“Tell them to come see me.”
The assistant smiled. It was the green light she was hoping for. “Yes, sir,” she said, nodded a greeting toward the mayor, and left. Mick shook the mayor’s hand.
Granville didn’t like the fact that his extended hand had been left him dangling for more than a few seconds, but he had bigger fish to fry right now. “You’re like me,” he said with a smile. “All about business first. We’re just alike on that front.”
“No, we aren’t,” Mick said with a smile of his own. “We’re nothing alike on any fronts.”
Granville swallowed hard. He knew not to let that smile fool him. He knew Sinatra wasn’t joking.
“Have a seat,” Mick offered, and they both sat down.
Mick crossed his legs again and waited. His cell phone sat on the table in front of him, but nothing else. Granville knew what that meant. It was late, and Sinatra was ready to go home to his wife. Or somewhere else to his mistress. Or wherever the hell a guy like that went. Granville had to come fast and come hard, or not come at all. “Lubinski has a series of tapes depicting my indiscretions with a certain lady of the evening,” he said.
He waited a beat, as if Mick was going to react, but Mick remained as he was. The mayor continued. “I was set up by the lady and Lubinski, but the voting public isn’t going to give a damn. And it’s too close to Election Day for me to defend my actions.”
Mick knew it was going to be critical. Politicians didn’t come to his office, late at night, for the hell of it. But he also knew they understood the stakes when they came to him. His services didn’t come without a cost to them that never involved money, but always involved influence-peddling and corruption. Far more riskier than any cash payment could ever be.
“I will lose by a landslide, Granville continued, “if those tapes ever become public. That’s how serious this is.”
“It is serious,” Mick said, “but what is it my problem?” he asked.
Granville hadn’t expected that response. “It’s not that it’s your problem,” he said. “It’s my problem. But I need you to eliminate my problem.”
Mick couldn’t believe the sliminess of these politicians. Straight up gangsters had more morals. “Which problem do you want eliminated? The tape problem, the lady problem, or your opponent?”
Granville let out a harsh exhale. “All three,” he said.
But Mick wasn’t about to make it easy for the mayor. If he wanted that kind of shit done, he was going to have to own it. He was going to have to verbalize it. “And how do you suggest I eliminate all three?” Mick asked.
“Torture,” Granville said without batting an eyes. If his campaign manager had been allowed in the meeting, he could have spoken it for him. But Sinatra was too smart for that, and Granville knew it. He wanted Granville to have skin in the game too. “I want you to torture both of them until they give up all evidence.”
Mick stared at the guy. A sleaze ball just like he said. “And then?” he asked.
“And then I want you to kill their asses. Both of them. And destroy the evidence. But none of it can ever be tied to me. It has got to look like they were in a relationship, and they died accidentally while having kinky sex. Something powerful like that. When it’s all said and done, I don’t want a single citizen, not even their spouses, to have sympathy for them.”
“Just so we’re clear,” Mick said. “You want me to torture and then kill two people just so you can win an election?”
Granville exhaled. The things holding onto power made him do. “I know it sounds harsh,” he said.
But Mick corrected him. “No, it does not sound harsh. Calling your opponent a liar is harsh. Calling your opponent a crook and a wife beater is harsh. Killing your opponent and an innocent woman just to win an election is not harsh. It is evil. You need to understand the difference.”
Granville wasn’t going to go there. “What are you trying to say?” he asked Mick. “You won’t do it?”
Mick never tried to say anything. He said it. “You need to understand the difference,” Mick said again, and then looked at his cell phone as it began to vibrate. He only checked his phone, not to answer any business calls this time of night, but to make sure it wasn’t his wife or one of his children calling. It wasn’t any of them. But it was one of the men he employed to keep an eye on his kids.
“I understand the difference,” Granville said. “Alright? I get the difference!” He didn’t need some thuggish gangster like Mick Sinatra moralizing to him. “So does that mean you’ll help me?”
Mick looked at Granville as he pressed the Talk button and put the phone to his ear. “What is it?” he asked into the phone.
“They’ve been arrested, boss.”
Mick’s expression didn’t change outwardly, but inwardly his heart squeezed. “My children?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Which ones?”
There was a hesitation. “All three, sir,” his man said.
Mick leaned back. What the hell? And then he stood up quickly. Granville stood up quickly too, as if Mick was about to attack him. “I’ve got to leave,” Mick said, heading for the exit.
Granville was stunned. “But what about my problem?” he asked.
“Will be in touch,” Mick said.
“But he has a presser tomorrow afternoon! You don’t understand. It’s all over if he has that press conference!”
But Mick was already gone. He didn’t give Mayor Wallace a second thought. There was a time, not that long ago, when his business affairs would always trump his personal affairs without exception. But that was before he married Rosalind. That was before she encouraged him to establish a true bond with his grown children. That was before he became a father to two perfect twins six weeks ago, and discovered for the first time in his life what fatherhood in its infancy was truly like, and how tragically he had missed out before. His wife, and his children, trumped all else now.
But that didn’t mean he wasn’t angry with each and every one of those grown children of his. He was enraged. He made this clear to them after the prosecutor, a brownnoser who had hopes of being District Attorney someday and wasn’t interested in drawing the ire of the powerful and well-connected, declined to bring charges. She concluded that they all jumped on each other and the Sinatras should not be charged simply because they won the fight. They were released to their father. And although Mick didn’t say a word to them as they walked through the parking lot, every one of them, from Teddy on down, knew he was mad as hell.
So they all decided to tell their side of the story. Mick walked, and listened, and they talked.
“Troy started it, Dad,” Gloria insisted. “You should have heard the vile things he said about me.”
“Really vile,” Joey said. “We couldn’t just sit there and let him disrespect her like that. We couldn’t let him get away with doing that to her. Not to our own sister!”
“That’s why the prosecutor didn’t press charges,” Teddy joined in. Mick wore his long coat, and was walking fast as it flared around him, and they were all fighting to keep up. “She knew it was a load of bullocks anyway. Those cops arrested us because of our name, Dad. For no other reason. They arrested us because we’re your children!
Mick turned around and hit Teddy with a roundhouse right that was so devastating Teddy involuntarily fell to his knees. Stunned by the violence, Gloria and Joey stopped walking and backed up.
“Get your ass up!” Mick yelled, and Teddy, terrified of his father’s wrath, quickly stood up. He rubbed his throbbing chin.
But Mick wasn’t through with him yet. “You’re the oldest,” he said angrily to Teddy. “I told them that when I’m not around, or my wife, you’re in charge. You look out for them. You don’t get them arrested, you get them away from the scene of the crime!”
“But you didn’t hear what he said about Gloria,” Teddy said.
“I don’t give a fuck what he said!” Mick blared. Joey and Gloria backed up even further. “I didn’t
say don’t kick his ass. You were right to kick his ass. But your asses got caught! That meant you weren’t my children, you were just another bunch of dago thugs on the street! You dishonored my name tonight!”
“But what else could Teddy do, Pop?” Joey wanted to know. “We had to jump’em!”
“With brains you jump,” Mick said. “Not with emotion! You wait until that sucker drives home and you follow his ass. And then, maybe not tonight, maybe not even tomorrow night, but when he least expects it you take care of him. You use your brains!” Mick hit two fingers against his own forehead. “You never get caught!”
They all stared at their father. They thought he was being unreasonable. They weren’t hardened gangsters like him. They weren’t even gangsters at all! How could he expect them to know all of that?
But Mick knew they had to learn it. Because it was fear that was driving his rage. He didn’t want to see his children rotting away in some prison because they didn’t know what the hell they were doing. And he knew he had to teach them. He knew eventually they would have to come in. They were his children, after all, and they were no longer in the shadows. It was no longer a secret to anyone. They had to be smart when they were confronted.
“Get in the car,” he ordered all of them as his limousine drove over to them. Gloria and Joey got in.
Mick watched as Teddy knocked the dirt off of his pants, and fought back tears, and was about to get in too. But Mick pulled him back. After what happened to Adrian, it now hurt him to his heart to have to harm his children. Especially Teddy, who’d been proving himself time and time again. “I want you to meet with Granville Wallace.”
Teddy was still smarting from his father’s punch, and the tears were still fighting to flow, but he held on. “The mayor?”
Mick nodded. “The mayor,” he said. “I want you to get a good deal for us.”
Teddy didn’t understand what his father meant, but he was already learning not to question him. Especially since everything he told them about that fight tonight was absolutely right. And he knew it was right. “Yes, sir,” he said, and got into the limo.
After Mick got in, his driver drove and dropped off first Gloria, and then Joey, and then dropped Teddy off. They all said good night to Mick, but Mick didn’t utter a word to them. When he was alone in the car, he leaned back.
“Where next, boss?” his driver asked.
“Home,” Mick said. “To my wife.”
CHAPTER FOUR
The twins were fast asleep by the time Mick dawned the door of their nursery. He leaned against the doorjamb and watched them with pure adoration. They were plump babies, with Mick, Junior a little plumper than Jacqueline, but they were the most beautiful babies in the world to him. Brown skin, curly brown hair, green eyes. Just adorable. Their two nannies were up and about, cleaning the room supposedly, but Mick figured it was probably an act. They were trying to impress him. Not that it mattered. There were so many nanny cams in their house, on their phones, and at their offices that if one of them so much as sneezed inappropriately around the twins, Mick or Roz would know.
He looked a few minutes longer at the twins and then made his way to the far wing of the house, to the master bedroom. He was so tired he could barely stand. He had wanted this night to be such a special night, but those amateur hour children of his had to go and get themselves arrested. And the mayor and his nonsense. Mick was done.
When he opened the double doors of the bedroom, and saw Roz lying across the bed still fully dressed in her work clothes, fast asleep, he smiled. She was done too. It was well after midnight, after all, and she’d had a long, hard day at work. He pushed away from the doorjamb, walked over to the bed, and laid on the bed beside her. He pulled her into his arms, turned onto his back, and then pulled her completely on top of him. She snuggled against him, and even woke up momentarily, but she was right back fast asleep. He bear hugged her and smiled. This was supposed to be their big night after six weeks of abstinence, and now they both weren’t worth a damn.
And soon Mick, holding onto his wife, was fast asleep too.
Roz woke up early that next morning to find herself naked, under covers, and the shower water running in the master bathroom. The only thing she remembered from the night before was spending time with the children, eating a bowl of soup, and then dropping on the bed. She was still clothed in her business suit, and she eventually nodded off. She remembered, briefly, Mick’s presence, because she remembered feeling his arms around her, but she certainly didn’t remember being undressed and put to bed by him. Had that wonderful night they were supposed to share together come and gone and she slept through it? She purchased special lingerie for the night, and she missed showing that to him too?
She got out of bed. She could not imagine having sex with Mick and sleeping through it. That, in her mind, would be impossible. But she did feel drained.
She went into the bathroom and sat on the toilet. She had peed, wiped herself, washed her hands, and was brushing her teeth by the time Mick realized she was in the bathroom at all. He opened the shower door. When he saw her tight, naked ass at the vanity, his sleeping penis immediately began to sputter awake.
“Good morning,” he said to her.
Roz was gargling when he spoke. She spit out her mouthwash and glanced at him through the vanity mirror. But she couldn’t get a good look. She turned off the faucet, and moved over to grab a towel off of the rack to wipe her mouth. When she saw Mick’s big, naked body, and saw his body’s reaction to hers, she felt a tingle herself. “Good morning,” she said, as she wiped her mouth. “What happened last night?”
“I came home late,” he said as he looked from her face to those juicy breasts he couldn’t wait to suck. “Thanks to those children of ours.”
Roz was surprised. His grown children were as much a part of her life as his. Although she wasn’t that much older than they were, she loved them dearly. “The children?” she asked. “Who, Joey?”
“Joey, Gloria, and Teddy. All three of those scoundrels.”
Roz was especially concerned now that all three were involved. Did somebody try to harm them? “What happened?” she asked.
“Some guy in a nightclub was rude to Glo, so those geniuses decide the best way to handle it was to beat the crap out of the guy in the parking lot.”
“Of the club? Oh no.”
“Oh, yes,” Mick said.
“But the cameras!”
“Oh, they weren’t even thinking about cameras. I could have kicked Teddy’s ass again when I found that part out. He knows better than that. My men had to get over to that club and take possession of those cameras before the cops could.”
“The cops? Somebody called the cops?”
“Multiple people. It was a ringside event. Thankfully, the guy they jumped wasn’t killed. He was hospitalized with broken ribs, but he’ll live.”
Roz shook her head. Shit like this, involving any of their children, was serious to her. “What were they thinking?” she asked.
“They weren’t thinking, that’s the point! But the part that really gets to me is how they ended it. They started it wrong. They should have been more discreet. But they ended it by getting arrested. All three of them were arrested.”
Before Roz could react with horror, he explained how the prosecutor refused to press charges and ordered their immediate release. “She’s a brownnoser. She has big ambitions. But what if it had been somebody else? Like an honest working stiff for a change? Their asses would have been in trouble, looking for me to get them out of it.”
Roz exhaled. “They’ve lived an easy life, Mick. They think because they’re your children that makes them automatic gangsters, when I’m more gangster than they’ll ever be. They’re soft.”
“Glo and Joey are, that’s for damn sure, although Joey thinks he’s a mini-me. But Teddy’s hard. There’s nothing soft about that young man. That’s why I was so angry with him.”
Roz stared at Mick. “You kicked his a
ss, didn’t you?”
Mick hated that he had to go there with his oldest son. “I popped him one. He’s seen how I operate. He knows not to fuck with me. But he disappointed me, Rosalind. He knows better.”
Roz reached out and rubbed Mick’s muscular bicep. “It was just a mistake, honey. I’m sure he’ll right the ship.” Then she remembered something. “Speaking of righting ships, are you still going to Spain today? Is that trip still on?”
“It’s still on,” Mick said disappointedly. “The negotiators are deadlocked on three key issues. If I don’t eventually show up, the deal may fall through. So yeah, I’m flying out tonight.”
A note of sadness appeared in Roz’s eyes. “I guess now that I’m out of my postpartum period, your out-of-town trips will pick back up?”
Mick noticed the sadness. “Not to the same degree as before, no,” he said. “Why are you sad?”
“It’s just been great having you in my bed most nights. I’m going to miss that.”
Mick felt a sense of great love and great burden. “I’ll continue to be home most nights. I promise you.”
Roz smiled. She knew he was just saying that to make her feel better. His business was far too vast and complicated for him to keep a promise like that. And that didn’t include all of his underworld activities that kept him away from home late at night more than a few times. But she could still hold out hope that it would get better. “Good to hear it,” she said. She said this as she was about to turn to go back over to the towel rack and replace the towel she held.
But Mick had other plans. He grabbed her by her small arm, tossed the towel out of her hand, and pulled her back toward the shower stall, and then into the shower all together. The warm water blast across her naked body. “Mick, it’s too hot,” she said as she backed away from the stream.
Mick immediately turned up the cold water, to balance out the flow, but that didn’t ease his horniness. He pulled her black, soft body against his white, rock-hard body. She loved the way the ridges of his stomach muscles pressed into her. But then she moved to grab some bath oil.
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