Big Daddy Sinatra: There Was a Ruthless Man(67)

Charles looked at her. “So you’re tough. Is that what you’re telling me?”

“I’m tough enough. That’s what I’m saying.”

And Charles could appreciate exactly what she meant. She wasn’t trying to be the boss, but she wasn’t interested in being the patsy either. “Okay,” he said, and nodded his head. “I feel you.”

Jenay smiled. “I’ll bet that’s the first time in your entire life you used that line.”

Charles laughed. But she was right. Feelings and Charles Sinatra were as dissonant to each other as oil was to water.

But just as he turned to head into town, where Jericho Inn was located, his car phone rang. The screen showed that his son Tony was phoning. He pressed the Answer button on his dash screen.

“What is it, Tone?” he asked.

“It’s Donnie,” Tony said. He was on Speaker. Jenay could hear the entire conversation.

“What now?”

“After I left your house, I decided to swing by his place to see why he was a no-show. Good thing I came. He did it this time, Dad. I had to pull him off of Susan. She’s in pretty bad shape.”

Charles could barely contain his fury. “I’m on my way,” he said, pressed off to end the call, and then completed a U-turn and headed back toward the interstate.

“Isn’t she pregnant?” Jenay asked, horrified.

“Yes!” Charles yelled. “That damn boy!”



The hallway in Donald’s house was narrow, as Charles and Jenay headed for the master bedroom. Tony closed the front door and followed them, but they were moving so fast that they were already in the room by the time he caught up. And when Jenay saw the woman she remembered as Donald’s bride, and saw her face so battered that her eyes were swollen shut, she stopped in her tracks.

Charles hurried to the bed and checked out his young daughter-in-law. But she jerked away from him. She was crying, and was doubled-over in pain on the bed, and did not want to be touched.

“You okay?” Tony asked Jenay when he came up behind her. All she could do was nod. Donald did this, she asked herself. How could Charles’s son do this?

“Tony,” Charles said as he looked at Susan.

Tony hurried past Jenay, and went up to his father. “Yes, sir?”

“Call 911.”

Tony looked at him. “You mean call Dr. Dross?”

“Call 911,” he ordered again, and then left the room.

Tony, surprised that Charles wasn’t in the protect Donnie at all cost mode anymore, did as he was commanded. He pulled out his cell phone, and called 911.

Charles walked past Jenay, walked back down the hall, and into what she assumed was one of the guest bedrooms. Unsure what she should do, since the female did not seemed to want anybody around her, she followed him.

Donald was sitting on the bed, like some beautiful angel, and he stood up when his father walked in.

“She deserved it, Dad,” he said self-righteously. “I caught her again with that same guy, with Paul again. They claim they were just talking. But I don’t want him here talking to my wife, and I told them that countless times! But instead of beating his ass this time, I kicked him out and beat hers. She deserved it.”

Charles began walking up to his son. Donald was still defiant. He was still filled with that rage it took to nearly beat his own pregnant wife half to death. But Charles had a different kind of rage. The kind of rage that wouldn’t touch a woman, but that could beat grown men into submission. And that was exactly what he did.

He beat the shit out of his youngest son. Jenay tried to stop him. Tony ran into the room and tried to pull him away. But it was no use. He was giving Donald the kind of beating Donald had given his wife. And when he finished, when he finished beating Donald down so decisively that he was crying in a corner like the spoiled brat he had become, he then stood straight up. It was only then did Jenay and Tony realize he wasn’t out of control at all. He knew exactly what he was doing.

He walked out of the room, and then out of the home altogether. Jenay followed him, certain he was devastated by what his son had done, and what he had just done to his son in retaliation. But when she made it out into the warm night air, devastation was the last thing she saw on his face. There was no anger there either, nor that rage. But sadness. Pure sadness.

She wanted to go to him, but for some reason she sensed he needed space right now, not her empathy.

And sure enough, he began pacing, as if he still could not get over, not what he had just done, but what his son had done. Beating down a woman like that. A pregnant woman! Then, just when she thought he was ready to say something, ready to voice his feelings, he pulled out his own cell phone. To Jenay’s shock, he called Chief Joffee himself.