Mick was staring at Joey. “Why would you think that my wife would have something to do with her disappearance?” he asked.
His question only angered Joey more. “Because Gloria said she did!” he fired at his father.
“I don’t give a fuck what Gloria said!” Mick fired back. “On this point I do not give a fuck! You hear me? My wife did not harm Gloria. She did not have anything to do with her disappearance. I will never believe that, and all of your suppositions will not make me believe it. I will never entertain such a thought!”
Joey’s hurt emboldened him. “Then you’re a bigger fool than I thought you was,” he said.
Mick could not be restrained this time. He hit his son with such a forceful blow that Joey lifted up in the air and flipped before landing on his face. Teddy went to him, to help him, but he jerked away from him.
Roz covered her mouth in anguish. The last thing she ever wanted was something like this. She wanted to go to Joey too. But she didn’t. He wasn’t going to speak to his father so disrespectfully and get away with it. That level of behavior could not go unpunished.
She looked at Mick. She knew how much he loved his children, and she expected to see regret in his eyes. But regret wasn’t there. Mick was the kind of man that relied on respect. It was his life creed. If anybody disrespected him, he didn’t care who, he was setting them straight.
When Joey stood back up, Mick didn’t offer any apologies. He simply left the room and went into his study. He wasn’t regretful. Roz was right about that. But he was hurt. Hurt to his core. His children still hated him. He knew it now.
Roz and Joey exchanged a look. They were getting closer until this episode with Gloria. They were becoming really tight. But she couldn’t abide his behavior either. “Your father loves you,” she said. “He can’t erase the past, but he loves you now. Maybe it’s high time you start returning the gesture.” And Roz left, and went into Mick’s study.
Mick was pacing the room. It was his home office, it was massive, but it felt closed in and cluttered when Roz walked in. Because Mick looked like a caged animal. He looked like a man on the verge of rage. But he was containing his fury.
Roz knew her job wasn’t to incite his fury, or even acknowledge it. Her job was to keep him focused. “What’s next?” she asked him. “What can we do? Wait?”
Mick, at first, didn’t respond. Then he stood still and looked at her. “None of this is your fault,” he said to her. “You know that?”
“I don’t know shit,” she said bluntly. “Not at this point. I know I’m not involved physically. But maybe I have some emotional responsibility. Maybe I could have done more to prevent this breakdown.”
“That’s nonsense, Rosalind, and you know it.”
Roz began to feel emotional. “I know,” she said. “But somebody’s got to be the bad guy, and I don’t want it to be your children, Mick. I don’t want you estranged from your children again. That’ll just kill me. We were all trying to come together. Now we’re all torn apart.”
Mick went to Rosalind and pulled her into his arms. The idea that anybody would think this good woman could have something to do with Gloria’s disappearance was absurd to him. He pulled her tighter. He never knew love before Rosalind came along. She was his life. Maybe that was backwards. Maybe it was his children who were supposed to be first. He didn’t know. His father didn’t give a damn about him, and he never learned how to be a good father. But he knew that Rosalind was first. She was the one who showed him what love was. His love for her was too deep for him to dig out of it.
When they stopped embracing, he lifted her chin. “Not your fault,” he said. “No matter what.”
Roz smiled a smile of appreciation. But it was filled with pain too. “What’s next?” she asked.
“I’ve called a meeting.”
Roz waited for more. When no more came, she knew what he meant. “Where? For here?”
Mick nodded. “This is where I need it to take place, yes.”
“But is it safe? What if the FBI is monitoring some of their activities?”
“They know how to lose the Feds,” Mick made clear. “Nobody’s stupid enough to bring company when they come to see me. Don’t you worry about that.”
But Roz did worry about that when the limousines started arriving at their compound. And these men weren’t second-stringers either, or Mick’s men would have directed them to one of the guest houses on the property. They were mob bosses of the highest order, most of them much older than Mick himself, and they all walked through Mick’s front door. That was unusual. Mick almost always kept his underworld life as separate from his home life as he could keep it. But Roz also knew Mick was doing whatever he had to do to find his daughter. Protocol, and even the Feds, be damned right now.
Mick sat on the edge of his desk inside his home office, with Teddy standing against the wall as if he was not only his father’s enforcer, but his protector now. And the bosses trickled in. There was Demetrio Gastone, Harold Ziccardi, and Alberto Pennisi. All three ran segments of the east coast. All three had to run money through Mick to stay in business. All three owed him big time. They knew the streets. They knew what was going on in the streets. But none of them had any idea where Gloria could be.
“None of our people snatched her,” Demetrio said bluntly. “None of our people are that stupid.”
Mick assumed that would be their response. But he had to eyeball them. He had to see for himself if they were bullshitting him or not. He stretched out his legs and crossed them at the ankle. “No chatter about me at all?” he asked.
“Why would there be?” Pennesi asked. He was the oldest of the trio. “With all due respect, Micky, why would anybody be crazy enough to be talking about you at all? They heard what happened in New York. They heard what you did to that ‘Rican. None of the people we run with got anything to do with this. They wouldn’t dare!”
“Besides,” Harold Ziccardi said, “everybody figured you didn’t give a damn about your kids.”
Mick looked at him. Teddy did too.
“Meaning no disrespect,” Ziccardi quickly added. “I mean, we didn’t even know you had all of these grown kids until here recently. They were hidden from sight. So people figured it was because you didn’t care enough to publicly acknowledge any of them. Like you didn’t give a shit. That’s the truth of it, Mick. Nobody’s snatching your daughter, at least not people like us, because they figure why should you care who takes her?”
Teddy looked at his father. How long would he have to carry that burden? Teddy forgave him. To be a part of his father’s life, he would have forgiven him anything. He thought Gloria had forgiven him too. This wasn’t adding up!
Mick, with his arms still folded, placed his hand on his chin. His face was so intense even the dons felt the gravity. He was in deep concentration now.
The dons looked at each other, as if looking to see who would bring it up. Alberto Pennisi, by his seniority alone, knew he was the only one to do it. “The thing is, Micky,” he said, “everybody we talk to, and we’ve been talking to everybody, says it’s an inside job.”
Mick looked at his longtime associate. “Yeah?”
“That’s what they’re saying. And before you take my head off, I’m only telling you what they’re saying. They say this kid of yours, this Gloria, has it in for you. They say she set this whole thing up.”
“And how would they know that?”
“They don’t know. But they’re speculating.”
“And what the fuck am I supposed to do with their speculation?” Mick the ticking time bomb was getting hot, the very thing the dons had hoped to avoid. “How the fuck is that going to find my daughter? You think I’m going to throw up my hands, declare she set this shit up herself, and forget about it? If they’re speculating then they must have tangible proof. What is their tangible proof? If they have nothing but wild guesses to tell me, then they’d better shut the fuck up. I can guess and speculate. I don’t need anybod
y to do that for me.”
Amen, Teddy wanted to say, but just like the dons was too afraid to speak. The room fell silent.
Until Harold Ziccardi spoke up, and got Mick’s attention.
“There is one person who knows more than rank speculation,” he said.
Mick and Teddy and all of the other dons looked at him.
“Who?” Teddy asked.
Ziccardi looked at Mick. “The brother of the ATF agent your daughter killed last year,” he said courageously.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Her limo has arrived, ma’am,” Deuce McCurry said as he walked into the nursery inside the compound’s safe house.
Roz was holding the twins as they slept. Joey was seated on the sofa beside her, twirling a basketball. He was clearly stir crazy, as his father would not allow him to leave the house, and angry at the bruise he now sported. But Roz was just confused. “Whose limo has arrived, Deuce?” she asked him.
“Bella Caine, ma’am,” Deuce responded. “Gloria’s mother.”
Joey stopped twirling the ball and looked at Roz when Deuce made his pronouncement. But Roz looked back at her twins. Her heart was pounding. She had never met the infamous fashion designer, the one former lover Mick supposedly still loved, and she wasn’t relishing the moment right now. Especially not under these circumstances. But Mick didn’t promise her a rose garden when he married her. In fact, she thought, he didn’t promise her anything. Except his love. She was relying on that love today.
She handed the babies back to the nannies on duty. “Joey,” she said, “keep an eye on Jackie and Junior.”
Joey stopped twirling his ball and looked at her. “For real?” he asked. “After what I said upstairs, you aren’t worried I might hurt them?”
Roz frowned. “Of course not!” she said honestly. “They’re your flesh and blood. I know what that means to you.”
Joey swallowed hard. Because she was right. He looked out for his own. She seemed to be the only person who truly understood that. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “They’re my responsibility.”
Roz smiled and headed upstairs. But as she passed Deuce, she gave him a look he was well familiar with. And he stayed downstairs, just in case. Roz believed Joey would never harm his siblings. She believed he truly loved them. But she also knew he harbored hate. And bitterness. And resentment toward the mother of those babies. If it was just her involved, she would have no problem with trusting him one hundred percent. But two babies were involved. Her and Mick’s babies. She wasn’t taking not even a one percent chance for granted. Deuce stayed as her eyes and ears. Deuce stayed just in case.
Upstairs, Bella Caine entered Mick’s home in a hurry. Tall, elegant and black, she presented as a striking, domineering figure. She was much older than Roz, closer to Mick’s age, but she was still beautiful on every level. Her two assistants, both young and African-American, stood just behind her, ready to be at her beck and call. When she saw Roz, who had just entered the living room area from downstairs, she, and her people, hurried to her. “Any word?” she asked anxiously.
“No word,” Roz said.
Bella literally fell back on her heels. She had been so hopeful! And that domineering, well put together lady began to fall apart. “This is insane!” she said. “How could anybody bring harm to my little girl? She’s harmless! I told Mick not to involve her in his business. I told Mick it was not a good idea at all. But does he listen to me? No. Every time I see him it’s all about sex, nothing else, and then he leaves. He never has time to discuss our daughter. He never has time to do anything at all. And now look what’s happened. She’s gone. Our baby is gone! And right in the middle of fashion week!”
Roz was stunned by her assertions on so many levels she didn’t know where to begin. She insinuated that she and Mick had been talking, when Roz didn’t know of any such conversations. And not only talking, but still sexually involved with each other? Was this woman delusional, Roz wondered, or was she the deluded one?
“I want to see that bastard,” Bella continued. “Where is he? Where’s Mick?”
But one thing was true to Roz. This woman, this Bella Caine, was unhinged. “Why don’t you have a seat,” Roz suggested.
“Why don’t you shut the hell up,” Bella suggested, “and tell Mick I have arrived. You are his newbie, are you not? You are his Miss Right Now, are you not?”
But if she expected her tirade of insults to cower Roz, she was mistaken. Her accusations didn’t. Why should her putdowns? “I’m his wife,” Roz shot back, “and Mick is in a meeting. When he concludes that meeting, he will be available to talk with you.”
Bella, removing her gloves, stopped and looked sidelong at Roz. “Are you serious? Do you not know who I am?”
Roz didn’t skip a beat. “His oldie?” she asked. “His Miss No More? Yes, I know who you are. And I know you are in a lot of pain. But unless you have something to contribute to finding your daughter, rather than criticizing her father, then you will have to wait. Her father is at this moment attempting to find answers.”
“Don’t you tell me anything about her father,” Bella said. “You just hit the scene, what the hell do you know? Cathleen told me all about you.” Cathleen, Roz knew, was Joey’s mother. Another one of Mick’s baby mamas. “She told me how you think you run something now. But remember, darling, he didn’t marry you because he didn’t want us. He married you because we were smart enough not to want to marry him. We love his dick. I’m not ever giving that up. But that’s about it.” The two flunkies behind her grinned. They were enjoying the show.
But Roz wasn’t. She found this woman disgusting. “Your daughter is missing and all you can do is drop bombs on me about some imaginary sexual relationship you’re supposedly still having with my husband. Well drop away. But see if that gets you any closer to seeing Mick. See if that gets you any closer to anything but a one-way ticket out of my front door.”
Bella was livid. “Your front door?” she asked. “This is Mick’s house. This was Mick’s house long before he knew you existed. And now it’s yours? You’d better get out of my way,” Bella said, sweeping past Roz, with her entourage in tow.
But Roz grabbed her by the arm and turned her around. “I don’t like to insult my elders,” she said. One of Bella’s flunkies laughed, and then, terrified that she would be punished by her boss, coughed it off.
“Your elders?” Bella asked.
“I do not like to insult my elders,” Roz said again, “but I will more than insult you if you don’t respect my home. And my position in this home. I understand you are having a crisis. I understand how you may feel. But you can either sit down and wait for Mick to see you and tell you what’s going on, or you can leave. Those are your choices.”
“I am not leaving,” Bella said, “and I will not sit down. What else you’ve got?”
Bella was bolder than most, and it made Roz question if she wasn’t that far off in how she described her relationship with Mick. Was their relationship different than his other baby mamas, just as she had heard? Was he still in love with this woman and this woman knew it? Was sex involved and Bella therefore wasn’t afraid of him because she knew she could use it against him?
But before Roz could regain her footing, before she could go over to the intercom and order a guard to remove Bella from the home, Mick and Teddy, along with the three mob bosses, came out of the study.
As soon as Bella saw Mick, Roz saw a change in her. Gone was the strong, independent, mouthy bitch on two legs. She hurried to him, like an innocent dove.
“Oh, Mick,” she said as she approached him. “Where’s our child? Where is she? What’s happened to her? Oh, Mick, is she going to be alright?”
She fell against Mick and Mick held her. Her two flunkies looked at Roz with that oops, you lose look on their arrogant faces. They brushed past her as they made their way toward their boss. Roz made her way beside Mick.
Roz felt strange seeing some other woman, other than herself, in
Mick’s big arms. She knew what it felt like being there. She knew the almost insatiable lust his body could produce in any woman, especially one who already had him like that. But she had to bear it. This woman shared a child with Mick, and their child was missing. Although Bella was hardly the selfless, grieving parent she presented to Mick now, Roz knew she was still grieving. Gloria was still her child.
When Mick stopped hugging Bella, Roz could see the concern in his eyes. He was worried unlike she had seen him worry before. He placed both hands on the side of Bella’s thin arms. “I’ll find her, Belle,” he said. “I promise you I will.”
When Bella stopped crying, she looked at Mick. “What happened to her, Micky? Why would somebody kidnap our baby?”
Mick began to absently rub her arms. “I don’t know,” he said.
“What does the police say?” Bella asked.
Mick looked at her. “The police are not involved.”
Bella was floored. “They are not . . . Why not? We need all the help we can get!”
“Not that kind of help. I have more men on this case, men who know what they’re doing, than the FBI and police will ever be able to match.”
“But they can help too.”
“I do not utilize the police,” Mick said. “You know that.” Mick also knew, on top of his rule against involving the police in any situation that he could handle himself, that Bella didn’t know about Gloria’s accusation against Roz. She didn’t know that if he were to use the cops, they would try to implicate Roz first. And slow down the process. And potentially put Roz at risk herself.
Mick Sinatra 4: If You Don't Know Me by Now Page 14