life, continue grieving so that it could be clear that this was no ruse. That Jenay, in his eyes, was absolutely dead.”

“I could have pretended,” Charles said but even Amelia was shaking her head.

“Nobody can pretend like that,” she admitted.

“We had to institute our death cover protocols because of the risks involved.”

“But for who? Mick can take care of himself,” Charles said, “and I damn sure can. You didn’t need to pull all this subterfuge for us.”

“It wasn’t for you nor for Mick. It was because we needed that distraction,” said Hammer. “You both were beginning to snoop around. You knew something wasn’t right in your businesses, but neither one of you could figure out what it was. And making inquiries, bringing people in and talking to them, which was what you were beginning to do, was dangerous for us. I was on the verge of having both of you picked up just to order you to back off.”

“ Order us ?” Mick and Charles said it at the exact same time. And both had incredulity in their voices.

Whether they liked it or not, Hammer knew he had the authority to order them to desist whatever he wanted them to stop, or face prison time. He had the goods on both of them and they both knew it. But he didn’t go there. For Millie’s sake, he ignored their question. “Before your inquiries could expose our sources and methods, I had to find a way to take Aristotle’s eyes off the ball. I hadn’t come up with anything until that shooting in Jericho. I called in our doctors immediately to help the local doctors because our guys are the best in the business, and also to immediately institute DCP should she survive that surgery. When she survived, they had already taken charge and could order the airlift without any input from the local doctors. It was a golden opportunity for me to stop you guys from asking questions and snooping around, and it also gave Jenay the best medical attention she was ever likely to get in Jericho.”

“That’s bullshit,” said Amelia, who couldn’t take it anymore. “I’m sorry, but that sounds like a lot of bullshit to me, Ham.”

“Give it to us straight, Hammer,” said Charles. “What was the real reason you abducted my wife? Because I’m with Millie: distracting us wasn’t it.”

Hammer exhaled. The meat of the matter now. “I made the call to institute DCP because we had reason to believe Jenay was in grave danger. We couldn’t let them know she lived.”

“Let who know?” asked Mick.

“Aristotle.”

“A man you don’t know a damn thing about,” said Mick.

Hammer nodded his head. “That’s unfortunately correct.”

“But why would you believe Jenay was in danger when the shooter had targeted Charlie, not Jenay?” Amelia asked. “This still doesn’t make sense.”

But Mick was staring at Hammer. “Jenay was the target all along,” he said to Hammer. “Wasn’t she?”

Charles looked at Mick and then at Hammer. Was she, his facial expression was asking.

But Hammer didn’t respond.

“Is it true?” asked Charles outright.

Hammer exhaled again. “The foreign spies we pulled in told us so, yes.”

“Under heavy torture no doubt,” said Mick.

“Yes, under heavy torture. They were scared of the Feds, but they were terrified of Aristotle even though they’d never seen him in person either. And they told us that yes, they were infiltrating all of those companies to aid in Aristotle’s quest to rule the world, and especially America. And that’s why I made the call. I believed she was in grave danger from a man who would go to any lengths to make whatever point he’s trying to make.”

“But why Jenay?” Charles had a fixed frown on his face. “And how does she tie into his quest to ruling the world?”

“We don’t know, and our sources don’t either. They gave us what little they had. Finding Aristotle, along with the rest of his operatives, is our primary goal.”

There was more to the story than Hammer was letting on, but Mick knew he had to bide his time.

“What about the Gabrinis?” Charles asked. “Do we pull in the Gabrinis?”

Hammer looked at Mick and Charles. “That’s up to you. You tell them to come here, they will come.”

“It’s your ass that’s got the entire United States government at your fingertips,” said Mick. “Do you think they’re in danger too?”

“At this point? No. But that could change.”

“Do you have people protecting them?” Charles asked.

“Undercover people, yes.”

“So they don’t know that they have some shadowy world dominator infiltrating their companies, and they don’t know that the Feds are protecting them?”

Hammer hesitated. It was always uncomfortable for him when sources and methods were being discussed. “They don’t know, that is correct.”

Charles looked at Mick. “What do you think, Micky? Time to call in the Gabrinis?”

“As long as they’re protected, not yet,” Mick replied. “We don’t know enough yet. But we will,” he added as he looked at Hammer. “Give me all you got,” he said to him. “And I mean all.”

And even Hammer knew it wasn’t a suggestion.

But when Mick and Charles left his office and closed the door behind them, they stopped in the hall. “What are your thoughts?” Charles asked his younger brother.

“We’re pawns in his government game. Jenay is a pawn in that game too.”

Charles nodded. “That’s what I’m feeling too.”

“He needs us holed up here and Jenay declared dead to protect those major corporations. He’s downplaying that part, but that’s the only reason the government would enlist Hammer, their top guy, to handle it. This shit has nothing to do with Jenay being in danger or any secondary threat to us.”

“So you don’t think there’s even a threat to Jenay and to us?”

“I’m not saying that,” said Mick. “There probably is a threat. And Hammer wouldn’t lie about seeing that secondary attack front in our two companies. I don’t doubt that. But the government, and by extension Hammer Reese, doesn’t give a damn about our safety which, by extension, they don’t give a damn about Jenay’s safety. We’re being used to protect the billionaires. That’s what this is about.”

Charles stared at Mick. “It’s been said that you’re a billionaire yourself.”

“Not the kind they’re trying to protect. I’m on the take. I’ll admit that. But all those other billionaires are on the take too. Only they’re willing to be on the take for the fucking government. To spy and do their government’s bidding. I’m on the take for myself. I’m not giving them anything and not about to snitch for them. I don’t give a shit about them. And they don’t give a shit about me.”

“And by extension Jenay and me,” said Charles.

A look of regret appeared in Mick’s tired eyes. He hated the very thought that Jenay’s shooting could have been directly tied to all he went through with the attacks on his wife and the mothers of his two grown children just before her shooting occurred. He had brought his shit to Jericho, something Charles always warned him to never do. And it was with near-deadly consequences. “Right,” he said in answer to his brother’s astute observation.

Charles was beyond elated to have Jenay back, but he was also worried sick about her and his children’s safety. He opened his suit coat and placed his hands on his hips. He realized he needed Mick’s expertise in that moment. He trusted Mick’s criminal mind and abilities more than he trusted the government’s. “What do you think we should do?”

“Get the hell off of this mountain. I feel like a sitting duck. Jenay can travel. She said her wounds have healed. We need to get her to my house while we work on flushing out this fucker Aristotle, or whoever’s responsible.”

“I don’t see what connection we could have to the richest man in the world who wants to dominate America.”

“There’s a connection though. Hammer’s ass won’t tell us yet. He’s protecting his people. I say we start protecting ours.”

Charles nodded. “I agree with you. Except for one thing.”

Mick gave him a hard look. “What’s that?”

“She’s not going to your house. She’s going to mine.” He looked at Mick with a combination of gratitude for getting him to realize how sensible his suggestions were, but also resolve to do those suggestions his way. “It’s time for Jenay to go home.”

Mick nodded. “I agree,” he said.