Tears came too, and she hated that she couldn’t beat back even that. But it was all in keeping with who she never dreamed she’d be. It was all in keeping with that miserable, insecure, dick-whipped person she allowed herself to become.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Charles “Big Daddy” Sinatra sat in the restaurant waiting for his brother to arrive. He was in New York on business when Mick phoned him, and immediately drove the couple hours to Philly to come and see about him. He knew his kid brother. He knew Mick didn’t phone him for advice unless it was vital. Unless it was, if he were to be honest with himself, a matter of life or death.
And when Mick walked in, looking like the titan of industry that he was, Charles’s heart began to pound. It took a lot to get Mick off his game, but Charles could see, just in the way that he was walking; just by that vacant look in his eyes, that something was completely off.
When Mick made his way to Charles’s table, Charles had a huge desire to show the affection he felt for his kid brother. But Mick wasn’t that kind of man. The more affection he felt for someone, the less he tended to show it. Unless that person was Roz. Charles saw many instances of outward manifestations of intimacy from Mick when it came to Roz. But as for he and Mick? They didn’t even shake hands.
“I came all the way from New York,” Charles said. “You came all the way from across town. Guess who got here first?”
Mick smiled as he sat down across from his brother. “Touché,” he said, with a playful shake of his shoulder. He was inwardly thrilled to see Charles again. “How are you?”
“I’m great.”
“And the family back in Jericho?”
“They’re great, too,” Charles said. “How’s Roz?”
Mick nodded. “She’s doing great.”
“Everybody’s doing great. Except you apparently. What’s going on?”
The waitress arrived and took Mick’s drink order. Charles already had a beer. When the waitress left, Mick leaned forward. His biceps strained the fabric of his suit, making him appear even bigger than Charles remembered him. “It’s about Amelia,” Mick said.
Charles was intrigued. He had many thoughts going through his head, but their half-sister wasn’t on that list. “What about her?” he asked. “Is she alright?”
“You haven’t heard from her?”
“Last I heard,” Charles said, “she was back in Africa. I assumed she was still there. What’s going on with her?”
“I don’t know what the fuck is going on with her,” Mick said. “First, strange shit starts happening. I strike a deal with this douchebag to take over some of his territory.”
“Why, may I ask?” Charles asked.
“I’m expanding. Too many customers mean I’ve got too many shipments coming in, and not enough pickup stations. So I strike a deal. Teddy strikes a deal with another guy. And not without cost. He had to shoot his way to the table.”
Charles frowned. He hated to hear that.
“But get this,” Mick said. “Both guys renege. This one guy, a mobster we call Big Ridge Mahoney, says he’s not giving up shit. Richie Russo, the deal I struck, says the same thing. And not only do they refuse to give up their territory, for a healthy price, mind you, they start aggressively moving in on my territory. On my turf. And then they hit two of my dock crews. Killing all of them, but not touching my shipments.”
“Damn,” Charles said. “That shit sounds orchestrated to me.”
“Yeah. Roz and I would agree with you. So Ted and I go see Russo. But before I can get any straight answers from him, he blows his brains out.”
“Shit!”
“And then we round up Mahoney. Take him over to my place on Olsen. And lo and behold he says he was forced to do it by gunpoint. He didn’t recognize the main man, but he recognized the goons. And all of them, he claims, are Amelia’s goons. All of them, he claims, still work for Amelia.”
“Working for her doing what?” Charles asked. “She’s still slinging drugs? I thought, after her old man died, she’d get out of that trade.”
Mick thought so, too.
“But why would Amelia come for your territory?” Charles asked. “What would possibly be in it for her?”
“I don’t know,” Mick said.
“You haven’t verified Mahoney’s assertion?”
“No. I’ve got men working on it. So no. But if it’s true,” Mick said, and looked at Charles.
Charles stared at Mick. “If it’s true what?” he asked.
“We’re talking war here.”
But Charles was adamant. “Not with our sister, we aren’t.” But he could see that defiant look on Micks’ face. “Not with Amelia,” he said again. Then a feeling of dread appeared in Charles’s eyes. Mick was as ruthless as they came. When it came to honor and respect, Mick sometimes had no limits to what he would do. But their sister? “You can’t, Mick,” he said.
“If she’s coming for me,” Mick said, “I will go for her. I cannot sit back and let her upend my reputation where every fucker on the face of this earth figure they can try me too. That’s what I cannot do.”
“I need you to think about this, Mick,” Charles said urgently, leaning forward. “You asked me for advice. I’m here to give it. You have to try another way.”
“Another way? Even if Mahoney is telling the truth and she’s behind that shit?”
Charles never thought he’d hear himself say this. “Yes,” he said. “Even if it’s true.”
Mick looked at his brother as if he’d just grown a third eye. What Charles was saying was as foreign to Mick as turning the other cheek. “I don’t know what you’re saying. You’re telling me to ignore a hostile takeover?”
“No. Yes! I’m telling you to give her the benefit of the doubt.”
“I already will do that,” Mick said. “That’s not the issue. The issue is what if it’s true. What if she confesses to its’ truth. What will I do then. That’s the issue.”
Charles studied Mick. “What would you normally do?” he asked him.
“Take them out,” Mick said bluntly.
Charles leaned back. “And that’s what you intend to do?” he asked. “Take her out? Take your own sister out? A sister we’re only just beginning to know? She came from our mother. Don’t you forget that. You held her in your arms the day she was born! Your protected her from our old man. You can’t treat this as your standard, run-of-the-mill retaliation, Mick. Because it’s not.”
Mick understood that. That was why he called Charles in the first place. He was the most moral, ethical man he knew. He was Mick’s voice of reason. “What is your suggestion?” he asked.
“Find her first,” he said. “And then hear her out. If she denies it, you have to believe her.”
“And if she admits it?” Mick asked.
Charles swallowed hard. “Hear her out. Find out why. And then you have to forgive her.”
Mick frowned. “Forgive her? Are you joking? You don’t understand what you’re asking.”
“Sometimes it can’t be like it always is, Mick. I don’t want you to harm Amelia.”
“I didn’t want to harm her!” Mick said with a raised voice he had to pipe back down. “I didn’t bring shit to her. If she’s behind this, she’s bringing this shit to me! And you want me to forgive that? I don’t live in Jericho anymore, Charles. Word spreads like wildfire in my world. If I don’t retaliate hard, my family will be at risk. You have to understand that. Forgiving Amelia isn’t just forgiving Amelia. It’ll be forgiving all of these other fuckers out here, too. And they won’t take it as a brother forgiving his sister. They will take it for what it is.”
“Which is?” Charles asked.
“Weakness,” Mick said. “And on no given day,” Mick added angrily, “will any man call me weak.”
Charles leaned back and ran the back of his hand across his eyes. Mick was in a hellava spot, and Charles understood that. But what he was talking about doing was unthinkable.
“The
re’s Ted,” Mick said, and Charles looked up. When he saw his handsome nephew walking toward them, he had a flashback to a young, handsome Mick. A man he had hoped would turn out the exact opposite of what he became. Now he heard that Mick was giving Teddy more and more authority in the underworld. That Mick was allowing him to follow in his footsteps. Joey too.
It was a damn shame to Charles. He loved his brother, but he could never condone that other life he led. Nor could he pretend it didn’t disturb him that Mick’s sons were now in that world too. Charles had four sons of his own. One was the mayor of Jericho. One was its police chief. One was a clinical psychologist, and his youngest son worked for him. But if any of his children, his daughters included, were to ever even think about breaking bad, he would break them right back.
“Hey, Big Daddy,” Teddy said when he arrived at their table.
“If you aren’t the spitting image of your father.” Charles and Teddy embraced. Charles gave him a kiss, too. “How are you, Champ?”
“I’m good,” Teddy said with a smile. Then he looked at his father. “Hey, Pop.”
“What’s up?” Mick asked.
Teddy exhaled. “We found her,” he said.
Charles’s heart dropped. Mick’s heart pounded against his chest. “Where?” Mick asked.
“She’s hiding out at a juke joint, a place they call the Bottom.”
Charles rose to his feet, ready to go. But Mick remained where he was. “The Bottom?” Mick asked.
“It’s in the woods,” Teddy explained. “Deep in. That’s why they call it that. It’s one of her pickup stations. I know the place.”
Mick gave Teddy a cold look. Teddy used to sell drugs, on an international scale, that Mick forced him to give up. Amelia, before they knew she was any kin to them, was one of his biggest suppliers.
Teddy was undeterred. “Let’s get over there, Dad,” he said.
But Mick needed more information before he was ready to go get his gun. These fuckers were coming at him sideways. He wasn’t about to go at them head on. “How did you find out where she was?” he asked his son.
“I was calling around, to my old associates, to see if any of them had seen her. One guy, this dude we call Random, called back. He told me he saw her just this evening, when he went to the Bottom to pick up supplies. He said she looked pretty relaxed. She should still be there.”
But Mick still didn’t react the way Teddy, nor Charles for that matter, expected him to. But Charles knew his kid brother well. He was staring at him.
Teddy’s impatience began to show. “She may not be there all night, Pop,” he said. “We need to do this.”
“Don’t tell me what the fuck I need to do,” Mick said, as a flash of anger crossed his face. At least Teddy saw it as anger; the kind that cut close to the heart whenever his father lashed out at him that way. But Charles saw it as grave concern masquerading as anger. Mick was about to go and confront Amelia, his own sister. A sister they only just recently found out they had. A sister reported to be behind those contract disputes and dock hits. This could end badly if there turned out to be more to the story than a land grab. Mick had every right, Charles felt, to be cautious.
Then Mick finally rose to his feet. “Get Carissa Caine as the driver,” he said to Teddy.
“SUV?”
“Yes,” Mick said. “Then you and her meet me at the house. I’ve got to suit up.”
Teddy felt a chill down his spine when his father made that statement, mostly because he knew exactly what that meant. This shit was serious, was what it meant. And it always scared Teddy whenever he thought that his father was about to confront what could be a very dangerous situation. Maybe more dangerous, if Mick had to suit up, than Teddy had given it credit for. He looked at his uncle. He wondered if Big Daddy understood it, too. “Yes, sir,” he said to Mick, and then left to do as he was ordered.
Charles was still staring at Mick. He knew exactly what the fact that Mick was suiting up meant. “You think she would come for you like that, Michello?” he asked him.
Mick looked at Charles as if he didn’t fully get the depth of disrespect that was required when somebody, anybody, attempted to muscle in on Mick the Tick’s turf. Or when they were able to create more fear in his competition than Mick had created. If Mahoney wasn’t full of shit, Amelia was no longer just his sister. Amelia was a clear and present danger to his very being. “I don’t have to think if she could come for me,” Mick responded to his brother. “If she pulled the shit she’s been accused of pulling, she already has.”
Mick gave Charles an undeniable, I’m in fighting mode look as he walked away from their table. Charles felt the sting of that look momentarily, and then followed him.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Roz was at home, on the floor in the playroom with the twins, as she watched them attempt to put together big, fat puzzle pieces. So far Jacqueline had managed to put a couple pieces in their proper place. Duke, on the other hand, had attempted to eat them, throw them, bang on them as if they were drum sticks, and feed them to his mother. The two nannies in the room smiled. “He may not be the bookish one, ma’am,” one of them said.
Roz laughed. “Don’t underestimate him,” she said. “Most people don’t think his father is brainy, either. But Mick has plenty sense. Book sense, too. When Duke learns, he’s going to beat his sister putting this shit together.”
The younger nanny blushed and looked at the older one. She was always surprised by the colorful language Roz and her husband used around their children. Didn’t they understand the damage it could cause, she once asked the older one?
“What damage?” the older nanny responded at the time. “These are their children. We work for them, and we ain’t working for the Brady Bunch. You understood that when you took this job. Stop whining or I’ll request they replace you.”
The younger nanny begged her not to do so, and promised to drop the complaints. But she loved Duke and Jackie and wanted only the best for them. She sometimes wondered if she was the only one who did.
Mick arrived home just as Duke picked up another puzzle piece and threw it, hitting Mick on the leg when he did.
“Ouch,” Mick said with a grin, and all of them turned to him.
When Jackie saw her father, she cried Daddy, stood up with nothing but love and determination on her gorgeous brown face, and waddled to him. With her arms lifted up the entire time, she ran, but fell on her romp twice, before she reached him. Mick felt a swell of deep emotion when he saw his daughter make such a valiant effort to get to him. He lifted her in his arms when she arrived, and held her with the kind of love in his heart that young nanny would be clueless about.
But showing where his priorities really were, Duke was too busy trying to feed his mother a puzzle piece instead of any all-out welcome of his father. “Daddy’s here,” Roz would have to say before Duke would give him any attention.
Roz, in shorts and t-shirt, sat up, Indian-style, when Duke left her side and went to his father.
“Hey, Boss,” Mick said to his son as he made his way to him.
But even as Mick lifted Duke into his arms and seemed genuinely pleased to see his children, Roz could feel a burden that he bore that nobody else detected. And when Charles came in behind Mick, and the children eagerly went into Big Daddy’s arms with that excitement they always showed when their favorite uncle came to visit, she stood up. Something was wrong. And it had more to do than land grabs and dock hits.
“Hey, Big Daddy,” she said as she walked toward them. “I didn’t know you were coming to town.”
“It was a sudden move,” Charles said. He leaned over and kissed her on the lips. “How are you, Roz?”
“I’m good. How are you?”
“Not bad for an old man. You look like a breath of fresh air.”
“Even in my bump around the house gear?” she said with a smile. “I must be living right!”
Charles laughed.
“Are you guys hungry?” Roz as
ked. “I was going to put the twins to bed before I started supper, but I can certainly get started now.”
But Mick leaned against the doorjamb. “Not yet,” he said. And he said it in a way that made Roz certain that what she felt when Mick entered the playroom wasn’t a mistake. He wasn’t just burdened, he was depressed, too. She and he exchanged a very private, very deep glance, and then Mick left the room.
“Rachel,” she said to the younger nanny, “will you tell Hemsley to prepare Mr. Sinatra a drink. What would you like, Charles?”
“A beer will be fine.”
“You sure?” Roz asked.
“Positive. I’m no upscale Philadelphia man. I’m from Jericho, Maine. We take beer with ours, thank you.”
Roz smiled. “Tell Hemsley to get Mr. Sinatra a beer,” she ordered the young nanny.
“Yes, ma’am,” Rachel said, and hurried to do as she was ordered.
“Let me know if you need anything else,” Roz said to Charles. “I’m going to go and check on Mick.”
Charles nodded between bouncing his niece and nephew. “Good idea,” he said.
Roz squeezed his arm as she made her way out of the playroom and followed Mick’s fresh cologne scent up the stairs.
He was in the bedroom by the time she made it up, and had stripped naked. But she knew there was nothing sensual about it. This was business of the deadly kind. The fact that one of his numerous long, white coats and black trouser outfits were across the bed, proved that.
As he stood at his chest of drawers and removed the brand-new turtleneck shirt from the packaging it was still in, Roz walked up behind him, laid the side of her face on his big, bare back, and hugged him around his waist. She loved the smell of him, the feel of him, everything about him!
Mick loved her touch, too, and wished he could stay right where he was and hold her in his arms all night long. But he knew that wasn’t possible. They had no normal life. They tried to keep it as normal as they could, for their own sakes and their children’s sakes, but they knew what time it was. “How was your day?” he asked her.
Mick Sinatra: Love and Shadows Page 9
