Mick Sinatra 3: His Lady, His Children, and Sal (20 page)

Mick ended the call.
 
And stood up.
 
“They’ve got him,”
he said.

Charles stood up too.
 
“Adrian?”

Mick nodded.
 
“Adrian.”

Roz’s heart began to pound.

Charles began moving toward Mick.
 
“I’m going with you,” he said.

If it had been anybody else, Mick would have
objected.
 
But he knew Charles could more
than handle himself.
 
If necessary, he
knew Charles could handle him.

He kissed Roz, and they took off.

Mick and Charles arrived at the safe house.
 
But as soon as they walked in, Mick knew
something was off.
 
Where were his men to
greet him at the front door?
 
Where were
his men once they made it inside?
 
He
knew the routine when they wanted to set a trap.
 
This felt like that kind of set up.
 
And then, for no other reason than his own
survival instinct kicking in, his heart began to pound.

“Back out,” he said to Charles.
 
“Let’s get the fuck out of here!”

They ran back out of the front door they had walked
into.
 
But just as they cleared the
threshold, an explosion rocked them and threw them off of their feet.
 
When they looked up, at a distance from where
they started, the house was a tinderbox of flames.
 
The house was on fire.

“You okay?” Mick asked Charles as he got up.

“I’m okay,” Charles said, getting up too.
 
“Who said they had Adrian?
 
Who called it in to you?”

“Archie Bloom,” Mick said without hesitation.
 
“My . . .” Then he realized what was going
on.

“
Your
what, Mick?” Charles
asked anxiously.
 
“
Your
what?”

“My front gate security chief.
 
I should have figured it out.
 
What the fuck would he know about finding
somebody?
 
He guards my fucking house!”

“Your house?”
 
Charles asked.
 
“But your wife and
children are at your house. Good Lord, Mick!”

And both men ran back to Mick’s Maserati, got in,
and Mick sped off.
 
They both were trying
to phone Roz, or Teddy, or Gloria, or Joey.
 
But all to no avail.
 

Because of the security breach, Mick and Charles did
not enter the property from the front gate.
 
They drove to the backstreet behind Mick’s estate to a smaller
home.
 
Not one of his men knew it, but
Mick owned that home too.

“What is this?” Charles asked as Mick parked the car
and they jumped out.

“An extension of my house,” Mick said, as they ran
inside.

Once inside, Charles followed Mick as he ran down
the narrow hallway of the empty house, to the bedroom in the back.
 
Once in the back, Mick removed a rug, lifted
a hatch, and they were suddenly hurrying down a set of stairs and then running
in a tunnel underground.
 
Charles was
amazed on one hand, by the elaborateness of it all, but he wasn’t the least
surprised on the other hand.
 
A man like
Mick had to have more than one way in, and more than one way out.
 
This was that other way.

After going through another wall, where a code was
needed for the wall to open, they ran a few more feet and came out in a
never-used closet inside Mick’s main house.
 
With their guns drawn, they unlocked the closet door and made their way
down the corridor to the backstairs that led to the kitchen.
 
When they entered the kitchen, and made their
way toward the living room, they heard what Mick knew was Adrian’s voice.

“First I’m going to kill her,” Adrian was saying,
“then all of you.
 
Then our so-called Dad
is going to see what it feels like.
 
He’s
going to finally pay us some attention.”

Mick knew he had to act and act quickly.
 
But he had to have a layout of the people in
the room.
 
He leaned over, around the
side archway that separated the dining room from the kitchen, and saw the
layout.
 
Adrian was near the window, with
an arm around Roz’s neck, and a gun to her skull.
 
His children, Teddy, Gloria, and Joey, were
on their knees with their hands behind their heads.
 
Archie Bloom was standing behind them, with a
gun on them.
 
This situation was beyond
dire.
 
Adrian, he knew, could pull that
trigger at any moment, and Rosalind would be gone.
 
Archie could pull his trigger, and his
children could be gone.
 
He had to divert
Adrian.

Mick looked at Charles.
 
“As soon as I step out, you step out too and
aim your gun directly at Adrian.
 
Regardless of what I’m doing, you keep your gun aimed at Adrian.”

Charles nodded.
 
It felt odd taking orders from his younger brother, but he was no
fool.
 
He was in Mick’s tool house
now.
 
“Got it,” he said.

And as soon as he said it, Mick cocked his gun,
hurried to the middle of the dining room, where everybody in the living room
could see him, and shot Archie Bloom straight through the forehead.

Gloria screamed as Archie dropped to the ground, and
Adrian immediately moved backwards, clutching Roz tighter.
 
Mick and Charles began walking toward him,
both of their guns now trained on him.

“Stay right where you are or I’ll kill her!” Adrian
yelled.

Mick’s heart was pounding, as fear for his wife overwhelmed
him, but he never shown so much as an inkling of fear.
 
He continued to progress.
 
“You kill her,” Mick said, “where will that
leave you?”

“Stay where you are!” Adrian yelled.
 
“I’m not fucking with you!”

“You harm a hair on her head,” Mick said, “and
you’re dead.”

“I’m already dead,” Adrian said.
 
“So what?”

When he said those words, both Mick and Charles
stopped in their tracks.
 
They both knew
he meant what he said.
 
He was going to
kill Roz.
 
He was going to kill the love
of Mick’s life.

“Kill me,” Mick said to Adrian.
 
“I’m the one you want to destroy.
 
Why are you fucking around?
 
Here’s your chance right here.
 
Aim that weapon at me, and kill me!”

Adrian knew he could.
 
He knew he could fire his gun at his father
this very moment, and kill him dead.
 
Charles would probably take him out if he did. But at least he’d see
Mick in hell.

Charles knew it too.
 
He knew one of two things were about to happen.
 
Either Adrian was going to kill Mick.
 
Or Mick was going to kill Adrian.
 
Because they both were going to fire.
 
As soon as Adrian moved his gun from Roz’s
head, Charles knew his brother was going to shoot, and Adrian was going to
shoot.
 
Neither outcome was acceptable to
Charles.
 
He wasn’t about to allow
anybody to take Mick out, and he was not about to let Mick take out his own
son.

That was why, as soon as Adrian removed his gun away
from Roz’s head to take Mick up on his offer, Charles, a sharpshooter and the
best shooter in Jericho, fired one bullet.
 
It caught Adrian in the hand that held the gun, and ripped through his
shoulder.
 
The gun fell, and Adrian
screamed out in pain, and dropped to his knees.

Teddy quickly got Gloria and Joey up and hurried
them toward the dining room, behind their father and uncle.

Roz didn’t run to the dining room.
 
She grabbed Adrian’s gun and moved away from
him.
 
Charles and Mick began to walk
toward the downed man.

 
“Get them out
of here,” Mick said to Roz, and she knew exactly what he meant.
 
She went to the dining room and herded all
three of Mick’s children into the kitchen, out of eyesight of their injured
brother.

Adrian laid there.
 
Dying, but still breathing.

“We need to call an ambulance,” Charles said.

But Mick stood over his son with that cold look in
his eyes.
 
“For what?” he asked.
 
“For him to live another day to kill my
wife?
 
To kill my children?
 
To kill me?”

“Don’t just stand there!” Adrian cried.
 
“Help me!
 
I need help!”

“Don’t do it, Mick,” Charles said.
 
“He still stands a chance.
 
You can’t live with a thing like this over
your head!”

“I’ve been living with things like this my entire
life,” Mick said, and then he lifted his gun and fired one shot through his own
son’s skull, causing even Charles to wince.
 
“Why the fuck would this be any different?”

In the kitchen, when they heard that single gunshot,
all three of Mick’s children jumped.
 
They wanted to hurry back into the living room, to see what was
happening.
 
But Roz wouldn’t allow it.

“Stay right where you are,” she ordered them.
 
“Your father has it all in control.”

They stayed put, as their brother, their oldest
brother, ceased to exist.
 

Mick stared at his oldest child.
 
He stared the same way he stared at all those
other bodies he had to snuff out.
 
“It’s
kill or be killed where I live,” he said.
 
“That don’t change because of somebody’s bloodline.”

And it was at that moment, unlike any of the
numerous moments before that day, did Big Daddy Charles Sinatra realize just
how gangster his baby brother truly was.

The hospital doors flew open and Mick, Teddy, and
Joey hurried in.
 
Although his sons were
walking with fire under their feet, they still couldn’t keep up with Mick.
 
And when he started running, they trailed
even further behind.

But Mick kept running.
 
He ran and ran and didn’t slow down until he
made it into the room.
 
Roz’s room.
 
And saw the two babies she now held in either
arm.

When Mick walked in, and began walking toward her
bed, she smiled her best dimpled smile.
 
“They’re here!” she said with a grin.

Mick smiled too.
 
Gloria, who sat on the bed beside Roz, stood up and moved aside.
 
Eight months ago, she had experienced what it
was like to end a life.
 
Now she was
there to experience the beginning of life.
 
She preferred this place.

When her brothers finally arrived, they were happy
too.
 
“Wow,” Joey said.

“Ten and ten?” Mick asked Roz.

Roz nodded.
 
“Ten and ten,” she said.

Mick inwardly thanked God.

“Did you keep the names?” he asked as he looked at
his newborn twins.

Roz laughed.
 
“Yes, Mick.
 
I kept the names we
decided upon.”

“Which is which?”

“Dad!” Joey said.
 
“You don’t know?”

Mick couldn’t help but smile himself.
 
“I didn’t want to peep.”
 
Then he looked at Joey.
 
“You be quiet,” he said, and Joey and Teddy
laughed.

“This is Michello Sinatra, Junior,” Roz said, proud
to hand Mick his baby boy.
 
Mick held him
gingerly, as if he was terrified of dropping him.

“And this little feisty girl,” Roz said, “is
Jacqueline.
 
Just like we agreed.”

Actually Mick had requested that, if they had a
girl, they could name her after Sprig.
  
Not because Sprig was something special.
  
But because she wasn’t, and should have
been.
 
Roz agreed without hesitation.

Mick picked up Jacqueline too, and placed her in his
arms.
 
But he held both babies over the
bed, in case they slipped.
 
It looked so
adorable to Roz that she couldn’t help but smile.

Mick looked at both of his babies, and did what he
saw other fathers do.
 
He began to bounce
them.
 
They began to cry.

Mick was horrified.
 
“Oh, no,” he said.
 
“What am I
doing wrong?”

“You aren’t doing anything wrong, Dad,” Gloria said
happily.
 
“You’re finally doing it
right.”

Mick looked at her.
 
They now shared that bond Gloria craved when she was a child.
 
And then Mick looked at Roz.

Roz nodded.
 
“Another chance?” she asked him.

And Mick nodded too, fighting back tears of joy, and
embracing fatherhood in its infancy, for the first time in his life.
 
“Another chance,” he said.