“No, Charles, don’t leave,” Arianna pleaded when Charles walked away. “You know how Mick is. Don’t leave me with this bastard!” It said everything that she would prefer Charles, the man who almost choked the life out of her, over Mick.
But she could prefer whatever she wanted. Charles kept on walking.
She began backing up, on her ass. “Donnie!” she cried. “He’s gonna kill me, Donnie! Help me! Help your mamma! You’ve got to help your mamma!”
But the only help she received was a quick end. And Mick made it quick only for Donald’s sake. Mick shot her straight through the heart.
Donald winced when he heard the gunshot. Despite her awfulness, she was still his mother. And he fell into his father’s arms, and wept. “I want Jenay,” he said. She was his stepmother. “Take me home to Mom.”
“I will, son,” Charles said. “We’ll get you fixed up, and take you home to Mom.”
Mick stared at Arianna. He stared at the woman who came back to haunt him, and he realized she was the ghost he’d been chasing all along. Not Teddy Stefani. She was the ghost. She represented the dark side of his life. She represented all those people who just wouldn’t leave him alone. And if he had to snuff them out one by one, he was going to do it. Because no fucker alive was going to attempt to harm his family, and live to tell about it.
But he also knew a profound truth. Arianna just proved it. Shit rolled downhill, and affected, not only the man who had dumped it, but those who had to roll with it.
He was going to be chasing ghosts for the rest of his life.
EPILOGUE
Teddy’s Corvette and Joey’s Dodge Charger drove through the electronic gates of their father’s estate and stopped at the apex of the horseshoe driveway. Joey stepped out of his Dodge first, and made his way up to his brother’s car. Teddy, along with Gloria, stepped out of Teddy’s car and Joey immediately launched into his usual mocking.
“You two move like Mom and Dad. Put some pep in your step!”
“Boy, if you don’t get away from my door,” Teddy said as he stepped out.
“At least we beat you here,” Gloria said, going along with Joey’s foolishness.
But then, before they knew it, Gio Savarino, who was on the grounds supervising one of the security crews, hurried across the lawn toward them.
Teddy, who was in charge of all the crews, thought he had come over to tell him something about the security detail. But Gio’s entire attention was on Gloria.
“Hey,” he said with a smile on his face.
Gloria smiled, too. She seemed genuinely pleased to see him. “Hey, Gio, how are you?”
“I’m real good,” he said excitedly. “How you doing?”
“I’m doing great,” Gloria responded.
“Good. That’s real good, Gloria.”
Teddy and Joey looked at each other, and then looked at Gio and Gloria. They were just standing there, smiling at each other like overgrown teenagers at a prom.
After a while of this, where neither party seemed to realize that other people, namely he and Joey, were standing there, too, Teddy intervened. He looked at Gio. “And?” he asked. “Don’t you have work to do?”
“Oh. Right,” Gio said, his face suddenly red with embarrassment, especially when Joey let out a snicker. He hurried away, glancing back at Gloria as he did. But he went back to the crew he was supervising.
Teddy and Joey looked at their sister. “Him?” Joey asked. “Gio?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gloria said, as she began walking toward the house. Her brothers followed her.
“But Gio, Gloria?” Joey asked as he tried to keep up.
“But Gio what, Joey?” Gloria asked.
“Y’all fucking,” Joey said. “That’s what!”
Gloria frowned. “Watch your mouth, boy!”
“But it’s true, right? It’s true!”
“I don’t believe it, either,” Teddy said.
Gloria looked at her older brother. “Come on, Teddy. Not you, too! I understand Joey. He’s always immature and ridiculous. But you too?”
“Yeah, me too! You know what Dad said. He’s going to kill you if he finds out.”
Gloria’s eyes grew larger. “He’s not going to find out anything,” she said. “You hear me, Teddy? You hear me, Joey?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Joey said. “You know I got you. You know I would never run to Dad about your personal life. I’m not like that. But Teddy, on the other hand, who tells Dad everything? And I mean everything!
“I mean it, Teddy,” Gloria said. “I’ll never get a promotion if you tell Dad!”
But seeing Gloria so worked up about having a boyfriend who, once again, worked for her father, made him laugh. Would his siblings ever learn?
“Oh, forget you!” Gloria said, and went on up the steps and inside the house.
“Glo, wait!” Joey said, and hurried behind her.
Teddy went on up the steps, and then stopped, turned, and looked over at Gio, who was talking to the grounds team he was supposed to be supervising. Gio wasn’t the most elegant man, Teddy thought, but he was a good man. At least that. Gloria could do far worse, and had, he noted, in the past. But Dad still said what he said.
Teddy went on up the stairs, and entered the house, too.
Upstairs, as soft music played over the stereo, Mick stood at the window watching as Teddy was the last of his three grown children to come into the house. Mick was also watching Gio. He saw that display earlier, when Gio went up to Gloria and they both were smiling like two love-struck kids. And he wasn’t sure if he opposed the match.
He began moving away from the window. “I think Gloria has a live one,” he said.
Roz was seated at her dressing table, inside their bedroom, combing her hair. “Really? Who?”
“Giovanni Savarino.”
Roz smiled. “He’s sweet.”
“He’s my age.”
“Ah, Mick, so what? You’re older than I am. What’s the big deal?”
“I’m not that much older,” Mick said with a smile and began walking toward her. “And I didn’t say it was a big deal. I just don’t know if I want it for my daughter.”
“At some point,” Roz said, “it has to be about who the guy is, rather than who the guy is not. He’s not in his twenties like Gloria. He’s not a banker or a businessman like you would prefer. But he’s a good guy. That has to matter.”
“He’s a good guy who works for me in my not-so-good business; a business I don’t want Gloria to have anything to do with. That has to matter more.”
Roz nodded. “That’s a point, too,” she conceded.
Then Mick began pacing around the room, which usually meant, Roz knew, that something was on his mind.
Then she shook her head. “It’s all so complicated anyway,” she said.
“What is?” Mick asked as he paced.
“Love. Family. People! Like poor Donnie. Look what his own mother did to him. I still can’t get that out of my mind. Thank God it was only a flesh wound, but the emotional wounds probably will run so much deeper.”
Mick didn’t respond. He just kept on pacing.
“But at least Arianna got hers,” Roz continued. “At least she won’t be around to terrorize any of her other children. Women like her makes me sick.”
Then Mick stopped pacing and turned. And stared at Roz. “Why?” he asked.
“Because they never get out of the way. It’s always all about them, and their children and the people who love them be damned. She got what she deserved. I hate to say it, but it’s true.”
“It is true,” Mick said. “And I know what else is true,” he added.
Roz looked at him through her dressing table mirror. “What else?” she asked.
“You,” Mick said.
Roz was combing her hair. She stopped mid-comb and stared at her husband through the mirror when he spoke that word. That was not like him to get that sentimental.
She conti
nued to watch as he walked over beside her, and then knelt down at her chair. “Rosalind,” he said in a voice so heartfelt it took Roz by surprise.
“Yes?” she answered.
He reached into his suit coat pocket, and pulled out a ring box. Roz’s heart began to pound. He opened the box. It was a gorgeous diamond ring. “I want to renew my vows to you,” he said.
Tears began to appear In Roz’s big eyes. “You do?”
“Yes,” Mick said with a sincere look on his face. “I have not been a good husband to you.”
“But, Mick, you have!”
“No,” Mick said, shaking his head. “I have not. I have not been the kind of husband you deserve to have. And that’s my measuring stick: you.”
Mick had to pause, to compose his emotions. “You have been the best thing that has ever happened to me. I went so hard before I met you. I had no middle ground. Some say I still don’t.”
Roz smiled through her tears.
“But you showed me the way, Rosalind. You showed me how to be me, and to get out of the way to find you.”
Roz covered her mouth when he said those words.
“I love you,” he said. “I want you to know it. I want to bear witness to our love for all the world to see. No more shame. No more pride. No more male fucking ego. It’s you and me, babe. Will you re-marry me?”
Roz began nodding her head. “Yes,” she said. “Oh, my darling, Michello. Yes!”
Mick placed the ring on her finger, and Roz threw herself into his big, loving arms.
And the music, what Mick called elevator music, played softly over the stereo. Anne Murray singing You Needed Me.
“I cried a tear
You wiped it dry
I was confused
You cleared my mind
I sold my soul
You bought it back for me
And held me up
And gave me dignity
Somehow you needed me!”
“I have another truth,” Mick said, as they held each other and listened to the music.
“Another truth?” Roz asked. “What truth?”
“You need me,” Mick said. “But the truth is: I need you more.”
Roz stopped hugging Mick and leaned back, looking into his eyes. To hear him say that was monumental.
“I need you, Rosalind,” he said again. “And don’t you ever forget it.”
But Roz, being Roz, smiled. “Don’t you ever forget it, either,” she said.
Mick smiled, and then laughed. And they hugged each other all over again.
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Mick Sinatra: No Love. No Peace. (The Mick Sinatra Series Book 9) Page 17