CHAPTER NINE
The convoy of SUVs arrived in the seaside village of Ostia, situated at the mouth of the Tiber River and roughly eighteen miles southwest of Rome. They made their way along the winding roads until they finally arrived at Dorian “Dory” Toscano’s residence.
Although security was tight with a small army of men posted outside of the gate, and even more inside when the gate opened, Mick immediately saw flaws that he knew had to be corrected.
“Get every man posted outside of this gate inside,” Mick ordered his security chief, who sat on the front passenger seat of the SUV.
“The key is to stop them outside. I want only our men on the outside of this property. If they fail and Dory’s guys turn out to be a bunch of wussies, I can handle the inside. ”
“I’m on it, Boss,” his chief said and immediately got on the phone to the security details riding in the front and back SUVs.
But Bella thought it was ballsy of Mick to take charge of Dory’s territory. And when they stopped at the main house, she told him so. “Dorian is a big man in Rome, Mick. He ain’t no punk. Don’t you think you should see how Dorian wants to handle his security first?”
Mick looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “No,” he said as his security chief hopped out and opened the door for Mick.
Mick got out and buttoned his suit coat as the driver opened Bella’s door. She got out too. And then Mick and Bella made their way to the front entrance.
Mick couldn’t believe he had the jitters as he walked toward that door.
He hadn’t seen Dory since he was a little kid.
But even back then Mick knew. He knew it with every fiber of his being.
But Bella and Ron insisted he was Ron’s kid, and Ron supposedly had a DNA test to back him up.
He was full of shit at the time and Mick knew it, but he didn’t care enough to argue with DNA.
Bella was disappointed since she would have loved to have more hooks in Mick beyond the daughter they had together, but Ron was elated because he was deeply in love with Bella.
And back then, when Mick was still a young man himself, he wasn’t trying to claim any additional kid when he had too many already.
And Ron desperately wanted to be the father of Bella’s child.
Who was he to get in the way of that? He let it stand.
But now, as he was no longer a young man and with his son in that very house he was walking toward fighting for his life, it was a decision he regretted.
The guards at the door were all Dory’s guys and they were thrilled to meet Mick. In Italian, they all spoke to him.
“The boss is here,” said one.
“So great to meet you, Mr. Sinatra,” said another one.
“Never thought I’d meet royalty,” said the third one. “How you doing, sir?”
They ignored Bella, which Mick didn’t like. In his eyes you didn’t disrespect your boss’s mother. He placed his hand on her lower back and pushed her forward. “You know Miss Caine, I take it?”
“Oh yes sir. How you doing, Miss Bella?”
“I’m fine,” Bella said with a smile as she and Mick went inside.
“Bunch of wussies right,” she said bitterly as the door closed them in.
But as soon as another guard, after gushing over Mick too, led them down a long hall to Dory’s room, Bella had the jitters too.
She was told he was okay, and his wounds would heal and not pose any more risks to him, but she still had to see if for herself.
Not that she was this great mother to him.
She’d be the first to admit that she and her son never truly got along.
But she loved him just as much as she loved Gloria.
The only reason she kept him and his sister separate was because she didn’t want Dory’s risky lifestyle to spill over onto Gloria.
She didn’t mind Mick’s lifestyle spilling over because Mick knew how to protect his family.
The only person Dory ever cared about protecting was Ron Toscano.
He didn’t give a damn about Bella or those longstanding rumors about Mick, who he knew never wanted him even if those rumors proved true.
All he cared about was Ron. And now Ron didn’t want him either. It had to be tough times for Dory.
When they entered his bedroom, they didn’t know what to expect. But when they saw the young man seated up in bed, their hearts finally relaxed. He had tubes in him and machines on both sides of his bed, but he wasn’t dying. He wasn’t in that kind of trouble any longer.
Seated at his bedside was a man Mick knew: Buddy the butcher. A particularly nasty man. But was, by all accounts, Dory’s most trusted confidant. That, to Mick, said a lot about Dory.
But all Bella saw was her son. She hurried to his bedside. “Dorian! You look so good, son! You look so much better than I was expecting. You look so good!”
But Dory didn’t break a smile. Although he mainly spoke Italian, he was fluent in English too. He spoke English. “I told you not to call me that.”
Bella hesitated and Mick could see the pain on her face. She was a woman who gave so much of herself to others, but all she got in return was rancid disdain. She deserved a lot of that disdain: Mick would be the first one to admit it. A lot, but not all. And especially coming from her own child.
But Bella was a tough broad too. “I named you Dorian and that’s what I will call you,” Bella responded.
“That’s not what he’s talking about,” said the older man who sat at Dory’s bedside. Mick knew him as Buddy “the Butcher” Gatlin, a very unrepentant, knife-wielding strongman who had no limits either.
But Bella didn’t know him at all. “And who are you?”
“He’s my second-in-command,” Dory said. “He’s my right-hand man. He’s my brother, that’s who he is. And he’s right. You can call me Dorian all you please. But nobody,” Dory said as he looked past Bella to Mick, “calls me son. Nobody!”
Mick returned the stare. Then he walked up to the young man. “Hello son,” he said intentionally.
Dory and Mick continued to stare at each other. The Butcher was staring too. He was Dory’s adviser above all else, and he would have never advised him to try and go toe-to-toe with Mick the Tick. Nobody wins going toe-to-toe with that man.
What fascinated Mick was the fact that Dory’s eyes were his eyes. He had Bella’s skin tone, and Bella’s style of beauty, but he had Mick’s eyes. Green, hard, and cold. Even Mick’s sleepy eye was his eye too. How could they not have seen that? How could he not have seen it?
Because Ron Toscano, a powerful mob boss in his own right back then, didn’t want to see it. And neither did Mick. For very different reasons.
“Let’s get one thing straight,” said Dory, who didn’t want to see it either. “You aren’t my father and never will be.”
Mick was still staring at him. “I agree.”
“I only have one father and that’s all I’ll ever have.”
Mick could see the pain in the young man’s eyes when he said the word father. He truly loved Ron Toscano. Why would Ron turn on him like that? “I agree,” Mick said.
“I don’t want you as my father.”
“And I don’t want you as my son,” Mick fired back and Buddy quickly looked at Dory. He could see the pain in his eyes when Mick verbalized that truth. Dory was accustomed to lashing out at everybody. He rarely got it back in return. But Buddy knew he never been up against a legend like Sinatra.
But Dory kept fighting. “Then why are you here?” he asked Mick. “You and my so-called mother can turn around right now and go back under the rocks y’all came from. I don’t need either one of you.”
Tears appeared in Bella’s eyes. “I know I haven’t been here for you, son, but you know how hard I work.”
Dory nearly jumped out of that bed with rage. “Bullshit!” he yelled. “You were busy chasing Mick the Tick around America to have time for me. So don’t even try that shit on me.” He was pointing angrily at his mother. “And stop calling me son. I’m not your son. Don’t even try it!”
Mick’s heart dropped just watching the bitterness in that young man’s face. He and Bella failed him. There were no two ways about it. And it was heartbreaking to see.
But Mick would be a dead man walking if he lived in the past. “What’s done is done,” he said. “Get over it.”
Buddy the Butcher looked at Dory. He just knew Dory would snap back at the man even he could see was Dory’s real father.
But Dory didn’t snap at all. He looked admiringly at Mick.
Everybody in his spear feared him and were proverbial yes men to his tough-man persona. But Mick wasn’t one of those men.
And besides, Dory knew Mick was right. He had to get over that shit.
“Why are you here?” he asked Mick. “Did he send you here to try to force me to call a truce? Well you can tell his self-righteous ass that as soon as I get back on my feet, I’ll make a truce alright. I’ll show him a truce alright.”
Mick had no clue who he was talking about. His guys around Italy tried to get details, but everybody in that region were too afraid of Dory to give up any intel. “Ask Dory,” was what they told Mick’s guys.
Now Mick was doing just that. “What happened?” he asked him.
Buddy the Butcher was relieved that Mick was willing to move on. But it was Buddy, not Dory, who told the story. “We were at the pub. Just minding our own business. Then Danny comes up on us.”
“Who’s Danny?” asked Mick.
“Who you think?” asked Dory. “Danny Cerva.”
Mick didn’t show it, but he was shocked.
Since the butcher didn’t see any reaction from Mick, he kept talking. “So Danny comes up on us talking about how Dory was fooling around with his girl.”
“Were you?” Bella asked Dory.
“Hell yeah, I was. But how was I to know she was Danny Cerva’s girl?”
“Who is this Danny Cerva anyway?” Bella asked.
“A guy who thought he ruled the world,” the butcher replied. “He had no business on Dory’s turf, but that never stopped Danny. He was Monk Paletti’s underboss.”