Mick Sinatra 3: His Lady, His Children, and Sal (14 page)

“Whatever Joey,” Gloria said, rising also.

“I’ll walk them out,” Roz said, but Mick stood up
too.

“No,” he said.
 
“I’ll walk them out.”

Gloria, Teddy, and Joey all looked at their
father.
 
They were surprised.

“You wait here,” Mick said to Teddy.
 
“I want to speak with you.”

“But he drove,” Joey said.

“He’ll be out in a few minutes,” Roz said, as his
father escorted Gloria and Joey out.

“What does he want?” Teddy asked her.

“Why would you think I would know?” Roz asked him.

“Because he tells you everything.
 
We all know that.”

Roz smiled.
 
She knew.
 
But it wasn’t her place
to tell.
 
“He’ll be back in,” she
said.
 
“I need to see what I’m going to
prepare him for dinner.”
 
She began
heading for the kitchen. “Care to join us?”

“No thanks,” Teddy said.
 
Then he smiled.
 
“But I thought Dad already ate.”

Roz stopped in her tracks and looked at Teddy.

“I’m just messing with you,” Teddy said,
laughing.
 
“Please forgive me.”

Roz smiled and shook her head.
 
She could probably forgive Teddy anything.

She wasn’t long out of the living room when Mick
returned.

“What’s this about, Dad?” Teddy asked.

“How do you know Mo DeLuca?”

Teddy thought about it.
 
“I don’t know him.
 
I know of him.”

“How?”

“I just do, Dad.
 
Why?”

Mick stared at his son.
 
“What do you do for a living, Teddy?”

“I run this nightclub.
 
I told you.”

“Yeah.
 
What
do you do for a living?” Mick asked again.

Teddy knew he wasn’t about to get one over on his
old man.
 
He exhaled.
 
“I help people out.”

“What kind of people?”

“Powerful people,” Teddy said.
 
“Mostly ladies.”

“You help them do what?” Mick asked.

“Whatever they need.
 
I don’t do the work myself, but I have contractors who do.”

Mick continued to stare at Teddy.
 
He knew he was up to some underhanded shit,
but his men could never put a finger on what exactly it was.
 
“So you run a prostitution ring?
 
Is that what you’re telling me?”

“I put the right man with the right lady,” Teddy
said.
 
“That’s all.
 
What they do from there is their business.”

“That shit is illegal,” Mick said.

“And your shit isn’t?” Teddy asked.

Mick couldn’t answer that.
 
He was nobody’s role model, and he knew it.

“I really need to run, Dad,” he said.
 
“I really do have a hot date tonight.”

“Then go,” Mick said.
 
“But call me if you see that brother of
yours.
 
And call my office tomorrow with
those numbers.”

“I will,” Teddy said, gave his regards to Roz, and
left.

Mick stood there.
 
First it was Joey and his lame attempt at drug dealing.
 
Then Adrian and his craziness.
 
Now Teddy and his prostitution ring.
 
The sins of the father visited on the
children.
 
He felt as if his life was
going sideways fast.

As the days came and went, and there was still no
word of Adrian’s whereabouts, Mick and Roz made every attempt to return to
normalcy.
  
She went back to running her
business, and he went back to running his.
 
It was an uneasy normalcy, but they got through it.
 
Mick even took Roz dancing one night, to take
the edge off.
 
And they managed to keep
the craziness at bay.
 
Until nearly two
weeks after Adrian’s attempt on Mick’s life, word came from Danny Padrone that
there had been another intercept of their cargo, this time it was their
Cleveland shipment, but their men were ready.
 
Their men knew the responsible party.
 

“I thought I told them no more shipments in,” Mick
said.

“This one was already waiting for pickup.
 
It was already in the pipeline.
 
It couldn’t be stopped.
 
But they know who was behind the intercept.”

Mick exhaled.
 
“Who?” he asked.
 
Mick was in bed,
with Roz sound asleep in his arms.

“It was Lorenzo, boss,” Danny said over the
phone.
 
“It was Lorenzo Zatti.”

Mick’s heart dropped.
 
Zo was one of his oldest friends.
 
Did he have any left?
 
“Where is he?”

“We have him at the Edison house.”

“He confessed?”

“Hell no,” Danny said.
 
“He didn’t do shit, he don’t know shit.
 
But we know.
 
His ass had half of our cargo at his place.
 
He’s up to his butt crack in this.”

Mick exhaled.
 
“I’m on my way,” he said.

 
Lorenzo
denied everything, and then admitted that Sal Gabrini, and his son Rudy
Balotti, was behind all of the intercepts.
 
After Mick slit Lorenzo’s throat, and his men stayed back to clean up
the mess, he headed back out and into his waiting limousine.
 
He leaned his head back and closed his
eyes.
 
After several minutes, Danny came
out and got in.

“They’ve got it under control,” Danny said.

Mick nodded.
 
“Okay.”

“So what’s next, boss?” Danny asked him. “We bring
Gabrini in?”

“It’s not going to be as easy as that.
 
He’s major league.
 
If he’s behind this, he’s going to see us
coming.”

“So what do we do?”

“Make sure he doesn’t see us coming.”

Danny smiled.
 
“Easier said than done?”

“Always,” Mick said, and motioned for his driver to
leave.

Later that night, as Mick ate Roz’s pussy, the
intercom buzzed.
 
“Oh, give me a break!”
Roz said with frustration in her voice.
 
His tongue was just entering her folds.
 
Mick hated it too, but it could be about Adrian.

He moved up the length of her body, his chest
pressing against her breasts, and pressed the intercom button on the
nightstand.
 
It was Archie Bloom, the
front gate security chief.

“What is it, Arch?” Mick asked.

“You have a guest, sir.”

Mick looked at the clock.
 
It was almost midnight.
 
“Who?”

“Mr. Reno Gabrini.”

Mick didn’t see that coming.
 
He hesitated.
 
Then he pressed the button again.
 
“Send him through,” he said.

“I already suggested it, sir,” Archie responded
quickly before Mick could shut him off.
 
“I know he’s on your list of men to trust.
 
But he said he would rather not.”

Mick hesitated again.
 
He didn’t see that coming either.
 
“I’m on my way,” he said, and ended the
conversation.

Mick looked at Roz and kissed her on the nose.
 
Then he got out of bed and headed for their
room-sized closet.

Roz could still feel his tongue between her legs
when he got up.
 
And she couldn’t help
it.
 
She began rubbing her clit.

“Who’s Reno Gabrini?” she asked as she rubbed.

Mick hated to even discuss certain parts of his
past.
 
The Gabrinis were in that
category.
 
“Sal and Tommy’s cousin,” he
said.

Roz frowned.
 
“Who’s Sal and Tommy?” she asked.

Mick threw on a sweat shirt and grabbed a pair of
jeans.
 
He was about to answer her
question, but when he headed out of the closet and saw her pleasuring herself,
his cock began throbbing with such hard thumps that he knew he couldn’t just
leave her like this.
 
Reno be damned, he
thought, as he went to Roz, opened her legs wider, and got in between
them.
 
And then he shoved his dick deep
down inside of her.

She jumped at the sudden shot of sex that
overwhelmed her already wet entrance, and spread her arms across the bed in
that whimsical delight Mick loved.
 
She
luxuriated in the fullness of his dick as it pushed even deeper inside of
her.
 
And then he leaned her up, until
her naked body was sitting on his thighs, and he stroked her with long, loving
strokes that alternated between fast and slow.
 
Until he moderated his rhythm, and fucked her with that g-spot precision
that caused her to quickly fall into the throes of a magnificent orgasm.

“
Mick
,”
was all she could say as he fucked her.
 
“
Mick
,” was all she wanted to
say as she wrapped her arms around his neck and allowed him to take her there
with masterful strokes.

And as she arched and had one of her rolling
orgasms, where her spasms would not ease, Mick came too.

“
Oh
!” he
cried in a loud voice as he came.
 
And he
came with such a forceful release that he leaned back, nearly all the way back,
and took her with him.
 
He was so deep
inside of her that she was sitting on his balls, when he came.
 

When they both had exhausted all of their release,
he kissed her, laid her back down, and got out of bed.
 
She was so engrossed in the afterglow of his
sex that she forgot to ask again who Sal and Tommy were.
 
By the time he had wiped off, and put on his
pants and shoes, and was heading out, she was nearly asleep.

Roz knew she needed to wipe off too, and change the
sheets since Mick always left so much inside of her that she leaked mightily,
but she was too drained.
 
She turned
over, as sleep beckoned to her.
 
Mick
always joked he had done his job, he had sufficiently worn her out if,
immediately afterwards, sleep would call her name.

Outside, Mick made his way down his steps, and then
down his long, winding driveway to his tall security gate.
 
Archie opened it as he arrived.
 
A limo was parked in front of the driveway,
with the chauffeur already out and opening the door.
 
Mick got inside, and the door closed behind
him.

“Kind of late for a visit, don’t you think?” Mick
asked.

Reno Gabrini, sitting across from Mick, leaned
forward.
 
“It’s late,” he said.
 
“I’ll give you that.”

“What else are you going to give me?
 
Sal’s head on a platter?”

“I heard you’ve been looking for my cousin.
 
For your nephew.
 
For Sal.”

“My nephew,” Mick said harshly, “has been
intercepting my cargo.”

“I heard that too.
 
Sal says it’s not true.”

“I don’t give a fuck what Sal says.”

“Well I give a fuck,” Reno made clear.
 
“And nobody’s messing with him, unless they
come through me.”

“I can do that too,” Mick said, equally clear.

Reno stared at Mick the Tick.
 
He was a legend when Reno was younger.
 
Everybody feared him.
 
Everybody with any sense should still fear
him.
 
But he and Reno came to each other
as equals.
 
They respected each
other.
 
They even considered going into
business together once upon a time, mainly to get some of that Fed heat off of
Mick, but it didn’t work out.
 
Mick knew
he was still too steep in that illegal shit for a man like Reno to risk a
partnership with him.
 
And Reno had two
small children he had to raise, not to mention a wife who’d been through too
much, a grown son who’d been through too much, and a grandchild now.
 
He couldn’t risk that either.

“Cargo intercepts,” Reno said.
 
“Cargo filled with guns and drugs.
 
I thought you were getting out of the game,
Mick.”

“I was.”

“What happened?”

“Life happened.
 
Too many ghosts came back to life and happened.
 
I can forget that dream.
 
I’m never getting out.
 
Life has never been that kind to me.”

“I heard you were married.
  
And not just married, but in love.”

Mick hated that word of how he felt about Roz had
spread so far.
 
He couldn’t afford to be
seen as having any weaknesses in his line of work.
 
But he wasn’t going to lie to Reno.
 
“I’ve been blessed,” he said.

Reno nodded.
 
“Good.
 
The love of a good woman
is a wonderful thing.
 
Why don’t you get
out for her?”

Mick knew Reno would not understand.
 
Getting out was never going to be as easy as
walking away.
 
He had three different syndicates
depending on him.
 
Three different bosses
with scores of underlings.
 
He had dozens
of men on his payroll.
 
He had so many
enemies and so many ghosts that it would take two lifetimes to shut it all
down.
 
Mick was not deluding himself
anymore.
 
There was no getting out.
   

“What do you want, Reno?” he asked pointedly.
 
“Certainly not to preach to me about all of
my sins.”

“That would take years,” Reno said.
 
“I don’t have that kind of time.”

Mick smiled.
 
Then his look turned serious again.
 
“What do you want, Reno?” he asked again.

Reno exhaled.
 
“I want to facilitate a meeting between you and Sal.
 
We’re all family here, Mick.
 
We’ve got to resolve this.
 
And I’m not just talking about that cargo
intercept either.”

Mick considered him.
 
“You mean Sprig?”

Reno nodded.
 
“I mean Sprig.
 
You need to
understand why Sal did what he did.
 
Sprig was going to kill his lady if he didn’t take her out.”

“He chose some female over his own mother?” Mick
asked.
 
“Over my sister?
 
And you expect me to understand that?”

“I expect you to hear him out.
 
Before you guys come to blows, before we have
an all-out war between families, I need you to sit down and talk.
 
Because regardless of what you think,
Michello,” Reno said with a smile, “I’m still the one.
 
You haven’t supplanted me.
 
I’m still the head Italian in charge of this
bitch.”

Mick laughed.
 
Only a man like Reno could bring humor to this hell.
 
Then Mick nodded.
 
“Maybe on the Gabrini side,” he admitted.
 
“I’ll give you that.”

Reno laughed too.

But when the laughter died, both men got down to
business.