Oz laughed. “Sweetie, if I had to personally call all of those hoes I’d been fooling with, that’s all I’d be doing!”
Jordan laughed.
“Did I say hoes? I didn’t mean to say hoes. They’re lovely women. I’m the hoe!”
Jordan laughed again. Oz smiled and looked at him. “What are you doing here?”
Jordan pushed his glasses up on his handsome teenage face. “I wondered if you wanted to go downstairs to the gym and shoot some hoops with me.”
“Would love to, darling, but I have a ton of work I need to be doing.”
“But you aren’t doing it,” Jordan pointed out.
“Smart ass,” Oz said with a smile, causing Jordan to laugh again. “But I need to be doing it is the point. If I stay in my office, I’ll get around to doing everything I need to do. If I leave my office, I definitely won’t get it done.”
His intercom buzzed. “Mr. Drakos?” It was his secretary.
“Ah, come on, Unc, it’ll only take a half-hour tops,” said Jordan. “Then you can come right back up here, kick your feet up, and continue to do nothing.”
“Smart ass,” Oz said again. Then he pressed one of the buttons on his chair. “Yes, Mae?”
“Miss Sinatra is here to see you, sir.”
“Send her in,” Oz said. Then he looked at Jordan. “Maybe next time, Champ. Why don’t you go ask your father?”
“He’s busy,” said Jordan. “Unlike you, he actually does his work.” But then Jordan’s look turned serious. “So, you like this girl?” he asked his uncle.
“You sound like your father.”
“Do you?”
Oz nodded. “I do,” he said.
“Or is like too strong a word?” Jordan asked.
Oz looked at his smart nephew. “Not strong enough,” Oz said, and then the door opened and Gloria, along with Mick, walked in.
“Hey, babe!” Oz said cheerfully as soon as he saw Gloria’s face. But when he saw Mick walk in behind Gloria, he immediately leaned forward, dropped his feet from off of his desk, and stood up. He was stunned.
“Hello, Jordan,” Gloria said with a smile.
“Hey, Miss Gloria. You look very pretty today.” Jordan already had a crush on Glo.
“Ah, you’re so sweet. Thank you,” she said and Jordan beamed. “This is my father,” she added. “Dad, this is Oz’s nephew Jordan.”
Mick extended his big hand. “Hello, Jordan.”
“Sir,” said Jordan as he shook Mick’s hand.
“And this is Oz,” Gloria said to Mick.
“Mr. Sinatra,” Oz said. He started to extend his hand, but he knew Mick probably wouldn’t shake it.
“I’ll take to you later, J,” Oz said to his nephew.
“Yes, sir,” Jordan said, said his goodbye to Gloria, and then left the office.
“Have a seat,” Oz said to Mick, and Mick began sitting in one of the two chairs in front of Oz’s desk. “Gloria, come here,” Oz then said.
Gloria walked around the desk to Oz’s side. He gave her a peck on her lips and placed his arm around her waist. And then he began moving her toward his desk chair. “Sit here,” he said to her.
She sat in the chair behind his desk as Oz walked from around his desk and sat in the chair next to Mick Sinatra. Gloria was impressed. Most men cowered around her father. Oz seemed determine to deal with him as an equal.
“So,” Oz said with that charming smile of his, “what can I do for you, Mr. Sinatra?”
“How much do I owe you?” Mick asked.
Oz and Gloria both were confused. “Owe me?” Oz asked.
“How much do I owe you for that automobile you purchased for my daughter?”
“You don’t owe me a thing,” Oz said.
“Oh, but I do,” Mick said. “My daughter will not be beholden to any man.”
“Good. Because I’m not any man. I’m her man. And she’s my lady. And I purchased that car for my lady. Nobody’s paying for it but me.”
Mick stared at Oz. “How’s the Ghost Mafia?” he asked him.
Gloria looked at Oz. If he was concerned that Mick would go there, he wasn’t showing it.
“Perhaps you should answer that question,” Oz said to Mick. “How is the Ghost Mafia?”
“Gloria,” Mick said, still staring at Oz, “go get us something to drink.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Oz said, still staring at Mick. “My secretary can send a girl.”
Gloria could tell that her father didn’t expect that blowback.
“In the Sinatra household,” Mick said, “we don’t discuss these matters around our women.”
“In the Drakos household,” Oz shot back, “we do.”
Mick continued to stare at him. Gloria was getting concerned. She wondered if Oz realized just how angry her father could get. She’d seen him nearly knock Teddy through a wall and she knew very few men stronger than Teddy. But despite her father, and his reputation, and the reality of his harshness, Oz didn’t blink. Gloria was proud of him.
But Oz knew he couldn’t show any weakness whatsoever or Mick would do everything in his power to pull the plug on Oz’s relationship with his daughter. He didn’t know a lot about Mick the Tick, but he was certain he was a man who didn’t want some chump in his daughter’s life. Oz was a lot of things, but a chump, he knew, wasn’t one of them.
“You aren’t afraid,” Mick said, “that she’ll hear the truth?”
“What truth?” Gloria asked.
“That your boyfriend is at war with your father,” Mick said.
He wasn’t sure it was you, Gloria wanted to blurt out, but she decided against it. She left it up to Oz.
“I think the more appropriate fact,” Oz said to Gloria, “is that your father is at war with your boyfriend. My guys didn’t start that shit. Your guys did.”
Mick studied Oz. “Who told you that lie?”
Oz studied Mick. “Your men started taking over territory that my guys owned.”
“Wrong,” said Mick. “They were taking over my territory.”
“They were under the impression,” Oz said, “that your west coast reach didn’t reach that far north.”
“They were wrong. I have territory all over this country, irrespective of the coast.”
Oz exhaled. “And then your men killed Madinis, one of the most beloved heads of the families.”
“That’s what they told you?” Mick asked.
Oz hesitated. “What’s that supposed to mean? Isn’t it the truth?”
“No,” said Mick. “I do not go around taking people’s territory. Thugs do that. I don’t sanction that ever. But when your families started taking my territory, I got involved.”
“What are you saying? Are you saying that your men didn’t kill Madinis?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” said Mick. “We took out Morpheus. We definitely took him out. But my men didn’t kill Madinis. Your men did that. Why do you think I haven’t killed you yet, after you took out two of my guys?”
Gloria looked at Oz. She hadn’t heard that before! But war was war. She understood that. There were never any heroes.
But Oz was still reeling by the information Mick had just dropped on him. “Why would my own men take out one of our men?”
“To rope you in after they realized I owned that land they wrongly grabbed. They needed a cover story when I came for them. They needed a strong man to blame. You were going to be their cover story.”
Oz leaned his head back and ran both hands through his long hair.
“You seem surprised,” said Mick, “but not entirely shocked. Why?”
Oz exhaled. “I had my suspicions,” he said.
“About Madinis?”
“No. Not about him. That is shocking. But about those fuckers turning on me. I suspected they were the ones who called that hit on me that night.”
“The night you had my daughter in that car with you,” said Mick.
Oz nodded. “That night,
yes.”
“The night you nearly gave me a heart attack,” said Mick.
Gloria and Oz both looked at him as if they both were surprised at how much he cared for his own child. “That night,” Oz said. Then he frowned. “Shit!” he said in anger, thinking about the betrayal.
Then Oz looked at Mick. “What are you going to do about it?” he asked him.
“Eliminate the threat. What else? I was waiting for you to handle it,” Mick added, “but you haven’t. I’m not waiting any longer.” Mick stood to his feet. Oz and Gloria stood up too.
“They’re my guys,” Oz said. “Now that I know the truth of what went down, I’m going to handle it.”
Mick stared at him. “You aren’t going to confirm what I just told you?”
“You told me. If I know anything about your legend, I know that you’re not a man who plays games. Your word confirmed it for me.”
And Gloria saw it. She saw respect in her father’s eyes as he stared at Oz. Her father respected her boyfriend. That was a first.
“You can handle it,” Mick said, “but I’ll have to have a piece of that action. Two of my men were killed. I have to answer for them.”
Oz nodded. “Understood,” he said. “I’ll let you know when and where I’ll strike.”
To Oz’s shock, Mick extended his hand. Oz gladly shook it. “I’ll wait for that call,” said Mick.
“May I ask you something?” Oz asked him.
Mick looked at him.
“Why didn’t you retaliate when I took out your men? With all that you knew, over this past month you could have taken out two of mine easy.”
Mick nodded. “Yes, I could have.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
Mick hesitated.
“Sir?” Oz asked.
“You made my daughter happy,” Mick said.
Oz and Gloria both looked at him. “What do you mean?” Oz asked him.
“My men kept me posted,” Mick said. “They said they’d never seen her happier than she was this past month. I was still getting my facts straight. I wasn’t making any moves until I was certain.”
“But you didn’t make a move. You came to me.”
“You’re winning over my daughter’s heart,” Mick said. “I felt that was the least I could do.”
Gloria was floored. Was this her father? Did he really love and care for her that much that he would hold back on a retaliatory strike?
“Let me know the day and the time,” Mick said to Oz as he began heading for the exit. “And I mean it had better be soon.”
“It will, sir,” Oz said as he and Gloria began heading toward the exit too. “I’ll walk you guys out.”
But after Mick walked out of the office door, and as he and Gloria hooked up at the door, Oz smiled and gave her a squeeze. It was as if his biggest fear, that Mick the Tick would exert his considerable influence over Gloria to break them up, wasn’t going to materialize. And he was happy.
They both smiled as they made their way out of the office, downstairs, and through the massive lobby. And when they made it outside, that burst of sunshine made Oz feel like he fought a mountain lion and won. He managed to hold his own with Mick Sinatra. He felt great.
A valet deposited the Maserati at their feet. Mick and Oz were shaking hands again as Gloria began walking around toward the driver side of her car. “Thanks for giving me that consideration, sir,” Oz said.
“Nasty business, this,” said Mick. “Because it’s your men, I can only hope you’re up for the job.”
“Are you joking?” Oz asked. “When they bring that shit to me, I absolutely love taking it back to them. I’m going to enjoy it, sir.”
Mick smiled. Oz actually reminded him of how he used to be once upon a time. “Your cocky ass,” he said, causing Oz to laugh, as Mick began getting into the car.
But just as Oz turned away from Mick, he saw a car suddenly drive parallel to Gloria’s Maserati, and then he saw the dark tinted windows press down. When he saw the shotgun lift up out of that window and take its aim in typical mob assassination fashion, he jumped into that car, over Mick, and pushed Gloria down onto the seat. He placed his body on top of her body as the bullets rang out.
Oz’s dramatic movement had knocked Mick over, too, or he would have surely taken some of those bullets as people started screaming and running and the gunman fired off as many rounds as he could before they heard no more bullets. He had run out of ammunition.
As soon as Oz and Mick realized it, they got up. “You okay?” Oz nervously asked Gloria.
“I’m okay,” Gloria said, even though her stormy eyes betrayed her. But the two men didn’t delay. They both jumped out of the Maserati, pulling out their own weapons, and ran toward the car as the gunman was attempting to reload. When he saw them coming, his driver began to speed off.
Oz and Mick began firing on that car as it drove off. They ran down to the end of the entrance circle to The Drakos Hotel and Casino, still firing away. But the car got away.
When they turned to run back to the main entrance, to retrieve an automobile of their own, they saw where Gloria was driving the Maserati toward them. “Get in!” she yelled.
They got in, and she took off. Their security details had driven up, too, and was following the Masi.
The getaway car was barely visible by the time they made it on the street, and that Apple Valley traffic around The Drakos made it damn near impossible for them to fire off any shots. But Gloria kept driving. She drove and drove until the getaway car made a sharp left that took them onto the backroads. And that was when Gloria accelerated.
“That’s right, baby,” Oz said, smiling. “Show those bastards how it’s done!”
But Mick was serious as a heart attack. “Be careful, Gloria!” he said.
Gloria was both. She was careful, but she was determined. And when she was able to get close enough to the fleeing vehicle, her father and her boyfriend began firing shots out of the window. They fired and they fired.
But this time, they hit their target. The car did a spin-out, and then it slowed and slowed until it came to a complete stop on a quiet, back road.
“Wait here,” Mick and Oz said in unison as they jumped out of the car and ran toward the wrecked car. Although it appeared lifeless inside of that getaway car, both men treaded very carefully, with their weapons still drawn.
Until they saw that both men inside of the car were dead. And Mick was already looking around, just in case.
But it was final. They villains were dead.
Mick looked at Oz. “Recognize them?” he asked him.
Oz was staring at the bodies of the two men. He nodded his head. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “They both belong to the family of Andreas Survarlis.”
“One of your men.”
Oz nodded. “One of my men,” he said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
When Alex and Kari made it to Oz’s apartment inside of The Drakos, they were astonished by the number of men inside of that space. Mick Sinatra was there, and he was in conversation with his men. Oz and his men were there, in conversation too. Gloria sat alone on the sofa, a glass of wine in her hand, as all of the men made their plans. Not only had those bastards attempted to take out Gloria and Oz, they had very nearly taken out Mick Sinatra too. It was a big deal.
Kari made her way over to Gloria. Alex made his way over to Oz.
Kari sat down. “Hey.”
Gloria, who respected Kari tremendously, was about to stand up.
“No need for that,” Kari said, and sat beside her. “Are you really okay?”
“I am,” said Gloria. “A little shook up, I’ll admit. But I’m okay.”
Kari placed an arm around her and squeezed. “Good,” she said.
Across the room, Alex placed his hand on the small of Oz’s back when he made it to his brother’s side. Oz looked at him.
“You alright?” Alex asked.
“Yup,” said Oz.
“A damn close c
all.”
“Yes, it was,” said Oz. “Too close. That’s why Mick with his men, and me with mine are going over protocols for protecting Gloria. Neither my men nor Mick’s men were at the angles they were supposed to be. Away, yes, but not so far away that they couldn’t see that car drive up and that shotgun appear. But they were too far away to stop it. That’s unacceptable.”
“Damn right,” said Alex.
“Hello, Alex.”
Both brothers turned to the sound of Mick’s voice. He had walked over and was extending his hand.
“Mick Sinatra,” Alex said as he shook his hand. “How are you?”
“I’m okay. Good to see you again.”
Alex could barely remember where he saw him before, but he knew he saw him a few times before. “How’s Reno?” Alex asked.
“He’s doing well,” Mick said as his cell phone began ringing. “I saw him a couple weeks ago.”
When Mick saw the Caller ID, he glanced at Oz. “Your people,” he said.
Oz was surprised as Mick answered the call. “Yes?”
“It’s about Odysseus.” It was Andreas Survarlis on the phone. “Don’t trust him.”
“Oh, yeah? He said the same thing about you.”
“He’s lying. If you care for your daughter, you’d keep her far away from that animal. You’ll understand when we meet.”
“Meet?” Mick asked, and Oz and Alex stared at him. “Meet where?”
“There’s an old building, used to be a chicken factory, on the outskirts of town. A place called Monfort’s. Meet us there at ten tonight. When we meet, you’ll understand what I’m talking about when I say don’t trust him.” Then he ended the call.
“What did he want?” Oz asked.
“A meeting,” said Mick.
“Why wouldn’t they let you handle that?” Alex asked.
“Did he say what the meeting was about?”
“He said so, yes,” said Mick.
“What’s it about?”
Mick looked at Oz. “You,” he said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
The heads of the Greek families, along with their underbosses for added protection, were already there when Mick walked into the building alone. They were in the middle of the room, standing nervously, anxiously, as Mick walked up to them.
Oz Drakos: Loving Mick the Tick's Daughter Page 15
