CHAPTER NINE

All seven of Big Daddy’s children, along with Monk Paletti and Mick and Roz, all arrived around the same time, in different planes, and sat in the large parlor room in individual high-back chairs assembled around the front of the space. The siblings were all shocked that Uncle Mick and Aunt Roz had been summoned too, mainly because Uncle Mick was bigger than Hammer. Who was he to summon him? But also because it confirmed their suspicion: there were more people involved in their mother’s death. It also made a tough situation even more awkward with Uncle Mick in the room. They all feared him, except for maybe Monk Paletti, who was in Mick’s line of work too. And they didn’t exactly cozy up to Aunt Roz, either, who was a major star on Broadway and could be as tough and hard-hearted as her husband.

The room was quiet, as if they were right back at Jenay’s Wake, until the doorknob turned. They all sat at attention, even Mick. But when his half-sister Amelia Sinatra walked in, they all settled back down.

“What’s going on, Auntie?” Bonita asked her.

“Don’t ask me,” she said as she plopped down in a chair near the door. Ashley smiled at the way her aunt was dressed on serious fleet in her big mink coat and bell bottom pants and her high heel boots. She was also sporting a gorgeous big afro, which only made her look even more badass to Ashley as she crossed her legs and leaned back in her chair.

“Where’s Hannibal?” Donald asked Amelia.

“He’s in Vegas hanging out with the Gabrinis. He’ll be back in a few days.”

“You live here now, right?”

Amelia moved one of her hands up and down, as if to say maybe, maybe not, and nobody bothered to get her to commit either way. Because that was Hammer and Millie. They were never going to be a traditional couple.

“Did he summon you here too, Auntie?” Carly asked.

“Summon me? No. I was here when he summoned you.”

That caught Mick and Roz’s attention. “So you know why we’re here?” Roz asked her.

But Amelia shook her head. “Don’t know a damn thing. You know how Hammer is. He don’t tell me shit.”

“And you don’t ask shit either,” said Roz, and they all laughed. It was the first festive moment in the entire time they were there.

And then, as if right on cue, Hamilton “Hammer” Reese walked into the room. Dressed in his usual expensive suit, he looked exactly like the former head of the nation’s spy ring known as the CIA. He also looked like the current head of all of the government’s special ops units around the globe. He was the shit in DC and looked the part. More powerful than the president was how some news organizations described him. And although he was a member of the Sinatra clan by virtue of his tumultuous marriage to Amelia and by virtue of fathering their son Hannibal, he was still as distant and aloof to all of them as he had been the first time they met him. Nobody in the family truly knew Hammer Reese except for maybe Mick and Charles, and neither one of them particularly liked him. Mick’s reason was obvious: he didn’t like any lawmen period. But Charles’s reason was more about his treatment and sometimes neglect of their half-sister Amelia.

When Hammer entered the room, he didn’t acknowledge Amelia’s presence near the entrance at all, which probably meant they weren’t on speaking terms again, as he moved toward the assembled group. But he didn’t give a speech as they had expected, nor did he give a greeting either. But that was Hammer.

“Follow me please,” he said and walked, not back out of the door he had come in, but through a back door in the parlor. Although Mick and Monk were perturbed, they all got up and followed Hammer. Amelia was the last to rise, but she followed him too.

After walking around corridor after corridor in that maze of a house Hammer lived in, they walked down a group of stairs that led, not to a basement, but to another level that seemed even more modern than the upper level of the massive house. It seemed as if they were in a lobby with doors across the room that would lead to offices or whatever was on the other side.

But at those doors, Hammer stopped walking and turned to them all. They all stood there.

And that was when they saw the stress on Hammer’s face. That was when shit got real to all of them. They’d never seen Hammer show that kind of concern before.

“What is it?” Tony asked him.

Hammer looked at those standing in front of him. At Jenay’s only biological child Bonita. At her two adopted daughters Ashley and Carly. And at her four stepsons. And he exhaled, and got on with it. “What you are about to see is going to shock the shit out of all of you. There’s no way it can’t. That’s why I wanted all of you here before Big Daddy got here. I’ll explain everything once he arrives, but I needed you to know so that you can help him when he hears the truth. Because when he hears it, he could very well go into cardiac arrest.”

All of their collective hearts dropped. They knew Charles could not take any more bad news. They knew it would destroy him if he heard any more bad news!

Amelia moved up front, next to Mick. Because she wondered if she was going to be able to take it too. Because her big brother was involved. Because of everybody in the family, she was closest to Charles. But what she didn’t know was that Mick’s heart was hammering too.

“What’s the truth?” Amelia asked Hammer. “Just tell us. We can’t take much more of this fucking suspense. Just tell us.”

It was how all of them felt in that moment.

Hammer exhaled, which wasn’t a good sign either. But then he told them. “Jenay,” he said, “is alive.”

When he said those three words, it felt as if the entire space squeezed them in. If he expected them to just jump for joy, he was badly mistaken. Every single one of them had a sudden and painful fixed frown on their faces. They could hardly breathe. It was so unbelievable to them that the entirety of their being was to not believe it. They could not believe it! They knew it couldn’t be true. They stared at Hammer as if he was insane. They stared at Hammer as if they were insane. They stood frozen in that space as if Jenay was alive, but they were dead. As if it was all a dream.

But Mick and Roz knew it wasn’t. Monk, Amelia and Brent did too. Because they knew Hammer Reese the best. They knew he never spent a moment of his valuable time playing with people. Of all the men on the face of this earth: Hammer didn’t play.

“She’s alive,” Mick said as if he knew it was true.

And it was as if the entire room took a collective exhale. And then the questions poured from their mouths like diarrhea. They had a million questions. But it wasn’t a million different questions. It was the same question asked seemingly a million times: Where is she? Where is she? Where is she ?!

They didn’t care about the how. They didn’t care about the when. They just wanted to see her for themselves. They wouldn’t believe it, they couldn’t believe it, until they saw her for themselves! They buried her. They saw her dead body. Their hearts wanted to soar. They wanted to believe. They needed to believe. But they couldn’t until they saw her face to face.

Then it wouldn’t be a hoax.

It wouldn’t be a horrific joke.

It would be everything .

Hammer opened the door slowly, and then allowed them to see for themselves.