Charles was about to ask about his brother and sister-in-law when he looked beyond Deuce. And that was when he saw both of them. “Thank you Jesus!” he yelled as his heart leaped with joy, and he ran to where Mick was sitting, with Roz in his lap.
Brent, seeing them, left Deuce’s side too.
“We’re okay,” said Mick, barely able to catch a breath. “Thank God, we’re okay.”
CHAPTER FOUR
At the Montreal Medical Center, Mick and Roz checked out just fine, although the doctors wanted to keep Deuce overnight for observation. He had a particularly nasty-looking hickey on his head that they wanted to monitor.
After saying their goodbyes to Deuce, with Mick promising to send a driver to pick him up tomorrow, they all made it outside of the sprawling hospital. They stood on the top step ready to say their goodbyes to each other.
But as the women made their way down the steps and began a conversation near Charles’ SUV, Charles, along with Bobby and Brent, pulled Mick aside. It was obvious on Charles’ handsome face that he was still worried. “Do you have any idea who could have ordered that kind of ambush?” he asked his brother.
“Yes,” said Mick. “I have an idea.”
“Does that mean we’re in danger too?” Bobby asked. “Do we need to take extra precautions?”
“No, you’re not in danger,” Mick said. “But take extra precautions until this is over.”
“Which means it’s not over?” Brent asked.
Mick nodded, as a weary look appeared in his eyes. “That’s what it means, yes,” he said.
Bobby exhaled. “Another ordinary day in Uncle Mick’s world,” he said, and then smiled that charming smile that drew men to him. He was, Mick knew, a man’s man too.
But Charles couldn’t find the levity. “Give us a sec,” he said to his sons.
Brent extended his hand. “Bye, Uncle Mick,” he said, and Bobby gave Mick a half handshake/hug, and headed for his family’s waiting SUV.
“What’s up?” Mick asked Charles.
“What’s going on with you and Roz now?” Charles asked him. “I saw how you were holding her. You don’t want to let her out of your sight, do you?”
Mick wasn’t about to admit his vulnerability, not even to his brother. “We’ll get through it,” was all he was going to say about it.
“Still going to Belarus?” Charles asked him.
“No.”
“Still letting her go to London?” Charles asked.
“She was headed to California.”
“You know what I mean.”
Mick hesitated. “No. She’s not moving to London.”
“That’s her call, Mick.”
“Not anymore it’s not. She’s going to Philly, with me. And we will have that conversation.”
Charles smiled and squeezed Mick’s broad shoulder. “About damn time,” he said. “Does she know her plans have changed?”
Mick wondered if it would still be a battle. “Not yet.”
“And if she doesn’t agree to go back to Philly?”
“She doesn’t have a choice anymore,” Mick made clear. “Somebody targeted her. Not me, her. It’s in my hands now. She doesn’t have a choice.”
Charles nodded. “Damn right,” he said. He wasn’t adverse to slamming down the hammer too, when it came to his family’s safety. “Just try to be diplomatic about it, Mick. Don’t try to bend her to your will, and none of that hard-arm shit. Roz is a strong-willed woman just like you’re a strong-willed man. That’s why you married her. Don’t hold it against her.”
Mick was about to respond when he suddenly frowned. Everybody frowned and looked, because they heard it too. They heard the sound of helicopters in the sky, and they all looked up. Four choppers were circling from the north, south, east, and west, and they were hovering over the hospital.
And just when Mick was about to order everybody inside, they heard the sirens. Police sirens. And when they all saw what looked like a sea of police cars heading straight toward the front of the hospital, where they were standing, everybody from the men at the top of the steps to the women down below, braced themselves. Was there some major mob figure in that hospital that the cops were coming to get, or were they bringing some major killer in? Nobody knew. And not one Sinatra seemed to understand that their very own was a major mob figure too. They didn’t put two and two together.
Had the Gabrinis been there, they all would have understood what it meant to have an army of cop cars, with sirens blaring, heading their way. The question would not have been why the cops were there, but which Gabrini were they there to get.
It became crystal clear who they were after when the police officers got out of their cars, all in U.S. SWAT gear, with most of them pointing assault rifles at the family. And then four agents, two with ATF written on their jackets and two with FBI written on theirs, jumped out of the only non-squad car in the group and hurried up the steps where the men were standing.
Their hearts were pounding, as they all wondered why did they seem to be coming straight for them, but the FBI special agent in charge didn’t leave them in suspense long. He stepped in front of his colleagues and, with his badge drawn, stopped right in front of Mick Sinatra.
And it was only then did they realize the obvious.
Even Big Daddy Sinatra, who knew all about his brother’s underhanded dealings all over the world, was shocked.
Roz, still reeling from what happened to her, was staring too. And she realized, in that moment, that she should have known all along what man on earth would command that kind of police response, and on foreign Canadian soil at that! But even she still could not believe it. Until the agent spoke.
“Mr. Michello Sinatra,” the special agent in charge began, “also known as Mick the Tick, also known as the boss of all assholes, you are hereby under arrest for racketeering, for trafficking in illegal commodities, and for four counts of felonious murder. And that’s for starters. Turn your ass around!”
Mick was shocked by the way that copper was talking to him, but he also knew what he was up against. He slowly turned around, as they frisked and handcuffed him, and he found himself facing his wife. Roz heart dropped through her shoe when she realized it was no dream, and she began hurrying up those steps toward Mick.
“Get her,” Mick said anxiously to his brother, knowing those bastard cops would be more than happy to arrest his wife for interference in an arrest, and Brent and Bobby both hurried down those steps and stopped Roz in her tracks.
And as another agent read him his Miranda warning, Mick stood there stoically and allowed them to handcuff him without attempting to fight the inevitable. He knew it was a long time coming. He’d been successfully evading authorities all of his adult life. And those raids should have been a warning sign. But it still stunned him to his core.
The idea that their Mick was about to be jailed, stunned every Sinatra onsite. All of the Sinatra women were out of the SUV, and Jenay was hurrying to Roz’s side, as those agents made their arrest.
Even the women knew this wasn’t supposed to ever happen. Mick was always considered too big to bring down. That was the prevailing wisdom even in law enforcement. That was why he’d never been arrested.
But that was then.
This was now.
CHAPTER FIVE
Three Weeks Earlier
Three weeks before the Hammer Reese/Amelia Sinatra wedding, and that ambush that nearly took Roz Sinatra out, and the arrest that shook the world, the subject of that arrest, Mick Sinatra, was in his private gym at Sinatra Industries, his corporation, bench-pressing four-fifty without a spotter.
The sweat poured from his shorts and sleeveless shirt and the veins pierced his massive biceps as he strained to rack it. He had lifted that weight several times before and not one of those times was he worried about a drop. But the fact that it was getting harder, not easier to lift, concerned him.
He wasn’t a kid anymore.
That was for damn sure, h
e thought, when he forced that second wind that gave him the strength to lift that barbell just high enough to rack it. Then he sat up, straddling the bench, barely able to catch his breath. He sat there, slumped over, realizing that those days of working out every now and then had to end. He was getting out of shape.
“Sorry to disturb you, sir.”
Mick suddenly felt as if he’d been caught in a state of weakness when he heard the voice of one of the security guards that stood at the gym’s front entrance. He immediately sat erect, as if he was in as good a shape as any man alive. “What is it?”
“Mr. Lewinsky wishes a word, sir.”
David “Lewdy” Lewinsky was Mick’s head of international security. Although Mick looked at Lewdy but didn’t say anything, Lewdy began walking swiftly toward his boss as if Mick’s acknowledgement of his presence gave him the license to approach. And as soon as he arrived at Mick’s side, he didn’t mince words. “We’ve got a hairy situation, Boss,” he said.
Mick, unwrapping the Velcro latch on his workout gloves, stared at his high-ranking employee. “What kind of situation?”
“The ATF kind of situation.”
Mick stopped unwrapping his gloves. “They’re here?”
“Not here. But in Belarus.”
Mick frowned. “What the fuck are they doing there?”
“That government apparently gave them permission to search the premises for firearms and other illegal contraband. They’re at the facilities now.”
“All five of them?”
“All five of them, sir.”
Mick couldn’t believe it. “Who the fuck in that government would give those fuckers permission to search my premises?”
“We don’t know yet, sir. I’ve got a team on it already. We’re on it.”
“Did we at least get a heads up?”
Lewdy shook his head. “No, sir. Nothing.”
“All that fucking money I pay those cock-sucking politicians over there and I get nothing?”
“Nothing, sir. They blindsided us. We’re on that too.”
Mick sat there, thinking it through, wondering who on earth would have the balls to turn on him like that. He was wondering it just as his oldest son and underboss, Teddy Sinatra, breezed past security and hurried in. “Pop,” he said as he entered, “we’ve got a problem, Pop.”
Mick and Lewdy both looked at Ted. “We already know,” Lewdy said. “I’ve got a team on it now. Those politicians in Belarus sold our asses out.”
Teddy frowned. “Belarus? What happened in Belarus?”
Lewdy was confused. “That’s not the problem you’re talking about?” he asked as Mick looked on.
“No,” said Teddy. “What happened in Belarus?” he asked again.
“AFT just raided our facilities there,” Lewdy answered him.
“Motherfuck!” Teddy yelled. “All of them?”
“All of them,” said Lewdy.
“Are you telling me there’s another hot spot?” Mick asked his son.
Teddy nodded. “That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”
“Where?” Mick asked.
“Rome. Those fuckers raiding there too.”
Mick, stunned, stood to his feet. Belarus was one thing, but Rome was something altogether different. Rome was his staging ground. Whereas he had five facilities in Belarus, he had damn-near thirty in Rome. “What did they find?” he asked nervously.
“Everything,” Teddy said. “They emptied the main facility and arrested everybody onsite. So far nothing’s coming back on you, and our people know it’s their death sentence if they so much as breathe your name to those assholes. But they got the goods.”
“Every facility?” Mick asked.
“Just the main one.”
“Shut the other ones down now.”
“I already have,” said Teddy. “I told them to shut down production until further notice and take their asses home.”
“Good,” Mick said. Teddy was the most competent number one he’d ever had. “Get the plane ready,” Mick added as he began hurrying toward the exit, removing his gloves completely as he walked.
Ted and Lewdy hurried behind him. But Teddy was concerned. “Pop, we got it,” he said. “Lewdy can handle Belarus and I’ll go to Rome and find out who gave us up. We got it.”
Although Mick didn’t break his stride, Teddy didn’t back down. He and Roz had been talking lately, and she confided in him. They both saw the writing on the wall. His father was beginning to treat Roz the way he treated Teddy and Teddy’s siblings: like she was an afterthought. Like his business came first.
Teddy loved his father more than life itself, but he didn’t want his frequent absences to cause him to lose that good, caring woman who changed his life. And whether he knew it or not, he was on the verge of losing her. “Pop?” he said again. “We got it. You don’t need to go. You can’t go.”
When Mick heard his son say what he couldn’t do, he stopped in his tracks. He looked at Teddy with those cold, green eyes. “Who the fuck are you to tell me what I can and can’t do?”
“For Roz sake,” Teddy said. “You just got back from Argentina. Two weeks ago you were in Berlin. She’s been going through a lot lately. A rough patch. You need to stay here for her, that’s all I’m saying. It could take weeks before we get any answers overseas.”
Teddy and Roz were closer in age than Roz was to Mick, which made Teddy and Roz more like friends rather than stepson and stepmother. Roz confided in Teddy when Mick wasn’t around, and Mick didn’t like it. “Get the plane ready,” he ordered his son. “Nobody handles my business but me. And my business includes my wife. Is that clear enough for you?”
Teddy could feel his father’s wrath. There was no bringing Mick back from the ledge whenever he decided to perch on it, and Teddy knew that too. “Yes, sir,” he said.
Mick continued to give Teddy a hard look, but then he knew he was wasting time. He began hurrying out of the gym.
Teddy looked at Lewdy. “Call the lawyers,” he ordered as they began following his father. He could only pray his father didn’t need divorce lawyers before it was all said and done. “Tell them to get to every facility under raid.”
“One lawyer per facility? Or every one that’s available?” Lewdy asked.
“Available?” Teddy asked, glancing back at the security chief. “You tell those jokers they’re handling Mick Sinatra’s business. They’d better be available!”
Lewdy, knowing it too, was already pulling out his cell phone. “Yes, sir,” he said as he ran to keep pace.
CHAPTER SIX
The choreographer clapped his hand to keep the beat, and the young dancers tried to respond. “One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight. Step higher. One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight. And again. One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight. Dreadful. Just dreadful. My grandmother can do better that this!”
They were onstage at the Shubert Theater on Broadway conducting auditions for the chorus line of an upcoming new play. Roz had completed her audition for the lead in the big production, and had just come from backstage to hear the verdict from the casting director. Not all that long ago she thought her auditioning days were over. She thought she’d earned the right to be considered on her own merits based on her enormous body of work. But those days were gone. Now she was going through the meat grinder just like everybody else, as if that body of work amounted to nothingness.
And she knew why. They’d deny it up and down the line, but she knew the truth. It was all because of that thing called age. Roz was no old lady, but they only wanted to hire the young ones now. And every year, it seemed to Roz, their definition of young was getting even younger.
She walked down the sidesteps of the stage watching the group of teenagers and twenty-somethings try their best to stay in step with the choreographer. She remembered those struggling days when all she could get was chorus line gigs too.
Evan, the casting director, sat on the second row watching the young dancers
intensely. Roz didn’t even see him blink. Evan’s five assistants sat on the front row, taking notes of each performer on stage. They had taken notes on Roz earlier, when she was on that same stage giving all she had to be selected as the female lead. They had given their notes on Roz to Evan. But by the way he was checking out the chorus line, he had already moved on.
Roz sat on the seat next to him. They went back a long way too. And for a long few seconds, they both were content to just stare at the stage.
Then Evan exhaled, as if he had made up his mind. “They’re pretty awful, aren’t they?” he said.
Roz agreed, to a point. “Not all of them.”
“All of them,” said Evan. “Julliard scholarships. Classically trained. Have every advantage any young upstart should have. The cream of the crop they tell me. But I don’t see cream. I see technique with no talent. Talent is gone, Roz.”
Roz crossed her legs. She knew Evan well enough to know he was beating around the bush. “Don’t tell a lady who owns a talent agency talent is gone,” she said. “It’s malpractice.”
Evan grinned. Then looked at her. “How you been, Roz? It’s good to see you again.”
“You too. And congrats on your Tony win. I sent you an email.”
“Thanks. I got so many I couldn’t respond to them all.”
“I understand,” Roz said breezily.
“You do, don’t you, Roz? You know how it goes in this brutal business. It’s what have you done for me lately, not what are you doing for me now. You know that.”
Roz nodded. She knew.
“You’re still looking good, though, after all these years. And it’s been some years.”
“Yes, it has. I started out in the business when I was barely twenty. Now I’m about to turn forty.”
“Damn, it’s been that long?”
Roz felt a kind of depression come over her. “It’s been a minute,” she said.
“But at least you’ve got a talent agency to fall back on.”
“Barely,” said Roz.
Mick Sinatra: Needing Her Again Page 3