Mick Sinatra: Breaking My Heart

by Mallory Monroe

  “But when you saw that tape, you didn’t say it was altered or--”

  “It wasn’t altered,” Mick said. “I remembered her when I saw that tape. I remembered her on her back. I remembered the hotel room. The location. But looking prim and proper in that photograph you showed to me? No. I did not remember her that way.”

  Tears appeared in Roz’s eyes. And Teddy, overwhelmed too, stepped back out of view. He felt as if he was eavesdropping on something he had no business listening too.

  “But what about what happened to her? Were you involved in that at all?”

  Mick shook his head. “No, Rosalind. Not at all. But when I saw that tape, it did crystalize my thinking.”

  Rosalind looked at him. “In what way?” she asked.

  “I am beginning to believe she had nothing to do with Angelo.”

  “But isn’t she his wife?” Roz asked.

  “That’s what I’ve been told,” Mick said. “But I don’t believe it.”

  “Too coincidental?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s how I felt about my friend Zina. She suddenly appeared out of the blue. She claimed Joey gave her that tape, but now I’m not sure if I can believe that either.”

  And Teddy, too curious now, made his entrance. Again. “Hey, Pop,” he said as he appeared in the doorway, this time knocking as he spoke. Mick and Roz looked his way. “Hey, Roz,” he said, when she turned too.

  “Hey,” Roz said, wiping her tears away.

  Mick stood up. “What is it?” he asked his son.

  “I overheard you mention Ang’s old lady. What’s up with that?”

  “What do you want, Ted?”

  Teddy sometimes hated the matter-of-fact way his father treated him. “We’ve got a problem,” he said.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s Joey.”

  Roz looked at Mick. Joey again. “What about him?” Mick asked.

  “A couple of his guys showed up at the front gate. Frankie and Chase. They said they need to talk to you. They said it’s about Joey.”

  “Oh, no,” Roz said. “They wouldn’t come here unless it was serious.”

  Mick knew it too. “Where are they?” he asked Ted.

  “Still at the front gate. Nobody wanted to make any moves until we ran it by you.”

  “Take them to the meeting room,” Mick ordered.

  “Yes, sir,” Teddy said, and glanced at Roz. He wanted to know about that woman he was accused of killing, and what his father had to do with her. That shit was cleared up in the eyes of the authorities, thanks to his father finding a fall guy, but he still felt he had a right to know.

  But he also knew not to push it. He already gave him a second chance after discovering he was back in drugs again. There was no such thing as a third chance with Mick the Tick. Teddy left.

  Mick and Roz looked at each other. “I’m going with you,” she said. “I want to know what’s going on with Joey.”

  Mick stared at her, and then nodded. “Put on a jacket,” he said. “It’s cold outside.”

  Roz turned to go to their closet, but then she turned back. “I’m sorry I doubted you, Mick. I should never have doubted you.”

  But Mick frowned. “Yes, you should have. What are you saying? You always believe what you see until further notice, you hear me? You never fall for anybody’s bullshit until you check that bullshit out for yourself. And that includes my bullshit and me.”

  Roz stared at him. “But what if it’s not possible to check out? Like the story you just told me about you and that woman.”

  Mick exhaled. “In a situation like that,” he said, “you have to consider the source.”

  “You mean whether I believe that source or not?”

  But Mick shook his head. “No, Rosalind. Whether you love that source or not. Whether you trust that source, or not.”

  Roz smiled. “I certainly trust the source in this case,” she said. “And I love him. I love you. With all my heart.”

  Mick’s own heart swelled with emotion and he moved closer to Roz, and pulled her into his arms. He held her, tightly, closing his eyes at the enormity of his feelings for this woman. “Get your jacket,” he said, when they stopped embracing.

  But when Roz was about to move away, he thought of something else. “Aren’t you going to apologize for slapping me?” he asked with a smile on his face.

  Roz smiled too. “Not a chance,” she said. “You left me hanging too long. You should have said no, you never cheated on me, as soon as I asked you. You nearly gave me a heart attack.” She pointed at him. “You deserved that slap.” And then satisfied, she began to head for the closet.

  But not before Mick slapped her, hard, on her ass. Her hand flew to the sore area, and she turned around quickly. It was such a hard lick she had to make sure he was still playing.

  When she saw that he wasn’t, she moved away faster.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Frankie and Chase were waiting in the meeting room when Mick and Roz walked in. Carmine was still there, along with Teddy, but their lieutenants had already hit the streets in search of as much intel as they could get. Roz, wearing a waist length leather jacket over her jeans and jersey, sat on the edge of the desk. Mick leaned against it, his long legs spread out, his arms folded. It was a big deal that men who worked under one of his sons would want a meeting without their boss. Mick didn’t like the precedent it set, unless it was unavoidable.

  “This better be unavoidable,” he said to the men, both of whom worked under Joey but, to Roz’s surprise, were much older than Joey.

  “It’s unavoidable, sir,” Frankie said. “We didn’t know who else to go to.”

  “You could have gone to Carmine,” Teddy said. “Or me. Or, here’s a novel idea: your boss. Joey.”

  “But that’s the thing,” Frankie said. “We can’t go to him. He disappeared on us.”

  Roz’s heart squeezed. “What do you mean he disappeared?” she asked.

  They looked at Roz, amazed that Mick the Tick would have a woman in the room, but everybody else were looking at them. Frankie got back down to business too. “He took off after we ran the inventory check on the shipment,” he said. “When we found out it was short again.”

  Carmine and Teddy were floored. They looked at Mick. Mick was staring at Frankie. “Short?” he asked. “What are you talking about? The shipment was short?”

  “Yes, sir,” Frankie said. “That’s why we investigated. We knew you’d gone to Rome and handled that situation. We knew two Dons died behind that situation. Why would we be short again? It made no sense. That’s when we found out.”

  “Found out what?” Teddy asked.

  “We found out that Joey’s the one. It wasn’t Rome at all. Joey has been intercepting before those shipments reached port, and was taking a sizeable chunk of weaponry for himself.”

  Mick could hardly believe it. “What are you saying to me?”

  “We found his crew. It wasn’t any of our guys, just a group Joey had put together. We got a couple of them to talk. They admitted it, sir. Joey is gunrunning. He’s got his own thing going. You sell to the mafia. He sells to inner city gangs. They know Joey, and trust him. It’s a major operation.”

  Mick was stunned. He ran his fingers through his hair in demonstration of just how stunning. First, Teddy was doing his own thing behind his back. Now Joey was not only doing his own thing, but sticking it to his old man in the bargain. Both of these boys committed crimes that were punishable in Mick’s eyes. Joey just committed one that was akin to treason, and punishable by death in Mick’s eyes.

  Then Carmine’s cellphone rang. He moved away, and answered it.

  “What do you want us to do, Pop?” Teddy asked.

  But Mick couldn’t speak. He just sat there, in deep contemplation, with his hands now gripping the edge of the desk. Roz could feel his anguish, but she dared not look at him. He was in front of his men. He didn’t need anybody’s pity, and especially not hers.
/>   “Where’s his crew now?” Roz asked Frankie and Chase.

  “Joey’s crew?” Frankie asked. “We let’em go. We had to. We didn’t want to mix it up with the blacks. It’s too many of’em.”

  Carmine ended his phone call and walked back toward the group. “They’ve got him, Boss.”

  Mick looked at Carmine. “Angelo?”

  Carmine nodded. “Yes, sir. They’re bringing him in now. I told them to put him in the Outskirts.”

  “Good,” Mick said to Carmine, standing erect. “I want you to put these two over on Dixie.”

  Frankie was incensed. “But why do we have to be safe housed, sir?” he asked.

  “You just accused my son of what is tantamount to treason. You stay in my custody until you’re proven right.”

  “And if we’re proven wrong, sir?” Chase finally asked a question.

  Mick looked at him as if the answer was obvious. “Heaven help you,” he said. And then Mick looked at Carmine again. “Get the same mass team out searching for my son. Bring him to me.”

  “Dead or alive, sir?” Carmine asked.

  Roz was horrified. “Alive,” she said with bite in her voice. “Don’t you ever ask that question when it comes to his child. He’d better come back alive.”

  Carmine raised his eyebrows, suddenly aware of his error. “I apologize, ma’am,” he said. “I meant no disrespect. It’s the question I always ask.”

  “Never ask it again when it involves one of his children,” Roz admonished.

  Carmine nodded. He wanted to look and see if Mick shared her anger, but already knew the answer. Mick loved this woman. That much he knew. What she said, Carmine had to assume from here on out, was what it was going to be. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, ordered Frankie and Chase to follow him, and they left.

  Roz then looked at Mick. “Good Lord, Mick,” she said. “I don’t believe it. Joey wouldn’t do that to you. He loves you. He wouldn’t put you in a spot like this.”

  “I took out two men and their lieutenants because of that shipment problem,” Mick said. “If it is him; if what Frankie said was even slightly true,” he said as he looked at Roz, “then he will have to answer for it, Rosalind. Or I will have no credibility in the eyes of my men.”

  Roz’s heart dropped. This sordid business of theirs!

  “Come,” Mick said, reaching for her. “Let me get you back inside the main house. You will be on lock down, until I return.”

  “Want me to have Gloria picked up?” Teddy asked.

  Mick nodded. “Yes. Have them bring her here too.”

  “Yes, sir,” Teddy said, and left ahead of his parents.

  “If they have trouble finding Joey,” Roz said, “have them check with Zina Klein. Carmine will know where to locate her. I had him run a check on her just last week.”

  Mick looked at her. “He didn’t run it by me,” he said, “so I take it she checked out clean.”

  Roz nodded. “She did. But that doesn’t mean she is.”

  Mick smiled.

  “You taught me well, Mick,” Roz said, smiling too. “Don’t worry. I’m nobody’s fool.”

  Mick knew it too. And was pleased to hear it because the mother of his two young children had to know her stuff in order to protect them. And other than himself, he trusted nobody else in that role but Roz.

  And his feelings for her emboldened him. They walked, arm in arm, back to the main house.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The SUV stopped at the warehouse on the outskirts of Philly. Mick and Teddy got out, along with a three-man security team. Security remained outside while Mick and his son walked in.

  Angelo “Ang” DeCoppola was strung up by his hands and feet in a spread-eagle position in the middle of the room. He appeared to have been badly beaten already.

  A guard, one of four in the room, grabbed a bucket of ice cold water and tossed it, once again, onto Ang’s battered face, causing him to grit his teeth and shake his hair in agony. But he remained defiant. “Wait until I get down from here,” he said to the guard. “I’ll see how bad your ass is then!”

  The guard grabbed another bucket of ice cold water, and was about to drench Ang again, but Mick, walking toward their prisoner, waved him off.

  “Hello Ang,” Mick said as he walked up to him. “I haven’t seen you since Jericho.”

  Angelo, whose head was hung down after the water bath, looked up. His right eye was completely shut, but he was able to see out of his left eye. “If it ain’t Mick the Tick. My so-called cousin. What cousin would do this to his own kin?”

  “What kin would frame his cousin’s son? What kin would try to take out his own cousin while he was at it?”

  Angelo shook his head. “All lies,” he said halfheartedly. “You’re falling for the lies, too.”

  “Yeah, right, Uncle Ang,” Teddy said. “Remember I was there. Your people tried to take me out in Paris. Your people tried to frame me for your wife ‘s death. I was there.”

  But Mick was staring at Angelo. He’d never known him to be a liar. He needed to hear his response.

  “They were no people of mine,” Angelo said. “And she was no wife of mine. I have no wife. A little investigating would have told you that.”

  Angelo looked at Mick. “I’m a drug dealer, Michello. That I am. Nothing more and nothing less. Why would I want a war with a mega-boss like you? The most powerful boss in this country? Why, Michello? They’re out to get me. They want you to think it’s me.”

  “Who are they?” Mick asked.

  Teddy looked at his father. “You believe him, Pop? How can you believe him? Uncle Ang has been my supplier all along, until he ran out of juice.”

  “They ran me out of juice,” Angelo shot back. “Talk what you know, boy!”

  Mick continued to stare at his battered cousin. He and Angelo did not get along, not even a little bit. But Ang was no liar. “Who are they?”

  “Bulldog,” Angelo said. “Bulldog Valtone. He wants to pin it on me because I know who she is.”

  Mick frowned. “What the fuck are you talking about, Ang? Spit the shit out!”

  “I know she’s Amelia,” he said.

  And Mick’s heart, which was already tight, suddenly went still. “Amelia?” he asked, revived.

  Angelo looked at Mick. “She’s alive, Mick. My mother delivered her and took her to our home. But she didn’t kill her the way your mother wanted. She sold her. She sold her to Bulldog Valtone. And they know I know. They want you to kill me. They want you to silence me. But she’s Amelia.”

  “She’s alive?” Mick asked him, as if he stopped listening after Angelo’s first sentence.

  Teddy looked at his father. “Who’s alive?”

  “She’s alive,” said Angelo.

  Mick let out a sharp exhale. “Cut him down,” he ordered.

  But Teddy was shocked. “Dad, why? You believe him? His people tried to kill us!”

  But the guards knew who buttered their bread. And it wasn’t Teddy. They cut Angelo down. Angelo fell to the floor, exhausted.

  Mick crotched down beside him. “Where is she?” he asked him.

  But Angelo was still overcome with exhaustion.

  Mick’s anger unleashed. “Where is she, gotdammit?” he yelled. “Where’s Amelia?”

  “I know it’s her,” was all Angelo would say.

  “I know her, too, Dad,” Teddy said. “So what?”

  Mick looked up at his son. He stood up. “What do you mean you know her?”

  “I know her. Amelia Valtone? Yeah, I know her.”

  It was no big deal to Teddy, but it was monumental to Mick. “How do you know this woman?” he asked.

  “I’m not proud of it.”

  Mick’s impatience increased. “How do you know her, Theodore?”

  Teddy was puzzled by his annoyance. “She’s my supplier. What about her? She’s just my supplier.”

  Mick stared at Teddy, and then let out another sharp exhale.

  “Who is
she to you?” Teddy asked.

  “My sister,” Mick said. “She’s my sister.”

  Teddy was floored. “Your sister? But . . . You only had one sister, Dad. Aunt Jackie.”

  But Mick remembered that hellish night. “I had another one,” he said.

  Teddy’s big eyes stared at his father. He never discussed personal family affairs with him, or any of his children. It was, to Teddy, his father’s biggest character flaw.

  “You know where she is?” Mick asked him.

  “I text her whenever I need supplies. If I’m in Europe, her European contact calls me back. If I’m here in Philly, she calls me back. Because she lives an hour-and-a-half away, in Baltimore, she sets the date and time.”

  “I supplied Teddy,” Angelo managed to say, “and everybody else who wanted in. Until she shut me down.”

  “Text her,” Mick ordered his son. “Tell her you need supplies right away. Not too big a haul, but big enough to get her moving. Tell her Angelo is out of commission.”

  “She already knows that. She’s the one who shut me down.”

  Teddy pulled out his cellphone and text his supplier. Before he pressed Send, he showed the text to Mick. Mick nodded. Teddy pressed Send.

  Within seconds, less than a minute, a response. Tomorrow. Eleven a.m. At the campground.

  “Where is that?” Mick asked.

  “A dead-end street in South Philly,” Teddy said, as he text Amelia back affirming that he would see her then. “It’s our usual pick up place.”

  Mick looked at his guards. “Clean him up,” he said. “No more torture. At least not until I check him out.”

  “Yes, sir,” the head guard said, and Mick and Teddy left.

  When they sat in the backseat of the waiting SUV, Mick pulled out his cellphone.

  Teddy looked at him. “Who are you calling?” he asked.

  At first Mick did not respond, until the other end of the phone began to ring. “My brother,” he said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  While Gloria Sinatra sat in a chair feeding Duke from a bottle filled with breastmilk, Roz was lying on the sofa breastfeeding a sleepy Jacqueline. She was still a little drained and a lot worried, and Gloria’s help and presence felt like a God sent.