CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
When Mick made it to his guest bedroom, the door was locked. Because of the uniqueness of who he was in this world, every bedroom door was built so that it could not be forced open. But every door had a keypad. Mick typed in the combination and the door unlocked. He went inside.
He could hear the shower water running when he entered the bedroom.
He took a seat on the unmade bed and waited.
Then he shook his head. He couldn’t remember the last time Roz got out of bed and actually made up the bed.
She was good about getting into one, and getting out of one.
But he or their housekeeper always had to make it up.
He complained about it their whole marriage, but she never changed.
“I’m getting right back in it later,” was her excuse.
To him it was lame as fuck. Just like a lot of his excuses were to her.
After several minutes, and despite wearing one of his expensively tailored suits, he laid down on that unmade bed with his large dress shoes hanging out over the side of the bed.
He could smell her sweet perfume on the sheets.
It made him even more drowsy and lonely.
He couldn’t make it without Roz in his life.
That was a reality he’d been admitting to himself long ago.
Roz was his world. He nearly fell asleep thinking about her.
Until he heard the water stop running. Then he could hear Roz getting out of the shower and drying off.
When her slender, naked body enter the bedroom to head for the clothes she had laid out on the lounger, his penis began to throb.
But when she saw Mick lying there and staring at her naked body as if he was seeing it for the first time, her walk slowed but it didn’t stop.
She was still pissed with him. That hadn’t changed.
She began walking past him to get to her clothes.
But he wouldn’t let her walk by. He gently grabbed her by her wrist, and pulled her back beside him.
When their eyes met, both of them felt the intensity.
“I missed you last night,” he said to her.
Roz didn’t respond and just stared at him as if she was on the outside of enough with that man. But Mick was getting there with her too. “Where were you last night?” he asked her.
“Where were you for the last two weeks? Getting your knee replaced, or visiting your son?”
There was fire in her eyes. Which made Mick feel even worse. “What do you expect from me, Roz?”
“How about everything!” She yelled out in her take-no-prisoners style. “I give you my all. You don’t give me shit in return.”
“I thought I was giving you my all.”
“Bullshit, Mick. That’s bullshit! You don’t give me a fraction of yourself.”
But that only set Mick off. “I give you more than I have ever given to any human being ever, Roz. And you know it!”
“Tell me the truth then.”
“What truth?”
“Why did you keep it from me?”
Mick frowned. “Keep what from you?”
“About your son! And it wasn’t because you were trying to figure shit out. So don’t even go there. It’s something else. I can feel it in my bones that you’re holding something back. What is it, Mick? What is it?”
That look in his eyes made it clear to Roz that she was on the right track. There was something else. Something he didn’t want her to know. Or anybody else. “What is it?” she asked him again.
“You don’t wanna know,” Mick said.
That answer scared Roz. But she had to know. “What is it?”
There was a long pause. Roz’s heart was hammering. But she still had to know. She waited for him to answer.
But instead of answering her at all, he pulled her naked body on top of his big body, covered both of them with the bedspread. Then he laid her head on his chest and wrapped her into his arms.
Tears began to appear in Roz’s eyes. She loved this man so much that it hurt. And love wasn’t supposed to hurt. It was a toxic love and she knew it. But it was what she signed up for. Being with a man like Mick was never going to be a walk in the park.
She also knew Mick knew how to handle her. He was rubbing her body. From her back to her butt, he was managing to calm her down. But his touch, as always, managed to do something else to her too. And it was making her groan.
And by the time his fingers were between her legs, and then inside of her, it was as if they had completely forgotten what all the fuss was about.
They were both groaning. They were both feeling the sensations.
And when he finally replaced his fingers with his fully aroused penis, and he entered her, it was all over. They were in their special place again.
Mick made love to Roz for nearly half an hour.
He made certain he took his time. It was the sound of their groans, and the movement of his gyrations, and the sheer slog of it all that made both of them feel as if they were in a dreamland.
He kept hitting her in the exact right spot and she kept tightening around his rod that kept him on the verge of cumming.
Until neither one of them could take those feelings any longer and they both came. Within seconds of each other, they came. Mick let out one loud, drawn-out groan that caused him to pour into her with such a ferociousness that Roz thought she was drowning in him. It felt wonderful and it felt sad.
That was why, after the orgasms had ceased and the sensations had ebbed until they ended, it was as if reality forced them back down to the ground. And they laid there. Both with the same questions. Both needing the same answers.
Although Roz’s questions were more earth-shattering, Mick needed answers too. Her answers to his questions would determine if his answers were even necessary. “Where were you last night?” he asked her.
Roz resented the question, but she also knew he had every right to ask it. “I phoned a friend of mine, he picked me up, and we went to a diner and had coffee.”
“It was Kelly, correct?”
She knew he already knew it with all those damn spies he had on her. But she continued to lay there. “Yes.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing happened. We had coffee.”
“He didn’t try to come onto you?”
“He always tries to come onto me and every other female he knows. That’s what he does.”
“But yet you call him whenever we’re having problems.”
“Yes, I called him. He’s a friend of mine.”
“A friend that comes onto you?”
Roz lifted her head and looked at Mick. “What does him coming onto me have to do with me? I don’t come onto him. That’s all your ass need to know.”
Roz was the sassiest woman he’d ever known. “Don’t you talk to me like that.”
“I’ll talk to you any way I damn well please.”
They both stared at each other. Mick knew Roz never backed down. And he never did either. That was why they both backed down.
But Roz continued to stare at him. “Now it’s your turn,” she said.
There was still great hesitation in Mick. Which once again alarmed Roz. She searched his eyes. “What aren’t you telling me about this son of yours, Mick?”
Then Mick finally answered her. “His mother,” he said, “is Bella.”
At first Roz continued to just stare at him. It was as if her entire being had shut down. That was the last answer she expected! “Bella?” she finally asked. “Are you telling me that your son Dory is Bella Caine’s son?”
“Yes,” said Mick. “That’s what I’m telling you.”
“But . . .” Roz was so confused that she looked distressed.
Mick pulled her back into his arms. But she angrily wiggled her body out of his grasp. “I’m not playing now,” she warned Mick. “You tell me the whole truth!”
Mick wanted to fire back at her. That was his personality. That was why he was known as a ticking time bomb.
But when it came to Roz, he knew how to keep it real.
She had every right to know the whole story.
“Bella thought this guy who lives in Rome, a fellow by the name of Ron Toscano, was the father. There were rumors all along that I was the father, but Ron accepted him as his son and I didn’t interfere. He was a good father to Dory."
Roz just stared at Mick.
“I knew about Dory as Ron’s son. But as my son? Ron wanted him. Ron wanted Bella. Then he produced a DNA test that proved he was the father.”
“But there were rumors that he wasn’t?”
“All over Rome, yes.”
“And you never told me about those rumors?”
“What was there to tell? Bella said Ron was the father. Ron said he was the father. End of discussion as far as I was concerned.”
“And as far as you wanted to be concerned,” said Roz.
“Damn right. I had enough children to worry about. If Ron and Bella wanted to play that game, then so be it.”
That part of Mick, where he could compartmentalize even people, always concerned Roz. But his love for his family always overcame that concern. “Why didn’t you tell us about Bella Caine when you were telling us about Dory?”
“You know why. I mention Bella’s name and everybody in the family goes bananas. Why bring it up?”
Roz could think of many reasons. The fact that she never wanted Bella to have anything over on her was the main one.
Roz had two children by Mick. Bella only had one.
Now he was telling her that Bella had two children by him too?
A child Mick was willing to go to war with Monk Paletti over?
It was petty, but it still hurt. “Go on,” said Roz.
“Ron recently had a real DNA test performed. Not that fake shit he showed to us when Dory was first born. It showed that he wasn’t the father. Bella declares the only other man she was bothering with at that time was me. Which would make me the father.”
“And you took her word for it?”
“Hell no.”
“So you did take a DNA test?”
“Yes, I took one after they ambushed him like I told you before. There’s no doubt about it. I’m his father.”
“But how would Frankie know for certain if I didn’t?”
Because Mick knew for certain long before that DNA test too. “Frankie has guys stationed in Rome. They knew the rumors, which they took as fact, long before Ron started telling everybody about his DNA results. He and Dory had apparently had a falling out and Dory took control of his gang.”
Roz was shocked. “Dory is a mob boss too?”
A look of regret filled Mick’s eyes. “He runs to most lethal gang in Rome, yes. Ron used to run it, and Dory was his underboss. But the guys grew dissatisfied with Ronnie’s leadership and they installed Dory as boss.
Ron had already had the DNA test. He already knew Dory wasn’t his son.
And then Dory allowed them to kick him out of his own gang?
It was a hard fall for a proud man like Ron. ”
It sounded like a soap opera to Roz.
“That’s what he and Danny Cerva got in a fight about initially.
It wasn’t about some girl. That’s just the story going around.
It was about the fact that Danny insisted I was Dory’s old man since Ron Toscano wasn’t.
And he threw it in Dory’s face. Dory was already crushed.
He thought for all his life that his old man was Ron.
Ron had been there in his life. And he’d just took over Ron’s syndicate.
It was too much for him to take. That was the real fight. That woman shit was the sideshow.”
Roz could hardly believe it. She stared into Mick’s green eyes. “How’s he doing?”
It was the question only a great woman like Roz would have bothered to ask, given how she felt about the boy’s mother. “He’s doing better. I spoke with his doctor this morning. He’s young and strong. They expect him to make a full recovery.”
“But Bella’s staying in Rome?”
“For the time being, yes. Along with the highest level of security possible.”
“How did she get there?” Roz was already certain of the answer.
Mick knew she was too. “She flew to Rome with me, yes,” he said. “Those particular rumors were accurate.”
Roz hated to hear it, but she understood it. But that didn’t stop tears from appearing in her eyes. “You stay away from Bella Caine,” she ordered him. “She’s always been nothing but trouble for us.”
Mick refused to commit to that. She was not just the mother of one of his children, but of two of them now. He pulled Roz into his arms. “You’re the only one I want,” he said to her.
But Roz felt trapped. Trapped by her love for Mick, even though her life would be peaches and cream if she got away from him.
One day she might have to. His behavior alone was inching her closer and closer to the exit. One of these old days, if nothing changed, she was leaving him.
But this day, as he held her so tenderly and as she sobbed softly in his arms, wasn’t going to be that old day.