Mick Sinatra: The Harder They Fall (15 page)

Teddy didn’t
want to go there.
 
He respected Roz too
much.

“Just tell
us, Ted,” Mick ordered him.
 

“They claim
Roz was banging Al, and together they came up with a scheme to have you
sleeping with the enemy.”

Roz’s heart
dropped.
 
“In other words,” she said,
“they claim I met Mick, and married Mick to help Alphonse Zanetti get even with
Mick?”

Teddy
nodded.
 
“That’s their claim,” he said
and looked at Mick. “It’s like that rumor that was going around when you found
out about Al’s betrayal.
 
The woman he
was banging said he wanted her to spy on you, but she wouldn’t.
 
Cat and Dawkins are claiming he was pulling
that same shit with Roz, but on a different scale.
 
She was his woman, pretending to be your woman,
so that he could get even.”

Roz was
anguished.
 
She couldn’t believe the lies
being told on her.
 
She looked at
Mick.
 
Did he believe them?
 
“Mick, I would never--”

“Don’t you
say another word,” Mick ordered her.
 
And
he was angry.
 
“Don’t you dare dignify
that nonsense with another word!”

He leaned
forward.
 
“They want to drag my wife
through the mud?
 
They want to pile shit
on top of shit and think I won’t smell their bullshit?”
 
He nodded his head.
 
“Yeah, she’s sleeping with the enemy
alright.
 
His
enemy.
 
And he’d better
know he’s got a powerful one now!”

“And get
this, Pop,” Teddy said.
 
“Dawkins claims
Al’s got him a new mob family.
 
So he’s
not alone.
 
I haven’t had a chance to get
anybody on it yet.”

“No need,”
Mick said, rising to his feet.
 
“I’m on
it.”
 
Roz and Teddy stood up too.
 
“I’m handling this myself.
 
You notify Cathleen and find out where
Dawkins can be found.
 
My men will find
him, get whatever intel they can, and get rid of him.”

“Sounds like
a plan to me,” Teddy said.

Mick looked
at Teddy.
 
“Are you sure Cathleen didn’t
suspect anything?”

“I’m
certain,” Teddy said.
 
“She thinks I’m
trying to take over your operation.
 
She
thinks she’s helping me to bring you down, and that I, in turn, will put her
back on the payroll.
 
She’s stupid.”

“Don’t you
believe it,” Roz warned her stepson.
 
“Cathleen Thomas has plenty of sense.
 
Don’t let your guard down around that woman.”

Teddy
nodded.
 
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

“I want you
to go and pick up Gloria from the office, and get back here,” Mick ordered
him.
 
“You’re going to be in charge while
I’m in New York.
 
Either you or Deuce,
nobody else, stays around my family.
 
And
all of them will be on lockdown until I get back.”

“Yes, sir.”

If Gloria
attempts to disobey you while I’m gone,” Mick said, “you overrule her and make
her stay put.”

“And if Roz
disobeys me?” Teddy asked pointblank.

“You call
me,” Mick responded.
 
“She only answers
to me.
 
But you spy the hell out of her
ass.
 
She knows I want her to stay put
too.”

“Yes, sir,”
Teddy responded, and hurried out of the door to retrieve his sister.

“You don’t
have to worry about me,” Roz said after he left.
 
“With all of this craziness going on, I’m not
going anywhere.”

“Good,” Mick
said as he took her hand and led her toward the stairs.

“Where are
we going?” she asked him.
 
“To pack you a
bag?”

“I don’t
need a bag.
 
I don’t plan to stay away
overnight.”

“Then what
are you doing?”

“I’m taking
my wife upstairs to fuck her.”

Roz couldn’t
believe it.
 
“Now, Mick?
 
At a time like this?”

“At a
stressful time like this?” Mick asked, glancing at her as they headed
upstairs.
 
“At a time when I need that
relief?
 
When you need it?
 
Tell me a better time than this?”

Mick leaned
his head back and stretched his legs as his private jet lifted off the runway
and soared.
 
He closed his eyes.
 
He had so many problems he needed to be
thinking about.
 
He had so much bullshit
he needed to figure out.
 
But all he
could think about was Rosalind.
 
All he
could figure out was how warm and tender she felt in his arms less than an hour
ago, when he laid her on that bed.

He removed
her panties and had her legs outstretched as soon as he laid her down.
 
When he knelt between those legs, his mouth
went to town on her pussy.
 
His mouth did
things to her he didn’t think he was still capable of doing.
 
His tongue penetrated her and encircled her
and treated her as if it was a foreign invader.
 
Then he slowed down again, and licked her with painfully slow
licks.
 
Just the way Roz loved it.
 
Long and wet and soft licks across her folds.

Roz closed
her eyes and experienced the feeling.
 
He
had her legs wide as they could go, and her hunger as deep as his tongue could
go inside of her.
 
He licked her and
sucked her and bit her until she was squirming with rapture.
 
He trembled when he felt her pulsations, and
licked up her cum.

But he
wasn’t going to let her climax on an oral.
 
When he stood up, and dropped his pants, he was ready to enter her.
 
He was ready to fuck the shit out of her,
with his cock as his weapon, and make her climax on that.
 
Until he saw her face.
 
Until he looked into her eyes and realized
how worried sick she was.
 
This was her
name they were fucking with.
 
Her
reputation was on the line.
 
She needed
that release even more than he did.

He got on
top of her.
 
His dick was so stiff and so
ready that it almost rammed inside of her unassisted.
 
He had to lift it and lay it on top of her
stomach to avoid penetration.
 
Because he
wasn’t ready yet.
 
He needed to allay her
fears.
 
He needed to let her know that he
was going to get justice for her.
 
That
he was going to give her back her good name.

“I’ll get to
the bottom of it, babe,” he said to Roz.
 
“I’m going to find that fucker who paid those yahoos to cause that
accident with you, and he’s going to take me to the boss.
 
And then I’ll find out the full story.”

“You think
the boss is D’Amato, and you think Alphonse might be working for him?”

“Yeah, but
D’Amato’s elusive.
 
I can’t just go to
his house.
 
The fucker doesn’t have
one.
 
I’m going to need help to get to
him.
 
But I know him.
 
And yeah, I think Al Zanetti is up his ass
the way he used to try to be up mine.”

Mick slanted
her bang off of her forehead.
 
“But don’t
you worry, sweetheart,” he said.
 
“They’ll pay.
 
Each and every one
of those bastards will pay.”

“And then,”
Roz asked, as they stared deep into each other’s eyes, “you’ll come back home
to me?
 
Not Bella Caine, or any other
woman.
 
Me?”

Mick
couldn’t believe she would ask that.
 
“Oh, sweetheart, don’t you dare put Bella’s name in the same breath as
yours.
 
You’re my woman.
 
I come home to you and nobody else.
 
I lay beside you and nobody else.
 
I don’t want anybody else!”

Roz placed
her hand on the side of his face and smiled.
 
“Neither do I,” she said.
 
“And
for the record, those rumors were lies.
 
I never slept with Alphonse Zanetti.
 
He tried it.
 
And one time, after
he won my case and we were at a bar celebrating, I heard him tell somebody that
he had succeeded.
 
I cussed his ass out,
shamed him in front of his friends, and left.
 
I never saw him again.
 
I swear I
never saw him again, Mick.”

Mick
frowned.
 
“You don’t have to tell me
that.
 
I know who you are.
 
Even if I were to see a video tape disputing
who you are, even if I see it with my own two eyes, I wouldn’t believe it.
 
I used to think fools fall in love.
 
I used to think suckers fell for a woman the
way I fell for you.”

“Now you
know better?” Roz asked him.

“No,” Mick
said.
 
“Fools still fall in love.
 
Suckers still fall for a woman the way I fell
for you.”

Roz was
confused.
 
“Then what does that make you,
Michello?
 
You’re no fool, and you’re no
sucker.”

A hard,
vulnerable look appeared on Mick’s face.
 
“Yes, I am,” he said so heartfelt it stunned Roz.
 
“I’m both of those things and more when it
comes to you.”

Roz couldn’t
believe he said that.
 
“Oh, Mick,” Roz
said.

“I never
thought I would ever allow any woman to be my wife, or to have two precious
babies that I can raise the right way.
 
That was the stuff dreams were made of for me.
 
Now I’m dreaming too.
 
Don’t you dare underestimate the power of
love, Rosalind.
 
Or the foolishness of
the man in love.”

He also
wanted to tell her not to underestimate the power she had over him.
 
But he couldn’t.
 
Because if he was wrong about her, if she was
not who he knew her to be, then he was a dead man walking.
 
He would be so far gone with this woman, so
into her, that it would be over for him.
 
And nobody, not even Rosalind, could ever discover that deeply hidden,
but profoundly accurate truth.

He kissed
her on her lips.
 
At first, Roz tasted
herself, which she wasn’t crazy about doing, and then it was all Mick.
 
He wrapped her into his arms.
 
She wrapped her arms around him.
 
And they kissed until their passion
overwhelmed them.
 
And they both had to
have it.

Mick aimed
his penis at her vagina.
 
He didn’t have
to touch it.
 
It entered on its own.
 
She was so wet and ready, and he was so hard
and ready, that his cock slid in with so much feeling that it almost ejaculated
on entry.

Mick
couldn’t believe it.
 
A two-second man?
 
Him
?
 
He began fucking her.
 
He fought against premature ejaculation as if
he was fighting the enemy.
 
He wasn’t
cumming this fast.
 
Roz came first.
 
That was how it was done in his household,
and it was going to be done that way today.
 
Roz needed to enjoy this too.

Mick won the
battle.
 
For the love of Roz, he was able
to get in his fuck grove and take her where she needed to go.
 
He took her there.
 
He fucked her and grinded against her and
moaned and groaned and gyrated her enough that she had a powerful orgasm.
 
So powerful that she scratched his back as
she took him in.

And he came
right behind her, in the order he was supposed to cum.
 
He let it go and poured into her.
 
His entire body was on fire with cum.
 
He held her tighter, and fucked her harder,
as they came.

And then,
like always after such an epic battle, Mick’s body betrayed him and he found
himself drained.
 
His eyelids were
heavy.
 
His body went limp.
 
And he was in that land of restful sleep that
only Roz’s presence and protection allowed him to go.

“Dad?”

But it
wasn’t her voice.

“Dad, wake
up.”

Joey.
 
Joey’s voice?
 
What was he doing in their bedroom?
 
What was he doing. . .

Mick woke
up.
 
He opened his eyes.
 
Joey was standing over him.
 
“We’re here, Dad,” he said.
 
“We’re in New York.
 
The plane has landed.”

And the
warmth of Rosalind turned into the reality of himself.
 
And the world he lived in.
 
He realized the happy dreams were over.

He also
realized he had ejaculated in his pants just from dreaming about the way he had
fucked Rosalind before he left town.
 
He
still could see her naked on his bed, telling him goodbye.
 
But now he had work to do.
 
That nasty, filthy work he hated to do.

He got up,
went into the gorgeous bedroom on his plane, and changed his clothes.

Joey, along
with Angelo Jovanni and Danny Padrone, had already un-boarded the plane by the
time Mick stepped off.
 
Mick stepped off
wearing black trousers, a black turtleneck, and that ankle-length white coat
both Angelo and Danny knew so well.
 
Joey, however, hadn’t seen this side of his father he was seeing today,
and he loved the picture.
 
His father was
no longer the Philadelphia businessman.
 
He was Mick the Tick.
 
Joey
smiled.

He was also
a man in love.
 
Joey knew that too.
 
He saw that boner his old man had when he
tried to wake him up.
 
It would have been
great if he had a hard-on for Joey’s mother Cathleen, but Joey knew that was no
longer possible.
 
His parents hated each
other.
 
That much was crystal clear in
his life.
 
Cathleen and Hillary had even
recruited Joey to spy on his father, and on some level Joey was going along
with it.

But now, as
he watched his father approach them with that no-nonsense swag about him, with
that long coat blowing in the wind, he knew he wasn’t about to tell his father’s
secrets.
 
He loved Mick.
 
He wanted to be just like Mick Sinatra.
 
If his mother was asking him to choose, even
though he didn’t want to, Mick would be his choice.
 
He loved his mother dearly.
 
But he needed his father.

An SUV was
waiting for them when Mick arrived.
 
All
four men got into the SUV.
 
Mick got on
the front passenger seat beside the driver.
 
Angelo, Danny, and Joey got in back.

“Found him?”
Mick asked.

“Yes, sir,”
the driver said.
 
“He’s in the
barbershop.”

“Any armor
behind him?”

“We counted
three, sir.
 
There could be another one
more undercover, maybe outside, but we doubt it.
 
Frog ain’t got that kind of reach.”

“But Lenny
does,” Mick said.
 
“I want four extra men
outside just in case.”

But Mick’s
heart was heavy.
 
When Teddy was with him
on these kind of excursions, he knew he had the best man for the job.
 
He knew Teddy was badass enough to handle
it.
 
But Joey?
 
He wasn’t experienced enough.
 
He couldn’t put his child at risk.
 
“Joey,” he said, “get out.
 
You’re staying with the plane.”

Joey
couldn’t believe it.
 
“But why,
Dad?”
 
He was crestfallen.
 
“Don’t do this to me!”

Mick turned
around quickly and gave his son a look that scared even an old school thug like
Angelo Jovanni.
 
It scared Joey too, but
he held his father’s stare.
 
And Mick saw
something different in Joey’s eyes.
 
He
wasn’t badass like Teddy.
 
He wasn’t
ruthless like his old man.
 
But he was
hungry like a lion.
 
The way Mick used to
be.
 
The way Teddy used to be.
 
He needed risk to stay alive.
 
That was why he was always doing that risky,
stupid shit.
 
He needed the rush.

Mick turned
back around.
 
“Get three men to keep a
watch outside,” he said to his driver.
 
“Joey will be the fourth man.”