Mick would have normally told her how he felt about what she didn’t appreciate, but he was too busy looking around, checking things out, determined to find some tangible evidence that Bernadette could no longer deny.
Roz was determined too. “Mother, I’m going to ask you again. I would strongly suggest you answer me, rather than have to answer to Mick. Where is his daughter? What happened to her?”
Cecil looked at Bernadette. “Bernie, what is Roz talking about?”
“Why are you asking me such a question? I have no idea what she’s talking about. She’s talking foolishness, that’s what she’s talking about! She always has!”
“Where does this door lead?” Mick asked.
Bernadette looked at him with a sudden flash of agony. It was subtle, but Roz saw it.
“It leads to the basement,” Roz said, and began heading toward that door.
“Don’t you dare go down there!” Bernadette decried. “Roz! Rosalind! Don’t you dare!”
But Roz was already opening the door and heading down. Mick, pulling out his loaded gun, hurried behind her.
“What’s this about, Bernie?” Cecil asked again.
“Help me up,” Bernadette said.
“What is this about?”
“Just shut the fuck up,” Bernadette yelled, “and help me!”
But downstairs, Mick and Roz needed no help when they saw, to their shock and joy, Gloria Sinatra sitting in a chair in the middle of the cold, damp space. She was rope tied, her mouth was covered with duct tape, and her eyes were darkened by a blindfold. But it was her. And she was alive.
“Praise God!” Roz cried as they ran down the stairs toward her. When Gloria heard Roz’s voice she began moving from side to side, trying to break free even still, as Roz and Mick ran down those stairs.
But something caught Mick’s peripheral vision, and he pulled Roz back. Roz, stunned, looked at him. He pointed toward the basement window. Roz looked too. They saw the same pickup truck that had ambushed them. It had that same red, white, and blue color. The same oversized tires.
He held Roz back. He wanted to get to his daughter too, but they had to be cautious. Gloria couldn’t tell them anything. She was blindfold and her mouth was covered. But all he knew was that the person Bernadette hired to take them out was at this home. And possibly in this very basement. He left Roz standing at the foot of the stairs, and made his way toward his daughter, his gun drawn, with his every instinct on high alert.
But he was not alert enough. Because just as Mick walked away from Roz, somebody came from a nook on the side of the stairs, and placed a gun to Roz’s head.
Roz didn’t move a muscle, but Mick sensed the danger, and quickly turned around. What he saw stunned him.
“Drop it, or she’s dead.”
Roz knew the voice. She’d known it all her life. She turned too, and was so stunned by the view that she nearly passed out. “Tyson?” she asked.
Tyson Graham was her big brother. Mick had met him once, when he and Roz came to Belt Buckle just after their engagement. He was the brother that had wanted Roz to return to Belt Buckle years ago, and work with him in his restaurant. Not in a million years would either one of them had suspected Ty.
“Drop the gun, Mick, or she’s dead.”
“Tyson,” Mick started.
But Tyson cocked his weapon. “Drop it now!” he yelled. “I’m not playing with y’all!”
Tyson had Roz in a position that did not allow Mick to take a shot. He couldn’t risk killing Roz. For that reason, and for the first time in a long time, Mick disarmed. He dropped his weapon.
For the first time in her life, Roz was so thrown by events that she could hardly think straight. Tyson was her brother. They used to be so close! “What are you doing?” she asked him.
“What I should have done a long time ago,” he said. “You’re living large in Philadelphia. Dad’s traveling the world doing his thing. Mom’s too busy worrying about herself to ever worry about me. And I’m dying. I’m dying inside and I’m drowning in debt. I lost Tyson’s Surf and Turf. I lost my restaurant. And nobody offered to help me.”
“I didn’t know,” Roz said. “I would have helped if I had known.”
“Quit lying!” Tyson blared. “You wouldn’t have given me a dime, and you know it! You didn’t know and you didn’t care to ask either. You came through here with your rich white man after being away for fifteen years, left again, and never looked back. You don’t give a damn about me either!”
Roz couldn’t believe how wrong he was. And she did ask. She phoned him every week and asked how everything was going with him. And every week he said everything was fine. She could have come around and saw about him. She was willing to take the blame for that. But he never came around and saw about her either. It was the nature of their family. And he knew it
“So we did what we had to do,” Tyson said. “My wife and I did what we had to do. We tracked down everybody who hated you, put a second mortgage on our house, and paid them to participate in the crime. It was easy for all of them. Especially Carmelo Rodriquez. After Mick’s treatment of him, he was a very willing participant. He was the one who came up with the kidnapping plot. He was the one who hired those other people, Hamilton Sturgess and Betsy Gable and all the rest of them. He was going to kidnap Roz and ask for ransom. Once he received the money, he was going to take Roz out. And then I would cash in on that insurance policy. And it would be no connection to me whatsoever. Because I’m smart. I know how to get things done. But it could never come back on us. No evidence could ever point to me or my wife. But when Mick killed Carmelo, and decapitated him, everything changed. Our whole strategy had to change.”
“And that’s when you took Gloria?”
“I had to. It was the backup plan. And it was going to work like a charm. Until that stupid cow bitch of my wife went and told that fool Devin Terranz her first name. We picked out a fake name for her to use when she met with him in Philadelphia, but she went and used her own name! I knew I had to get rid of her then.”
A strange look came over Tyson’s face. “And I did,” he continued. “I got rid of my wife. Told everybody she left because of my hard times, and I buried her in my backyard. Nobody cares about us. She run off, according to me, and everybody believed it. Nobody bothered to investigate. Nobody cares about us.”
“What do you want from Rosalind?” Mick asked. “What do you want from my daughter?”
“I had to use your daughter to put suspicion on Roz. That’s why, when she turns up dead, there will be questions about her death. I figured once your daughter’s body was found dead, and that was going to take place today before my stupid father called and asked Roz to come and see about my stupid mother. But once Gloria’s body was found dead, and that tape that put the blame on Roz was found, I figured you, Mick, was going to do the honors for me. You, Mick, was going to kill Roz for me for killing your daughter. I would wait until after you were arrested for her crime, of course. And then I was going to cash in that policy and live happily ever after.”’
“But that insurance policy isn’t in your name,” Mick said, studying his foe. “It’s in your mother’s name.”
“But I made myself the contingent beneficiary,” Tyson said. “If my mother dies before Roz did, I get the money. I was going to see to that. It was easy. I forged Roz’s name. I forged my mother’s name. It was easy.”
But when he saw a look of disgust on Mick’s face, he frowned. “You think I care about my mother? The way she’s treated me all my life? I don’t give a damn about her, and she doesn’t give a damn about me. And if she doesn’t croak before Roz does, then yes, I’ll have to take her out. And then, when all of this is over, I’m going to take that money and run. And live my life too. Free. Free as a bird.”
Roz’s heart dropped. “For money, Tyson? You were willing to do all of this damage, to see me dead, to see your own mother dead, to see an innocent girl dead, for money?”
Tyson lo
oked at Roz as if she had no clue. “Really, bitch?” he asked. “You are so far gone that you think your life, and Mom’s life, and this so-called innocent girl’s life, is worth more than two million dollars to me? Really, bitch?”
“If it’s money you want,” Mick said, “I can give it to you. You can take me hostage. Just let my wife and daughter go free. That’s all I ask. And you’ll have five million within the hour.”
Tyson stared at Mick. But it wasn’t because he believed a word Mick had just said. He wanted to test him. “I’ll let one of them go free,” he said. “And you can pick which one.”
Roz looked at Mick’s intense green eyes. And her heart slammed against her chest because she knew who he was going to pick. She knew he was going to pick her! “Gloria!” she cried before he could open his mouth. “We want Gloria to go free, and you can take the two of us.”
Mick closed his eyes in agony. He was going to do it. God help him, he was going to sacrifice his daughter for his wife! Good fathers didn’t do that. Good men didn’t do that. He just confirmed to himself, once again, that he wasn’t either.
Tyson smiled. “Saint Roz to the rescue,” he said. “But you can forget it. I wasn’t born yesterday. Sure I can take you and Mick hostage. And then I’ll get the money? And then what? Let y’all go? Let y’all go so that the great Mick the Tick could track me down, take his money back, and do me in? Not going to happen. Because guess what? I’m about to do you in, sister. Goodbye!”
“Nooo!” Mick said as he lunged toward Tyson. But the gunshot blast stopped him cold. The gunshot stopped Tyson too. It was such a powerful blast that it lifted Tyson off his feet, and slammed him against the wall. His stomach was blown open, the blood gushed out, and he slid down, dropping his gun, and died.
Roz and Mick looked upstairs. Judge Bernadette Graham was standing at the top of the stairs with the smoking shotgun in her hand. She had killed her son to save her daughter. Cecil, her ex-husband, a man who hated guns, was standing at her side.
“I told you to leave here,” Bernadette said to Roz. “That boy isn’t right in the head and never was. He hate you because you’re successful. He hate me because I’m successful. He hate Cecil because he’s living his dream. All that boy ever did was hate.”
But Roz was still confused. “You knew he had kidnapped Gloria and didn’t say anything?”
“I didn’t know that child was down there until this morning, when I heard a noise. He put her down there last night. I was trying to decide what to do about it when you and Mick showed up. I knew I had to do something, but Tyson is my child. I didn’t want him to rot in prison.”
“Now he’s rotting in hell,” Cecil said. “You can’t do wrong to do right. Wrong catches up.”
Tears appeared in Bernadette’s eyes. She slumped against Cecil. And as always, Cecil held her up. He also removed that gun from her grasp.
But when Mick and Roz came back to themselves, and realized the threat was over, but Gloria was still bound, they hurried to her side.
Mick removed the blindfold and removed the duct tape. Gloria let out a gasp of air, and a great sigh of relief. “Dad! Mom!”
“Are you alright?” Roz asked her, as Mick began loosening the rope that had her bound.
“I’m okay,” she said. She was bruised, from Devin Terranz’s beating, but she was alive.
But as soon as her hands were freed, she grabbed Roz by the catch of her blouse. “He made me make that tape,” she said. “He made me accuse you of having something to do with my kidnapping. He made me do it, Roz.” Tears were in her eyes. “He made me!”
“Oh, baby,” Roz said, pulling her into her arms. “We’re just glad to have you alive!”
Mick had tears in his eyes too. Not only because she was safe, but also because of his willingness to choose Roz over her. And because he didn’t know his daughter enough to realize she gave that tape under duress. He didn’t know what her duress looked like. Even after all of his attempts to reconcile with his children, he was still a failure as a father. There was nobody, not even Rosalind, who would deny that truth.
Gloria looked at her father. “It’s alright, Dad,” she said. “I’m alright.”
She opened her arms to him. And he went in.
EPILOGUE
Mick spend a big portion of the night making love to Roz. It was nearly a month after Gloria’s disappearance, a month after Tyson’s death, a month after the horrific discovery, by Tennessee authorities, of the body of Tyson’s wife buried deep down in his backyard. It was the first time since that time that they felt unburdened by those horrors. Roz felt especially unburdened because of the special day it was. Mick felt especially unburdened because he was back in town after a weeklong trip to India.
But when Roz woke up that morning, instead of easing out of bed without waking him, which had been her intention, he was already awake, his penis was already lodged deep inside of her, and he was fucking her again.
Roz couldn’t resist the feeling, so she didn’t mind at all. They were lying on their sides, spooning, and he had entered her from the back. His hand was resting on her stomach, a stomach no longer as flat as it used to be, as he pushed into her. She let out a sigh as she felt his fullness, and let out a groan when he hit her spot repeatedly.
She reached her hand back, placed it on the back of his head, and turned her face toward his. They began kissing as he fucked her. Mick loved doing her up and down and he was overworking her that morning. Until her orgasm came with such a heightened thrust that he came too. He poured into her. And he kept on pumping. He kept on fucking her. He kept on squeezing the life out of his release until there was nothing left.
Roz waited. She knew her husband too well. And minutes afterward, as she laid still in his arms, he fell asleep again.
Roz smiled. And finally did as she had planned to do a half hour earlier, and eased out of bed.
Mick woke up alone in bed. He was usually the early riser of the two, so it surprised him. But when he got out of bed, his dick still wet and red from fucking Roz so hard, and he did not find her in the bathroom where he expected to find her, he became worried. He put on his bathrobe and made his way downstairs.
“Rosalind?” he called out. But there was still no Rosalind. He went into the Nursery. No twins, no nannies, and no Rosalind. He went through the living room, into the kitchen, and through the dining hall. But still no sign of his wife. He went to the intercom, asked his front gate security if his wife had left already, and left with the twins, but they said no. They had not seen her, or his children, since last night.
Now Mick was really worried. He went into his study, grabbed a loaded 357 magnum from behind his display case, and searched the entirety of the house. Not even a servant was found, and they had an army of servants who were usually all over the place. He saw no one. Until he pushed open the doors that led into their ballroom, and saw Rosalind. But not just Rosalind alone. There was a room full of his family and friends, including his big brother Big Daddy Sinatra, Jenay Sinatra, and all of their children. His nephews, Tommy Gabrini and Sal Gabrini were there, along with his cousin and close friend, Las Vegas casino owner Reno Gabrini, and their wives and children too.
“Surprise!” they all said in one voice, and Mick was floored. And confused. They all realized he had a magnum in his hand, and they were confused too. And silence ensued.
“What are you surprising me for?” Mick asked.
Roz smiled. “Mick!” she said. “It’s your birthday, darling.”
But Mick frowned. “My birthday? It’s not my birthday. My birthday is three months away.”
Roz’s heart fell. Surely she wasn’t that far gone?
Then Mick smiled. Big Daddy was already smiling. “Surprise!” Mick said to his wife, and they all laughed.
But what tickled Mick the most wasn’t the surprise party itself, or even seeing all of the out-of-town family faces he saw. What warmed Mick’s heart the most was seeing all three of his grown children ther
e. Teddy was there, but he was expected to be. Mick had allowed him into his inner circle, and they were now close. But what thrilled him was seeing Joey and Gloria there too.
It had been a rough month after her disappearance. Gloria stopped speaking to him when she found out that he had detained her mother in a safe house, all but accusing her of some involvement in the disappearance. She was also angry that Fonz had been placed in a safe house too, until she found out that his new girlfriend Rita had been there with him. Joey was still on the outs with Mick after he punished him so severely for giving that DVD to Bella Caine, with Joey leaving his father’s estate with vengeance on his mind. But they were both there. Mick had a feeling that Roz coaxed and pleaded for them to show up, but it didn’t matter. They showed up. And Mick, to Roz’s delight, made sure he thanked them personally.
“Hello guys,” Mick said as he walked over to them.
“Hey, Dad,” Gloria responded.
“Hey, Dad,” said Joey.
It was awkward as hell, but Mick didn’t care. He pulled Gloria into his arms and kissed her. He pulled Joey into his arms and kissed him. “Thank you for coming,” he said to both of them. They both threw their arms around him when he hugged them, and closed their eyes to suppress their emotions. This was what they wanted more than money, fame, or anything else. They wanted their father’s love. Mick knew it too. That was why he closed his eyes in a tight squeeze, as they embraced.
When they stopped embracing, all three kind of looked away from each other to shield their teary eyes. And then the crowd of people, all of whom were there for Mick, after all, overtook him. Gloria and Joey wasn’t mad at them. They needed to regroup. They figured that was the end of that.
And it was until later, when Mick was standing in front of the enormous cake, with Roz at his side and the twins, one a piece, in their arms. Joey and Gloria and Teddy had been called over by Roz, and were at Mick’s side too. The whole family. But when Joey got to the table, and he saw the cake, he couldn’t resist. Joey had to be Joey.
Mick Sinatra 4: If You Don't Know Me by Now Page 18