Mick Sinatra 4: If You Don't Know Me by Now (10 page)

Then
Hamilton started firing.
 
He was no
shooter either, but he was a better aim than Gwen.
 
Mick had to hide behind the kitchen counter
to avoid getting hit.
 
He needed Hamp to
give him
intel
so he shot him, but only in the
foot.
 
But instead of stopping and giving
up, Hamp became enraged.

“You shot
me?” Hamp asked, looking down at his bloody foot.
 
“You shot me?”
 
He looked where Mick was taking cover.
 
“You dago wop.
 
You shot me!”

And he too,
like Gwen before him, began walking toward Mick firing as he came.
 
He thought it was a movie too.
 
It was now a matter of life and death for
Mick.
 
He needed the
intel
from Hamilton Sturgess, but he had no choice.
 
He rose up and took Hamp out too.
 
A single shot through the head did the trick.
 
Hamilton dropped like a pile of old rugs,
kicking up dust as he did.

When the
shooting stopped, Roz ran inside.
 
“Mick,
are you okay?
 
Are you okay?
 
Mick!”

“I’m okay,”
Mick reassured her.
 
Terror was in her
voice.
 
She was still asking if he was
okay even as she ran in and saw that he was.
 
Even as he told her that he was.

“Anybody
else in here?” he whispered to her.

“I saw
Betsy,” Roz said.

“Where?”

“Bedroom
over there.”
 
Roz pointed.
 
“She’s in that bedroom.”

“Wait here,”
Mick said as he made his way toward the bedroom.
 
But before he could get anywhere near it,
Betsy came running out.

“They made
me do it!” she cried.
 
“They made me do
it!”

“Who?” Mick
asked, his gun still trained on her.
 
Roz
began moving up behind him.

“Who?” Roz
asked too.

“Melo,” she
said.

Mick
frowned.
 
“Who?”

“Carmelo
Rodriquez,” Betsy said.
 
“He made me do
it, Roz.
 
Gwen is his old lady now.
 
They planned this together.
 
They called Hamp in and Hamp pulled me and
J.J. in.
 
But not like this.”
 
She saw the dead bodies.
 
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this!”

But Roz was
skeptical.
 
“Why would Carmelo want to
kidnap me?” she asked her.

“Because of
what Mick did to him.”
 
They both
remembered how Mick beat Carmelo’s ass over some nude internet photos of
Roz.
 
“He wanted revenge.”

Mick
couldn’t believe the stupidity of these people.
 
Didn’t he know Mick would kill his ass for sure if he did Roz any
harm?
 
Didn’t Hamilton know that?
 
How could they underestimate him this badly?

“But why
were you involved?” Mick asked Betsy.

“I needed
the money,” she admitted.
 
“Why else?”

But Roz’s
anger toward her friend was about to get legendary.
 
She’d had it now.
 
Mick saw her for the snake in the grass she
was, and now Roz saw it too.
 
She moved
from behind Mick and began walking toward her “friend.”

Mick
continued to stand guard.
 
He never let
his guard down.
 
But he also knew Roz
needed this confrontation once and for all.

“So you were
never in the hospital?” Roz asked Betsy as she walked toward her.

“No, girl,”
Betsy said with a smile.

With a smile
, Roz thought with nothing but
contempt for this so-called friend.

“I wasn’t in
the hospital at all.
 
Gwen came up with
that.”

“And J.J.
went along with this too?”

“Easily,”
Betsy said.
 
“She needed some coins
too.
 
She’s living in Belize, but she’s
struggling still.”

“And she
needed coins?” Roz asked.

“Yeah.
 
We all did.”

“You needed
some coins.”
 
Tears were staining Roz’s
eyes.
 
“You needed coins so you thought
about me.
 
Your best friend.
 
And if getting those coins meant my death,
then so be it.
 
Right?”

“Right,”
Betsy said with a smile.
 
And then she
quickly caught herself.
 
“Oh, no!
 
That’s not what it meant at all!
 
That’s not what I meant.
 
Doing you harm wasn’t a part of our agenda at
all!
 
Harming you wasn’t in the plan!”

“But harming
you,” Roz said, “is in my plan.”

Betsy looked
at her as if she didn’t understand English all of a sudden, but Roz hit her
with the butt of her gun and knocked sense back into her.
 
And then it was on. Mick stood back and
watched his wife beat the shit out of Betsy.
  
Betsy was crying in that high-pitched shrill of hers he hated, but Roz,
for the first time since he met her, showed Betsy no mercy.
 
She beat her down.

Betsy needed
hospitalization for real when Roz finished with her.
 
She was on the floor, bleeding, and begging
Roz for mercy.
 
She backed her bloody
body against the wall, and begged.

Mick watched
to see if Roz went there.
 
She could
have.
 
Betsy deserved to die, in Mick’s
opinion.
 
But Roz didn’t.
 
She didn’t go there.
 
There was just still too much humanity within
her toward her inhumane so-called friend.

But there
was none there within Mick.
 
He handed
his handkerchief to Roz.
 
“Go in the
bathroom and clean yourself up,” he said to her.
 
“We’ll leave when my men get here.”

But Betsy
didn’t trust him.
 
“Don’t do it, Roz,”
she begged.
 
“Don’t leave me with that
man!
 
Don’t do it, Roz!”

But Roz
wasn’t thinking about Betsy.
 
She was,
instead, thinking how she didn’t even know he had phoned his men.
 
But Mick was always one step ahead of her.
 
She went into the bathroom.

And Betsy’s
warnings were right on target.
 
Because
as soon as Roz left the room, Mick aimed his weapon at Betsy.
 
She sat up straighter, and tried to move
back, but she was already against the wall.
 
“Please don’t harm me,” she begged.

“Just as
they weren’t going to harm my wife?” Mick asked.

“They
weren’t.
 
They promised me they weren’t!”

“And witches
ride over rainbows.
 
And cats can
fly.
 
And you give a shit about my
wife.
 
Lies, in other words,” Mick said.
 
And then he shot Betsy Gable through the
heart.

Roz, in the
bathroom, jumped when she heard that one particular shot.
 
She didn’t even have to look to know that it
was Mick taking Betsy out.
 
Because it
hurt her to her core.
 
Two old friends at
the end of the road.

Roz took
both hands and placed them on either side of the sink, as tears fell down, and
took a moment.

After Mick’s
New York crew arrived to clean up the mess at Gwen’s house, and to dispose of the
bodies, the limousine drove slowly back to the airstrip.
 
Mick was leaned back on the leather seat and
Roz was sitting on his lap, facing him, with her head on his broad
shoulder.
 
She was devastated by the turn
of events and Mick held her tightly in his arms.
 
He was devastated too.
 
But his devastation was born completely out
of rage that any fucker anywhere would think they could kidnap his wife, do
whatever the hell they planned to do to her, and get away with it.
 
And the so-called mastermind of the group,
Carmelo Rodriquez, already knew what Mick was capable of.
 

Mick closed
his eyes and leaned his head back.
 
Apparently he didn’t know.
 
Apparently Hamilton Sturgess didn’t know either.
 
Or even Betsy Gable’s slick ass.
 
All of them had been on Mick’s bad side, and
all of them continued to push the envelope his way.
 
What did they think?
 
He didn’t
love
Rosalind?
 
Could they possibly think
that she didn’t mean to him what she truly meant to him?
 
Or did they see him as a weak man now?
 
A man who didn’t keep his word?
 
A man who could be roiled without
retribution?
 
Where the fuck, Mick
thought, did they get a bat shit crazy idea like that from?

He heard
Rosalind sniffle.
 
He placed his hand
beneath her chin and lifted her face from his shoulder.
 
When he saw that there were tears in her
eyes, his facial expression changed from a frowned look to one of heartfelt
compassion.
 
“Don’t cry, sweetheart,” he
said to her.

“I should
have listened to you,” she said.
 
“I
should have listened.”

Mick wiped
her tears away.
 
The sincerity in her
big, brown eyes touched him deeply.
 
“You
wanted to make sure your friend, a woman you believed to be your
best
friend, was okay.
 
I will never fault you for your loyalty to a
friend.
 
It is your friend that I had
issue with.”

“But if I
would have trusted your judgment, maybe I could have seen what you saw in
Bess.”

But Mick was
shaking his head.
 
“No, darling, you
would have never seen that unless you saw it with your own eyes.
 
And she was too slick to ever show you that.
 
Somebody you didn’t think had any skin in the
game, this J.J. person, came to you with news of your friend’s pending
demise.
 
What were you supposed to
do?
 
A loyal person like you?
 
I understood your plight from the very
start.
 
But you have got to understand
mine.”

A distressed
look appeared on Mick’s face.
 
“You have
got to understand that making sure that you’re safe, that the twins are safe,
that my grown children are safe, is my top priority now.
 
All of you are my responsibility.”

He had more
to say, but he hesitated.
 
He wanted to
say it gingerly, given Roz’s state, but he also knew he had to be perfectly
clear.
 
“That is why,” he continued, “my
word, when it is a matter of safety, has to be final.
 
There can be no debate about it.
 
There can be no
yes, but
about it.
 
You’re a
strong lady, Roz, and I love that.
 
In
times of crisis I know I can depend on you.
 
But with that strength comes that sense that you know best.
 
That nobody can take better care of you than
you can take care of yourself.”

Roz stared
at Mick.
 
He was being kind because of
her grief, but she knew him.
 
He was
laying down the law.

“You have
always had to fend for yourself, to look out for yourself, to pay your own
way.
 
And you did it well,” Mick
continued.
 
“But those days are gone.
 
They will never return as long as I have
breath in my body.
 
I fend for you.
 
I look out for you.
 
I pay your way.
 
I run our household.” Mick gave her a
chillingly strong look.
 
“You do not,” he
added.

  
Roz understood every word he spoke, but it
was also foreign to a woman like her too.
 
She looked into his crystal green eyes.

He could
tell she was afraid.
 
“It is not control,
Rosalind,” Mick said.
 
“I am not trying
to control you.”

“I know you
wouldn’t, you’re not that kind of man, but your words sound as if you could,
that you have that right.
 
It sounds like
much more than just my safety that you could control if you wanted to.”

Mick didn’t
respond to that.
 
He was not debating it.

Then Roz
managed to smile.
 
“Whatever happened to
fifty/fifty in a marriage?” she asked.

“If you want
fifty/fifty, go marry a lawyer, or a doctor,” Mick said.
 
“Marry a banker or a baker or a cabinet
maker.
 
But do not marry me.
 
I do not do fifty/fifty.”

He placed
his hand on the side of her pretty face.
 
Their marriage was still young.
 
They were just over a year in.
 
She was still understanding the true extent of his reign.
 
“I am older than you,” he said.
 
“I have far more experience than you will
ever have.”
 
Mick smiled.
 
“You can kick ass.
 
You put a good ass-whipping on that lying,
cheating dog of a friend of yours, I’ll give you that.”

Roz couldn’t
smile at that.
 
Betsy’s end still
troubled her.

“So, yes,
you can kick ass,” Mick continued.
 
“But
even in that, I can kick better.”

Roz placed
her hand on his cheek too.
 
“Mister
Modesty,” she said with a smile.
 
“Is
there anything I can do better than you can do?”

That got a
smile out of Mick.
 
“You can run your
talent agency better.”

“Check,” Roz
said.

“You can
breastfeed our babies better.”
 
The
mention of her breasts caused Mick to glance down at the bountiful cleavage
above her blouse, cleavage that was staring up at him.

“Check,” Roz
said.
 
She began to feel his penis expand
beneath her butt.

Mick looked
at her luscious lips.
 
“You can kiss me,
and make love to me, better than any woman I have ever known.”

And before
Roz could check that too, Mick’s mouth was covering hers in a smothering kiss
that caused both of them to start moaning and groaning and holding each other
tighter.

Mick moved one
of his hands to the seat of Roz’s panties, eased inside of the seat and began
massaging her clit.

When Roz
felt his hand expertly rubbing her pleasure button, giving her pleasure, she
wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him as hard as he was kissing
her.
 
Their faces moved around and around
in a music-less rhythm as they kissed.
  
Mick, especially, was drinking up her taste.
 
Even though she returned his kisses with
equal vigor, his vigor went to another level she couldn’t match.
 
He was all into Roz.
 
He couldn’t get enough of this woman he
loved.

Or her
breasts.
 
Because he lifted her blouse,
lifted her bra above those breasts, and began to suck.
 
He lifted the mound of one big breast into
the palm of his hand, giving him full access, and began to suck until her
nipple was as hard as his dick.
 
He
wanted her so badly that he then moved both of his hands to the seat of her
panties and ripped the seat apart.
 
He
wanted to eat her.
 
He wanted to eat her
pussy as if he’d never touched her before.
 
But they were in a car for crying out loud.
 
They were on a busy highway!

But fuck it,
Mick thought. Car or no car, highway or no highway, he laid Roz onto the limo’s
long leather seat, lying on her back, and moved down between her legs.
 
When he licked her, she felt that sense of
elation she always felt when he did her down there.
 
But when he began mouth-fucking her, moving
his tongue up and down and slicing in, pleasuring not just her clit but all
within her folds too, she could hardly bear it.
 
She squeezed the hair of his head, holding tightly, as her vagina
squeezed out the juice he needed to get by.
 
And Mick licked it up as soon as it was produced.
 
He was in love with her taste.

But he was
more in love with fucking her.
 
He moved
back onto the seat of the limo, put her back onto his lap where she was
straddling and facing him.
 
He unzipped
his pants, pulled it out, and put it inside of her.
 
Both were distressed by the events of the
day.
 
Both were still reeling by what
could have been had Mick not come to New York with Roz.
 
But when Mick began to move inside of her,
and when sex felt this good, even all of that distress had to take a back seat.

Mick leaned
his head back, Roz leaned her head back, and she rode his big, thick, rock-hard
cock as if she was riding a wave.

And Mick
drowned in her pussy.
 
No vagina felt
better to him, or tighter, or sweeter to the core of his being, and he’d been
inside of thousands in his lifetime.
 
But
Rosalind’s pussy was the golden place.
 
It was the place that made him stop searching when he got inside, and
never wanted to leave.
 
He had a sense,
the very first time he made love to
her, that
he had
found what he was looking for.

By the time
she came first, and then he came shortly afterwards, by the time they both were
arching and groaning and enjoying the intensity of
their cum
,
the limousine was pulling into the airstrip and Mick’s men were standing guard,
waiting for their boss to open the door.

It would be
several more minutes before Mick finally stopped fucking her.
 
His cock was nearly covered with that thick
white cream, with her juice mixed in with it, by the time he stopped all
movement.
 
His wad was deep within her,
and she was loaded too.
 
He pulled out
his handkerchief to catch her drain out and to wipe her dry.

But while he
was cleaning her up, she was looking out of the window of the limousine.
 
What she saw shocked her.
 
Mick had an army of men waiting at that
plane!
 
She knew the windows of the limo
were completely tinted and the men surrounding them could not see her, but it
still was odd.
 
It still was a strange
feeling to have her breasts exposed and wet, to have her pussy exposed and wet,
and to have all of these men just outside of the limo, surrounding them.
 
It made her feel almost paranoid.
 
What if they could see something?
 
But her bigger concern wasn’t their eyes, but
their numbers.

She looked
at Mick.
 
“There’s an army out there,”
she said to him.

“They’re
going to escort you to the plane.
 
Half
are going with you, and half are staying with me.”

Roz was
concerned.
 
“Staying with you?
 
Mick, why?”

“Unfinished
business.
 
My men are attempting to
locate Mr. Carmelo Rodriquez as we speak.
 
I ordered them to locate him today or they will answer to me.
 
They will locate him today, I assure you.”

Roz knew it
had to be done.
 
“Will you find out why
he did it first?” she asked.
 
“Make sure
he’s the one behind this?”

“I will make
sure, don’t worry.
 
My men have been
ordered to stand down until I get there.”

“Where will
you stay until they find him?
 
Then she remembered
that Mick owned one of the most iconic hotels in New York.
 
What was she saying?
 
“I forgot,” she said before he could
answer.
 
“I would stay with you,” she
added, “but one of us need to be there with the twins.”