“By action,” Mick said. “By proving them wrong. That’s how. Your safety is at stake now. If they think I’m vulnerable, they’re try that stupid shit. Which puts you at risk, and the twins at risk, and Gloria, Teddy, and Joey at risk. For the survival of my family, I’ve got to prove them wrong. They have got to understand who I am.”
Roz thought about it. She understood the stakes he often played for. But she also saw the upside. “You took out your lieutenants today,” she said. “That’ll help change the narrative.”
Mick nodded. “I agree,” he said. “But getting my revenge on the surviving members of those three families responsible for the attempts on my life will help more.”
“The sons took over those families,” Roz said.
“Right. And I’ve got to make sure they don’t think it’s over. It won’t just change the narrative the way what happened this morning will. It won’t just end any talk that I’ve lost a step. It’ll blow that bitch the fuck up. That’s what I’ve got to do, Rosalind, or it’s going to be open season on our family. I’ve got to end it. I’ve got to take it down. Before they try that shit again.”
“Right,” Roz said, nodding her agreement. Mick took out the mob bosses responsible for the attempts on his life, and then he clawed his way back to health. But that wasn’t enough in their world. The fact that he had been down at all was all they saw. The fact that those three mobsters had shown that Mick the Tick wasn’t untouchable anymore gave others outsized confidence that they could try it too. And the fact that all three of those families continued to reign, despite the loss of the heads of their families, made it seem possible to hit Mick, and still survive.
“I have to reassert who I am, Rosalind,” Mick said bluntly, “or you and my children will be sitting ducks waiting for the next fool to try that shit again. They will never try that shit again. I’ll see to it.”
“But Rome wasn’t built in a day,” Roz said. “I know you want revenge. Hell, I want it too. But you’ve got to give it time. You’re still healing.”
Mick rejected that analysis. “Did I act like I was still healing just now?” he asked her.
Roz couldn’t help but smile. “No, Macho Man. But you know what I mean.”
Mick’s eyes turned hard. “They treated us like dogs in the street. They would have killed me if you would have obeyed me and left me in that street to die. But that wasn’t enough for them. They came back, and tried to kill me in my own home. And you want me to take it slow and easy? You want me to give it time?”
“I want you to stay alive,” Roz said. “That’s all I want.”
But Mick knew her too well. “And?” he asked.
“And yes,” she said, “I want you to kill every last one of those motherfuckers who took part in that ambush. I want you to take them all out. They didn’t show us any mercy. So fuck’em. But you’ve got to be careful, Mick. You can’t take chances. You’ve got to do all of that and promise to come back home to me and the twins. And to Teddy, Gloria, and Joey. They need you too, Mick.”
Mick knew how much his grown children needed him. Given the damage his absence in their lives caused them, he sometimes felt as if they needed him more than the twins did. “But you know what was the worst part about it?” he asked her. “When I was dying in that street?”
Roz stared at him. Mick almost never revealed his inner thoughts, and when he did it usually shook Roz to her core. “What was the worst part?” she asked him.
“The thought that I would never see you again,” Mick responded. “The children, yes. That was heartbreaking too. But you were the one who taught me how to love my children. Especially my three grown children. They are your step kids. You could have told me to keep my distance. To, in essence, keep doing what I was doing. But no. You encouraged me to work on my relationship with them. And then, as if you hadn’t done enough, you gave me our beautiful twins. You were the one who gave me the privilege of loving the twins from infancy and working hard to get fatherhood right this time.”
He paused because this was not easy for him. But he felt, after watching this good woman rescue him from certain death and stand by him for an entire month, refusing to go to work and resume her normal life despite the fact that she had a company to run too, touched him in ways he’d never been touched before. “The heart of my life began with you, Rosalind,” he said, his face now serious and sad. “And not seeing your mug again would have killed me just as surely as any of those bullets could have.” He exhaled. “Thank you,” he said.
Roz smiled that warm, inviting smile he loved, where the dimples on her cheeks lit up her already gorgeous face. “That’s why you’ve got to stay safe,” she said. “I would have risked my life, and the life of the twins, for nothing if you don’t stay safe.”
Mick smiled too, inasmuch as he could. He rubbed the side of her face. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I love you, but I love myself a little also. Those bastards will pay. They made me a laughing stock, and they will pay. But I know who I have to come home to. I will always come home.”
Roz knew he couldn’t make that assurance, but somehow him saying it made her feel better.
“Speaking of home,” he said, “Ursula phoned me just before I headed your way.”
Roz looked at him. “About what?”
“She wants a family meeting Friday night.”
“You said yes?”
Mick nodded. “Yes.” Then he looked at her. “You don’t have a problem with that. Do you?”
Roz nodded. “No. Maybe I’ll go out with my girlfriends that night.”
“Like hell,” Mick responded. “If a family meeting includes me, it will always include you too. I want no daylight between you, my children, and myself. Their mothers can go fuck themselves if they try that shit.”
“But Ursula’s not like that,” Roz said. “So I’m okay with it. Where are we going to meet?”
“At our house,” he said.
Roz smiled. “Good. I wish one of those heifers would try to get out of line in my house.”
“They won’t. I think they’ve grown to be as afraid of you as they are of me.”
Roz laughed, then began to rise. “Come on, buster,” she said, getting up. “We both need to hit the shower or we’ll be at lunch smelling like each other.”
Mick was confused. “And that is a bad thing how?” he asked.
She smiled and began to walk away. But when he saw that tight, naked brown ass moving away from him, he grabbed her around her waist and pulled her back down and on top of his penis. He put it inside of her with one hard shove, causing her to close her eyes in sensual delight, and went to town on her pussy.
He laid back, with Roz still on top of him, with her back against his chest, as he squeezed her breasts and pounded her hard. At first she was complaining about the time. And then she was complaining about his urgency. He was fucking her with deep, thrashing strokes, his feet lifting up with every push-in that took him deeper and deeper into that special place, and he was squeezing her breasts with out-of-control passion.
But soon there were no complaints. Just moans and groans of joy. Because it felt great now. Because Roz was able to close her eyes and relax as Mick held her. As Mick found his wonderful rhythm. As Mick took her to that euphoric place she loved, and fucked her like there was no tomorrow, all over again.
CHAPTER NINE
Cathleen Thomas was at the far side of the restaurant when she waved her son over. “He’s here,” she said onto the phone. “I’ve got to go.”
Hillary Riverton, the voice on the other end, wasn’t ready to hang up. “You think he’ll go for it? You know when he hears about us trying to help him he clams up.”
“I know how to handle my son,” Cathleen responded. “Don’t waste your time worrying about Joey. He’ll do exactly as I tell him to do. He’s weak like that. But he’s here now. Gotta go. Bye.” Cathleen ended the call. “You’re late,” she said when her son, Joey Sinatra, made his way to her table. “Where w
ere you?”
“I had to take care of some business for Dad,” Joey said as he hugged his mother’s neck. Then he sat down at her table. “Why are you way back here near the restrooms?” he asked. “It stinks back here.”
“Oh, that’s ridiculous,” Cathleen said. “You need to stop worrying about where we’re sitting in some nothing restaurant, and start worrying about where you’re sitting in your father’s organization.”
Joey rolled his eyes. “Here we go,” he said. “I thought we could just have a nice, quiet lunch for once in my life.”
The waiter walked up. “May I take your drink order, sir?”
“He’ll have juice,” Cathleen said, ordering for him.
“Ma!” Joey protested. Then looked at the waiter. “A beer,” Joey said.
“Very good, sir,” the waiter said, and left.
“I have juice,” Cathleen said. “I don’t know why you can’t have it. You need to be clear-headed when you’re dealing with your father.”
“Everything in life isn’t about my father, okay? Dang,” he added, as his cellphone buzzed. He pulled it out and began reading a text message. “Sometimes you act like you’re obsessed with my father.”
“Don’t be silly,” Cathleen responded. “The way that man treated me? Please. But what I am obsessed with is my son. My only child. A child I unfortunately happens to share with his sadistic ass.”
Joey was too busy checking his text messages to pay attention to her rant. Cathleen snatched the phone away from him and sat it in front of her. Joey frowned. “Ma, what’s wrong with you?”
“What did you have to do for your father?” Cathleen asked.
“What?”
“You said you were late because you had to handle some business for your father. What was it?”
Joey couldn’t tell her how he helped to drag seven dead bodies into a van for disposal as if they weren’t human beings at all. The sight still haunted him. He didn’t think it would. When his father took seven men out with no help from anybody else, he was star struck. He was filled with so much admiration that he wanted to be just like Mick the Tick.
But then he had to help bury his father’s mess. He had to touch his father’s mess. That made it more real for Joey. That made it less about how cool his father was, and more about what if one of those dead guys had been his father. How would he have felt then? What about the children of those dead guys? How were they going to feel when they heard the news?
Cathleen could see the trepidation in her son’s eyes. “What is it?” she asked. “What did that man make you do?”
“It’s nothing,” Joey said.
“Tell me, boy,” Cathleen said. “I told you about withholding things from me. I’m all you have in this world when you get down to it. You’re all I have. We have to look out for one another, Joey. But I can’t look out for you if you keep things from me. Now tell me what he made you do.”
“I just had to do a messy job, that’s all.”
Cathleen’s heart felt heavy. “What job?” she asked. Then whispered. “Kill somebody for him?”
“No!” Joey fired back quickly. But then he hesitated. He needed to talk about it. His mother was the only person he felt he could trust. “Bury somebody,” he said. “Seven somebodies.”
Cathleen stared at her son as the waiter returned with Joey’s beer. And when the waiter left, and as Joey took a big swig from his beer mug, Cathleen remained in deep thought. And then she nodded. “Good,” she said.
Joey, who expected her to feel as badly as he did, was surprised. “Good? What’s good about it?”
“It’s not good that your father took out seven people, who I’m sure were bad guys because that’s how Mick rolls. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m saying it’s good that he included you. Was Teddy there too?”
Joey nodded. “You know he was. Dad trusts him more than anybody.”
“Right,” Cathleen said as if she’d just been vindicated. “That’s my entire point, boy. Mick trusts Teddy with more and more responsibility. Mick trusts Gloria with more and more responsibility. But where does that leave you? You’re his kid too.”
Joey didn’t understand what she was talking about. “What do you mean where does it leave me? I work for Dad.”
“That’s right,” Cathleen said. “But you work for your father the same way his other men work for him. Teddy and Gloria don’t work for Mick. They work with Mick. That’s the difference, boy!”
Joey stared at his mother. Sometimes her insight was shockingly dead on. This was one of those times. “So what are you saying?” he asked.
“I’m saying you aren’t there yet, son. You’re expendable to Mick. I hear Mick has given Gloria promotion after promotion at S.I. She’s going to be running that company someday, you mark my words. Teddy is going to be running his crime syndicate someday, you mark my words on that too. But where does that leave you, Joey? Where does that leave us? You saw how Mick shut me off? All because I called that precious black bitch of a wife of his what she is: a bitch. I called a spade a spade.”
“She’s not as bad as you think,” Joey said, lamely attempting to defend his stepmother Roz.
“She’s worse than I think,” Cathleen fired back, refusing to ever defend anything remotely associated with the woman who she felt caused all of her grief. “And you’d better believe it too. She’s looking out for self. Not for you. Not for me. For herself! That’s why she had those twins with Mick. They gave her standing in his life. Now you not only have to get in line behind Teddy and Gloria. You now have to get in line behind those two black babies she bore. You’re last on the totem pole.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“I’m saying he hates me, alright? The only reason I’m still alive, is because I’m your mother. If I wasn’t the mother of his son, Mick would have showed me no mercy. He already did all he could to destroy my way of life. You remember how viciously he turned me out without a dime to my name! I was going to be homeless, and he didn’t care. The only reason I got that house back is because he gave it to you, and you gave it to me. The only reason I have any money at all is because of you, son. You take care of me. But if you don’t get in closer with your father, we both are going to end up penniless and poor.”
Without fail, Cathleen had a way of making Joey think. Joey felt enlightened by what he perceived to be his mother’s insightfulness. “I don’t think that’ll ever happen. I think Dad loves me. In his own way.”
“Love my ass!” Cathleen said harshly. “Forget love. Does he respect you? That’s what Mick is all about. He doesn’t love anybody, don’t fool yourself. It isn’t even about love for that black bitch of a wife of his. That’s purely lust. She does things to him in bed that respectable women wouldn’t do.”
“Ma, stop!” Joey protested.
“Well that’s the only reason I can see that would get a man like Mick so worked up that he married the bitch. She’s putting it on him some kind of crazy way.”
“You don’t know Roz like I do,” Joey said. “She’s a special lady. And sometimes when I see Dad looking at her, it’s almost as if I can see his eyes smile. She’s no side piece the way you’re making her out to be. She’s like his world. I think he really loves her.”
“Mick Sinatra doesn’t love anybody,” Cathleen shot back. “How many times do I have to tell you that? But if he respects you, the way he respects Teddy and Glo, then you’ll stand a chance. Does he look at you and see a man, or a boy? That’s what you want to see in your father’s eyes. Not love. But respect. And if I had to render a verdict, I’d say no. He doesn’t respect you. You’re still a boy in his eyes. I’d say you aren’t there yet, son.”
Joey hated to admit it, but he knew his mother spoke the truth.
Cathleen hesitated. Then decided to tell it. “Hillary says hello,” she said. Hillary Riverton was the mother of Mick’s oldest and deceased son, Adrian. She, like Cathleen, couldn’t stand Mick either.
; “Tell her hey,” Joey said. Hillary was a bitter woman like his mother. He had to love and deal with his mother. He didn’t have to deal with Hillary.
Cathleen paused again. “I want you to set up a meeting.”
Joey knew it was bullshit by the way his mother was hesitating. “A meeting with who?” he asked.
“A meeting between Roz and myself.”
“Oh, Ma, come on! Why would you want to meet with her? You hate her!”
“It’s not about how I feel about her. It’s how I feel about you! Ursula is scheduling this family meeting to discuss where everybody stands, but we know what that meeting is going to be about. It’s going to be about Teddy. She wants to know where Teddy stands. After the meeting, after we see if it gets us anywhere, I want you to call Roz and ask her to meet with me. She likes you. She’ll do it if you say so.”
“But what will you talk to her about?” Joey asked.
“I’ll talk to her about helping you get ahead. She’s the only person your father seems willing to listen to. If I can get her on your side, maybe it’ll help.”
Joey frowned. “Help me do what?”
“Become, not just your father’s number one enforcer,” Cathleen said with satisfaction, “but your father’s number one son too. Roz has the power to make you, not Teddy, not Gloria, not those obnoxious twins, the undisputed heir apparent of Mick Sinatra’s entire shebang.”
“But why would she do that? Why wouldn’t she want the twins up there with Dad?”
“Let me worry about that,” Cathleen said. “You just schedule the meeting. And I promise you, it’ll be well worth it. I promise you, when I’m finished, you will come out on top.”
It sounded like fantasy to Joey. Pure fantasy! But if she could pull it off, it would be something remarkable. Joey would run the Sinatra organization? It would be beyond a dream coming true. Which meant, in his mind, that he had to set up that meeting. Which meant, in his mind, that his mother, whom he loved and hated in equal doses, had him wrapped around her scheming and conniving finger, once again.
Mick Sinatra: Now Will You Weep Page 6
