“Back to you,” Mick said. “Tell me why your day has been so lousy?”
Roz let out a sigh of frustration. “Where do I begin?” she asked. “One of my clients was promised a juicy role, the best of her career, but it didn’t materialize. And I’m the one who has to tell her the big break she thought she was going to have is not going to happen. I’m the one who has to tell her that her dream is not going to come true. At least not right now. Then, not one, but three contracts came back with clauses I can’t let my clients support, which means they won’t be getting those gigs after all. Which means they may have to find alternative means to support themselves. It’s just a headache, man.”
But Mick knew there was more. He continued to stare at her.
And then, as she stood behind her desk, she got to the more. She got to the meat of the matter. “And then,” she continued, “I saw somebody I would have rather not seen.”
Mick placed his hands in his pants pocket beneath his buttoned suit coat and began walking toward her desk. For some reason, stone cold killers didn’t scare him the way losing Roz to somebody else did. “Who did you see?” he asked. A former lover? he wanted to ask.
“A former student,” she said before he had a chance. “He was a student when I owned that actor’s studio in New York.”
When Mick first met Roz, she taught acting to old and young alike, and was a struggling actress herself. But Mick still didn’t get the nexus. “Why seeing a former student caused you to have a bad day?” he asked her.
“Let’s just say it didn’t end well,” Roz said. “He didn’t think I was a very good teacher, he didn’t think I taught him a thing, and he didn’t like it. It was just a mess.”
Mick continued to stare at Roz. He knew that couldn’t be all. Or was Cathleen, as usual, exaggerating? “Cat said she saw you fleeing Akon’s as if you’d seen a ghost.”
Roz shook her head. “Really? No! I mean, I left, yeah, because I didn’t want to get into any confrontation with some disgruntled former student, but I wouldn’t describe my exit the way she did. I didn’t even see her at that restaurant. I didn’t know she was even there.”
Mick could see the strain on Roz’s pretty face, as if all she needed right now was to see a student she disliked, and to know that Cathleen Thomas witnessed her displeasure. He began moving behind her desk. “You looked stressed,” he said.
“I’m okay, truly,” Roz said, sitting down behind her desk. “I just need to slow my behind down,” she added. “That’s all I need.”
“I know what you need,” Mick said as he walked toward her.
Roz looked at him. She knew that look on his gorgeous face. “Do you now?” she asked.
“I do,” he said, staring deep into her eyes. He now stood between the desk and her chair.
“And what’s that?” she asked.
Mick knelt his big body down, lifted her skirt up to her waist, removed her panties completely, and opened her up. “This,” was all he said, as he gave her pussy one long lick that caused Roz to shiver.
“Oh,” she said in a voice that was suddenly breathless. “But do you have time for this?” She certainly hoped he did!
“I’m late for a meeting,” he said, and then licked her again, “but fuck the meeting. I’m fucking this first.”
Roz could feel every inch of her smooth, brown skin flush as his mouth moved into her vagina and began to eat her. And that former student and Jerry Copeland and Cathleen Thomas could all go do themselves because Mick was doing her. And he knew how to do her. He knew how to lick her in that perfect spot over and over, and eat her until her vaginal juices flowed straight into his mouth. And he ate it up. He ate her so masterfully that she wanted to slide out of that chair, get on that damn floor, and let him fuck her senseless.
But Mick was in control of her pleasure. And he wasn’t going to have his woman wallowing on some dirty office floor. His dick was getting hard as a rock as he mouth-fucked her. But he knew he could only go so far. Because this wasn’t about him getting his pleasure. It was about her getting hers. And he was going to do her until she came. Until those vaginal juices he was sucking up became so wet and so hot that there was nothing for her to do but cum and cum and lift out of her skin with cum.
And Roz was close to that point already. Her hands had gripped his silky black hair, and was moving his head up and down between her legs as if his mouth was a dick riding her pussy. She loved that he came to her. She loved that he took time out of his crazy schedule to come and see about her. Cathleen might have thought she was telling some bad secret. She might have thought she was telling some news about Roz and some man to drive a wedge between Roz and her real man. But all she did was drive them closer. Because every time Mick mouth-fucked her, she felt as if yet another little part of her was his to keep.
She was wet, and getting wetter as Mick did her, and she was on the brink of an orgasm with every moment ticking by. She was going to enjoy her climax. Because Mick was right: she needed this!
But then a knock was heard on her office door. Mick was down too low to be seen from the door, but Roz began to panic anyway because she knew it was her secretary. And she knew that after her secretary knocked, she was going to barge right in.
“Tee’s going to come in,” Roz said in a voice of panic.
“Fuck Tee,” Mick said in a breathless voice as he continued to mouth-fuck Roz.
But Roz was right. Her secretary, Teegan Salley, didn’t hesitate. She threw open the door and peeped inside. She held a file and a small plate in her hands. “Sorry to disturb you, boss,” she said, and was about to progress toward the desk.
“What is it, Tee?” Roz asked urgently and Tee, thankfully for Roz, stopped in her tracks.
“I need your signature on the Hogan addendum before we submit the final alterations,” Tee said. “And, on a lighter note, I have this slice of cake you have got to try. Min baked it and brought it to work today and wanted to make sure I saved you a slice. It’s red velvet, your favorite. And it is so good, boss!”
“Not now,” Roz said, trying to keep her composure even as Mick continued to lick and suck and mouth-fuck her.
Then Tee frowned. Something seemed off to her. Roz’s body seemed higher in her chair, as if she was lifting up, and her face looked contorted. “Are you okay, boss?” she asked.
“Un hun,” Roz managed to say. “Fine.”
“And where’s Mr. Gabrini?” Tee asked, suddenly looking around. “I didn’t see him leave.”
Then she saw Roz lift slightly as, unbeknownst to Tee, Mick bit her. And it was only then, after Roz had lifted slightly in her chair, that Tee saw that hooded, lustful look on her employer’s face. And she was now mortified that she had interrupted something very, very important.
“I mean, it can wait,” Tee suddenly said. “The addendum I mean. And the cake too! He can eat it later. I mean, you can eat it later. I mean . . .” She didn’t know what she meant any more. She scrunched up her face, and just left, closing the door behind her.
Roz hit Mick upside his head. “Nice bite at the exact wrong time,” she said.
But then he bit her again, and again, and went down so hard on her that she forgot all about Tee. She began sliding down her chair in lustful groans, with Mick’s hands holding her up by her bare ass. She was now in the throes of her orgasm. She was now in full clench. And nothing else mattered, not anything, except the way her man was making her feel.
When her orgasm finally ceased, and her pussy finally stopped pulsating wildly, Mick got off his knees, and then lifted her into his arms. Roz felt so complete and satisfied that she wrapped her legs around him again, and hugged him tighter than even he was hugging her.
“Thank you,” she said as she laid her head on his shoulder. “I needed that.”
Mick smiled. He placed his hand on the back of her soft hair and closed his eyes. He loved that he could read her. He loved that he had what she needed at this moment in her life. He only hoped it was en
ough to keep that stress from reappearing.
After a few minutes, she leaned back and looked at him. She knew him. He was a very sensual man. “Don’t you want some too?” she asked. She knew she had no strength to give him any, not after the kind of orgasm she had just experienced. But right was right. He deserved some too.
“You know I want it,” Mick responded, staring in her lovely eyes. “But I’m late already.” He held her against him again. “We have dinner with the children tonight,” he reminded her. “But after dinner, I’ll get mine. Don’t you worry.” He looked at her. “It’ll be payback time then.”
Roz smiled. They kissed. And he left.
But Roz had just grabbed her panties off of the floor, and was about to go into her adjacent bathroom to clean herself up, when Tee came in again.
“I am so sorry, boss,” she said heartfelt. “I am so sorry! I had no idea he was doing . . . I mean, he was . . .” Then Tee realized her new error. “It’s probably better left unsaid,” she said. “Isn’t it?”
Roz smiled and nodded. “Always,” she responded.
And Tee, in total agreement with her boss, backed out of the office, and left.
Roz smiled thinking about the look on her sweet secretary’s face. Teegan was a joy to have on her team. But as Roz continued walking toward her bathroom, and began to think about those same thoughts she had been thinking about before Mick showed up, she still couldn’t shake the feeling. Seeing Chad Dawkins again was not something easily forgotten. It was still affecting her. Because his sudden appearance seemed to portend something else. Something dangerous. Like a warning red light in her mind that wouldn’t stop flashing.
CHAPTER THREE
“Ma, I gotta go!”
“Did you hear what I said?”
“Yeah, I heard you! I heard both of y’all. But y’all are just saying words. Dad will beat my ass again if I come at him like that.”
Cathleen and Hillary looked at each other. They were in the driveway at Joey’s house. Joey was hurrying to his Dodge Charger. They were hurrying behind him.
“If you don’t put him in his place, he’ll never respect you, Joe,” Cathleen, his mother, insisted. “That’s why he respects Teddy. Teddy don’t take any crap from him.”
Joey couldn’t believe she was putting him in that category. “And Teddy is way older than I am,” he reminded her, “and was a gangster before Dad even knew he was a gangster.”
“And now he’s his right hand man,” Hillary said. “That should have been my boy standing beside him. That should have been Adrian’s spot. But he’s gone. My baby’s dead at the hands of his own father. At the hands of your father. The bastard.”
Joey stood at his car and looked at the two beautiful but bitter women. His mother was angry at his father because he cut her off financially when she disrespected Roz. Hillary was angry at his father because he was forced to kill her only child, and Mick’s oldest son Adrian, when he tried to kill Roz. They were two bitter women who hated Mick and despised Roz. And they wanted Joey to get their revenge.
But what they didn’t understand was that Joey had changed. He and his father had had an awful confrontation not long ago. So awful that Joey still bore the scars Mick put on him. But he realized that day what his half-brother Adrian must have realized in his final moments: that if you crossed Mick Sinatra in any way, you were no longer his son, but his enemy. And he showed no mercy to enemies.
“I don’t know what y’all expect of me,” Joey said, his arms reached out and hands palm up. He wore oversized pants that hung slightly below his waist, an oversize Philadelphia Flyers shirt tucked in, and a big medallion gold chain around his neck. He was hip hop to his core. A dark-haired Eminem. But he was questioning his gangster ways now. They hadn’t gotten him anything but trouble, and his father’s wrath.
But his mother and Adrian’s mother didn’t see it that way. “We expect you to stand up for yourself so that Mick can respect you again,” Cathleen said. “We need you in his inner circle, Joey. We need you to hear things, and tell us what’s going on. Mick cut me off financially. What if he cuts you off? Where would we be then?”
“It’s just dinner for crying out loud,” Joey said with exaggerated hand movements, his frustration with the pair evident. He supported his mother now, but mainly on his old man’s dime. He understood her fears. But how was that his problem? “All I’m going to do is have dinner with Dad and Roz, and with Glo and Ted. How am I supposed to get in Dad’s inner circle at dinner?”
“You show strength, that’s how,” Hillary said. “Because your mother is right, boy. And just like he cut her off, he can cut me off too. I rely on those coins Mick gives me. He took Adrian. I don’t have anybody else to help me.”
“But what does this have to do with me?” Joey asked, with the frustrated hand movements again.
“Mick doesn’t like weak people,” Hillary explained. “If you continue to be his whipping boy, if you continue to be weak like that, he’ll cut you off too. I’m telling you he will!”
Cathleen placed her hands on either side of her son’s arms. “Look son,” she said, “I know you’re frustrated. I know you don’t know what to do. But that’s why you need to trust us. We have your best interest at heart. Your father sure as hell don’t, or he would have never beat on you the way he did. We need you to hear us. We need you to find out what’s going on for us. Because we have a plan.”
Joey looked at his mother as if she had lost her mind. “A plan against who? Dad?” Then his heart began to pound. “Ma, he’ll kill you if you try to come against him!”
“Not him,” Cathleen said.
“Then who?” Joey asked.
“When did everything change between you and your father?” Cathleen asked him. “When did he cut me off? When did he kill Adrian?”
Then Cathleen answered her own question. “When Rosalind Graham hit the scene,” she said to her young son. “That’s when everything changed! That’s when your father kicked us to the curb!”
Joey knew a part of that wasn’t true. He knew his father had kicked him to the curb from the day he was born, and his mother shortly after. But a part of it was true too. Everything did change, and changed for the worst, when Roz came along.
“Just toughen up, Joey,” Hillary said. “Be strong enough that Mick will keep you in the room.”
“And we don’t mean that mailroom he had you working in at his corporation,” Cathleen reminded him. “We mean the main room where Teddy and Gloria gets to be. And you tell us what’s going on with that bitch Roz. You tell us what they’re arguing about, because I hear they fight like cats and dogs. I hear he beats her ass too. Because I promise you, baby,” Cathleen added, moving closer to her son, her hand massaging his spiky black hair, “we’re going to get rid of that stain. We’re going to ease her black ass right out of the picture. And when we do, you’ll be right there to ease right back in beside your father. Where you rightfully belong. And you’ll be his rightful heir. Not Teddy. Not Glo. You. Because I’m depending on you, baby. And now that Adrian’s gone, Hillary is depending on you too. You won’t let us down. Will you?”
Joey knew something had to happen. He also knew Roz was more the cause of their problems than not. But he also knew his father. His father could smell a rat a mile away. If he wasn’t careful, instead of landing at his father’s side, he just might land at Adrian’s side: in a pine box too.
“I won’t let you down,” Joey said, got in his Charger, and sped away.
Hillary looked at Cathleen as Cathleen watched Joey get away. “Can we trust him to do it?” she asked.
“He’s my son, isn’t he?” Cathleen asked. “Of course we can!”
Hillary wasn’t as certain as Cat. Joey was a weakling in her eyes. But he was all they had.
“I still can’t believe they got away with that shit. How did they get away with it, boss?”
Danny Padrone was just one of several underbosses sitting in front of Mick. He couldn’t beli
eve it. Angelo Jovanni couldn’t believe it. Nobody assembled in that room could believe it.
“The last time somebody hit us like that,” Angelo said, “it was an inside job. But none of our people would have pulled shit like this. We checked everybody and then triple checked them. Somebody’s toying with our asses.”
“How did it go with Barry Criggs?” Danny asked Mick. “His crew was the one responsible for delivery. His crew was the one that dropped the ball. What’s his excuse?”
“Who gives a fuck?” Mick asked. “There’s no excuse. His entire crew understands that now.” Mick was at the head of the table. They were inside the backroom of Angelo’s shell company: a healthy foods store in the Italian Market district of South Philly. It was one of the many command centers when they needed to assemble. They never assembled at Sinatra Industries, unless it couldn’t be helped.
“Damn right no excuses,” Danny echoed the boss. “They allowed it to happen and now we have no merchandise. This was supposed to be out biggest take of the year. Our foot soldiers were depending on that shipment. How could Criggs fuck up our biggest shipment of the year?”
“You should hear the complaints,” Angelo chimed in. “It’s like we stole Christmas or something. Nobody’s happy. Everybody’s angry. What are we gonna do, boss? We have the best of the best. They’ll walk if we can’t provide them merchandise.”
“Another shipment is coming,” Mick said.
Danny frowned. “You re-upped already?”
“When will it get here?” Angelo asked.
“Tomorrow.”
“Night?”
“Morning,” Mick said.
“I take it you have a plan to avoid that shit from happening again,” Angelo said.
“What do you think?” Mick asked. “We’ll get together with the logistics later. I’ve got a dinner date tonight.”
“But what do we do?” Danny asked. “Do we need to put the word on the street that a shipment’s coming. To entice a hit?”
Mick Sinatra: The Harder They Fall Page 3