But when the song ended and everybody on the dance floor began clapping, and that same man whispered something in Roz’s ear, Charles braced himself. Was the guy nuts? But Roz smiled and nodded, as if she appreciated whatever he had said to her, and then the guy left her side and headed for the bar.
Mick pushed away from that backwall. But instead of heading over to Roz where Charles assumed he was heading, Mick headed for the bar too.
The man, a Montreal native and one of the managers at the hugely popular nightclub Hammer Reese owned, leaned over the bar counter. “Two beers,” he said to the bartender working the reception, who also happened to work at Hammer’s nightclub too. The bartender quickly sat two beer-filled mugs up on the countertop.
“Thanks, Dave,” the manager said with a smug grin as he grabbed the mugs. “I’m about to get laid, my boy, and with a high-class bitch at that! She thinks I’m just getting her a drink. But in truth? I’m just getting her started.” He laughed and then quickly turned to hurry back over to Roz. But he turned so swiftly that he didn’t realize Mick was upon him. He almost bumped into Mick, and almost spilled both drinks. “Damn!” he said, surprised. “Excuse you!”
But instead of allowing the manager to sidestep him, as he was attempting to do, Mick leaned his mouth to the man’s ear. “Touch her again,” he said to him in a hard monotone that sounded like, and was, a warning.
The manager, confused, looked at Mick angrily, ready to fire back at him. Until he realized he was looking into the coldest green eyes he’d ever seen. And suddenly, as if a lightbulb had just gone off, he realized who he was about to cuss out. They stared at each other a moment longer, and then Mick walked away.
The manager, stunned, turned back toward the bartender. “Was that?” the man began asking.
But the bartender was already grinning and nodding his head, and he finished the manager’s sentence. “That was Mick Sinatra,” he said. “You know, like John Gotti? Like Al Capone? Yes it was that guy!”
“And the woman?” the man asked, his eyebrows netting.
The bartender answered that question for him too. “Mick Sinatra’s wife,” he said. “The woman you were trying to bump and grind is Mick Sinatra’s wife, yes, sir, yes indeed.” He was unable to stop grinning and nodding his head.
The manager nearly dropped the glasses of beer when he realized what he’d done, but he sat them up on the bar counter instead. And then he quickly took off toward the back entrance. When the bartender looked, the young manager was running. The bartender laughed. He couldn’t wait to tell the club crew, he thought happily.
But before he could call one of the waitresses over who was also working the reception, the announcement they’d all been waiting for came over the loudspeaker. “The bride and groom are leaving! The bride and groom are leaving! Everybody come outside and see them off to their enchanted honeymoon!”
And everybody in the ballroom hurried outside, to see Hammer and Amelia on their way.
CHAPTER TWO
By the time Mick made his way outside, Amelia had already tossed her bouquet and Nikki, the fiancée of Mick’s oldest son Teddy, had caught it. And while Hammer was saying his goodbyes to Trevor Reese and Carly, and to the Gabrinis, Amelia looked around. When she finally saw her brooding big brother, she quickly ran up the steps and over to Mick. She hugged his neck and whispered in his ear. “Don’t lose Roz, you motherfucking idiot,” she said to him, and then kissed him on the cheek and ran back down the steps before he could slap her. The newlyweds kissed their little boy, got into their just-married, decked-down limo, and were whisked away.
Mick leaned against one of those massive pillars Hammer had all around his compound, and watched them drive away. Don’t lose Roz, Millie had warned him, as if he was the one who caused all that shit. As if he could just lose Rosalind the way he could lose a coin.
He looked over at Roz. And found himself staring at her again. Why couldn’t he stop staring at his own wife? Losing her wasn’t an option, that was the conclusion he’d reached even before Amelia’s little warning, but how in the world was he going to win her back when he wasn’t able to hold a conversation with her yet? In that ballroom, when she approached him, he was so afraid she was coming to tell him that their marriage was over, he couldn’t bear to hear it. And he just walked away. He wasn’t losing her, not to the great Billy Lancer, not to anybody. But he wasn’t ready to forgive and forget either.
But he noticed a trend. After Hammer and Amelia left, all of the Sinatra and Gabrini clan were hugging Roz and comforting Roz and saying their goodbyes to Roz as they piled into their various limousines. Even Mick’s underboss and closest son Teddy, and his daughter Gloria, were solicitous to Roz. And although all of them nodded their goodbyes to Mick at a distance, and his twins came and gave him a hug goodbye, too, they were looking at him as if they just knew he was the one at fault. What could sweet, angelic Roz ever do? But he didn’t give a shit. They could believe whatever they wanted to believe. It wasn’t any of their business anyway.
He watched as the twins got into the limousine with his grown children, Teddy, Joey and Gloria, and Teddy’s fiancée, and drove away. Teddy was in charge of the twins while their parents, who were both leaving Canada to handle business elsewhere, were out of town, just as Hammer and Amelia’s son JoJo would be staying with his Hammer’s brother Trevor Reese. It was all laid out. But Mick felt as if he was in a fog, and nothing was clear.
“Talk to her,” Charles said as he walked up to Mick and slapped him on the back. But even Charles didn’t worry about a response. He just stood there, for nearly half an hour, as Roz and Charles’ wife Jenay, and his grown children, hung around and talked with other attendees unrelated to the family. Until Jenay was ready to go. Charles squeezed his brother’s shoulder, said his goodbye, and he and his family got into his SUV and, as the last of the family members to leave, took off too.
Roz waved them off and then realized, as she looked around, that all of the family were gone. A few guests lingered, and they were talking to each other in the massive driveway, but they were friends of Hammer’s.
Roz lingered, too, and began conversations with Hammer’s household staff, but not because she couldn’t pull herself to leave. She was still holding out hope that her stubborn-ass husband would come to his senses and at least agree to talk to her.
But when she glanced his way, to see if it was even possible, he did it again and walked away. This time down the steps, right past her, and to his waiting SUV. They’d arrived in Montreal separately: him on his company jet and she on his private plane. And he apparently planned for them to return the same way. Mainly because he planned on heading to Belarus after the reception, and Roz planned on heading to California to meet with producers, but also because they were, in fact, separated.
She got into her limousine and her longtime driver, Deuce McCurry, prepared to pull off. Deuce wanted to say something about the couple’s woes, since he’d been in Mick’s employ for decades, but decided it was better left unsaid. He drove without input. But when he glanced through the rearview mirror and saw Roz wiping tears from her eyes, even he became worried. He’d never seen them in such a state. Was it the beginning of the end for Mick and Roz?
Mick was on the passenger seat of his SUV, with two other vehicles filled with people Mick didn’t know in front of his vehicle, and Roz’s limo led the pack. They all pulled off in a straight formation and made their way down Hammer’s mountain. And Mick’s heart was heavy. Why wouldn’t he talk to her? What was he so damn afraid of? Was he worried that she was going to tell him something crazy, like she wanted a divorce? How could he come back from that? Because he would have to beg her not to leave him. He would have to lose all semblance of his well-guarded pride, and beg that woman to stay with him.
That was why, before he met Roz, he’d swore he’d never fall in love with anybody because he knew, in the end, he would be the one with the broken heart. Numerous foreign governments had labeled him
the most vicious and feared mob boss in the world, despite the fact that he presented himself to that same world as the paragon of a legitimate businessman, but they were right about one thing: Mick feared no man. What he really feared was his beloved wife breaking his fragile heart. That was the fear that kept Mick Sinatra up nights. That was the kind of damnable, unbearable fear that could take Mick Sinatra down.
But after the vehicles made their way down Hammer’s mountain and pulled up to a red light a couple blocks beyond Charlemagne, Mick became distracted when he saw a helicopter hovering nearby. His first instinct was to wonder if it was a police helicopter keeping tabs on him in Canada. But as he leaned forward for a better view, he realized it wasn’t. And then he realized it wasn’t even aimed at his SUV. To his horror, it was aimed at his wife’s limousine! And as quickly as he saw that chopper, Mick saw the danger.
“Jesus,” he said worriedly, quickly unbuckling his seatbelt.
“What’s wrong, Boss?” his driver asked anxiously.
“Jesus,” Mick was saying again in what sounded like a panicked prayer for help as he jumped out of the SUV pulling out his weapon.
But before his feet could step on the ground, gunfire from that chopper came raining down, not at Mick, but right at Roz’s limo. Mick started running and firing up at that chopper as Mick’s driver jumped out of that SUV firing too. Deuce McCurry swerved the limo out of formation, to dodge those bullets, but he lost control when bullets pierced the tires and the limo swerved wildly across the street until it ran, head-on, into a massive tree trunk. The two cars that were just behind the limo tried to get away, too, but the back car slammed into the front car and both of them stalled out. The inhabitants of those two cars could do nothing but duck down for cover.
But Mick was horrified when he saw the limo crash. He stopped running long enough to get his best aim at that deadly chopper. Every member of the family were already gone. Nobody stood between that gunman on that chopper and Roz’s life, but Mick. And he fired like he knew it too. He fired exposing himself to gunfire right back at him, but he knew he had to take that chopper down. He and his driver fired and fired. But his driver took consecutive bullets, and dropped dead right beside the SUV.
But Mick ducked around those wrecked cars and kept on firing. Until he fired one more shot, and realized he had just fired his last bullet.
But that last bullet Mick had fired, or a series of bullets he fired just before the last one, he wasn’t sure, had finally penetrated and caught the gunman in the neck. And just when Mick thought he was about to be taken out, too, Mick’s efforts proved enough. That gunman fell out of the helicopter to his certain death, and the pilot, along with his chopper, took off. And got away.
But Mick didn’t care about chasing a chopper. All he cared about was Roz. Because her crashed limousine was smoking, and he knew it could blow any moment. He had to get to Roz!
He ran across that highway with sprinter’s speed. The men in the two cars ahead of his SUV, who had attended the wedding and reception, too, realized the shooting had stopped and jumped out to help as well.
But every door of that limousine was jammed. Mick pulled and the other men pulled, but no door would budge. Mick tried to break out the glass with the butt of his empty gun, but the glass wouldn’t budge either. So Mick began ramming the windows with his elbows. When that didn’t work, he began kicking on the windows with his shoes. He kicked and he kicked. He could see Roz inside, trying to get out, and Deuce McCurry was inside, slumped over. And the smoke was billowing wildly.
“We gotta get back!” he heard one man yell. “It’s gonna blow! We gotta get back!”
But Mick wasn’t about to leave his wife to save himself. He jumped on the trunk of that limo and was kicking and kicking. Roz turned to him, looking petrified, and he kicked harder. He kept trying to kick the back window in with both shoes, but it was as if he was kicking on steel!
Two of the men tried to pull Mick back. “It’s gonna blow, mister!” one of them were yelling. “It’s gonna blow! Save yourself. It’s gonna blow!”
But Mick angrily snatched away from them and continued to kick for his wife’s life. His heart was hammering as he kicked. And everybody was yelling for him to save himself. Everybody was yelling as they ran away saving themselves. But Mick wasn’t about to let his beloved die, were they crazy? They had to be insane to even suggest it as far as he was concerned. He had to save his wife!
And that look on Roz’s face. Even she was looking at the hood that was now on fire, and could smell the leaking fuel too. Even she was begging him to leave and save himself!
But Mick kept kicking. He was no longer a young man, but he kicked like he was one. And his efforts began to pay off. But just as the back window began to show some cracks, the front end of the limo exploded into a fireball, causing the hood to dislodge and fly in the air, and the explosion rocked the limo so violently that Mick was thrown from the trunk. It was such a violent explosion, and had generated so much heat, that the front driver side door blew off, too.
It was just the entry Mick needed.
Everybody on that road had run as far away from that disaster as they could get, and Mick could still hear their screams for him to save himself, but he got off of that ground and ran back to that limousine.
With his always perfect hair all over his forehead and nearly obstructing his view, he ran around to the driver side door that had blown open. He grabbed Deuce, who was knocked out behind the wheel and flung him out of the limo, to safety, but also out of his way. Deuce rolled down the incline. Mick loved Deuce. He’d known him for decades. But Mick had to get to Roz. He cared for Deuce’s life in that moment the same way he cared for his own life: it didn’t matter as long as Roz lived. His wife, the mother of his two youngest children, had to live!
As the limo was quickly engulfing in flames, and as his entire body felt the heat from those flames, Mick reached over the backseat, grabbed Roz who was trying to climb over that seat, and, with clenched teeth and all the strength he had within him, lifted her all the way over and into his arms.
Then he jumped out of that limo and rolled down that incline still clutching Roz in his arms as if they were melded together in life as well as death, as the whole thing blew.
CHAPTER THREE
“What on earth was that?”
Charles hurriedly turned around in his SUV and saw the black smoke billowing up toward the clouds. “Good Lord,” he said.
“What is it, Pop?” Bobby Sinatra asked, as he turned too. When they all turned and saw the smoke, they were shocked.
“Turn around,” Charles was already telling his driver. “It’s near Charlemagne. Go back. Go back now!”
As Jenay attempted to call Roz’s cellphone, to make sure she was alright, and as Brent Sinatra attempted to call Mick, the driver turned the big SUV around with a swerve and sped back toward Hammer’s mountain. All the other family members, who all came to the ceremony on their various planes, were long gone, but Charles and his brood were the stragglers. And now he was grateful that they were. They had been too far away to hear the gunfire, but they weren’t so far away that they couldn’t hear that massive explosion. They raced back to the scene.
When they got to the scene, they saw a limo engulfed in flames, Mick’s SUV abandoned and his driver dead beside it, and all of the earmarks of a horrific ambush. Charles’ heart dropped. Not his kid brother! And was that the limo Roz had been in??? He could hardly contain his grief as he fumbled to get out of his seat belt.
“Stay here,” he ordered the women in the car, as Charles, his oldest son Brent, and his middle son Bobby Sinatra hurried out of the SUV. Charles was grateful that the younger children in the family were back in Maine with his sons Tony and Donald, and were not there to witness such carnage.
All three men had their revolvers drawn as they moved around the scene, searching for any sign of life, saddened that they had to witness it too. The flames were billowing, as sirens could be hear
d in the distance, but they had no way of knowing if anybody was inside of that limousine. They couldn’t see inside for the flames! Charles and Bobby ran to the SUV and looked inside, but they saw nothing.
Bobby ran his hand through his thick hair and frowned. “Where’s Uncle Mick?” he asked hysterically. “Where’s Uncle Mick?”
“Call his cell phone,” Charles ordered, hoping against hope that Mick had stayed back at Charlemagne somehow. “Call his cell.”
Brent had already tried, but Bobby pulled out his own cell phone. Although he knew it was a fool’s errand, his father seemed so desperate. If truth be told, he knew Big Daddy loved Mick more than life itself, and although they were close in age, he treated Mick more like his son rather than his baby brother. Bobby, the mayor of Jericho, Maine and a force to be reckoned with himself, did what he was told.
Brent Sinatra saw three men running out of the woods near the scene. He aimed his weapon and braced himself for trouble. Until he saw the terror in their eyes.
“Down there,” one of them was pointing anxiously. “I saw the driver roll down that incline! I saw the driver!”
Brent hurried over to where they were pointing, and when he looked down and saw his uncle Mick’s longtime employee Deuce McCurry, he began racing down to aid him. “Pop!” he yelled to Charles as he began hurrying down that incline. “Pop, down here!”
Charles and Bobby ran where Brent was yelling, and when they saw Deuce, too, they began to head down that incline. But Charles stopped Bobby. “Stay here,” he said to him. “Watch those men. Make sure it’s not a setup.”
“Yes, sir,” Bobby said, his revolver still at the ready, as Charles hurried down the incline to where Deuce and Brent were.
“You okay?” Charles asked Deuce, who appeared to be just waking up from unconsciousness.
“I’m okay,” said Deuce, although he still looked groggy.
Mick Sinatra: Needing Her Again Page 2