CHAPTER FOUR

Charles had had it with Jake Fordham. He wasn’t on his job the last few months, he’d admit that. But for this character to take full advantage and end up four months behind and still talking smack as if Charles owed him a living and he didn’t have to shell out a penny of his own money to pay the rent, was a bridge too far. And he wasn’t arguing about it anymore.

“Then don’t argue,” said Jake Fordham, a big white man even bigger in size than Charles’s muscular frame. “Just get your ass off my property!”

“ Your property?” Charles couldn’t believe the nerve of this man. And when Fordham slammed the door in his face to prove that he had commandeered that property and wasn’t letting it go, Charles was done.

He hurried off of that porch, down those steps, and didn’t stop moving until he went to the cab of his big Ram truck, grabbed his pump action sawed off shotgun and made his way back to the front door of the two-story house he owned near the outskirts of Jericho. He didn’t mind helping a man when he was down. But nobody was going to take advantage of him.

He marched back on that porch, pumped his rifle, and fired at that lock without hesitation. If Jake Fordham happened to have been on the other side of that door, that would have been just too bad. Charles was done playing with him.

Once the lock was dislodged, he kicked the door on in and hurried inside. Fordham, who had been walking up the stairs when the rifle was fired, was shocked. He hurried down those stairs angrily. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Evicting you,” Charles said as he hurried over and grabbed Fordham by his plaid shirt. He began pulling him toward the exit. “You are squatting on my land, sir, and you’re getting off today.”

“But you gotta take me to court first.”

“And wait six months to get you out of here? Your ass getting out right now.”

Fordham, a huge man, was able to break away from Charles’s grasp. “You can’t do this. It’s against the law!”

Charles was a man who made it his business to abide by the law and everybody in town knew it, but he’d had it. Jake Fordham didn’t just represent an arrogant tenant who wanted to use the system for his benefit. He represented everything wrong in Charles’s life, including life itself and how Charles felt about it. Including the death of his wife. He grabbed Fordham again.

“It’s against the law,” Fordham decried again. “You’re breaking the law.”

“I don’t give a damn,” Charles said. “You’re getting off of my property!”

But before they could get to the front door, Fordham broke free again. “Think you’re a big man with that rifle in your hand. Take me out of here with your bare hands, Big Daddy Sinatra. That’s what they call you. Big Daddy, like you the big man around here. Since you’re so big and bad, let’s go man to man. Take me out of here with your own two hands. I dare you!”

Charles’s temper was fully unleashed when that idiot dared him. He quickly tossed his rifle onto the sofa and then he grabbed Fordham by his shirt and punched him so hard that it knocked him straight back and nearly unconscious. Big Daddy then rushed up to him and stood over him, straddling him. “You dare me ? I dare you !”

Fordham, realizing he had underestimated his landlord, began scooting backwards, his hands out as if he wanted mercy. But Big Daddy lifted him up and started throwing him around that room like he was a rag doll, causing his big body to break everything in sight. Fordham, a lifelong bully who was taller than Charles and bulkier, couldn’t believe how strong the man he thought he could easily take down truly was.

Then Charles hurried to him again, picked him up again, and began beating him down like he was beating the pain out of every inch of his own body. Fordham was trying to fight back, but it was as if he was fighting a fighting machine and couldn’t land a single blow. He started screaming in agony as he realized he had bit off way more than he could chew and his landlord wasn’t about to give in. All he could do was beg for mercy.

But Charles was done with mercy. He didn’t get any when he needed it most, and he wasn’t giving any. They said life would get better for him with the passage of time, but they lied. It was getting worse. And so was his mood. Fordham was bleeding, but even that wasn’t stopping Charles. He continued to beat the man into total submission.

It wasn’t until Brent arrived on scene and ran into the house, grabbing his father before he killed that man, did Charles come back to himself. “Pop? Pop ?”

He realized it was his oldest son’s voice as he held his father into a bear hug to keep him away from his wayward tenant.

Fordham fell down onto the floor in agonizing pain. But he dared not say a word. He was now terrified of Charles.

But Brent, who he knew was a by-the-book lawman, gave him courage. “He can’t evict me without the courts. That’s the law,” he decried again.

Charles tried to break away from Brent to continue kicking his tenant’s ass, but Brent refused to let him go. “Pop, let’s get out of here,” he was saying as he tried to steer him toward the front door.

But Fordham kept tempting his landlord. “It’s the law, ain’t it, Brent? It’s the law.”

“Shut up, Fordham!” Brent yelled out. It was tough enough getting his father to calm down. “Shut the fuck up!”

Fordham did shut up as Brent was able to grab his father’s rifle off of the sofa and then get him out of the house.

Charles snatched away from his son when they got out on the porch, grabbed his rifle, and made his way back to his truck. Brent followed him.

Charles tossed his rifle inside his truck and got in.

“You were out of line, Pop,” Brent was saying to his father. “You know you can’t just throw a tenant out without the proper paperwork. What’s wrong with you?”

But Charles slammed his door shut. Brent motioned for him to press down the window. Charles reluctantly did. “I don’t wanna hear that bullshit,” he said when the window went down.

“Get your people to file for the eviction,” Brent said as Charles’s phone began ringing. “Me and my guys will get him out of there. But it has to be done right.”

Brent could see Hammer Reese’s name come up on his father’s truck screen. “What does he want?”

Charles saw the name, too, and wanted to end the call. But he answered it. “Keep me out of it,” he said before Hammer could say a word.

“Keep you out of what?” Hammer asked him.

“You and Amelia’s bull crap. Keep me out of it.”

“That’s not why I’m phoning.”

That surprised Charles and Brent. “Then what is it?”

“I need you to come to Charlemagne.”

Charles frowned. “To Montreal?” He had no dealings with Hammer Reese except where it concerned his half-sister Amelia, or their son. “Why would I need to come there if it’s not about Millie?”

“We’ll discuss it when you get here.”

“Like hell we will. We’ll discuss it now. Why do I need to come there?”

“Tomorrow.Four pm.At Charlemagne.”

“I don’t have time to come see you,” Charles said, but Hammer had already ended the call.

Brent was shocked. Even a man like Hammer Reese, the former head of the CIA and the head of the entire government’s special ops programs, respected Big Daddy. “He hung up?”

“Yeah that bastard hung up,” Charles said, although Brent could tell he was in deep thought.

Brent looked at his father. “You going?”

“I know his ass.” Charles exhaled. “He wouldn’t request it if it wasn’t vital.”

“It must be about Amelia. It has to be.”

But Charles felt differently. He didn’t know why, but he felt it. “Yeah maybe,” he said. Then he looked at Brent. “I want that freeloader out of my house and off of my property asap.”

“File the paperwork and I’ll get it done. But you can’t cut corners, Pop.”

“Why the hell not?” Charles asked. “Everybody else cutting corners. Everybody else doing whatever the hell they want. Why can’t I?”

Brent saw the pain deep down in his father’s anguished green eyes. They locked eyes momentarily, as both men could tell Charles’s change in personality had nothing to do with Jake Fordham.

Then Charles backed up, turned, and sped away.