CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Security was even tighter than normal as many of Mick’s capos had made their way to the hotel by the time they drove up.
When they got out of the Escalade, a wall of protection surrounded them as they made their way to the penthouse.
Not having Duke with them, and not knowing where Duke could possibly be, made the situation bad enough.
But when they entered the penthouse and found Bella Caine asleep on the sofa inside the apartment, wearing nothing but Mick’s big dress shirt, it got worse. They all just stood there.
Teddy and Nikki had forgotten that Bella was even there.
Jackie was shocked she was there and dressed so provocatively.
Roz was surprised, but never shocked by anything concerning Bella and Mick, even though she thought Bella would still be by her son’s bedside in Rome.
But as for Mick, he didn’t give a shit. He sat down in the armchair before he fell down, and leaned his head back.
Teddy went over and shook Bella, and Bella woke up.
When she saw everybody was in the penthouse, she quickly sat up. “What happened? Is Dory okay? Is Gloria?”
“That’s not it, Bella,” said Teddy. “But you need to leave.”
Bella looked at Roz as if it was all her doing, and then she looked at Mick. But Mick wasn’t looking at anybody. He appeared to be in his own world in his own thought process.
“I can’t leave,” she said. “And Mick knows it.”
But Jackie was disgusted with her father. “You knew she was here?” she asked him.
Mick looked at her.
“How dare you keep hurting Mommy like this. How dare you?” Then she ran into the bedroom she always used as her bedroom whenever she stayed at her father’s hotel, and slammed the door.
Roz never babied her children. She didn’t run behind Jackie to soothe her fears because everybody was afraid. She, instead, stared at Bella as she sat in the chair across from Mick.
“Why can’t you leave?” Nikki asked Bella as she and Teddy sat on the sofa beside her.
“Mick knows why,” Bella responded as she stared right back at Roz.
They weren’t enemies in the traditional sense. They were generally cordial with one another whenever, for Gloria’s sake, she was invited to family functions. But there was jealousy on both sides. Neither loved the relationship Mick had with the other one.
To Roz, it was no contest. She was Mick’s wife. End of discussion. But Bella’s place in Mick’s heart hadn’t eased at all over the years, and that was concerning to her.
To Bella, it was the fact that Roz had achieved what no other baby mama in Mick’s life had ever achieved: he put that ring on it. Roz won the prize when Bella didn’t even know she was in the running. Bella would never get beyond that painful truth.
But Mick wasn’t trying to hear none of it. Duke was on his mind. “Contact Security,” he said to Nikki. “See if they’ve got any leads.”
“Yes, sir,” Nikki said as she stood to do just that.
“Pop, I still say we need to talk to Frankie.” Teddy was on the edge of his seat. “It’s gone too far. We’ve got to resolve this.”
“We thought it was resolved, remember? We thought that hit on my shipment at the docks was the resolution. I hit hard, he hit back soft. That was supposed to be the olive branch.” Then Mick’s look turned sinister. “Olive branch my ass!”
Teddy moved his head from side to side and exhaled. “Maybe if Big Daddy talks to him,” said Teddy.
“He already did. Have you forgotten that? He told Charles to his face that he wasn’t interested in a truce. What more do you need to see that he’s out for blood?”
“Just like you were?” Roz asked Mick and everybody looked at her. “This shit begins and ends with you. You went to Rome and shut it down. All for some son we never even heard of. Now what are you going to do about it?”
It was the question everybody knew needed answering. Not what they were going to do about it, but what Mick was going to do about it. He was the only one with the power to force Monk to stand down. But how?
“Maybe we need to contact Hammer, Pop,” Teddy said. Panic over his little brother’s abduction was driving his decisions.
But as soon as Teddy made that suggestion, and before Mick could object to that suggestion, the penthouse door flew open and the capo on the door hurried inside.
Mick jumped up. “What is it?”
“We got him, sir,” he said excitedly.
“You’ve got who?” asked a tired and confused Mick as he stood up.
“Do you mean Duke?” Roz asked as she stood up too.
“What’s wrong with Duke?” Bella asked as she stood up too.
“Yes, ma’am,” said the capo. “They’re escorting him up now.”
Everybody was confused. “Who’s escorting him up?”
“Our guys. He just ran into the lobby like it was just another ordinary day. It was so shocking they almost didn’t even realize it was him. But it’s Duke. We’ve got Duke back!”
Roz took off running out of that penthouse faster than anybody else. Mick and Teddy hurried behind her. Nikki ran to the bedroom to let a distraught Jackie know what was happening, and both of them took off running out of the penthouse too. But Bella, confused, just stood there.
When Jackie ran into the corridor, her parents and Teddy were already waiting at the elevator door. She ran so fast to that elevator that she slid up to them because of her momentum. She had to grab her father by his arm to stop her slide.
And then the elevator doors slid open and they all saw that it was true: Duke was on that elevator. Unharmed.
Before he could take one step off, his mother, Jackie, and Nikki ran onto that elevator and grabbed him into their arms. All of them were sobbing uncontrollably.
The security chief that was on the elevator with Duke walked off and Teddy pulled him aside to find out what he knew about the situation. Mick was listening in, but he was also staring at his son with nothing but relief in his heart.
“Duke said the van stopped, there was a commotion, and then they dropped him off a couple blocks away,” the chief said. “He ran into the lobby and we couldn’t believe it was real.”
“Get our guys to find every available video camera in a four-block radius around The Carson,” Teddy ordered. “I want pictures of the faces of everybody that was in that van tonight if we can get them on camera. I want names too.”
“Did we get a plate on the van yet?” asked the chief.
“It was stolen,” Teddy said. “Belonged on somebody’s Hyundai. We got nothing there.”
“Damn,” said the chief.
“Just get those videos,” Teddy ordered.
“Yes sir,” the chief said as Duke was taken off of the elevator. The chief got back on it and left.
Jackie and Nikki had Duke surrounded as they kept their arms around him and walked him to the penthouse.
But Roz looked at Mick and Teddy. Because she was baffled. “Why would Frankie do this to us? He had to know taking Duke away like that would devastate us. Why would he take our child like that, and then five hours later just give him right back?”
But Duke’s fast return gave Mick a completely different perspective. Because he knew Monk too well. “He wouldn’t,” Mick said to Roz.
They looked at him. And for the first time since their ordeal began, Teddy and Roz could see that Mick was completely baffled too.