“You really need to change your ways, Bess,” Roz warned. “You’re a grown woman, and I know I can’t tell you what to do, but this is getting crazy. These men aren’t going to keep putting up with your bullshit. I’m telling you this because I care about you, and I don’t want to see you in over your head.”
Betsy wrapped her arm in Roz’s arm. “And I thank you for your concern. But I’m not doing anything they aren’t doing. That’s why I’m so hard on you about Mick. You let him get away with murder. He doesn’t let you get away with shit.”
“Maybe because I don’t be doing no shit to get away with,” Roz said as they walked down the side stairs. “Secrets and lies ruin relationships. I don’t care whose relationship it is.”
“Yeah, but I’ve been hearing a lot about Mick around town. They say he’s not the angel you think he is.”
Roz almost laughed. The idea that anybody would think she thought of Mick that way was not living in reality. Mick was no angel. But she wasn’t going to explain any of that to Betsy. “People talk, Bess,” she said. “That’s what they do.”
“But what if he is cheating?” Betsy asked as they stepped down the stairs and made their way around the side corner.
“He’s not,” Roz said.
“How can you be so sure? And please don’t tell me it’s because he loves you. Because if that’s the case, you’re more naïve than Kyle.”
Roz looked at Betsy. “So Kyle believes you love him? That’s why he was so hurt about your cheating?”
“He cheats too,” Betsy said. “He wants me to be all pure, but he can be as polluted as a river. Yeah, right. But that’s a man for you. Including your hubby, although you don’t want to admit it. But it’s true, Roz. I’m sorry, but it’s true.”
Roz wasn’t about to let Betsy make this all about Mick. That was why she ignored her comments as they made their way to Roz’s Bentley. “Just get in your car and follow me,” Roz said. “We’ll get you to a safer environment.”
Betsy hugged Roz again and made her way to her own ride: a mustang.
But as soon as Roz pressed her key fob and was about to open her car door, she heard a cry from Betsy that chilled her bones.
“Bess!” she cried, and ran toward her friend. Betsy was three cars away. By the time Roz arrived to the mustang, a man she assumed to be Kyle knocked Betsy to the ground with a roundhouse right.
Mick’s limousine was driving up just as Roz jumped onto the back of the disgruntled boyfriend. When Mick saw the boyfriend throw Roz off of his back and then punch her with his fist, his heart dropped through his stomach and he jumped from the limo even as it was still rolling. Danny jumped out too as the two big men ran toward the melee. Only Mick ran toward Roz. But Roz told him she was okay. “Help Bess,” she said.
“Get my wife in the car,” Mick ordered Danny, as he turned his attention toward Kyle.
Kyle was on his knees beating the shit out of Betsy. Mick grabbed him off of her. Not because of her, Mick didn’t give a damn about her, but because of what he had done to Rosalind. And it was his time to do the beat down. He beat Kyle mercilessly. He beat him until blood poured from his face. He knocked him down and kicked him like the dog he took him for. Roz pulled away from Danny and hurried to help Betsy to her feet. Then she held onto Betsy as Danny hurried both of them to the waiting limousine.
Roz and Betsy could see Mick still wailing on Kyle from the comfort of the limousine, even as the cars blocked their view of the downed Kyle himself.
As Danny got them in the car and was about to hurry back toward the melee, Betsy grabbed his arm. “Don’t let Mick hurt Kyle,” she said.
Danny looked at her and was unable to hide his contempt. He jerked away from her and ran back to the scene.
Roz was looking at her too. And she was as floored as Danny. “You done lost your damn mind!” she said to her friend in a vernacular she knew wasn’t correct. But that was how she felt. “That man would have killed you if Mick hadn’t shown up, and you’re worried about him? Seriously, Bess?”
“I just don’t want him to hurt him.”
“Too bad. He wasn’t thinking about hurting you. Nor me. Mick isn’t going to let him throw me to the ground and punch me like I’m some dude, and get away with it!”
“I know that. But . . .” Betsy couldn’t find the words either. She choked up on her own cry.
Roz wasn’t feeling her tears right now. She was too worried about Mick. She looked out of the window again as another car drove up. A group of men, Mick’s men no doubt, got out, grabbed the bloodied and battered Kyle, who looked unconscious, and put him in their car. Danny got in with them and they drove off. Mick walked back to the limousine, looking almost menacing even to Roz, and got in the backseat across from the two ladies. He was mad as hell, Roz could tell.
She knew she had to make this right. She knew she had to explain her side of the story. She leaned forward. “We didn’t think he knew where she was,” she said.
But Mick gave her a look she was well familiar with. He was pissed, and it wasn’t just at Kyle and Betsy. “Don’t speak,” he ordered her in a voice that brook no dissent. And then the limousine drove away.
Betsy wanted to ask where they were taking Kyle, and she almost attempted to, but Roz pressed her elbow before she could. Betsy looked at Roz. Roz shook her head, as if to say: speak at your own risk.
Betsy didn’t say a word.
Nobody said a word during the entire ride back to Mick’s compound, a beautiful lake estate that was now Roz’s home too since their three-week-old marriage. Mick stared at Roz the entire time. He did not take his eyes off of her. Betsy wondered if he was having second thoughts about marrying Roz, as if even he could finally see himself how bad a match it was. In Betsy’s eyes, Roz was a good person, a person who helped people and looked out for her fellow man. Mick was a predator, a snake in the grass, a dirty dog who would just as soon kill you than deal with you. Roz, Betsy felt, deserved better. It would be a great day to Betsy if Roz could take him for everything he was worth and then the two friends went off to live together. Neither would be relying on any man forevermore. Both would have their pick of the litter.
Archie Bloom, Mick’s front gate security chief, was at the gate as the limo drove up and stopped, on Archie’s signal, at the booth. The driver pressed down the back window. Archie leaned in. “Everything alright, boss?” he asked Mick.
“Did you find out who blew the detail?” Mick asked him.
“Yes, sir. McBatten. He’s been fired.”
Mick nodded.
“The men called,” Archie said. “The package has been disposed of.” Then Archie glanced at Betsy, and saw her swollen eye. “Does anybody need medical assistance, sir? Do I need to call Blax?” Mark Blaxton was Mick’s, and now Roz’s, personal physician.
Betsy knew she could use some medical attention, but Mick wasn’t in that kind of mood. “No need to call anybody,” he said to his man.
“Good enough,” Archie said as he backed up, and then motioned for the driver to move on.
The limo proceeded to travel up the long, winding driveway that led to the front door. When the limo stopped in front the steps that led to the entrance, Betsy had worked herself up into a panic. She knew she was treading on fire, but she couldn’t hold it in another second.
“What does that mean, Mick?” Betsy asked.
Mick, seemingly for the first time since getting in the limo, actually looked at Betsy.
Betsy could feel her heartbeat quicken just from the look in his harsh eyes, but she did not back down. “What does it mean that the package has been disposed of? What does that mean?”
Roz wanted to kick Betsy’s ass for questioning Mick, and Mick let out a harsh exhale that startled Betsy. Then Mick looked at Roz. “Go inside,” he said to her.
Any other night and Roz would have argued with him. She never liked to be dismissed as if she was some child, and normally she wouldn’t have it. But she couldn’t get Betsy
to see reason. She couldn’t get a woman who was more concerned about her abuser than herself to understand the craziness of her ways. But she sensed Mick could. She hated to put Betsy in this position, but Betsy, she felt, put herself there.
Roz got out of the limousine.
Betsy wanted to follow her, and almost did, but the driver who held the door open for Roz closed it when Roz stepped out. The House Manager was waiting at the bottom step, and assisted Roz into the house. The driver walked around and got back behind the wheel of the limo. By virtue of the fact that his boss was still sitting in the limo, he knew his mission for the night was not complete.
Mick stared at Betsy during the entire interchange. He, in fact, did not utter a word until his wife was safely inside their home. Then he uttered quite a few.
“I don’t like you,” he said to Betsy. “You’re an obnoxious, self-centered user who has been using my wife.”
“She’s my friend,” Betsy spat out. “I don’t use her!”
“Shut the fuck up!” Mick blared, and Roz nearly jumped out of her skin. For a moment she forgot whom she was dealing with.
Mick calmed back down. “Despite my protestations,” he said, “Rosalind cares for you. She views you as her closest friend. And normally she is a woman of great judgment, a woman whose judgment on which I can rely. Except when it comes to you.”
Betsy knew all along he hated her. She was just waiting for the leave Roz alone hammer to drop.
“My wife, in contrast to me, likes you very much. She remembers when the two of you were struggling together on Broadway and you looked out for each other. That I understand. But she grew from those days, and you did not. Now you want to stunt her growth too. She gives and she gives, and you take and you take. But no more.”
Betsy could tell it was taking a lot for Mick to control himself. It was taking a lot for her to control herself too, because she wanted to lash out at him as badly as he wanted to lash out at her.
“I nearly died when I saw my wife entangled in your foolishness,” Mick went on. “I nearly had a heart attack when I saw that prick strike my wife. It is nothing short of a miracle that he is not dead. He’ll be an invalid for the rest of his life, I made certain of that. He’ll live to regret ever laying a hand on Rosalind Sinatra for his remaining days. He’s been taken care of. Now it’s your turn.”
Betsy was already experiencing that sense of terror she always felt whenever she was in Mick’s presence. But it was especially gripping tonight because Roz wasn’t there to protect her from him. What was he going to do to her? She’d heard all kinds of horror stories about this man. How he was a mob boss. How he was heartless. How he was as cruel as cruel could get. Was his cruelty about to be visited on her?
“My driver is going to drive you to the airport,” Mick said.
Betsy didn’t expect to hear that. “The airport?”
“My pilot is going to fly you away from Pennsylvania forever. He will fly you to whatever state you wish to go. But you will not step foot in this state again. You will not contact my wife again. If you do, you will not live to discuss that conversation.”
Betsy swallowed hard.
Mick reached into his pocket, pulled out a thick wad of cash, and reached it out to her. Betsy looked at the money as if it could be a trap. “Take it,” Mick ordered.
Betsy felt cheap, and disgusted, and she hesitated longer than Mick thought she would. But eventually she took it. Lord help her, she took it.
Mick made the phone call to his pilot to ready his plane. Ordered his limo driver to drive her to the airport. And then he moved to get out. But just before he did, he looked at Betsy again, just in case she thought he was a man who could betray his word. “If you try me,” he said, “you will regret that attempt.”
And then Mick got out of his limousine.
Tears were in Betsy’s eyes as the limo drove her away. It had been a terrible night. But as she counted the money in her possession, and realized just how much it truly was, her spirits began to lift. She was going to miss her old friend Roz, she truly was, but with this kind of cash, she thought happily, she was already missing her less and less. With this kind of cash she knew Jason, her big black stud of an ex-boyfriend in New York, would gladly take her back.
Mick watched her leave, still wondering what in the world did Rosalind see in that little ass-hustling bitch in the first place, and then went into his home.
CHAPTER THREE
Roz had already removed her blouse and bra by the time Mick arrived into their bedroom. She was in the mirror, trying to see the bruise on her upper arm. Mick stood at the door as she looked, and then he walked up to her.
“Do you see a bruise?” she asked him.
Mick saw one. Very slight. But it was there. “Does it hurt?” he asked her.
“Just a little,” she said. “I think I got it when he threw me to the pavement.”
Mick’s jaw tightened at the thought of any man throwing her anywhere. “You should not have been there in the first place,” he said to her. “And to go to some motel no less. I ought to kick your ass for that alone.”
Roz looked at him through the mirror. “You ought to try,” she warned.
But before she knew it, Mick grabbed her by her unvarnished arm and turned her angrily to him. He pressed her body against his with a look that betrayed what was in his heart. That look, that who the fuck do she think she is look, consumed his face. “Do you not believe the words I say to you?” His eyes searched hers for clues. “Do you think I will not put a hand to you?”
“I’m your wife, Mick, not your child.”
He gripped her tighter. “You’re my wife who does not seem to understand what it means to be my wife!” His anger was now on full display. “I have men who are paid to ensure your safety every hour of the day, and you know it. But you slip their detection time and time again. You behave as if I’m employing them for the hell of it. You behave as if I’m just a regular businessman who doesn’t have an enemy in this world. You behave as if I will not die if something were to happen to you!”
He hated exposing his vulnerability this way. But it was a fact. When it came to Rosalind’s safety, when it came to Rosalind’s life, he was singular in his determination to always keep her free from harm. Nobody, not even her, was going to sabotage that. “You act as if you are still that unmarried struggling actress in New York with unmarried struggling friends. Well you are not that woman anymore. You are my wife. And if you ever disobey anything I specifically tell you to do again, I will beat the shit out of you, Rosalind. I will strip you naked and beat your ass until you are unable to move, let alone slip security! Do I make myself clear to you?”
His hand was painful around her arm. And his big green eyes were ablaze with fury. She nearly died fooling around with Betsy at that motel tonight. They both might have been critically injured by that madman boyfriend of Betsy’s if Mick hadn’t shown up. He had a right to be disappointed in her. She was disappointed in herself. “It won’t happen again,” she said to him.
Mick stared at her. No one on the face of this earth would believe how much he cared for her. How could heartless Mick the Tick have a heart for anybody? But what they would never understand was that Roz had his heart. Roz had total control. And when she played with that heart by taking unnecessary chances; when she didn’t pay attention to just how much control she really had over him, it angered him. “Lay down,” he said, as he headed toward their en-suite bathroom.
Roz’s heart tightened. Was he really going there? “May I ask why?” she asked him.
He didn’t answer her, so she stayed standing where she was. It wasn’t until he was coming out of the bathroom, and she saw that tube of antibiotic ointment in his hand, did she feel better about obeying him. She laid on her back across their bed and tried not to think about that bruise or Betsy or the horror she felt when she realized Kyle was in that parking lot. When she heard Betsy’s scream, a part of her wanted to just leave. Those two dese
rved each other, was her first thought. But she couldn’t do that to Betsy. Their relationship wasn’t always one-sided. But she was no fool. She knew it was one-sided now.
Mick walked up to the bed and squeezed out a little ointment and began rubbing it onto her bruised upper arm. It burned at first, but then it felt soothing. Roz was grateful. “Thank you,” she said to him. “And I promise you I will not do anything like that again.”
“You’d better not,” Mick said.
Then Roz’s curiosity got the best of her. “Where’s Bess?” she asked.
Mick didn’t skip a beat. “Gone,” he said.
Roz looked up at him, and they shared a lingering glance. She knew he had either paid her to get lost, or had threatened to destroy her if she didn’t get lost. Either way, she knew Betsy was gone from her life. Any other night and it would have been sad. It was sad tonight too, but only because Betsy was still so far gone in her unrealistic views of life and men that Roz wondered if she would ever have clarity. But Roz realized tonight, after Bess had put her life in danger by entangling her in her mess so selfishly, that it was no longer her problem. Mick was right. Betsy was bad news.
But as Mick went back into the bathroom to return the ointment, Roz still couldn’t shake that sense of loss. She was not the kind of woman who had hundreds of friends. Her circle was purposely small. But when she lost a friend, especially the one she had pegged as her closest friend, it was a big loss. And she couldn’t help it. Tears began to appear in her eyes because she and Betsy went way back, and had a good friendship once upon a time. They looked out for each other. But those days were gone.
Mick saw the tears in his wife’s eyes when he returned from the bathroom. Betsy didn’t deserve her tears but he knew there was no telling Roz that. She was loyal and devoted and would always be that way. But she deserved better than Betsy Gable.
He removed his suit coat and tie, and then his shirt, and then he reached onto the bed and lifted her into his arms. She rested her head on his broad, bare shoulders and tried with all she had to stop those ridiculous tears. He laid on the bed, on his back, still holding her in his arms, and allowed her all the time she needed to grieve her loss. He was not a man who cultivated nor particularly wanted friends, but he knew Rosalind’s heart. He knew she would give her last to her friends. Betsy’s decampment was a big deal for her.
Mick Sinatra 3: His Lady, His Children, and Sal Page 3