“I borrowed it, and was ready to pay it back, but . . .”
“But what?” Mick asked.
“He wouldn’t accept it back. He said he preferred to partner with me. He said he wanted half of my business. I told him that was out of the question; was he insane? He told me nothing was out of the question in his world. Well, that was unacceptable for me, and I told him so. I also told him he could kiss my ass if he thought he was getting half of my business.”
Even Roz knew that was a bad move. “Then he threatened you?” she asked.
“He not only threatened me,” Bella said, “but he had some goon break into my Manhattan apartment and try to kill me. He might have succeeded if my bodyguard hadn’t taken him out. After that happened, I came straight to Philly. To Mick. I knew that fool wasn’t playing anymore.”
“Who is he?” Mick finally asked.
“This guy named Teddy. Teddy Stefani.”
Roz was floored. Teddy Stefani again? She looked at Mick.
But Mick was staring at Bella. “Did you ever see this Teddy Stefani?” he asked.
She thought about it. “See him? No, matter of fact. I never saw him. All of our communications were over the phone, or with his agent.”
“Who is his agent?” Roz asked.
Bella thought Roz was overstepping her bounds with all of the questions. She didn’t answer.
But Mick didn’t care what she thought. “Answer her question,” he said.
Bella found it rich that Mick would put this particular woman on such a pedestal, when he was so dismissive of everybody else, but she wasn’t there to fight old battles. She was there to save her life. “His agent is this guy named Acer Higlands. He said everybody calls him Higgs.”
Mick let out a sharp exhale, which, Roz knew, meant that he knew that name. But Roz wasn’t about to ask any questions related to his knowledge in front of Bella.
Mick stood up. Roz and Bella followed suit and stood up, too. “Will you help me, Mick?” Bella asked. “If you could just go to him and tell him I belong to you, he’ll leave me alone.”
Roz didn’t like the way she referred to herself as “belonging” to Mick, but Mick didn’t seem to mind the characterization. He, in fact, confirmed it. “He already knows who you belong to,” he said to Bella. “That’s why he tried to kill you. Wanting half of your business had nothing to do with it.”
Bella hated to hear that it was complicated, but her entire life with Mick had been nothing but complication after complication. “Are you going to help me?” she asked anxiously now that Mick appeared to be ready to go.
Mick looked at her. “Stay here,” he said. “Keep that door locked. My men will come shortly and take you to a safe house.”
Bella frowned. “Not another safe house, Mick!” she said. She’d spent time in Mick’s safe houses before. “You know how I hate those places! You can’t go anywhere. You’re always surrounded by such deplorable people.”
“Or you can take your ass back to New York and figure it out,” Mick said bluntly. “Your choice.”
Bella glanced at Rosalind, wondering if she was enjoying her humiliation. There was no outward indication of it, but Bella still figured she probably was. But she had bigger problems than Rosalind Sinatra. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll go to your safe house. But please get it resolved. I have fashion week in Milan coming up.”
Roz could tell Mick cared about Bella’s fashion week about as much as he cared about eating spikes, but he didn’t go there with her. He, instead, took Roz’s hand and escorted her to the door. Bella followed behind them.
When Mick opened the door, Bella touched him on his sleeve. “I didn’t want to get in touch with Gloria because I didn’t want them to connect her to me. But if you’re right, and they’re really after you, they already probably made the connection, right?”
Mick nodded. “Right.”
“So what are you going to do about it? Put her in a safe house too?”
That wasn’t Bella’s business. “I take care of her,” was all he cared to say. Then he reached into his pocket, pulled out what looked like a business card, and handed it to Bella. “Lock this door,” he ordered. “Don’t open it unless the men behind it says that word.” It was the word on the card Mick had handed her. Then he stared at her. He would always love her, but it wasn’t the same. “You’ll be okay,” he said.
And then he and Roz left.
Once they made it downstairs, and got into Mick’s Ferrari, he had already ordered his men to move Bella to a safe house. By the time they were driving off, Roz was ready to ask her own question.
“You know who this Acer Higlands is,” she said. “Don’t you?”
Mick glanced at her. He loved her intelligence. “Yes,” he said.
“Who is he?”
“Everybody calls him Higgs, and he was Santo’s second in command,” Mick said.
“Santo Vichy?” Roz asked. “The man who used to be your partner?”
“The man they just iced, yes,” Mick said. “Since Santo died, he’s now in charge of Santo’s crew. He’s now in charge of the syndicate that Natalie claims killed Santo, and probably fired those shots at she and I last night.”
Roz looked at Mick as he changed gears and drove steadily along the streets of Philadelphia. “What are you going to do?” she asked him.
“Beef up security,” he said, “and meet with all of my senior lieutenants. Shit’s going down,” he added, “and I’ve got to make sure it’s not coming for me and mine. I can’t play the game right if I don’t know what game they’re playing.”
“And what about Teddy Stefani? Why does his name keep coming up? And why would this Higgs guy pretend Stefani is behind anything at all when he has to know that Teddy Stefani is dead?”
“I don’t know,” Mick said, as he continued to drive. “I’m at war with a fucking ghost, just like I said,” he added.
Roz thought about it. “There’s a funny thing about ghosts,” she said. “Once you see them, you can kill them.” She looked at Mick. “You’ve just got to see them first.”
Mick looked at Roz and smiled. There was something comforting for him to have her by his side. Then he took her hand.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The elevator door binged and then opened, and Gloria, still sipping her latte, made her way back to her desk outside her father’s office. She was late, which she hated, and she knew Blair Conyers, her boss, would be unforgiving. So she hurried. But when she made it to the end of the hall and opened the door that led to the suite of offices known as the Office of the President, and saw Gio Savarino standing in front of Blair’s desk, she slowed her walk. What was one of her father’s henchmen doing at S.I. again today?
“You’re late,” Blair said as Gloria made her way toward Gio. He was always a respectful guy whenever he was around her, but he had too much of that cloak of danger, like her father, to ever make her think of him as anything but her father’s flunky. She liked tough guys with brains, not brainless brawn.
And she ignored Blair this time. “What are you doing here?” she asked Gio.
“I’ve been assigned to you,” Gio said.
“Assigned to me?” Gloria asked.
“I just got the call from your father and came on over. He wants me to blanket you.”
Blair glanced at Gio from over the computer screen she was reviewing. Gloria could tell Blair had no clue what blanketing her meant. But Gloria knew what it meant. It meant her father wanted Gio to guard her and guard her closely because he feared something might be in the works.
But Gloria also knew Gio had this thing for her. She didn’t share his attraction, but Teddy assured her it was real. She therefore went to her desk, one of several behind Blair’s desk, sat down her latte, and pulled out her cell phone. When her father answered, he got right to the point.
“He’s there under my orders,” Mick said over the phone.
Gloria knew she had to lower her voice. Not just because Gio was presen
t, but because Blair had on her listening ears, too. “Why Gio?” she asked.
“He likes you,” Mick said. “He’ll look out for you the way I need him to.”
“But guys in your organization who like me are usually the very guys you don’t want anywhere near me.”
“That’s still the case,” Mick said firmly. “But it works to our favor in this case.”
Gloria looked at Gio, surprised that he of all people would have her father’s stamp of approval.
“Do whatever he says,” Mick added. “You can trust him.”
Gloria continued to stare at Gio. And then nodded. Gio smiled and then took a seat in one of the chairs against the wall. She’d had security before, but not quite this close. “Should I be worried?” she asked her father.
“Always,” Mick said, and ended the call.
When Mick ended the call, he tossed his cell phone in the cubbyhole beside his gearshift, shifted his gear, and picked up even more speed. He was driving to the southside of Philly, to a warehouse he owned, in his four-seater Ferrari. Teddy was on the front passenger seat, and Joey sat in the back.
“So basically,” Joey said from the backseat, “we’re going to be your ghostbusters. We’re going to be chasing a dead man.”
Mick glanced at him through his rearview mirror. Joey’s improvement was impressive. “That’s right,” he said.
“You ordered a crew to blanket Roz too?” Teddy asked.
Mick glanced at Teddy. His affection for Rosalind was pleasing to him, but a bit concerning too. Teddy was closer in age to Roz than Mick was. “They’re already there,” he responded. “And I tightened security at the house with the twins.”
“Covering all bases,” Joey said.
“Damn right,” Teddy agreed.
“Although I don’t understand why you’re being so cautious, Pop,” Teddy said. “Not that you aren’t normally cautious. You are. But usually you have more to go on than this.”
“Somebody tells me a dead man wants me dead,” Mick said, “I get cautious. Overly so. Until I get to the bottom of it.”
“A dead man wants you dead,” Joey said with a grin. “That sounds almost poetic, Pop.” Mick smiled too. “And the dead guy is the guy Teddy was named after?” Joey added.
Mick’s smile suddenly left, and his jaw tightened. Teddy Stefani was as good a friend to Mick as he’d ever had. But one of Mick’s men, a traitor, shot and killed Stefani. It still hurt Mick to this day. “That’s right,” he said.
There was a lull in their conversation after that, as Mick made his way to the warehouse where a meeting of all of his lieutenants were to take place. But Joey still had something on his mind.
“Ma told you we called her?” he asked his father.
Teddy rolled his eyes. Why Joey decided to bring up that sore subject was a mystery to him! But Mick didn’t even glance through the rearview at his young son. “Yes,” he said.
Joey stared at his father. “And you don’t like it?” he asked him.
Mick shifted gears again in Joey’s favorite of his father’s sportscars. “If there’s ever a choice between looking out for me and looking out for Rosalind,” he said to both of his sons, “you look out for Rosalind.” Mick glanced at both of them. “Without exception,” he added.
Both sons looked at their father. They were often astounded and unsettled by his undying love for Roz. Especially when he never showed them anything near that kind of devotion. But he was improving, they both knew that too.
Silence ensued again as Mick picked up more speed and got them to the warehouse with time to spare. The men were already there, some thirty strong, and all of them stood outside of the locked warehouse waiting to go in. Joey, Mick’s dock supervisor, would be the man to let them in, but he and Teddy never made a move without first making sure it was the move their father wanted them to make.
And when they all got out of the car, and Mick began looking around as if his hackles were up again, they knew they were right to wait. Then Mick looked at Teddy. “Oversee the gun check,” he said. The gun check was the process whereby, at every leadership meeting, guns and any other weapons had to be checked at the door. No entry allowed with firepower.
“Yes, sir,” Teddy said.
“Open up, Pop?” Joey asked.
Mick looked around again. Then nodded at Joey. “Open up,” he said.
But while his sons went to do as they were ordered, Mick got back into his car. And after the warehouse door was unlocked by Joey, and after all of the men entered the foyer of the warehouse where Teddy did as he was told and oversaw the gun check, Mick drove his car around the side of the isolated warehouse and through an alleyway. He then parked his car in that alley, pulled out not one, but two guns from his glove compartment, and screwed silencers on both. When he got out of the car, he got out with both guns, pointed down, on either side of him.
He eased to the end of the alley, and then leaned his head out to see what he could see. On the left side, he saw nothing but tall weeds and trash. On the right side, he saw what he had been looking for. Evidence of a planned ambush. And that plan was in the form of a car, parked in the midst of the thick weeds, on the backside of the warehouse. Mick counted the heads. There were three men in the car. Two upfront. One in the back.
Mick waited, counted to three, and then walked over and stood in the back of the vehicle. When the driver glanced through his rearview in his routine check-around, and saw Mick Sinatra standing there, his panic was obvious even from where Mick stood. The popcorn he had been eating on suddenly flew in the air as he attempted to retrieve his own weapon, and the two other gunmen attempted to retrieve theirs too.
But it was too late. Mick, using both of his guns, shot the driver and the front seat passenger simultaneously, and then ran over to the back-side window of the vehicle. It was rolled down and the man on the backseat held his hands in the air. He knew he didn’t stand a chance.
“Don’t shoot,” he said desperately. “Don’t shoot!”
Mick pointed his gun at the guy’s head. “Who do you work for?” he asked.
The guy didn’t skip a beat. “Teddy Stefani,” he said.
“Fucking liar,” Mick said. And then he pulled back the trigger, ready to fire. “Who do you work for?” he asked again.
“Teddy Stefani, I swear!” The man was shaking with fear.
“Teddy Stefani is dead. I know: one of my men killed him. Now tell me the truth! Who do you work for, motherfucker?”
“I don’t know what else to tell you,” the gunman said. “I was told I worked for Teddy Stefani.”
“Told by who?” Mick asked.
“The driver,” the guy said. “He hired me for this job. He said we work for Teddy Stefani and when the job is over we get x amount of dollars. He never told me what my cut would be.”
“You ever met Stefani?”
The guy shook his head. “No, sir.”
“What was the job supposed to be?” Mick asked.
The guy hesitated this time.
Mick pressed the gun harder against his skull.
“To kill you,” the guy said. “We were paid to take you out.”
Mick was astounded. He looked at the threesome again. A pack of nobodies. Who would send amateurs like them to take out Mick the Tick? It was insulting in the extreme. So insulting that it actually threw Mick. Which, he suddenly realized, was exactly what the gunman in that back-passenger seat was hoping for. Because, as soon as Mick looked away wondering who would have the balls to take him on so brazenly, the gunman reached for his gun to take him on right then and there.
But even a distracted Mick was superior to that gunman. He saw the movement in his peripheral vision, and pulled the trigger before he could even turn his head. The gunman was dead just before he was about to fire his own weapon. It was that close.
Mick, stunned that he had let his guard down even for those few seconds, just stood there. What the fuck was going on? First, he was told a dead man wan
ted him dead. Now he just found out that same dead man sent rank amateurs to take him out. It was a slap in the face on top of a slap in the face. Mick knew there were rumors that he might not be as potent as he used to be. Was this hit supposed to prove that rumor?
But he had a meeting to attend. And more to handle. He headed back toward the alley and his car, watching his back with every sense he had within his being, as he did.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The chatter turned into complete silence when Mick entered the warehouse, closing the door behind him. Teddy and Joey stood in the corner, guarding the arsenal of weapons they had confiscated, and Mick’s lieutenants sat in rows of chairs in front of him.
Mick didn’t sit down. He stood in front of his men with his suit coat opened and his hands on his hips. Although his men might not have noticed a difference in Mick, Teddy and Joey noticed it. He seemed flustered to them, even a bit unnerved. They even glanced at each other. But, as usual, Mick rallied, and got to the point.
“I don’t know how much you’ve heard, but Santo Vichy is dead. His widow, Natalie, is in my custody for her protection, and for ours, if it comes to that. The puppet master is supposed to be Teddy Stefani.”
Gasps of disbelief filled the room, but one of puzzlement rather than shock. Two things were obvious to Mick: they’d heard about Santo’s death and that his widow was under safe house protection. But they had no clue Teddy Stefani was involved.
One of them couldn’t hold his peace. “But wait a minute, Boss,” he said. “Teddy Stefani? As in dead Teddy Stefani?”
Mick nodded. “That’s right.”
“But that fucker’s dead.”
“That’s right,” Mick responded.
Everybody looked at each other, while Mick looked at them. He had already noticed the broken window in the back of the warehouse. What struck him was how none of his top lieutenants, nor his own sons, noticed it. But there had been a breach. Somebody had been inside that warehouse before they all showed up.
Just as he considered the ramifications, another oddity occurred. Two of his lieutenants, the two furthest in the back of the room, reached beneath their chairs, pulled out a gun apiece, and then jumped from their seats.
Mick Sinatra: No Love. No Peace. (The Mick Sinatra Series Book 9) Page 9