“That’s asinine, Joey. Really asinine”
“So just you and Daddy get to go handle that creep?”
“And me,” Amelia said.
Mick ignored her. “I’m calling in my brother,” Mick said.
When Joey realized Mick planned to call in Big Daddy, he nodded. “Oh,” he said, as if Big Daddy’s presence would be enough.
Mick looked at Amelia. “Best to strike day or night?” he asked her.
“Day,” she said quickly. “Always during the day. He’ll be expecting your ass at night.”
Mick rose to his feet. Roz, Gloria, and Teddy stood up, too. “Draw up a blueprint,” he said to Amelia. “I’ll take a look in the morning.”
Mick waited for Roz to get in front of him, placed his hand on the small of her back, and then steered her out of the guest house. Teddy and Gloria followed.
Outside, Mick pulled Teddy aside. “What are you thinking, Pop?” Teddy asked him. “You believe her story?”
“I don’t believe shit until I can verify it. Check out that stepson of hers. That Alessio Valtone. And then check with the Palms Hotel in Baltimore. She said she was there under the name of Porsha Randolph. See if that’s true, too. And I want her under full guard tonight. Treat her like the enemy, a very clever enemy, until we know otherwise.”
“Yes, sir,” Teddy said with a nod. “Joey may be a problem,” he added. “I think he’s infatuated with her. And who blames him? She did save his life.”
“I agree,” Mick said. “He can be a part of the guard detail, but not in charge of the detail.”
Then Teddy stared at him. “What’s your gut telling you, Pop?”
“It’s telling me a lot of things.”
“Is trusting her one of them?”
“Yes.”
“Or, is don’t trust her one of them?”
“Yes.”
Teddy smiled. “Which is it?”
“Both,” Mick said. “Which means we take no chances, you hear me. Full guard. No exceptions.”
“Yes, sir,” Teddy said, and Mick went back over to Roz. They placed their arms around each other, and headed for the big house.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
When Roz woke up the next morning, she remembered the night before and felt a need to touch her husband; to remind him that everything was going to be alright. But the bed was empty beside her. He wasn’t there.
She sat up quickly, causing the covers to fall around her waist and her big, bare breasts to bounce. She was worried sick. Had Mick already gone to handle Alessio Valtone without telling her? Was he already on that dangerous mission?
But when she looked to the right of her, she realized her concerns were misplaced. He was still there. He was naked, sitting in a wingback chair beside the bed, staring at her. But he was still there.
Mick had been there for nearly an hour. He slept fitfully all night. Not because of the mission ahead of him. He never wavered in his commitment to bring down anybody attempting to bring him down. But because of Amelia.
But when he saw Rosalind react with panic when she realized he was not still lying beside her, the dark cloud lifted over his dark mood. He knew he was going to be just fine, and make all the right moves, with a woman like Rosalind by his side.
But he could tell she was barely awake. She grabbed the front of her hair and raked her hands through it, creating a cascade of bouncy, wavy tresses along the sides of her face. Some strands of her hair dropped right back over her forehead, giving her that sexy, one-eye look that made Mick smile. “Good morning,” he said.
“How long have you been up?” Her voice was sleepy and guarded.
Mick glanced at the clock on the wall. “An hour or so.”
“Did you,” Roz started to say, but then yawned.
Mick smiled. “Wake the fuck up,” he said.
Roz smiled, too. “Did you check on the children yet?”
“I saw them on the monitors already. They’re still asleep.”
“Good,” Roz said, and attempted to remove the strands out of her face again. As she did so, Mick looked down, at her big, brown breasts, and his mouth watered. He loved the way her nipples felt on his tongue, and the way her big mounds felt when he squeezed them with a hard squeeze that always made her arch. He wanted to taste them right now. But not yet. He had things on his mind. But he knew he was going to be fucking her before she got her ass out of that bed.
“What about you?” she asked after her strand-removal failed again. “Did you get any real sleep last night?”
“I slept. It was a fitful sleep, but I slept.”
Roz considered him. “What are you worried about? And I know it’s not the mission. I worry more about those missions you have to go on than you do.”
“You worry about me. That’s something worth noting. At least I know somebody loves me.”
Although he tried to smile it off, Roz wasn’t amused. “Don’t talk like that, Michello. You hear me? Your children love you. They love you to death. Big Daddy and Jenay and their entire brood loves you. They think you’re some type of family celebrity the way they gush over you. And even the Gabrinis love you.”
Mick leaned his head back and laughed. “I must be a sorry sight if those bad-asses love me.”
Roz laughed, too. “But they do! You’re a beloved man.”
Mick knew that wasn’t true. His smile left. “I’m a feared man. I’ll give you that.”
Roz looked at him. “What is it then? Why were you sleeping so fitfully?”
Mick leaned forward. His dick was still asleep, but it was still substantial enough to make Roz’s vagina pulsate. “I still have concerns,” he said.
“About?” Roz asked.
“Amelia,” Mick said, and looked at her.
Roz lifted her knees and wrapped her arms around them. “What kind of concerns?” she asked.
“What shit is she pulling? Am I walking into a fucking trap? I have these concerns.”
“You still don’t trust her?”
“I don’t know her yet. Just because we’re bound by blood doesn’t make us close. I don’t know her like that.”
“Time will have to tell, Mick. But I don’t know. You taught me how to rely on my instincts. My instincts are telling me that she’s a good person behind that tough exterior. But then . . .”
Mick considered Roz. “But then what?” he asked her.
“But then there’s that other part of me that has a different take. There’s that other part of me that says child, please, this bitch selfish as hell and is looking out for nobody but herself.”
Mick was amazed that Roz shared his sentiments exactly. He was pleased to see how much her thinking paralleled his. “My thought as well,” he acknowledged.
“But you know both of those things can be true at once,” Roz offered. “She can be a good person, and somebody we can do business with; and she can be a bitch, too, and selfish as hell.
“Which one are you inclined to believe she is more so than not?” Mick asked her.
“The selfish bitch, of course,” Roz said. “But only because she’s been abused and mistreated her entire life. Even at birth, remember, when you had to grab her and try to hide her from the wrath of your own father? She’s been on that same grill her whole life. She doesn’t know how not to be selfish. But there’s integrity there, too. When she killed her own husband to save Joey’s life proved that.”
Mick considered what Roz had said.
“But you have another issue,” Roz added. “Don’t you?”
Mick had to acknowledge it. “Yes. I have another issue with her.”
“What is it?”
“I’ve never trusted a fucker who peddles drugs for a living.”
Roz was sometimes amazed at Mick’s lack of self-awareness. “Mick, that’s not true,” she reminded him. “You trust Teddy. He peddled drugs for a living before you made him stop. Now you trust him with your life, and your business.”
“And my family,” Mick added. “Yes. But
Teddy’s my son. My child. Amelia will never have that place at my table.”
Roz understood what he meant. But still. “If you’re asking me if I think she’ll set you up the way Richie Russo and Ridge Mahoney said she would, I would have to say no. I don’t think she’s that kind of woman. Now if you guys are captured, and she can save herself, she’s going to. But you aren’t going to allow yourself to get in that position. Right?”
“Damn right,” Mick agreed.
Then Roz stretched, and yawned again, and threw the covers off of her naked body. “Good,” she said. “About time for me to get up and shower anyway.”
But as soon as she stretched, and her breasts were pushed out in that full, tight wonderfulness he loved; and that sweetness between her legs were revealed, his dick came to life. He loved how she tasted between those legs first thing in the morning, before she showered. He got up before she could get out of bed, and walked up to her. “Not so fast,” he said, as he got on the bed, and opened her legs wide.
Roz knew that look and that voice like she knew her name. He was not about to let her get away this easily. And she was thrilled that he was not!
He opened her legs, placed his hands behind her knees, and looked at the lips of her vagina. “By the time I finish with you,” he said, as he licked her, “those same lips are going to be so swollen and just right.” He licked her again. “For my cock to take over.” He licked her repeatedly in slow, but passionate licks.
And when he began to bite at her clitoris, as his mouth lifted it up and up until it was protruding out, she was arching with her fists balled up against the sheets. By the time his tongue sliced inside of her, and began sucking her juices, she knew she was going to cum in his mouth.
But he removed his tongue just in time. Because he wanted her to cum hard, the way he wanted to cum. He, instead, moved up and began sucking her breasts for almost as long as he had sucked between her legs. And then, when it looked as if she was really about to have a big orgasm, he placed his mouth on her mouth and rammed his dick in hard. So hard, and with such force, that she screamed into his mouth.
And then they were fucking. Her labia were already swollen from Mick’s oral, but his cock was taking it to another level. She was red with fire as he fucked her. He banged her long and hard. Mick was holding nothing back and Roz wanted him to go full-force. His rhythm was fast, but steady. And they both were enjoying the feeling.
He was on his knees, with one of her legs wide, and one of her legs high, as he fucked her. He was pounding her, but massaging her, too. But neither held any illusions. This morning, as they were about to face uncertainness, they didn’t want it slow and easy. They both wanted it hard. They both wanted that unbridled sex that made them feel as if they could conquer the world.
And Mick gave it hard. He was fucking the shit out of Roz and knew it, and loved it! Roz loved it too. Even his balls were so engorged that they were spanking her ass as he fucked her. Even Roz’s own vagina was pouring out juices that mixed up with Mick’s precum until they were saturating each other. They were making love the way teenagers made love. They were holding nothing back.
And when they came, it felt as if they were unleashing a storm. Their cum was so intense that Mick buckled under the weight and leaned forward, almost falling on top of Roz. But Roz was in her own nirvana, too, as every vaginal muscle she had tightened were pulsating and wrapping around Mick’s hard-as-steel rod; a rod that still managed to move within that tightness, and that heightened saturation.
They lived hard. They loved hard. They came hard.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
When Roz showered and dressed, she put on her work attire: a luxurious Marc Jacobs suit, although she knew Mick wasn’t about to allow her to go to work. But she felt a need to dress the part, anyway.
When Mick got out of the shower and dressed, he dressed for work, too: battlefield work. He wore black trousers, a black turtleneck shirt, and yet another one of those pristine, long, white coats he owned. Roz’s heart always ached when she saw him suited up. But at least he was prepared, she decided, as he placed his hand in the small of her back, and escorted her downstairs.
They stopped by the Nursery. Gloria was in a bed in the Nursery, with Jackie on one side of her and Duke on the other side of her. All three were asleep. What Mick and Roz knew for certain: Gloria loved the twins, and would move mountains to protect them. She knew, when the family was on lockdown, as it was right now, what her assignment was.
Mick and Roz decided against waking them up. They, instead, walked through the patio door, around the pool, and down a narrow corridor to get to the guest house that housed Amelia Valtone. Security had been beefed up considerably, and even at the guest house door there were three men on guard. The seriousness of the entire situation could not have been starker to Roz.
When they entered the guest house, they expected to see Teddy and Joey there, and they were in place. But sitting at the conference-sized table beside Amelia, with his hand around her shoulder, was Big Daddy Charles Sinatra. He and Amelia were in conversation.
Mick wasn’t sure if he liked what he saw, or despised it. Why he held such warring feelings for Amelia, he could not explain. It wasn’t her fault that she was born behind an eight ball. It wasn’t her fault that their mother was so screwed up in the head that she would cheat on their father with a traveling salesman and have a baby of a different race than their father, out of wedlock. It wasn’t her fault that her mother’s sister sold her to Bulldog Valtone and his wife when she was still a minor, in exchange for little of nothing. Mick didn’t even remember for what. In his mind, what the fuck difference did it make? The selling part was wrong, he didn’t care how much she was sold for, or what was given in return.
“Good morning, good morning,” Roz said to all of them as they entered the house. Teddy was over by the bar counter, handling other syndicate business that had to be handled, on his cellphone. Joey was seated on the opposite side of Amelia, as if he was her personal bodyguard. Whenever Charles Sinatra was in any room, he was always the head man in charge and they all knew it. But still.
“When did you get in town, Big Daddy?” Roz asked as she leaned over and gave him a hug.
“Late last night,” Charles said. “I came on over here, to talk with Amelia. We talked most of the night.”
Mick and Roz sat at the table across from Amelia, Charles, and Joey, and Teddy quickly ended his call and joined them, sitting beside his father.
“What did you talk about?” Teddy asked. Mick and Roz were curious, but they weren’t going to ask. In their minds, it wasn’t their business.
“We talked,” Charles responded. “She filled me in on this Alessio Valtone character. The evil stepson.”
Mick looked at his older brother. There was not a man alive he respected more. “What are your feelings about it?”
“It makes sense,” Charles responded. “What better reason for shit to go down than revenge?”
“Money or revenge,” Teddy said. “That’s the name of the game in our business.”
Mick looked at Amelia. She looked radiant, as if she had slept like a baby. As if she was so accustomed to upheaval that it didn’t faze her anymore. That disturbed him too. “Do you have the blueprints ready?”
Amelia handed him a sheet of paper with the layout of the Valtone estate. Mick, Roz, and Teddy all looked at it.
“You had a chance to review it, too, Big Daddy?” Roz asked him.
“I did.”
Roz looked at him. “What do you think?”
“I think we go in through the side of the property.”
Mick pressed his finger on the blueprint. “Here?”
“Right there,” Charles said. “It’s a five-hundred-acre ranch in the middle of nowhere. That way, if it turned on us, we still had two ways out. Front and side.”
“And the back,” Teddy said.
“Don’t count on it,” Amelia said. “If I know Lessi, and I do, he’ll make certa
in the back side of the property is impenetrable.”
“The front and side, too,” Roz said, “if he’s any good.”
“He’s not that good,” Amelia said. “The front and side will create openings for us.”
“Us?” Charles asked, as he looked at Amelia.
“Yes, us,” Amelia responded. “I know the property like the back of my hand, and I know the manpower on site. Some of them will actually give up the fight and leave, when they see me.”
“You actually believe that?” Mick asked. “That’s some sorry-ass security.”
“I know. And yes, I believe it. They aren’t bad guys because they work for a bad guy.”
“Bullshit,” Mick said bluntly. “If they kill innocent families as an intimidation tactic, their badness is without question. So fuck that they ain’t so bad bullshit. When I go in, I automatically assume they will be the baddest motherfuckers I’ve ever faced. If you’re going in with me, you’d better know it, too.”
“She’s not going with you,” Charles said. “No way.”
“I’m the one he’s trying to kill, Charles,” Amelia pointed out. “I must be there.”
But Charles was firm. “No way,” he said, shaking his head.
“Charles!”
Charles looked at Mick. “Am I wrong?” he asked him. “Yeah, she knows the place. But---”
Amelia looked at him. “But what?”
“You’re still our sister.”
A warmth came over Amelia that she would never admit. For the first time in her life, somebody who had not done her harm, was owning her. She looked at Mick, careful not to let him see her soft side. Because the final decision, she knew, was up to him. “If I was your brother,” she said, “would this even be an issue?”
“No,” Mick said, staring at her, studying her. “But you aren’t my brother. You stay,” he decided, and even Charles, who played second fiddle to no-one, couldn’t argue with that.
“Now tell me what I need to know,” Mick said to Amelia.
Amelia was beside herself with anger. Charles pulled her against him. “You’ll get over it,” he said to her. “Tell him.”
Mick Sinatra: Love and Shadows Page 13
