Big Daddy Sinatra: There Was a Ruthless Man (The Sinatras of Jericho County Book 1) Read Online Free Page A

Charles said.
    “I’m
drunk,” Donald said.   “Brent’s
right.   I’ve had far too much to drink.”
    Charles
looked angrily at his youngest son.   “Don’t you dare create an excuse,” he said.   “You said it, you stand by it.”
    Donald
swallowed hard.   “I didn’t mean---”
    “The
worse kind of man in this world,” Charles continued, “is a man who doesn’t say
what he means, and means what he says.”
    Donald
nodded.   “Yes, sir.   But I didn’t mean to. . .”   But his father continued to give him that
hard, chilling gaze.   He gave up trying
to excuse himself.   “Yes, sir,” he said.
    But
just as he said it, they were interrupted by one of the partygoers.   “Bobby!” a man yelled from halfway across the
room, and over the loud music and conversation.
    Robert
looked at him.   “Yeah, what do you want?”
he responded.
    “A
man here to see you.”
    Robert,
and his entire family, immediately looked toward the entrance.   An older man in a tight slim suit was
standing at the door.   Charles looked at
his son.
    “I’ll
catch up with you guys later,” Robert said to his family, and then began
walking toward the entrance.
    “Any
of you know that guy?” Charles asked as he watched his son leave.
    “Never
seen him before,” Brent said, and Tony and Donald echoed him.
    Charles
exhaled.   “Go and enjoy your reception,”
he said to Donald.
    “But
Dad, about what I said---”
    “Go
mingle,” Charles insisted.   “What are you
hanging around me for anyway?   Go.   All of you.   Go have some fun.”
    “You
sure?” Tony asked him.
    “Positive.   Go.”
    They
slowly began to move away, but they also kept looking back at their
father.   Especially Tony.    But he kept it moving too.   Charles even saw Tony hit Donald upside his
head.   “Idiot!” he heard him say.   “Now he ran us off!”
    They
were all grown sons.   Donald was the
youngest at eighteen, and Brent was the oldest at twenty-two.   But in a lot of ways, whenever they were
around Charles, he felt as if they were still the little kids he used to take
white water rafting and moose hunting.
    He
moved around the crowd, not mingling much himself, until he found an empty
seating area near the floor-to-ceiling windows.   He walked over to that area and stood at the window, looking out across
the busy highway, and sipped from his dwindling drink.   Then he searched out and found the main
reason he was at that window at all: his son.   Robert stood outside of that ballroom, on the hotel’s patio, talking to
the man in the slim suit.  
    They
seemed to be arguing at first, but then they calmed back down and began talking
civilly.   Soon, they seemed to come to
some agreement and then slim suit went his separate way, and Robert headed back
inside the ballroom.   Charles looked over
at him as he entered, as he straightened up his tie and pulled on his tux, and
then he headed back to mingle with the other partygoers.  
    Of
all of his sons, his two youngest, Donald and Robert, worried him the
most.   Tony had his issues, he had, after
all, dropped out of college yet again last term, but he was overall a good
kid.   And Brent was his own man, as
tough, Charles believed, as Charles himself.   But Robert and Donald were different.   He didn’t know if they were leaders yet.   They were of age, they were eighteen and nineteen respectively, but he
didn’t know if they fully understood that they were men now.   When he was nineteen, he was a father of
three children, and was working three jobs.   But he also knew that it was a different day and time back then.
    He
looked around the room.   Everybody was so
festive.   Yet he was alone again.   Then he realized he actually preferred the
solitude, although he was rarely able to enjoy it, and took a seat in one of
the round, arch-top chairs and continued to observe the boisterous crowd.   It wouldn’t take long, he knew, before
somebody else would