CHAPTER FOUR
She could also see her only biological son Michello Sinatra, Junior, called Duke, on the backside of the garage working out in the gym.
For several minutes she just sat there, staring at her son.
It seemed like only yesterday that he and his twin sister Jackie were her babies.
Now they were all grown-up high school graduates with their own lives to live.
Jackie was at Howard University doing fabulously in her freshman year. Duke was taking a gap year, although Teddy told Roz that Duke wasn’t feeling college and still didn’t know what he wanted to do.
But Duke was so much like Mick that Roz already knew where he was headed.
But she was still bound and determined to not let it be so.
No child of hers was going down that mob road if she had anything to say about it.
But looking at Duke and how big and muscular, and also handsome, he’d become, reminded her of how he was as much Mick’s son as her stepson Teddy was Mick’s son.
She knew, trying to convince him that the mob way was the absolute wrong way, was still an uphill battle.
Because Duke, like Teddy, and also like Joey and Adrian before they died, wanted to be just like Mick.
Which meant it was a battle she was going to lose. And it broke her heart.
She said a prayer for her child, got out of her car, and went into the gym.
Duke was running on the treadmill with a Bluetooth in his ear.
“I told you I’m not ready to commit like that,” he was saying when his mother walked in.
Then he added: “Well then do what you have to do.” But when the person on the other line ended the call, he leaned back as if he was shocked. “No she didn’t,” he said.
“Yes, she did,” Roz said as she walked further into the gym. “And you deserve it. I told you about stringing those little girls along.”
“How was I stringing her along? I told that girl from day one I didn’t like her like that.”
Roz folded her arms and stared at her son as he continued to walk on the treadmill. “And why don’t you like her like that?” she asked him.
“Because she think she’s all that. And because I’m not trying to have no girlfriend right now when I don’t even have a job yet. What I look like trying to support a girl when I can’t even support myself yet?”
“You could support yourself if you come to work for me, or for your father’s corporation.”
“Not again, Ma,” Duke said as he leaned his head back. “I’m not trying to do no corporate. How many times I got to tell y’all that?”
“Then what are your plans, Duke?”
Duke hesitated. “I don’t know yet.”
Roz knew he was lying to her. He knew exactly what he wanted to do.
He just knew she wasn’t going to allow it.
“If you don’t like that young lady like that,” she said, “then don’t try to be her friend.
Those fast-tail little white girls from that bougie high school Mick put y’all in aren’t looking for no friend. ”
“Oh I know they aren’t. They’re looking for me to put a baby in them so they can have control over on me for eighteen years. Which will not happen. Dad taught me that much.”
Roz was surprised. “Your father told you about the birds and the bees?”
“The who and the who?” Then Duke smiled. “We had a man-to-man, yes ma’am.”
That was welcomed news to her. Or was it? “What did he tell you?”
“He told me about all his baby mamas and all he went through trying to juggle them. He told me not to be like he was. Besides,” Duke added with that mischievous grin that let Roz see why those girls loved him so much, “them girls I went to high school with don’t do it for me. I prefer dark meat.”
“According to Jackie, that’s not all you prefer.”
Duke looked at her. “What else I prefer?”
“Older dark meat. Like that older woman you’re fooling around with now.”
Duke continued to walk. But he didn’t deny it.
“Is she wrong?”
Duke still said nothing.
“Don’t you think she’s a little too old for you, Duke?”
“Daddy’s older than you.”
Roz frowned. “Your smart behind has an answer for everything except how you can get your ass a job.”
“I got some things in the works, Ma, dang. Things that don’t involve working for my parents. At least not in no corporation.”
When he slipped and made that statement, he and Roz shared a glance. He could never speak to her about his true ambitions because he knew she would go ballistic on him. She could never bring it up because it was one of her worse fears.
“I’m formulating my life plan,” he continued. “I’m just getting started here. Give me two minutes to get myself together and I’ll outdo everybody in the family. But what are you doing back here anyway? You don’t never come back here.”
“I can’t say hello to my child?”
“You can, but you don’t usually come all the way back here to say hey to your child. You usually go upstairs and go to bed. You don’t be thinking about your child. I could be back here dead for all you know.”
Roz smiled and stared at her son. She knew she shouldn’t have favorites, but he was her favorite hands down.
Jackie had her shit together. She was going to be just fine.
But Duke was her heartbeat. Her baby. Even though she knew he wasn’t a baby anymore with his bare chest revealing just how buff he’d become.
He looked like a beautiful, muscular Adonis as he strolled on that treadmill shirtless in those biker shorts.
Although he favored his father through and through, he still had a lot of Roz in him too.
Which, in her eyes, made him the most attractive young man in the family with looks that could arguably rival Tommy Gabrini’s. Arguably.
But Roz saw his potential, and that was what worried her most. Of all the young people in the family, Duke was the guy.
Even the family treated him like he was the one that was going to follow in the footsteps of the Sinatra and Gabrini men closer than anybody else.
Even Teddy. Although Mick would argue that Carmine was the man.
Which, given that Carmine was a genius nerd and not a mobster, was nuts to Roz.
But Mick apparently saw something in Carmine she couldn’t see.
But Carmine wasn’t her concern anyway. He was Reno and Trina’s concern. Duke was her concern and she was going to fight tooth and nail to keep him out of the family business.
But as her smile faded, Duke could see that distressed look on her face as if something heavy was on her mind. He stopped the treadmill and removed the Bluetooth from his ears. “What’s wrong, Ma?”
More and more, he was becoming her confidant. Teddy was still her go-to guy. But with him working overtime all the time, Duke was a close second. “I’m trying to figure out the best way to approach your father.”
Duke already knew. “That girls’ trip to Essence with Nikki?”
Roz had forgotten that she’d already confided in him about that. “Yes.”
“Forget about it, Ma. Daddy is not going to let you do that.”
“What makes you so certain?”
“If you don’t know that,” Duke said as he shut off his treadmill, grabbed his towel, and stepped off, “then you’re being willfully ignorant.”
Roz was offended. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Ma, you have to know good n’ well that Daddy isn’t letting his wife go anywhere on some cross-country trip without heavy security. And I mean heavy. You know this.”
“It’s not up to him,” she said defensively. “I can do whatever the hell I wanna do. I’m not his child. I’m his wife.” Then she dismissed him. “I don’t know why I even brought it up to you anyway. You always take his side,” she added, and left.
Duke smiled and shook his head. His mother was the toughest woman he knew. And in their family there were a lot of tough broads. But when it came to his father, she didn’t stand a chance either. She knew it, but she never wanted to admit it.
Then his phone buzzed. When he saw that it was that same girl calling him again, he didn’t bother to answer. He told her what time it was. But like his mother, she wanted to ignore it too. So he ignored her, and made his way to the power rack.