Brent Sinatra: All of Me (18 page)

“No,” he responded to his father.
 
“I haven’t spoken to Makayla yet.
 
This is her first day at work.
 
We’ll talk tonight.”

“So he was in the Super Fin with a dead man,” Charles said,
“and with the knife that killed the man in his hand?”

“And my name written on a piece of paper in his pocket.
 
Brent Sinatra, Jr. was written on that paper,
to be exact.”

“I’m with Donald,” Jenay said. “Wow.”

“Where will he stay?” Charles asked.

“With me,” Brent said without hesitation.

Jenay and Charles exchanged another glance.
 
But Jenay was super-concerned.
 
“With you?” she asked.
 
“But Brent, what if he?
 
I know you said he didn’t do it, but what if
he did?”

“He didn’t,” Brent said firmly.
 
“No son of mine would do something like
that.”

He sounded like Charles, Jenay thought.
 
“I don’t mean to burst your bubble, but you
aren’t a hundred percent sure he’s yours.”

“He’s mine.”

“Just because he looks like you?”

“He
feels
like me,”
Brent said.
 
“He’s mine.
 
And he told me so himself.”

Charles nodded.
 
“Yeah.
 
He’s yours.
 
Because I feel all my children too, and when
I held that boy in my arms, it felt as if I was holding my baby.
 
It felt as if I was holding Bonita.”
 
He looked at Jenay.
 
“A man knows when it’s his,” he said.

The Acura drove into the winding driveway of Brent’s beautiful
home, and Makayla stepped out feeling relieved.
 
Her first day as Deputy D.A. for Jericho County went off without a
hitch.
 
The older attorneys in the
office, and some of the younger ones too, were trying to disrespect her, but
she called a meeting.
 
She knew she was
going to be a bitch in their eyes forever, but she had to put a stop to it from
day one.
 
Ira tried to, but his style
was, in her eyes, too weak.
 
Those tough
ladies wasn’t paying him any attention.

And, at first, they wasn’t paying her any attention
either.
 
Until she dropped the
bombshell.
 
“As Deputy D.A.,” she said,
“I have been given authority over quite a few things, but hiring, firing, pay
raises and promotions are four of those responsibilities that now rest with
me.”

And when she said that, she could hear a pin drop as the room
became deafly quiet.
 
But then, as it
settled in their brains, she didn’t have to say another word.
 
They were skinning and grinning and welcoming
her aboard.
 
Behind her back, she knew
they were going to talk that talk about how she was Brent’s girl and how she
slept her way to the top.
 
And the fact
that Brent had made a deal with Ira didn’t help that perception at all.
 
But at least they now respected her
authority.
 
They may never respect
her.
 
But she believed, if she continued
to work hard and prove that she was fair and just and her own woman, that level
of respect would come too.

But as she made her way to his steps, and then walked up onto
his front porch, there remained that little fly in her ointment.
 
He didn’t tell her about the deal he struck
with Ira.
 
He didn’t tell her that when
he suggested she apply for the Deputy D.A. job, he had already sealed the deal.

She had a key to his house, but she appreciated the way he
did it whenever he came to her house.
 
He
always rang the bell first, and then unlocked the door.
 
So she did exactly that, and walked in.

“Hey there,” Brent said as she walked in.
 
He was coming from the patio door that led to
his backyard.
 
“Don’t you look refreshed
for a woman who has been working hard all day.
 
Or hardly working?”

“Speak for yourself,” Makayla said with a smile.
 
She was still on cloud nine about the
proposal.
 
She was still elated to know
that this gorgeous hunk of human being, looking even sexier in his jeans and
pullover sweat shirt, was going to be her husband.
 
Hers.
 
“It was hard work, but I love it.”

Brent pulled her into his arms.
 
“Good,” he said, and kissed her.
 
“What about your coworkers.
 
Did they try to give you a hard time?”

This was the fly-in-ointment part of her happiness.
 
She hesitated.

“What did they do?” Brent asked her.

“Nothing more than would have been expected,” Makayla said.

Brent was puzzled.
 
“What do you mean?”

“They call me your girl.
 
Brent’s girl is my nickname.
 
Or B.G.
as one of them put it.”

Brent smiled.
 
“You are
my girl.
 
So what?”

Makayla eased out of his arms.
 
“They know about the deal you cut to get Ira
to hire me.”

Brent frowned.
 
“What
deal?”

“They call it skipping the line.
 
Cheating.
 
Wrong.”

“What deal, Makayla?”

“Your promise to testify in crucial cases if Ira hired
me.
 
That deal.
 
Or are you still denying it?”

“I wasn’t denying it before.
 
I didn’t know what you were talking about.”

“Is it true?” Makayla asked him.

“It wasn’t a deal to hire you.
 
I agreed to testify in more cases if he
agreed to grant you an interview.
 
And
the only reason I went that route was because he planned to hire from within
and was not going to interview anybody from outside.
 
I knew if he interviewed you he would hire
you.”

Makayla looked at him.
 
“So there was no quid pro quo?”

“None.
 
He could have
very easily hired somebody else.
 
One of
his veteran prosecutors.
 
Anybody.
 
But he didn’t.
 
He hired you because you were the most
qualified.
 
He hired you because he liked
the work you did when you were a special prosecutor on my grandfather’s
case.
 
Being my girl helped to get you
that interview.
 
Being your own person,
with your own credentials, got you that job.”

Makayla smiled and hurried back into his arms.
  
Her faith in him was restored.
 
“I knew you wouldn’t do something like that!”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Brent said pointedly, and
Makayla looked at him.

“I’m wrong?”

“Yes, you’re wrong.
 
I
wanted you in Jericho.
 
If Ira Stockton
would have asked me to do cartwheels to get you here, I would have done
it.
 
I relied on your experience to pull
you through, but if you would have been unimpressive to him, I was willing to
do whatever I had to do.”

Makayla didn’t like the sound of that.
 
“But Brent, that’s wrong.
 
I shouldn’t get a job or anything else just
because I have a relationship with you.
 
I have to earn it.”

“Fortunately we won’t have to cross that bridge.”

“But you would have crossed it if you had to?”

Brent looked her dead in the eye.
 
“To get you here with me?
 
Yes, I would have.
 
And I know you’re thinking that’s why they
hate the Sinatras in this town.
 
We press
our advantage too damn much.
 
And you’re
right.
 
We do.”
 
He pulled her closer.
 
“But you’re a Sinatra now.”

Makayla laughed.
 
“Not
quite yet, Brent,” she reminded him.

“Just a formality,” he said with a smile.
  
“You’re a Sinatra now.
 
This is our world.”

“This is how you roll?”

Brent laughed.
 
“This
is how we roll.
 
Get used to it.”

Makayla shook her head.
 
“I thought the Gabrini side of your family was the gangster side.
 
Now I’m not so sure.”

Brent laughed, and kissed her.
 
But then his laughter dissolved into a kind
of sorrowful look on his face.
 
Makayla
saw it.

“What’s wrong?” she asked him.

He exhaled and raised his eyebrows as if to say,
where do I begin
?

“Is that why you text me and asked me to drop by after work?”
she asked him.

“Yes.”

“So what is it?
 
What’s
the problem?
 
I can tell there is one.”

Brent took her hand and began to escort her toward his patio
doors.
 
“I want you to meet somebody,” he
said.

Makayla’s heart began to pound.
 
Her first thought was a woman.
 
Ever since she’d known him, women had been
insinuating things to her as if they had been or, in some cases, were still
were in a relationship with him.
 
It
bothered her early in their relationship, but as he denied it, she got over
it.
 
She thought she was long over
it.
 
But that slither of doubt returned,
as he walked her toward his patio.

When he opened the door and they stepped outside, she had a
different reaction.
 
There was no woman
anywhere in sight, so that was positive.
 
But there was a child in the backyard playing on the swing that she knew
Brent had built for his baby sister.
 
A
green-eyed, black-haired, beautiful little biracial boy.
 
A boy with very familiar features.
 
Brent’s
features.

She looked at Brent.
 
Her eyes asked the question even if her mouth remained mute.

He held her hand tighter.
 
“Yes,” he said.
 
“He’s my son.”

Makayla’s heart began to hammer.
 
“Your son?”
 
Her voice was a whisper.
 
“You
have a son?”

Brent pulled her against him. “I didn’t know about him,
sweetie, until this morning.
 
I had no
idea until this morning.”

And just like that, Makayla’s heart went out to Brent.
 
And she pulled him into her arms.
 
She had so many questions, so many pressing
questions, but right now she could
feel
his agony.
 

As she held him, she looked at the child who was swinging on
the swing.
 
He wasn’t twelve or thirteen
yet, she didn’t think, but he looked to be at least ten or so.
 
Long before Brent met her.
 
But still painful to know that she was not
going to be, as she had hoped, the first and only woman to birth him a child.

As Brent held her, he felt a wellspring of gratitude.
 
He was grateful that Makayla was his woman on
this day in his life.
 
She didn’t know the
half of it yet, but he was still betting on her.

When they stopped embracing, he explained it all.
 
Found in the motel.
 
The dead man.
 
The knife.
 
“And the only words he
spoke so far,” he said, “was that I was his father, and that he knew my name
was Brent.”

Makayla was surprised.
 
“So he acknowledged you as his father?”

“He said so, yes.”
 
Then Brent looked at Junior.
 
“But
it didn’t take any acknowledgement for me to already know it.”

“And what about the dead man?
 
Who was he?”

“We don’t know yet.
 
We’re
running everything we can through the system.
 
We’re also searching for any missing child from the east coast to the
west.
 
Nothing’s turned up yet.”

“But why wasn’t you told that you had a son sooner?
 
And where’s his mother?
 
Who’s
his mother?”

“That’s the part I don’t know.
 
I asked him, but he wouldn’t say.
 
I named the names of the possibilities I
could remember, but he only gave a flicker when I said one name.”

“Whose?”

“Candace.
 
But it was a
very mild flicker.”

“Who’s Candace?” Makayla asked.
 
“Have you tried to contact her?”

“I called her already,” Brent said.
 
“She still lives here in Jericho.
 
She’s married, has children of her own.”

“Maybe that’s why she didn’t tell you.
 
Her husband might have thought the child was
his.”

But Brent was shaking his head.
 
“She was stunned by the question itself.
 
She didn’t know anything about a child.
 
She’s not the one.”

Makayla exhaled and looked at Junior too.
 
“But he was named after you?”

“We don’t know that either.”

“But I thought you said he had a piece of paper in his pocket
with your name on it?”
   

“He did.
 
But he didn’t
say that was
his
name.
 
I call him Junior for now.”
 
He looked at Makayla.
 
His heart swelled with love and emotion for
her.
 
“Ready to meet him?” he asked her.

“Am I ready to meet your son?
 
Am I ready to meet the child who will someday be my stepson?
 
No,” she said honestly and looked at
Brent.
 
“This is hard.”

Brent nodded and pulled her closer.
 
He would not have believed her if she would
have said otherwise.
 
“I know it’s
difficult.
 
I know.
 
I’m still reeling.
 
But we’re going to get through this.”