Either way, it was a bad night.
Mick arrived in England earlier that day. Roz had been in the country for a week-and-a-half, and her sold-out performances were a major hit with her audiences. But Mick wasn’t due in town until closing night, which was three nights away.
Roz was in bed, resting her body and her voice for that night’s performance, when Mick entered her hotel suite. He hadn’t planned to come to London when he woke up that morning. He had a roster filled with meetings, with many of them vital. But he woke up, in their Philadelphia home, leery. He couldn’t explain it. But he woke up feeling as if something was wrong with his wife. He phoned Roz. She said she was absolutely fine. But he couldn’t shake the feeling.
And because it was Roz; and because Teddy was fully healed and back at work; and because there was no way his gut was going to tell him something was wrong, and he ignored it, he ordered his pilot to ready his plane. He didn’t delay. He flew all the way to London, England. He was jetlagged, and exhausted to.
But when he entered Roz’s suite, and saw her lying in that bed, he knew he had made the right decision. His gut didn’t relax when he saw her, the way it usually did. His gut tightened and he suddenly felt a sense of dread. Something was wrong. Something was off.
He went to her and sat on the edge of the bed. She was lying on her side on top of the covers, in a white bathrobe, and both of her hands were beneath the side of her face. She looked angelic to Mick. If he could grab her up and take her to a place of safety for the rest of her life, he would do so. But no such place, on this earth, existed. Mick knew. He contemplated it. He would move to Mississippi if it would protect his wife.
But as if she felt his presence as much as he felt hers, Roz suddenly opened her eyes. And when she saw Mick sitting there, in that blue Versace suit she loved to see him wear, her gut didn’t tighten the way his had. Her gut leaped with joy.
“Mick!” she said with gusto, and jumped up and threw herself into his big arms.
Mick smiled and held her tightly.
She looked at him. “What are you doing here?” she asked him.
“I can’t come see my girl?” he asked her, as they stared into each other’s eyes.
Roz smiled. “Of course you can! But who’s looking after the twins? It’s bad enough I’ve been away so long.”
“Gloria had agreed to take a couple days off,” Mick said as he looked down at her mouth. “She’ll be in charge while I’m here.” He kissed Roz on the side of her mouth.
“They’re in good hands then,” Roz said. “But everything’s okay on the home front?”
“Everything’s fine,” Mick said. “Teddy’s back full-force, and Joey’s back to his usual half-force.”
Roz laughed. “You need to quit!” she said.
Mick smiled, too, but then his look turned sensual. She was wearing a thick bathrobe, but Mick knew his wife. She was naked beneath. And he’d been without her nakedness for nearly three weeks. He kissed her, gently, on her mouth. He wanted to savor the taste. Then he kissed her longer, passionately.
As he began tracing kisses along her cheeks and ears, he placed her hand on his already aroused penis. His pants had tented just from kissing her, and Roz could feel the long, hard rod beneath his pants. She began rubbing him vigorously. She missed him, too.
He continued tracing kisses down her neck and on her chest. He untied her robe and exposed her bare breasts. As soon as he saw them, he was all over them: kissing, fondling, sucking. He made love to her breasts the way she wanted it: slowly and entirely.
But she knew Mick. He didn’t come all this way for an appetizer. He wanted the main course. Which, for him, Roz also knew, was twofold.
First, he laid her back down, opened her robe completely, and went between her legs. She rarely knew Mick to go without tasting her with those long licks and bites she loved. Her feet rested on his back, as he ate her so hard that he was moving her up and down with every lick. Roz was in precum the entire time, a place only he knew how to take her. Until he was in precum too, and needed to release worse than he had in a long, long time.
He stood up, removed every stitch of clothing he wore, and then got on the bed beside her. They hugged and held each other as he entered her. They hugged and held each other as he stroked her with gentle strokes as if he wanted this to last forever.
It lasted for about twenty wonderful minutes, until neither one of them could hold out any longer. Roz had her orgasm first. Mick began pounding her when she arched and let out a hard, guttural sound.
And then he was cumming, too. He pushed into her as far as his balls would allow him to go, and poured out his love like silk happiness. He poured and poured into her. He wanted to continue his strokes. He wanted to make her cum again. But he couldn’t. He had poured out too much. He, and she, were spent.
They remained in bed, huddled together and asleep, for nearly two hours. They only woke up then because Giles, Roz’s agent, had made his nightly phone call to let her know it was time for her to prepare to go to the theater. He would be there in an hour.
They both had showered (together) and dressed in little over an hour, when knocks were heard on the hotel door.
“That’s Giles,” Roz said, and then looked at Mick. “Are you going now, or wait until performance time?”
“Now,” Mick said. “Until closing night,” he said, “and we’re safely on my plane heading back to Philly, you aren’t going anywhere without me.”
Roz loved and hated to hear that. Loved it because she loved being with and around Mick. Hated it because it meant something was wrong. Mick was an extremely busy man. He wasn’t blanketing her for no reason.
“Let me use the bathroom,” Roz said. She always got a nervous stomach before a performance. “Tell Giles I’m coming.”
But when Mick opened the door of the suite, fully expecting to see Giles Fortney on the other side, he was surprised. It wasn’t Giles at all. But Amelia Valtone. The woman Mick now called, without reservation, his sister.
“Amelia?” Mick asked. “What are you doing here?”
“Same reason you’re here, I suppose,” Amelia said. “To make sure Roz is okay.”
Mick was suspicious again. He couldn’t help it. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“I have stomach issues,” Amelia said. “When my stomach tells me something is up, I tend to listen to it. When a certain name comes to mind, I tend to act. Roz’s name came across my mind. I don’t ask questions. I don’t equivocate. I act. Coming all this way to London, on a gut feeling, is the only way I knew how to make sure my gut wasn’t lying to me. Why are you here?” she asked Mick.
Mick stared at her. She could either be the reason why his gut was going haywire, and he needed to be leery of her; or she could simply be his soulmate of a sister with similar reactions to harry situations. He decided it was the latter. “The same reason you’re here,” he said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Later that same night, the reason why Amelia had come might not have been crystal clear, but the reason why Mick had come was. Roz was on stage, performing at the Aladdin in the famed West End, when one gunman attempted to take her life. Mick, who had been eyeing the man, took him out. But another gunman rose up, one Mick had no idea was even there, and took a shot, instead. And this gunman succeeded. This gunman ran out of the theater before Mick could even respond.
But Amelia was in that theater, too. And while Mick ran to the stage to take care of his downed wife, Amelia hurried outside behind the gunman.
He had only cleared the lobby of the theater when she saw him. She followed him. He tried to blend in once outside of the theater. He didn’t want to bring attention to himself. But he wasn’t fooling Amelia. She kept following him. Down one street and then another one, until they were out of sight of any witnesses. That was when Amelia pulled out a gun, and attached a silencer. That’s when she fired one shot, and hit him in the leg. She didn’t want to kill him. She wanted answers first.
But when he turned around, after getting struck, and fired at her. She knew she had no choice. She took him out. She had to shoot, this time, to kill. And she was an excellent shot.
But when she made it up to him, to get a good look at him, her heart fell through her shoe. She knew him. She knew him!
Back inside the theater, just after the second gunman had shot onstage and Roz had gone down, the crowd was running and knocking over chairs to get out of the theater. But Mick was running further in, to the stage, to get to Roz. His heart was hammering. And his soul was praying as he made his way onto the stage. “Don’t let it be, Lord,” he even said out loud. He didn’t care who heard him, either. Rosalind was in jeopardy.
But when he made it up on the stage, Rosalind surprised the shit out of him. She sat up. She was terrified. And confused. But she wasn’t hit!
Mick was astounded. “You weren’t hit?” he asked her.
“No.”
“But how?” Mick asked. He was still looking over every part of her body as if she was too disoriented to realize she’d been shot. “You went down.”
“I heard gunshots, so I ducked. I hit the ground when I heard even more.”
“Oh, Rosalind!” Mick was so happy that he pulled her into his arms. But he thought about the threat, and the fact that another gunman was still out there. The police had arrived, which was a good thing, but Mick took no chances. He lifted her in his arms, and carried her backstage. Just in case.
The other actors and actresses gathered around her, asking her repeatedly if she was okay. Mick didn’t give a fuck. Every last one of them left her on that stage as if she was roadkill. He didn’t stop to hear them voice their concerns. He continued to push his way through the crowd, carrying Roz as if she was some delicate flower, until they were in her dressing room. Her cohorts attempted to come in with them, but Mick closed the door and locked them out.
“I know you love your colleagues,” he said to Roz, “but not now. I can’t take their phony concern right now.”
“I can’t either,” Roz said. “Keep’em out.”
And Mick did. Refusing all visitors as Roz laid down on the sofa in her dressing room. When it appeared as if the actors got the message that Roz did not want to be disturbed, and all knocking ceased, Mick grabbed a chair and placed it beside the sofa. By Roz. He sloshed down. She looked at him. “Is that why you came?” she asked. “You heard something?”
“I felt something,” Mick said. “And when my gut tells me something’s wrong, something’s wrong. When my gut tells me it concerns you? I get here.”
Roz fought back tears. “Thank God you came,” she said.
But shortly thereafter, Amelia was knocking on the door. “It’s me. Amelia,” she said.
Mick rose to let her in. But Roz was the hesitant one now. “But are you sure she didn’t have a hand in this, Mick?”
Mick looked at Roz and smiled. “It’s good that you’re cautious. Stay that way. But yes, I’m sure.”
Roz took solace in Mick’s assurance. But still had questions. “How can you be sure?” she asked him.
“When she showed up at your hotel room, I had to take a gut check. And I realized something.”
“What did you realize?”
“That Charles was right. Me and Amelia are more similar than we are dissimilar, just as Charles and I are, believe it or not. She’s my sister. We share certain traits.”
Roz smiled. “Your Mini-me,” she said.
Mick laughed. “Fuck you,” he said, and opened the door.
Amelia entered looking flustered. Mick saw it right away. Then she saw Roz, and hurried over to her, amazed. “I thought he took you out,” she said. “I thought you were hit.”
“So did I,” Mick said as he closed and locked the door. “Did you recognize either gunman?” he asked as he walked over to her.
“The one you iced, I didn’t know. I figure he was just a hired hand. But the backup shooter, the one who got his shot off and then took off? The one I iced? Yes, I know him.”
“You killed him?” Roz asked.
Amelia nodded. “Yes.”
But Mick had a different concern. “You know him?” he asked. “Who is he?”
“His name is Lawrence,” Amelia said. “Everybody calls him L.V.”
“Who is he?” Mick asked again.
“Lawrence Valtone,” Amelia said. Then she looked Mick in the eyes, because she understood the gravity of what she was about to say. “He’s Alessio’s nephew, Mick,” she said.
Roz was floored. “His nephew?” she asked.
Mick was floored, too. He knew what that meant. He stared at Amelia. “Why would his nephew be gunning for my wife?”
“Alessio was his uncle. Sometimes this shit is circular.”
Mick knew that, too. But he also knew that nephews rarely acted out of the goodness of their hearts. “If his nephew wanted revenge, where was his father? Where was Alessio’s son?”
“He’s not involved,” Amelia said.
“How do you know?” Mick asked.
“Because I know the family. He’s not cut from the same cloth. He doesn’t do this shit.” But she could tell Mick wasn’t buying it. “I watched him for years, Mick. He’s a good dude.”
“Give me his name,” Mick said.
“His name is Phillip. But it can’t be him, I’m telling you. He’s just a schoolteacher, for crying out loud.”
“And Alessio was just a shipping magnet,” Roz reminded her. “For crying out loud.”
“I get that. But I know Phillip.”
“Where can I find him?” Mick asked.
“Right there in Philly. He lives a regular life, with a disable daughter, in the suburbs. He wanted no parts of Alessio’s world. He wanted no parts of Alessio, really. He and Bulldog were close. But he hated Alessio.”
“Why did he love Bulldog?” Mick asked. “By all accounts, yours specifically, Bulldog Valtone was even worse than Alessio Valtone. And why would his son come all the way over here gunning for my wife if it was all so innocent?”
Amelia couldn’t answer his questions, and they all knew it. Mick, therefore, pulled out his phone.
“Get your things, Roz,” he said. “This production is over. After we give our statements to the cops, we’re going home.”
Roz didn’t argue with him. She knew Giles and not even the London producers would, either. She got up, and gathered her things.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Teddy, fully healed, along with Joey, leaned against the limo as their father, their stepmother, and their aunt Amelia made their way off the plane. It wasn’t lost on either son that their father was suited up, in his white coat, black pants, and black turtleneck.
“What’s going on, Teddy?” Joey asked him. “I thought you said Pop and Aunt Amelia took out the gunmen in England?”
“They did,” Teddy said.
“Then why is Pop still suited up?”
“They weren’t the only threat.”
Joey looked at him. “Meaning?”
“You didn’t see all of that beefed up security at Pop’s place? You didn’t see Deuce McCurry take the twins and Gloria to the safe room?”
“Yeah, I saw all of that. But I thought it was because of what happened in England. Dad always take extra precautions.”
“Yeah, well. There’s more to it than that.”
Teddy looked back toward the plane, and Joey did too. And what both brothers saw, as Roz and Amelia walked on either side of their father, was something strange. Mick had his hand against the small of Roz’s back the way he often did lately. But what was remarkable to them was that their father also had his hand in the small of Amelia’s back. As if he was finally taking responsibility for her, too. Teddy smiled. About time, he thought.
Joey was pleased on one level, too, because he liked Amelia. But on another, more gut-wrenching level, he was upset. She just hit the scene and his father was already possessive of her. He’d been on the scene
his whole life and his father had yet to make him feel that way.
“Welcome back,” Teddy said as he moved away from the limo and gave Roz a big hug.
“Thank-you, Teddy,” Roz said, then she immediately pulled Joey into her embrace. “Hey, boy, how you been doing?”
Joey smiled. He was glad to see Roz. “Good,” he said. He glanced at his father, but Mick was looking at Teddy.
“Hey, Amelia,” Teddy said. “Dad told me you dropped by England on your way home.”
Amelia laughed. “Something like that. How are you holding up? Your father told me you were better than ever.”
“I am!” Then Teddy looked at his father. “What’s with the monkey suit?” he asked.
“Take Rosalind home,” Mick ordered. “Amelia and I have some business to take care of.”
“Don’t you think I should come along, Pop?” Teddy asked.
“I think you should do what I told you to do. Take Rosalind home. Stay there, you and Joey both, until you hear from me.”
“But why would you take Aunt Amelia on a kill run?” Joey wanted to know. “She’s a lady.”
Amelia laughed. “Thank you, Joey. But you give me more credit than I deserve.”
“Do as you’re told,” Mick said to Joey. And then he looked at Roz. He could see the concern in her eyes. It always made him feel blessed and sad at the same time. Blessed to have a woman like her in his corner. Sad to have a woman like her, a wonderful, decent woman, in his corner. She deserved, he knew, so much better.
And it was that last thought that caused Mick to lean over and reassure her. “I’ll be back,” he whispered in her ear.
Roz smiled. “You’d better.”
And that was enough. He looked at her dimples, pressed his finger in one of them, and he and Amelia walked over to the Dodge Charger waiting for their use, got in, and took off.
Roz got in the limo. Teddy got in, too. And Joey just stood there, praying that his father and aunt would be okay.
Mick Sinatra: Love and Shadows Page 16
