Mick Sinatra: The Harder They Fall (21 page)

“I don’t
know,” Danny said with pain in his voice.
 
“Don’t let this shit go sideways, man.
 
I swear to you I don’t know!”

“Angelo?”
Sal asked.
 
“Are you a traitor, or just
incompetent?”

“I don’t
know anything about that ambush either!” Angelo was staring at that gun at his
balls.
 
“I swear on my mother’s grave I
don’t know anything!”

Tommy cocked
both pistols, giving both Reno and Sal some pause.
 
They never quite knew how far Tommy would
take it.

But as soon
as he cocked those guns, both men nearly jumped out of their skin.
 
We
swear, we promise, you have to believe us
, they cried and cried.
 
But they never implicated themselves or
anybody else.

Tommy
withdrew his weapons.
 
“They don’t know
shit,” he said.
 
“They dropped the ball,
but not their loyalty to Mick.”

Reno
smiled.
 
“Like I said,” he said to the
twosome, “you two are some lucky bastards today.”

When they
made it back to Mick’s estate, Joey met them at his father’s front door.
 
“It worked!” he said happily.

“What
worked?” Reno asked.

“The show of
force to bring Dad home.
 
Every mobster
from here to D.C. are sending cards and flowers and calling and dropping by.”

Reno
laughed.
 
“Their asses scared now!”

“But you
can’t keep disturbing your father by letting any mobster who wants to see him,
go up and see him,” Tommy warned Joey.

“Don’t
worry,” Joey responded.
 
“Roz already
made that clear.
 
It was too many.
 
So Teddy’s screening them now.
 
Only Dad’s oldest friends, and usually the
biggest of those, get to go up.”

“How’s he
doing?”

“The same,”
Joey said.
 
“No changes.
 
How did it go with Danny and Angelo?”

Sal
frowned.
 
“What is that your business?”
he angrily asked him.
 
He was still
fuming over Joey and that stunt he pulled with his newborn child.
 
He could barely be in the same room with
him.
 
If he wasn’t Mick’s kid, if Mick
had not made a stand to save his life, he wouldn’t be standing there
today.
 
“Mind your own fucking business
and get the fuck out of my face!”

“Get lost,
in other words,” Reno said.

“The wounds
are still too fresh,” Tommy added.

Joey didn’t
have to be told twice.
 
He knew he messed
up.
 
He wanted to apologize.
 
But the look on Sal Gabrini’s face made him
know now was not the right time.
 
He
headed back upstairs.

Over the
next several days, Mick continued to recover and the Gabrinis continued to
search for answers.
 
But they found
none.
 
They were out from sun up to sun
down searching for answers.
 
Nobody knew
a thing.
 
They ran down the usual
suspects.
 
They ran down unusual
suspects.
 
But nothing from nothing left
them with nothing.
 
They had businesses
to run.
 
Families of their own to attend
to.
 
It was time for them to pack up and
go home.

On the day
of their departure, Roz and Mick’s grown children were having their daily vigil
at his bedside.
 
Teddy was standing against
the wall, staring at his father, and Roz knew he still couldn’t wrap his brain
around it either.
 
Doctors and Nurses
were staying in their home, giving Mick around-the-clock care, which should
have made them feel more reassured.
 
But
they didn’t.
 
Mick was still down.
 
They took their cues from him.

Then
everything changed.
 
Roz released Mick’s
hand and stood up, to go check on the twins.
 
But within a minute after she walked out of the room, Mick’s big, green
eyes suddenly opened.
 
Even his sleepy eye
was opened wide.

Teddy was
the first to see him, as Joey and Gloria were talking amongst themselves about
the new watch her latest boyfriend had given to her.

“Dad?” Teddy
asked as he stood erect, his excitement growing.
 
“Dad?”
 
He began walking toward him.

Joey and
Gloria quickly stood up too, when they saw that their father was awake.

But Teddy
was the first face Mick saw.
 
“Teddy?” he
asked breathlessly.

“Daddy!”
Gloria cried.
 
“You’re awake!”

Mick looked
at her.
 
He saw her tears of joy.
 
“Don’t cry, Gloria,” he said.
 
“I think I’m alright.”

Gloria began
wiping her tears away.

“Oh, Dad,”
Joey said, crying too.
 
“This is great!”

Mick almost
smiled at his most difficult son.
 
“Hey,
Joey,” he said.
 
“Staying out of
trouble?”

Joey
laughed.
 
“Yes, sir,” he said.
 
“Yes, sir!”

Then Mick
looked at Teddy.
 
“Where’s Rosalind?
 
Where’s my wife?
 
I need to see my wife.”

Teddy didn’t
hesitate.
 
He took off running out of the
bedroom.

Mick looked
at Gloria.
 
“The twins?” he asked.
 
“They okay?”

“Yes, sir,”
she said quickly.
 
“They didn’t have a
scratch on them, Daddy.
 
Jackie and
Junior are just fine.”

Mick closed
his eyes and nodded his head.
 
And then
they couldn’t help themselves.
 
Gloria
and Joey gave their father the grandest of hugs.

Roz was just
about to enter the Nursery when she heard Teddy’s voice call for her to
come.
 
She ran upstairs, thinking Mick
had taken a bad turn.
 
The doctor on duty
and the nurses, already upstairs, ran into the room.
 
When they saw that Mick was awakened and was
not in distress, they smiled, and headed back to their post.
 
They expected this moment for several
days.
 
It was expected.

Roz had
expected it too, but that didn’t take away from the miracle of it.
 
When she ran into that room and saw Mick,
with his eyes wide open, her heart pounded, and she began running to his bed.

When Mick
saw Roz coming toward him, he felt deep emotions well up inside of him that
caused a shiver down his spine.
 
This was
the woman who saved his life.
 
This was
the woman who wouldn’t leave him alone to die by the hands of his enemies, even
at the devastating risk to herself and their babies.
 
A part of him was angry at her, and he wanted
to beat her ass for not obeying his order.
 
But a bigger part of him loved her more than life itself for loving him
enough to disobey.

“Rosalind,”
he said in that oh so sexy voice she loved, as he opened his arms to receive
her.

“Oh, Mick!”
she cried as she flew into those loving arms.
 
“Oh, Mick!”

“Rosalind,”
he kept saying, as tears filled his eyes.
 
“Rosalind!”

His eyes
were now shut on purpose as he held his wife as tight as his injured body
allowed.
 
But then, as quickly as he
closed his eyes, he opened them again.
 
He had to see her face again.
 
He
had to be certain she was truly okay.

She
was.
 
He could see it in her gorgeous
brown eyes.
 
Her eyes often expressed a
happiness and sadness all at the same time, but right now all he saw was
joy.
 
Tears stained them, but even the tears
could not hide her joy.
 
The worse was
over.
 
He pulled through.
 
Her eyes assured him that he was going to be
alright.

He pressed a
finger into one of the beautiful dimples on her beautiful face.
 
She pressed a finger in the cleft of his
chin.
 
“You’re going to be just fine,
baby,” she said to him.
 
“I know you’re
in pain now, but you’re going to make it.”

Mick
couldn’t exactly speak in a booming voice, but he could speak.
 
“What pain?” he asked her.

She
laughed.
 
And then pulled Gloria and Joey
in too.
 
They all hugged Mick together.

Then Joey
and Gloria left the room, to give Mick and Roz a private moment to say hello
again.

But when
they entered the corridor outside of the bedroom and closed the door behind
them, Big Daddy Sinatra, Brent Sinatra, and Teddy, along with all three of the
Gabrinis, were running up.

Big Daddy
was about to break the knob to get inside.
 
But Joey stopped him.
 
“Ma is in
there,” he said.
 
“We figure we should
give them a few minutes alone.”

“But my
brother is awake?” Big Daddy asked anxiously.

“Yes, sir,”
Gloria said.
 
“He’s awake and
talking.
 
And he knew our names.”

“Praise
God!” Big Daddy said, unable to suppress the tears.
 
“Praise God! Praise God!
 
Praise God! I knew God would pull him
through.
 
I knew it!”

Then Big
Daddy, past feeling or worrying about what others might think, got down on his
knees in silent prayer.
 
Brent quickly
followed his father’s lead, getting down on his knees too, and then Joey and
Gloria got down too.

Teddy wanted
to join them, but he didn’t want to be thought of as a weakling in the eyes of
the Gabrinis.
 
They had already gotten on
his case about his security decisions.
 
This might be the last straw for them.

But Teddy
was grateful that his father came back to them.
 
And he was grateful to God.
 
And
that fact alone made him forget what others thought, even the Gabrinis.
 
He fell on his knees.

To Teddy’s
shock, the Gabrinis, all three of them, knelt down and prayed too.
 
It was a remarkable sight.
 
And Teddy was pleased that he didn’t let
pride stop him.
 
He was pleased with his
decision this time.

Inside, Mick
and Roz were still staring at each other.
 
He was rubbing her back, and she held her hand against his remarkable
face.
 
“You’ve been through hell,” she
said to him, “but amazingly, you still look good.”

“I belong to
you,” Mick said with a smile.
 
“How else
am I supposed to look?”
 
But then his
look turned serious again, and he began rubbing her hair.
 
“You, on the other hand, look exhausted,
Rosalind.”

“You know I
wasn’t going to be able to rest until I knew you were going to be okay.
 
Now, I’ll sleep well tonight.”

“And the
twins had no injuries?” he asked again.
 
“You aren’t just telling me they didn’t?”

“You know I
wouldn’t do that to you.
 
They’re fine,
Mick.
 
They bear no physical scars.
 
You protected us well.”

He
hesitated.
 
Roz knew exactly why.
 
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said.
 
“I know I should have left the scene.”

“You put
yourself and our children at risk,” Mick said to her.

A depressed
look came over Roz’s face.
 
“It’s a
decision I’ll have to live with for the rest of my life.
 
And on paper I know it looks like it was the
wrong decision.
 
But we don’t live on
paper, Mick.
 
We live in the real
world.
 
And in that real world moment,
when I knew if I drove away you would die, I couldn’t drive away.
 
I just couldn’t do it.”

Then she
frowned.
 
“I won’t win any mother of the
year awards, that’s for sure.
 
But to see
you right now, alive and well, pulling through . . .”
 
She shook her head.
 
“I don’t know if I would have done it
differently, Mick.
 
I don’t know if I
have it in me to do it differently.”

Mick rubbed
her face.
 
“You don’t,” he said.
 
“I don’t either.
 
It’s the curse of love.
 
A curse I’d been avoiding all my life.”

Roz could
see the regret in his eyes.
 
And then his
look turned hard.
 
“But if something
would have happened to you, or to the children, in your effort to save me, I
would not have made it either,” he admitted.
 
“But how can I tell you to stand down when you live in the world I live
in, with the enemies I have?
 
You have to
always be on your guard.
 
You have to
always do what you think is right in that moment, and trust your gut.”

Roz
smiled.
 
And they held each other again.

When they
stopped embracing, Roz stood up.
 
“I’ll
go get the twins,” she said.
 
“You aren’t
going to believe they’re a hundred percent until you see them for yourself.”

“Ah,” Mick
said.
 
“You know me.”

Roz smiled
and walked across the room.

“And
Rosalind,” Mick said, watching her tight ass walk away.

She glanced
back.
 
“Yes, dear?”

“You also
know what I’m going to do with that when I get out of this bed.”

She shook her
head.
 
“I see
that
wasn’t injured,” she said.
 
He smiled.

And then she
opened the door, stepped aside, and allowed Mick’s family to enjoy the moment
too.

The room was
now filled with everybody in the hall, and the merriment that suddenly filled
the once somber room was striking.

Roz went to
get the twins as Big Daddy hurried to his kid brother’s side and bear hugged
him.
 
She was so grateful for the
presence of those great men during their darkest days.
 
Teddy did all he could, and she loved him for
it, but his experience was limited.
 
He’d
never had to command Mick’s entire organization the way he had to these past
few days.
 
But the presence of Big Daddy
and Brent, and the Gabrinis, allowed her to focus on Mick and the children
alone.
 
They had lives to live and their
own families.
 
They had mighty
corporations to run.
 
But they worked
like Hebrew slaves searching for answers.
 
They found none.
 
But it wasn’t
for a lack of trying.

After Big
Daddy and Brent had stopped embracing Mick and moved back, Tommy was the first
to move up to Mick’s side.
 
“Hey, old
man,” he said smilingly as they shook hands.