Mick Sinatra 4: If You Don't Know Me by Now (20 page)

“Her
mother,” Mick said.
 
“He described
Gloria’s mother.”

Teddy’s
heart pounded.
 
“Bev. As in Bella?
 
Geez, Dad.
 
And she’s with Roz at the house.
 
And the twins!”

Deuce came
onto the line.
 
“Aim your gun at Bella
Caine right now,” Mick ordered him, “and secure my family!”

“It’s too
late, boss,” Deuce said.

Mick’s
frowned.
 
“What do you mean it’s too
late?”

“I was just
about to phone you.
 
Bella Caine phoned
the cops on Mrs. Sinatra, and they’re preparing to arrest her even as we
speak.”

Mick’s heart
fell through his shoe.
 
He looked at his
driver.
 
He didn’t have to tell him to go
faster.
 
He didn’t have to tell him shit.
 
He already had the pedal to the floor.

“Who allowed
this shit to happen?” Mick was yelling at his men as he hurried up the steps
toward his front door, his suit coat flapping in the wind.

“We couldn’t
stop them, boss.
 
We tried but we
couldn’t.
 
They had a warrant for her
arrest!”

Teddy was
astounded too, as he hurried behind his father.
 
There were so many police cars on their property, so many sirens blaring
and lights flashing that you would have thought they had cornered fifty
terrorists.
 
But it was all for Roz.
 
Or, Teddy corrected himself.
 
It was all for Mrs. Mick Sinatra.
 
They thought they had the big fish now.
 
They thought they’d caught, through his wife,
the big one at last.

When Mick
and Teddy walked through the front door, Roz was just being handcuffed.
 
And Teddy knew why they waited.
 
They wanted the big man to witness it
himself.
 
They wanted to see if they
could provoke him to respond aggressively so that they could haul his ass
downtown too.

Mick was
close to losing it.
 
When he saw them
handcuff Rosalind, he almost lunged at them.
 
But he maintained his cool.
 
Bella
and her flunkies were in the room, too, and Joey, but he didn’t even look their
way.
 
His entire focus was on Roz.
 
“Take those cuffs off of her,” he said
between clenched teeth.

“No can do,”
said the arresting detective.
 
A captain
no less.
 
They were pulling out all the
stops.
 
“She gets the same treatment as
any other criminal we process.”

Mick was
about to respond, and Roz knew it.
 
She
was angry herself, but she didn’t want Mick endangered too.
 
“They’re just trying to incite you, Mick,”
she said.
 
“It’s you they’re after.
 
Don’t let these bastards win!”

The captain
looked at Roz.
 
“You’ve got a lot of
mouth for a murderer,” he said.

“You’ve got
a lot of mouth for a dead man,” Mick shot back.

The captain
looked at him.
 
“Are you threatening me?”
he asked.
 
“Are you threatening me?”

“I’m telling
you that you are not arresting my wife.
 
I’m telling you that.”

“Oh,
yeah?
 
And I’m telling you I don’t give a
fuck who you are.
 
I’m telling you that
I’m not bought and pay for like the rest of those bums downtown.
 
I’m telling you that she will be arrested,
she will be prosecuted, and if she is found guilty she will go to prison!
 
How do you like those apples?”

“He doesn’t
eat apples,” Teddy said.
 
“He don’t
like’em so much.”

The captain
looked at Teddy.
 
“A wise guy, I
see.
 
Who are you supposed to be?”

“What’s the
charge?” Mick asked the captain.
 
The
last thing he needed was his son caught up in this too.

“Assault.
 
Kidnapping. Possibly murder.
 
We saw that tape you didn’t want us to
see.
 
We saw the carnage in your
daughter’s condominium, too.
 
Oh, we’ve
got plenty on our charge sheet, don’t you worry about that, Mr. Untouchable.
 
You might be untouchable.”
 
He smiled a bright yellow smile.
 
“But your old lady is not.”
 
Then his look turned angry as he looked at
his men.
 
“Get her ass out of here,” he
ordered.

Mick moved
to grab Roz from their grasp, but Teddy pulled him back.

“I’ll get
you out of this, babe,” Mick said to Roz as the officers escorted her toward
the front door.

“I know you
will, Mick,” Roz said back.

“Don’t say
shit to them.
 
Not one word.
 
I’ll be there.”

“Okay,” Roz
said, as she fought back tears.
 
She was
in trouble.
 
That was never
pleasant.
 
But what she hated more was
the agony she knew Mick was going through.
 
He already had to worry about Gloria.
 
Now he had to take care of her situation too.
 
It wasn’t fair!

Mick
followed her to the door, with Teddy right beside her.
 
He followed her outside, and up to the patrol
car.
 
He kept his eyes on her as they
drove her away.
 
Roz turned around in the
backseat of the patrol car, and stared at her husband.
 
Mick’s heart pounded.

He hurried
back inside.
 
“Call my attorney,” he said
to Teddy as he walked.

“Which one?”
Teddy asked.

“All of
them,” Mick said.

When Mick
returned in the house, Bella was complaining.
 
“This is about our daughter,” she said to Mick, as Teddy pulled out his
cell phone and made the calls.
 
“This is
about our child, not her!
 
Why didn’t you
tell me about that tape?
 
If it wasn’t
for Joey telling me, I would have never known.
 
And that bitch would have been getting away with murder right under your
nose!”

Mick walked
up to Bella, completely in her personal space.
 
He looked her dead in the eye.
 
“Did you set this up?” he asked her.

“Set what
up?”

“Gloria’s
disappearance?”

“No, I
didn’t set it up!
 
What are you talking
about?
 
You need to ask that question to
your wife.”

“Did you get
Devin Terranz to harm my daughter?
 
Did
you get somebody else to kidnap her?”

Bella was
shocked.
 
“I did no such thing!
 
That is not true!
  
How could you say that?”

Mick stared
at her.
 
He knew Bella.
 
He knew when she was telling the truth.
 
He knew when she was lying.
 
Right now, his instincts told him she was
telling the truth.
 
But he wasn’t taking
any chances.
 
He called for his men to
get her and her flunkies, and take them across town to a safe house.

“A safe
house?” Bella asked.
 
“You can’t hold me
against my will!”

“They’re
holding my wife against her will.
 
I’m
holding you.”

“But it’s
not true, Mick!
 
It’s not true!”

“That tape
wasn’t true, either.
 
But what difference
did that make to you?”

Bella stared
at Mick.
 
She realized at that moment
just how much he truly loved Roz.
 
But
when Mick’s men came to take her out, she fought against it.
 
“Let me go!” she screamed.
 
“Let me go!”

“You heard
Pop,” Teddy said to Bella, holding his hand against the phone’s speaker.
 
“Shut the fuck up and get the hell out!”

Joey
couldn’t believe Teddy. “How can you take his side?” he asked him.
 
“She was looking out for our sister.
 
She did nothing wrong.
 
What about Gloria, though?”

“Pop is
doing everything he can to find Gloria,” Teddy shot back.
 
“Roz had nothing to do with it, Joey!
 
She loves us.
 
Somebody’s setting her up.
 
Can’t
you see that?”

“All I can see
is Gloria is gone, and she said with her own mouth who would be
responsible.
 
I believe what I saw, not
what you think!”

Mick walked
up to Bella as she continued to fight his men.
 
“Belle?” Mick asked.
  
Bella
looked at him.
 
“You can go peacefully,
or they can carry you out.
 
But you’re
getting out of here.”

Belle knew
Mick, and what he was capable of.
 
“You
bastard,” she said heartfelt.
 
But she
gave up the struggle.
 
And his men took
her and her two assistants away.

Then Mick
looked at Joey, and began removing his belt.
 
“Come with me,” he said.

“Come with
you where?” Joey asked.

Mick,
stunned by his son’s defiance, grabbed him by his oversized shirt and dragged
him along.
 
Then he threw him into his
study, slamming the door behind them.

Teddy was
worried for Joey, but the attorney was still on the line.
 
“You have a list of all of dad’s attorneys,
right?” he asked into his cell phone.
 
“I’m asking because I want you to phone them and tell them Dad wants
their
asses
downtown too.
 
That’s right.
 
All of them.
 
He wants his wife
out and he wants her out now.
 
That’s
right.
 
And you know how he can get when
he wants it now.”

Then Teddy
heard a hard whip that made him wince.
 
“We’ll talk later.
 
Just get your
ass to the station!”

He ended the
call and hurried over to the closed door of his father’s study.
 
And all he heard was more hitting.
 
But it was when there was no more sounds,
except the sound of
silence, that
worried Teddy the
most.
 
He almost opened the door himself,
just to make sure his father hadn’t gone too far.
 
But then the door flew open and his father,
putting back on his belt, began heading out.

“You stay
with the twins,” Mick ordered Teddy.
 
“I’ll be back.
 
With Rosalind.”

“I’ll go
with you, Pop,” Teddy said.

“You do what
I said.
 
I have to handle this.”
 
And Mick hurried out the front door.

But within
seconds, Joey came out of the study too.
 
He had been badly beaten, Teddy could see that, and his heart went out
to his kid brother.
 
He even reached out
his hand to help him, but Joey slapped it away.
 
And he hurried out behind his father.

Mick was
just about to get into his Maserati when Joey ran up to him.
 
Joey turned him around as if he was going to
fight him.
 
Mick’s guards were about to
charge toward them, but Mick held up a hand, signaling for them to stand
down.
 
But Joey looked murderous to
them.
 
They didn’t advance forward, but
they completely didn’t stand down.

Joey was
breathing heavily, was fighting tears and emotional, as well as physical,
pain.
 
But when he saw his father’s face,
and stared into his father’s eyes, his heart melted into even more pain.
 
Mick wanted to reach out to him.
 
He knew Joey wanted his affection.
 
But he couldn’t condone what he did.
 
“You had no right giving that tape to Bella,”
he said to his son.
 
“You put Rosalind at
risk.
 
I cannot abide that.”

“It’s always
about her.”
 
Then Joey pressed against
his chest.
 
“What about me,
motherfucker!
 
What about
me
?
 
I’m your son!
 
I’m the one you was
never there for!
 
Fuck her!
 
What about me?”

Then he
swung at his father, to hit him, but Mick’s muscular arm blocked the blow.
 
And Mick felt his heart break a little.
 
It reminded him of his oldest son
Adrian.
 
Adrian tried to kill Mick, and
then Mick’s wife.
 
Now Joey was turning
against him too?
 
“Go back in the house,”
he ordered.
 
“We’ll talk when I get
back.”

“I have
nothing to say to you,” Joey said bitterly.
 
“I hope that bitch rots in hell and I hope you do too!”
 
Then he stared at his father.
 
“I’ll put you there one of these days.
 
You fucked with me for the last time.
 
I’ll put you there myself!”

Then Joey
began heading toward the exit gates, in defiance of his father’s orders to
remain at the compound.
 
The guards
thought to follow him, but Mick knew his relationship with Joey had just
reverted backwards, and trying to handle him right now was futile.
 
“Let him go,” he said to his guards.