Mick Sinatra: The Harder They Fall

by Mallory Monroe

  “You found out something?” Mick asked Teddy.

  “Nothing on my mom, of course,” Teddy said. His mother was Ursula Mastriano, a woman Mick still respected to this day. “And Hillary is Hillary. She hates your guts, but she needs your money more. So there was nothing I could find on her.”

  “And Cathleen?” Mick asked.

  “Oh, she’s up for whatever,” Teddy said. “All I had to do was tell her I was going to try and take over your organization, and she was all in.”

  Mick shook his head. “Fool,” he said.

  “She also wants to destroy your relationship with Roz however she can. She even dredged up this Chad Dawkins when she was looking for dirt. But I suspect he was already a part of a scheme and found her. She just doesn’t realize it.”

  “I agree,” Mick said. “Cathleen is a bitch, but she’s a harmless bitch. She’s all mouth. She’s all about pushing others up to do her dirty work. She’s a non-factor. Don’t waste time on her.”

  “Yeah, I figured that out today,” Teddy said.

  “But why were you searching for something on your baby mamas?” Roz asked Mick. “I don’t understand.”

  “I ran into Bella Caine while I was handling some business in New York last weekend,” Mick said. “We had dinner and talked.”

  A pang of envy shot through Roz, but she let it past. Mick might still harbor feelings for Bella despite their issues through the years, but he came home to Roz every night. Instead of being upset, she watched and listened.

  “She told me,” Mick said, “that she heard Cathleen had been in New York trying to dig up dirt on you.”

  Roz was surprised. “On me? Why would Cat want dirt on me?”

  “After I beat Joey’s ass over that kidnapping fiasco,” Mick said, “Cathleen panicked. I already cut her off financially. She was afraid I was going to cut Joey off too.”

  “And she figures it’s all your fault,” Teddy said to Roz. “She figures everything were peaches and cream between her and Dad before you came along. It wasn’t by a long shot, but that’s how she’s decided to see it. She figures if she can get you out of the picture, things will go back to those imaginary days of wine and roses.”

  “Bella didn’t know what she had found out,” Mick said, “but she knew she had been asking around. After our discussion this morning about Chad Dawkins, and after Tamron came to me with word that she wouldn’t tell you about seeing me and Belle together if I agreed to attend her charity ball, I gave Bella a call.”

  Roz should have known Tam saw Mick with a woman, with his ex-lover, and figured she had the goods on him. A true friend would have told Roz what she saw, not use it as leverage to get what she wanted. Roz, thankfully, had many true friends. Tam, she was coming to realize, was no longer one of them. “What did Bella say?” she asked Mick.

  “She said she heard that Cathleen had found some guy named Chad Dawkins, who had a messy past with you. She heard that Cat was going to try to exploit it to her advantage. I already knew about Dawkins, so it was no big deal. But Cat didn’t know that. I assumed she was going to run and tell me the big news, thinking I didn’t know already.”

  “Cat tried to play it off in front of Hillary when Chad first came into Akon’s,” Teddy said. “She tried to pretend to me that she only met him after he hit town too.”

  “So you think it was Cathleen who had Chad show up,” Roz asked Mick, “and then had those three snakes called agents accuse me of harassment?”

  “I think she got Chad to show up,” Mick said, “but I think somebody else got to your employees.”

  Roz hated to hear that. She could deal with Cathleen and her nonsense. But somebody else too? “But who?” she asked.

  Teddy didn’t want to bring it up, but he knew he had to. His old man didn’t have him see what Cathleen was up to for nothing. He leaned forward. “It may be Al Zanetti,” he said.

  Both Mick and Roz looked at him. “Al?” Mick asked.

  “Alphonse Zanetti?” Roz asked. “But he used to be my attorney.”

  Mick looked at her stunned. “Your attorney? What are you talking about, Rosalind?”

  “Alphonse represented me in the Chad Dawkins case.”

  Mick frowned. “He wasn’t the lawyer of record,” Mick said. “It was some stiff named Colter. I remembered that.”

  “He didn’t do the courtroom things,” Roz admitted, “and he wasn’t the lawyer of record. But he was the one who hired the lawyer and told the lawyer every move to make. He said the judges in New York felt he was a little shady because he won all his cases. They were out to get him, he said. He said he didn’t want to taint me with his reputation, so he remained in the background. But he decided every motion and every move in that case. We won because of Alphonse, not Colter.”

  Then Roz looked at Mick. “You knew him too?” she asked.

  “He was my lawyer before I met you. I fired his ass when I discovered he was banging a woman I was banging too. The only reason I didn’t kill him was because he was a friend of mine, and the woman wasn’t worth it. But I fired his ass.”

  Roz exhaled. “Wow,” she said. “I had no idea.”

  Mick felt confused. He hated confusion. Some shit was out of order here and he needed to find out why. He looked at Teddy. “So you weren’t at a business meeting?”

  “I was on my way, just like I told you. But I get this call from Cathleen. She says if I bring a boatload of cash for herself and for some informant she was bringing with her, they would feed me some intel. I already told her to let me know anything she hears, and that I would make it worth her time. Since you felt something was up, I decided I’d better go check it out. I was in Wayne, out of eyesight of any of your men.”

  “And Cathleen told you that Zanetti was behind these sexual harassment allegations?” Mick asked.

  “No, she didn’t mention anything like that,” Teddy said. “She was just giving me dirt on Roz. Or at least she thought. But get this, Pop: Chad Dawkins was with her.”

  Mick and Roz both were surprised by that.

  “He was going along with everything she was saying,” Teddy continued, “as if it was his job to scandalize Roz too. He was the one who told her about Al Zanetti. They both claimed,” he added, but couldn’t continue.

  Mick was surprised by that. “They both claimed what?” he asked him.

  “They both claimed that Al and Roz set you up,” Teddy responded.

  Roz was shocked. “That I set Mick up? What do you mean?”

  Teddy didn’t want to go there. He respected Roz too much.

  “Just tell us, Ted,” Mick ordered him.

  “They claim Roz was banging Al, and together they came up with a scheme to have you sleeping with the enemy.”

  Roz’s heart dropped. “In other words,” she said, “they claim I met Mick, and married Mick to help Alphonse Zanetti get even with Mick?”

  Teddy nodded. “That’s their claim,” he said and looked at Mick. “It’s like that rumor that was going around when you found out about Al’s betrayal. The woman he was banging said he wanted her to spy on you, but she wouldn’t. Cat and Dawkins are claiming he was pulling that same shit with Roz, but on a different scale. She was his woman, pretending to be your woman, so that he could get even.”

  Roz was anguished. She couldn’t believe the lies being told on her. She looked at Mick. Did he believe them? “Mick, I would never--”

  “Don’t you say another word,” Mick ordered her. And he was angry. “Don’t you dare dignify that nonsense with another word!”

  He leaned forward. “They want to drag my wife through the mud? They want to pile shit on top of shit and think I won’t smell their bullshit?” He nodded his head. “Yeah, she’s sleeping with the enemy alright. His enemy. And he’d better know he’s got a powerful one now!”

  “And get this, Pop,” Teddy said. “Dawkins claims Al’s got him a new mob family. So he’s not alone. I haven’t had a chance to get anybody on it yet.”

 
; “No need,” Mick said, rising to his feet. “I’m on it.” Roz and Teddy stood up too. “I’m handling this myself. You notify Cathleen and find out where Dawkins can be found. My men will find him, get whatever intel they can, and get rid of him.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” Teddy said.

  Mick looked at Teddy. “Are you sure Cathleen didn’t suspect anything?”

  “I’m certain,” Teddy said. “She thinks I’m trying to take over your operation. She thinks she’s helping me to bring you down, and that I, in turn, will put her back on the payroll. She’s stupid.”

  “Don’t you believe it,” Roz warned her stepson. “Cathleen Thomas has plenty of sense. Don’t let your guard down around that woman.”

  Teddy nodded. “Yes, ma’am,” he said.

  “I want you to go and pick up Gloria from the office, and get back here,” Mick ordered him. “You’re going to be in charge while I’m in New York. Either you or Deuce, nobody else, stays around my family. And all of them will be on lockdown until I get back.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  If Gloria attempts to disobey you while I’m gone,” Mick said, “you overrule her and make her stay put.”

  “And if Roz disobeys me?” Teddy asked pointblank.

  “You call me,” Mick responded. “She only answers to me. But you spy the hell out of her ass. She knows I want her to stay put too.”

  “Yes, sir,” Teddy responded, and hurried out of the door to retrieve his sister.

  “You don’t have to worry about me,” Roz said after he left. “With all of this craziness going on, I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Good,” Mick said as he took her hand and led her toward the stairs.

  “Where are we going?” she asked him. “To pack you a bag?”

  “I don’t need a bag. I don’t plan to stay away overnight.”

  “Then what are you doing?”

  “I’m taking my wife upstairs to fuck her.”

  Roz couldn’t believe it. “Now, Mick? At a time like this?”

  “At a stressful time like this?” Mick asked, glancing at her as they headed upstairs. “At a time when I need that relief? When you need it? Tell me a better time than this?”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Mick leaned his head back and stretched his legs as his private jet lifted off the runway and soared. He closed his eyes. He had so many problems he needed to be thinking about. He had so much bullshit he needed to figure out. But all he could think about was Rosalind. All he could figure out was how warm and tender she felt in his arms less than an hour ago, when he laid her on that bed.

  He removed her panties and had her legs outstretched as soon as he laid her down. When he knelt between those legs, his mouth went to town on her pussy. His mouth did things to her he didn’t think he was still capable of doing. His tongue penetrated her and encircled her and treated her as if it was a foreign invader. Then he slowed down again, and licked her with painfully slow licks. Just the way Roz loved it. Long and wet and soft licks across her folds.

  Roz closed her eyes and experienced the feeling. He had her legs wide as they could go, and her hunger as deep as his tongue could go inside of her. He licked her and sucked her and bit her until she was squirming with rapture. He trembled when he felt her pulsations, and licked up her cum.

  But he wasn’t going to let her climax on an oral. When he stood up, and dropped his pants, he was ready to enter her. He was ready to fuck the shit out of her, with his cock as his weapon, and make her climax on that. Until he saw her face. Until he looked into her eyes and realized how worried sick she was. This was her name they were fucking with. Her reputation was on the line. She needed that release even more than he did.

  He got on top of her. His dick was so stiff and so ready that it almost rammed inside of her unassisted. He had to lift it and lay it on top of her stomach to avoid penetration. Because he wasn’t ready yet. He needed to allay her fears. He needed to let her know that he was going to get justice for her. That he was going to give her back her good name.

  “I’ll get to the bottom of it, babe,” he said to Roz. “I’m going to find that fucker who paid those yahoos to cause that accident with you, and he’s going to take me to the boss. And then I’ll find out the full story.”

  “You think the boss is D’Amato, and you think Alphonse might be working for him?”

  “Yeah, but D’Amato’s elusive. I can’t just go to his house. The fucker doesn’t have one. I’m going to need help to get to him. But I know him. And yeah, I think Al Zanetti is up his ass the way he used to try to be up mine.”

  Mick slanted her bang off of her forehead. “But don’t you worry, sweetheart,” he said. “They’ll pay. Each and every one of those bastards will pay.”

  “And then,” Roz asked, as they stared deep into each other’s eyes, “you’ll come back home to me? Not Bella Caine, or any other woman. Me?”

  Mick couldn’t believe she would ask that. “Oh, sweetheart, don’t you dare put Bella’s name in the same breath as yours. You’re my woman. I come home to you and nobody else. I lay beside you and nobody else. I don’t want anybody else!”

  Roz placed her hand on the side of his face and smiled. “Neither do I,” she said. “And for the record, those rumors were lies. I never slept with Alphonse Zanetti. He tried it. And one time, after he won my case and we were at a bar celebrating, I heard him tell somebody that he had succeeded. I cussed his ass out, shamed him in front of his friends, and left. I never saw him again. I swear I never saw him again, Mick.”

  Mick frowned. “You don’t have to tell me that. I know who you are. Even if I were to see a video tape disputing who you are, even if I see it with my own two eyes, I wouldn’t believe it. I used to think fools fall in love. I used to think suckers fell for a woman the way I fell for you.”

  “Now you know better?” Roz asked him.

  “No,” Mick said. “Fools still fall in love. Suckers still fall for a woman the way I fell for you.”

  Roz was confused. “Then what does that make you, Michello? You’re no fool, and you’re no sucker.”

  A hard, vulnerable look appeared on Mick’s face. “Yes, I am,” he said so heartfelt it stunned Roz. “I’m both of those things and more when it comes to you.”

  Roz couldn’t believe he said that. “Oh, Mick,” Roz said.

  “I never thought I would ever allow any woman to be my wife, or to have two precious babies that I can raise the right way. That was the stuff dreams were made of for me. Now I’m dreaming too. Don’t you dare underestimate the power of love, Rosalind. Or the foolishness of the man in love.”

  He also wanted to tell her not to underestimate the power she had over him. But he couldn’t. Because if he was wrong about her, if she was not who he knew her to be, then he was a dead man walking. He would be so far gone with this woman, so into her, that it would be over for him. And nobody, not even Rosalind, could ever discover that deeply hidden, but profoundly accurate truth.

  He kissed her on her lips. At first, Roz tasted herself, which she wasn’t crazy about doing, and then it was all Mick. He wrapped her into his arms. She wrapped her arms around him. And they kissed until their passion overwhelmed them. And they both had to have it.

  Mick aimed his penis at her vagina. He didn’t have to touch it. It entered on its own. She was so wet and ready, and he was so hard and ready, that his cock slid in with so much feeling that it almost ejaculated on entry.

  Mick couldn’t believe it. A two-second man? Him? He began fucking her. He fought against premature ejaculation as if he was fighting the enemy. He wasn’t cumming this fast. Roz came first. That was how it was done in his household, and it was going to be done that way today. Roz needed to enjoy this too.

  Mick won the battle. For the love of Roz, he was able to get in his fuck grove and take her where she needed to go. He took her there. He fucked her and grinded against her and moaned and groaned and gyrated her enough that she had a powerful orgasm. So p
owerful that she scratched his back as she took him in.

  And he came right behind her, in the order he was supposed to cum. He let it go and poured into her. His entire body was on fire with cum. He held her tighter, and fucked her harder, as they came.

  And then, like always after such an epic battle, Mick’s body betrayed him and he found himself drained. His eyelids were heavy. His body went limp. And he was in that land of restful sleep that only Roz’s presence and protection allowed him to go.

  “Dad?”

  But it wasn’t her voice.

  “Dad, wake up.”

  Joey. Joey’s voice? What was he doing in their bedroom? What was he doing. . .

  Mick woke up. He opened his eyes. Joey was standing over him. “We’re here, Dad,” he said. “We’re in New York. The plane has landed.”

  And the warmth of Rosalind turned into the reality of himself. And the world he lived in. He realized the happy dreams were over.

  He also realized he had ejaculated in his pants just from dreaming about the way he had fucked Rosalind before he left town. He still could see her naked on his bed, telling him goodbye. But now he had work to do. That nasty, filthy work he hated to do.

  He got up, went into the gorgeous bedroom on his plane, and changed his clothes.

  Joey, along with Angelo Jovanni and Danny Padrone, had already un-boarded the plane by the time Mick stepped off. Mick stepped off wearing black trousers, a black turtleneck, and that ankle-length white coat both Angelo and Danny knew so well. Joey, however, hadn’t seen this side of his father he was seeing today, and he loved the picture. His father was no longer the Philadelphia businessman. He was Mick the Tick. Joey smiled.

  He was also a man in love. Joey knew that too. He saw that boner his old man had when he tried to wake him up. It would have been great if he had a hard-on for Joey’s mother Cathleen, but Joey knew that was no longer possible. His parents hated each other. That much was crystal clear in his life. Cathleen and Hillary had even recruited Joey to spy on his father, and on some level Joey was going along with it.

  But now, as he watched his father approach them with that no-nonsense swag about him, with that long coat blowing in the wind, he knew he wasn’t about to tell his father’s secrets. He loved Mick. He wanted to be just like Mick Sinatra. If his mother was asking him to choose, even though he didn’t want to, Mick would be his choice. He loved his mother dearly. But he needed his father.