Mick Sinatra 4: If You Don't Know Me by Now

by Mallory Monroe

  “Against me?” Roz asked. “Again?”

  When she said that last word, Mick stared at her. Because he realized something profound. He pulled out his cell phone.

  “What is it?” Roz asked him.

  Mick found the number he was looking for, pressed it, and his man in New York answered. “This is Sinatra,” he said.

  “What do you need, boss?”

  “Find that cocksucker that was with Carmelo.”

  “The one in the motel?”

  “Yeah. The one who was supposed to be the messenger. When you find him, you safe house him, and then call me.”

  “Yes, sir,” the man said, and Mick killed the call.

  Roz was waiting for an explanation.

  “I let him get away,” Mick said. “To be the messenger to anybody else who would attempt to do you harm.”

  “And you think he’s behind this?”

  “I know he’s not,” Mick said. “But he may know who is. I thought it began with Hamilton Sturgess and Betsy Gable, and ended with Carmelo Rodriquez. But now,” Mick said, his face revealing his deep concentration, as he pulled his wife closer against him, “I’m thinking it didn’t end there. They were just the beginning.”

  Roz looked at him. “The beginning of what?” she asked.

  An anguished look appeared on Mick’s face. “Your destruction,” he said.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The SUVs came to a rolling stop in front of the small duplex. Mick and Teddy, both in long, black coats and gloves to shield against the biting cold weather, stepped out of the first SUV. Four more men stepped out of the second one.

  Two of the men moved up front as Teddy and Mick surveyed the area.

  “Should I knock, boss?” one of the men asked Mick when they arrived at the door of apartment number 1.

  Mick looked at Teddy.

  “I got it,” Teddy said as he moved in front, leaned back, and with his expensive shoes, kicked the door in. The two body men hurried inside, running straight for the small bedroom, their guns drawn. Mick, and then Teddy, walked in behind them.

  Fonz fell out of the bed in shock when the door kicked in, and the woman in bed with him moved up to the back of the headboard, covering her nakedness with a sheet.

  “I didn’t mean it, sir,” Fonz said, his hands high in the air as if Mick and his men were the police.

  “You didn’t mean what?” Mick asked, stepping in front.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt her! I was going to tell her it was over between us. That I loved Rita instead. She knew we were having problems.”

  Mick was staring at him so hard his look alone had Fonz’s heart palpitating.

  “Where is she?” Teddy asked.

  “I was gonna tell her, I promise. . . I was . . . what?” Fonz was only just realizing that Mick Sinatra, Teddy Sinatra, and their armed henchmen would not have broken down his door just because he was cheating. “Where is she?” he asked.

  “Where is my sister?” Teddy asked.

  “I don’t know,” Fonz said. “I haven’t seen her.”

  Teddy kicked him in the chin, causing him to fall backwards. The woman screamed. “Don’t fuck with us, Fonz! Where’s Gloria?”

  “I told you I don’t know! I haven’t seen her!”

  “You’re lying, you lying sonafabitch!” Teddy kicked him again.

  “I don’t know where she is! I don’t know! I’m not lying, Teddy. I don’t know!”

  “When was the last time you saw her?” Teddy asked.

  “I was supposed to see her last night. To tell her it was over. I went by her condo, but she wouldn’t let me in. I called her on my cell phone, but she wouldn’t answer my calls either. I figured she knew about Rita, so I left.”

  “You didn’t try to go inside of her place?”

  “Hell no,” Fonz said. “Glo didn’t play that. She never gave me a key. So I looked in the parking garage, to see if her car was there and she was just mad at me because she knew what was coming, but her car wasn’t there. So I figured she wasn’t home, and left.”

  “And you haven’t heard from her?”

  “Not a word,” Fonz said.

  Teddy looked at his father. Mick’s men looked too.

  “Take him to the safe house,” Mick said, “until we find her.”

  “What about the girl?” one of Mick’s men asked.

  Mick looked at the girl. No more stones left unturned. “Take her too,” he ordered. Then he left.

  Teddy kicked Fonz one more time, in the head this time, causing him to fall over. “That one’s for breaking my sister’s heart, you prick!” And then Teddy left too.

  Mick was getting in the SUV, with his driver holding open the door, when Teddy made it back outside. He walked around the SUV and got in beside his father. He looked at him. He could see the pain all over his face. “We’re gonna find her, Pop,” he said.

  But Mick wasn’t interested in platitudes. He saw that blood. He heard her screams. And that blasted video! What did that mean? Why would they go through Gloria, if Rosalind was the target? What was he missing? He frowned. He was missing something that was right in front of him. He could feel it. But what was it? And now his child was in danger. Or even worse.

  Mick had never felt more anxious in all of his life.

  And then his cell phone rang. “We’ve got him, boss,” the caller said.

  Mick almost asked who, but he already knew.

  Mick’s plane was on the tarmac, ready to take off again, when Mick and Teddy arrived. But they weren’t flying anywhere. They were going to see somebody Mick had flown in: Carmelo’s sidekick. A man they called Hook.

  Hook’s eyes were swollen shut, and his hands and feet were in shackles, as he sat on the floor of the plane. Mick sat on the seat in front of him. Hook looked up. He could barely make out shapes through the slit of light still in his eyes. When he realized it was Mick the Tick, when he realized the man who had so decisively took out Melo was the man behind his imprisonment, he began screaming and tried to back up.

  “Shut the fuck up!” Teddy yelled.

  “I told everybody, just like you said,” he cried to Mick. “I didn’t do anything wrong, I promise!”

  “Who hired Carmelo?” Mick asked.

  Hook was confused. “Who hired him?”

  “Who hired Carmelo to kidnap my wife?”

  “Nobody. I mean, somebody, but I don’t know who. She never revealed herself.”

  She? Teddy looked at his father.

  “Who never revealed herself?” Mick asked.

  “The lady,” Hook said. “She would never reveal herself.”

  “Describe her?” Teddy asked.

  “She was black. Pretty. Long hair. I don’t know!”

  It could have been Gloria herself, and both Mick and Teddy knew it. “Did this black chick have a name?” Teddy asked.

  “Yeah, but I don’t know it. I don’t remember it at all.”

  “What about Gloria?” Teddy asked.

  Hook shook his head. “I don’t know. I told you I don’t know!”

  “But it could have been Gloria?”

  “Yeah. Could have been.”

  Mick stood up, frustrated again. “Get him out of my face,” he said, as he began to pace around inside his plane.

  His men quickly grabbed Hook and carried him to the far back of the plane. Teddy stayed with his father.

  “Gloria wouldn’t be involved in no shit like this, Pop,” he said. “I know her. She doesn’t hate Roz like that. She might have had some hate for you. We all did, a little. But never for Roz. What did she ever do to Glo?”

  Mick looked at his son. He always gave him the unvarnished truth, no matter how painful, and he loved him for that. “Maybe it’s not what Rosalind did, but what she caused to have happened.”

  “Like what, Pop?”

  “Like having the twins. Like making it possible for me to get it right with them, where I failed with you, Gloria, and Joey.”

  Tedd
y thought about it too. “Like Roz having your attention,” he said, “when Gloria wanted more of it. Yeah, I know she wanted more. We all do.”

  Another truth. Another failure by Mick.

  “But why would she try to have Roz kidnapped in New York?” Teddy asked. “And why would she stage her own kidnapping?”

  “The same reason she would make a video and point the finger at Roz. That,” Mick said, “I know is a lie. Why would she lie?”

  Teddy exhaled. It didn’t sound like Gloria to him. Not even that lie.

  “More?” Roz asked as she was about to pour herself more coffee.

  “No, I’m good,” Joey said, covering the rim of his coffee cup. “I just wish I knew what was going on.”

  Roz wished she knew too. But she knew they had to wait. They were back upstairs, at the center island in the kitchen. The twins and their nannies, along with guards and Deuce, were downstairs in the safe rooms of the estate.

  Joey looked at Roz. “I saw the video,” he said.

  Roz stared at him. “You saw it? When?”

  “After Dad left. I went in his study. And I saw it.”

  Roz knew getting Joey to understand that she had nothing to do with Gloria’s disappearance, despite what Gloria said on that video, was useless. He was the kind of young man who was going to believe what he was going to believe.

  “What was that about?” he asked her.

  “It was about Gloria pointing a finger at me.”

  “But why would she do that, if you have nothing to hide? I know Glo. She’s not like that. She loves you.”

  Roz thought so too. “I love her,” Roz said. “And I’m not like that either. I had nothing to do with her disappearance.”

  “Dad believe you?” Joey asked. Then he frowned. “What am I saying? Dad believes you, no matter what you tell him. He’ll believe you over any of us, because he puts you ahead of us. You know that, right?”

  Roz knew she held a special place in Mick’s heart. She probably also knew, if she were to be honest with herself, that he did place her above his children. It was wrong, and he had to know it was wrong. But that didn’t negate their special place in his heart. “He loves you, Joey,” she said to him.

  “Not like he loves you though,” Joey fired back. “You’re his special angel. Me and Glo, and even Teddy, are his special burdens. He never gave a damn about us, he just threw money at us. Until he met you. Until you made him pay us some attention. Now maybe it’s payback time.”

  Roz studied Joey. Did he know something about Gloria’s disappearance? Was he involved? Was this some elaborate plot by him and Gloria to get their father’s attention? Mick suggested this whole thing might have had to do with her. But was he wrong? Maybe, as usual, it all had to do with him, and yet another one of his past sins. “Do you know where your father can find Gloria?” Roz decided to ask pointblank.

  Joey frowned. “If I knew I would have told him. Why would you think I wouldn’t have told him? That’s my sister. Daddy wasn’t there for us, but we’ve always been there for each other. Gloria and me and Teddy are as close as close can get and nobody’s taking that away from us. He took Adrian away from us, but that’s it. That’s all. He’ll never break us apart.”

  The bitterness in Joey’s voice was palpable. Roz knew they had a problem. She knew Mick’s children still held a major grudge against him. But she thought they were all coming around. Mick was trying to be the father he should have been long ago, and they were trying to build a relationship with him. But had something changed? Had it all regressed and even Mick didn’t see it coming?

  As she moved to drink more coffee, she heard the front door open. Her distressed heart relaxed when she saw Mick and Teddy walk through that door. But her relaxation quickly eroded when she saw Mick’s face. “Did he know anything?” Roz asked as he made his way to the sofa.

  “Nothing,” Teddy answered for his father. “The cheating dog.”

  “He was cheating on her?” Joey asked.

  “Had a bitch in bed with him when we arrived,” Teddy said.

  “What?” Joey asked. But as Teddy took a seat next to Joey and began to fill him in, Roz couldn’t care less about Fonz’s infidelity. She was staring at Mick. She went to him.

  Mick removed his coat and tossed it across the room, and then slouched down in the middle of the sofa. Roz went to him and sat beside him.

  “The twins okay?” Mick asked her.

  “They’re fine, Mick,” Roz said. She took his hand and began to rub it. “I’m concerned about you.”

  Mick placed an arm around her waist. She leaned against him. “I’m concerned about you.”

  “You know I’m fine. But what did you find out? Anything?”

  “Not a thing.”

  She paused. “Joey saw the video.”

  Mick looked at her. “How did that happen? You let him see it?”

  “I didn’t let him do any such thing. You know me better than that. He said he went into your study and saw it himself.” Then a different look came over her face.

  Mick pulled her closer. “What is it?”

  “Joey acts as if he . . . I don’t know.” She looked at Mick. “He’s still very upset with you.”

  Mick nodded. “He is,” he said, as he looked over at his son. Teddy and Joey were still in conversation. “And the evidence is leading---

  “To an inside job?” Roz asked.

  She never ceased to amaze Mick. “How did you know?”

  “The way Joey’s acting. The things he says. But it can’t be true, Mick. Your children wouldn’t do something like this. Gloria’s too levelheaded, and Joey wouldn’t know where to begin.”

  “In a way I wish it was a set up,” Mick said. “I wish Gloria is somewhere laughing right now.” A pain shot through Mick’s heart. “But I feel pain every time I say her name. It’s no setup.”

  Roz agreed. “No,” she said.

  “But where is she, Rosalind?” Mick had anguish in his voice. “I have searched everywhere. My men have searched everywhere. We have questioned everybody with any knowledge of Gloria whatsoever. Even the guy they fought in the parking lot of that nightclub. We retraced her every step.”

  “And nothing?”

  “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.” But Mick looked at his sons as they continued their conversation. He didn’t want to go there. But he was also not the kind of man to leave stones unturned. “Joe, Ted,” he said to his two sons.

  Roz looked as both of them, like the children they sometimes became around Mick, hurried to his side. She had a feeling what Mick was about to ask them, and it concerned her. She sometimes wondered if Mick realized just how precarious his relationship with his children still was.

  “Yes, sir?” Joey asked eagerly.

  “Do either of you know anything about your sister’s disappearance?”

  Joey frowned. “Do we know about it?”

  “Did either of you have anything to do with it?”

  Teddy didn’t take offense at all. He knew everybody had to be cleared. “No, sir,” he said. “I didn’t.”

  But Joey was completely offended. He started moving around, with the thick gold chain around his neck bobbing, the way he usually behaved when he felt agitated, or threatened. “Why you asking us something like that? She’s our sister, though. She’s our flesh and blood! Why would you think we would have something to do with her disappearance? We weren’t the ones she said on her computer had something to do with it. Why aren’t you accusing her?” He said this and nodded toward Roz. “Why are you checking us? She’s the one you need to check.”

  Mick was seething and about to lash out at his young son, and Roz knew it. She squeezed his hand, and answered for him. “Just because she said I’m involved doesn’t make me involved, Joey.”

  “But it makes you more involved than I am,” Joey fired back. “I mean, think about it, Dad. Think with your head up here, though, not with the one down there.”

  Mick stood up so fast it caused
Joey to step back. Mick was ready to kick the shit out of his son. Even Teddy was shocked by Joey’s boldness, and would have encouraged the ass kicking. But Roz stood up just as fast as her husband had, and held him back. “Mick, wait!” she decried. “Hear him out. Please. Let him have his say!”

  Teddy stared at his stepmother. She was still a young woman. She wasn’t all that much older than he was. And to be Mick the Tick’s wife carried the kind of burden even being Mick the Tick’s son didn’t carry. But she carried it with grace. She carried it with class. He had nothing but respect for Rosalind Sinatra.

  Joey was surprised by Roz’s support, but it didn’t erase his bitterness. His father placed her above him. She had the place in his father’s life that his father’s children should possess, and it bothered him no end. He liked Roz. He even cared for her in his own way. But after those twins were born everything changed. His father changed. His father moved him and Gloria and Teddy even further away from the center of his life. Joey would never be so heartless as to blame the twins. They were innocents too. But he blamed Roz. She, he felt, could do more to make his father see the error of his ways and give them more of his time. As far as he was concerned, Roz was his stiffest competition. His only competition.

  Mick let out a sharp exhale. He didn’t take shit from anybody, not least of which his own children. But for Roz’s sake, he was willing to hear him out. “Speak,” he said to Joey.

  Joey wasn’t accustomed to having the floor. But that bitterness was eating him alive, and he knew it. He took the floor. He took it gladly. “Glo recorded that message about Ma on her computer,” he said. “Most girls her age would do something like that on their cell phones. Wouldn’t they? Who sits at a big-ass computer to record a message when their cell phone will do? I mean, who does that? Teddy just told me she took the DVD she had recorded and placed it in her safe. Like she wanted something left behind. I didn’t know she even had a safe in that condo.” He looked at his big brother. “Did you?”

  Teddy shook his head. “No,” he said.

  “But, Dad, you knew about that safe,” Joey said to his father. “So she left that tape for you to find. Because she knew, like we know, how you are. She knew you would never suspect Ma. She knew you would suspect your own sons, your own flesh and blood, before you ever suspected her. And even though she told you with her own mouth who would be responsible if something ever happened to her, you still want to point a finger at me and Ted. It’s wrong, Pop. It’s as wrong as it can be. Why would I harm my own sister? They said blood was all over that condo. Why would I do something like that? Why would you even think that I could?”