CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
“Nikki get behind the wheel,” Mick ordered as he pulled up to the parking lot of The Kakaya nightclub. “You stay here with Mrs. Sinatra.”
“Yes sir,” Nikki said.
Mick looked at Roz, who was already sitting on the front passenger seat. “Nikki’s in charge. Your ass do anything counter to that and you’ll answer to me.”
“I would have liked to go inside myself, but okay.”
Mick gave her a hard look. He knew how stubborn Roz could be.
Then Teddy looked at Nikki. “She’s not your mother-in-law right now,” he said. “She’s your subordinate.”
Mick looked at his son as if he’d lost his mind. Mick Sinatra’s wife was nobody’s subordinate!
But Teddy and Monk laughed. “Just playing with you, Pop, damn. I already know Ma is nobody’s subordinate but yours. I know already.”
Mick gave Roz another glance. He hated that he brought her along, but pleased to have her by his side too. Especially after the way she made him feel back at Kelly’s place. He, Monk, and Teddy headed for the entrance.
The Kakaya was filled with so many Russian nationals and other partygoers that it was standing room only as the place was alive and jumping.
Mick handed over a wad of cash to get in and then the threesome made their way through the crowd.
The sound of music and laughter and conversations were deafening.
“Maybe we should split up, Mick,” Frankie said.
But Mick didn’t agree. “No,” he said. “We stay together.”
Because Mick knew a guy like Gagarin, who was able to wrangle himself a high-maintenance woman like Bella, wouldn’t hang out in the club proper. He was looking for the rooms.
When he saw a guard on a back door, he made his way in that direction. Monk and Teddy followed him.
Mick pulled out an even larger wad of cash. If Teddy had to guess, he would guess it was a couple thousand bucks. The guard was about to grab for it and allow Mick and his crew entrance into the back rooms, but Mick pulled the wad back. He needed intel first. “Gagarin,” he said. “Which room?”
The guard hesitated, looked at that thick wad again, and then held up four fingers. Mick gave him the money, he opened the VIP-only door, and then Mick, Teddy, and Monk walked in.
They could hear sex sounds emanating from the various rooms as they walked up the hall.
It felt like a brothel to Monk. Although he’d never subject himself to such unsavory rooms, he was not na?ve.
He had to get his guys out of more than their share of rooms like those before he took over as boss of the Bonaducci crime family.
When they made it up to room four, they heard sounds coming from that room too, but Mick didn’t bother to knock. He used his shoulder to force open the door.
When it flew open, Bella was naked in a bed and on top of a naked Datvey Gagarin.
She was riding Gagarin hard when Mick first busted in, with her breasts bounding, and although her movement stopped when she saw Mick, her need to cover her naked body never entered her mind.
She just stared a Mick as Mick, for that brief moment in time, stared at her.
But Datvey, terrified, quickly threw her off of him and onto the bed as he quickly tried to reach for his pants where presumably his gun was lodged.
“Don’t even try it,” Mick said as he walked on in. Mick, seeing the state of disrobing Bella was in, closed the door behind before Teddy and Monk could see anything.
Since they both figured why Mick did not want them to enter that room, Teddy and Monk were relieved.
“If I was that kind of man,” quipped Frankie, “I would have no problem seeing Bella Caine in whatever state of disrobement she’s in. She’s a gorgeous woman.”
“She’s gorgeous,” said Teddy, “and she’s also my sister’s mother. No thank you.”
Inside, Mick ordered Gagarin to his feet. Bella could tell Mick was upset, and Mick was. That man she was screwing was more than likely Duke’s kidnapper. Mick grabbed him and flung him against the wall. “Put your clothes on,” he ordered him.
Gagarin quickly did as he was told. Bella still did not bother to cover up. But Mick grabbed her clothes from the floor and tossed them onto the bed. “Get dressed,” he ordered her, a look of anger and disgust on his face.
Which angered Bella. “Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked him as she began putting on her bra. “I so much as look at a man hard and you have a problem with it.”
“That’s a gotdamn lie,” Mick said without much energy behind it.
“Yeah, Mick, sure,” Bella responded, holding firm to her statement.
But it did bother Mick. “I thought you said he wanted to kill you.”
“He did. He said he would if I didn’t have his money he was gonna kill me. Then he called and said all was well. That he scored a big score. I had no idea he meant Duke. I had no idea he didn’t realize Duke had been kidnapped, but then was released.”
Gagarin seemed surprised by that news. “Released?” he blurted out in his Russian accent. But then he frowned. He never meant to reveal that much. “Who are you and what do you want with me?”
Mick knew that bastard knew who he was, but he didn’t answer his question. He was still watching Bella get dressed. “They said you came to my hotel to distract me and keep me from showing up at opening night.”
Bella frowned. “That’s so not true!” She looked at Gagarin. “What’s that about, Datvey?”
“Nothing,” Gagarin said as he continued to dress. “I told my hired hands that lie when they told me you had fled to The Carson. I knew who owned The Carson, but I didn’t want them to know what a sucker I was for your fresh ass. So I made it up. So what? It’s nothing.”
Mick was inwardly relieved. Bella was a mess, but he always believed he could trust her when it came down to it. “Hurry up,” he said to her as she was slowly dressing. “I don’t have all day.”
After they both were dressed, he spoke again. “We’re going for a walk,” he said to both of them.
Then he looked at Gagarin. “Any funny business and you’re dead. Do I make myself clear?”
Gagarin knew the legend of Mick the Tick. He knew that man had no limits if you crossed him. He knew he was in serious jeopardy if he didn’t figure something out. “You are clear,” he said.
Then Mick opened the door. “Teddy, you lock arms with Bella and walk her out. Frankie, you and I are going to lock arms with this asshole right here. Mr. Datvey Gagarin.”
Now they were getting somewhere, Monk thought. “Yes sir,” Monk said.
“Is there a back exit?” Mick asked him.
“No,” said Gagarin.
“Bullshit,” said Teddy.
“There’s a side exit,” said Bella, who, when the chips were down, was always going to be Team Mick.
“Which side?” Mick asked her.
“Left.”
Mick looked at Teddy. Teddy phoned Nikki and ordered her to drive the SUV around to the left side of the club. When he ended the call, Mick nodded. “Lead the way,” he ordered Bella, and she and Teddy led the way.
As they walked down the narrow hallway, Mick looked at Gagarin. “Why go through the trouble of pretending to be Kelly Cochran?”
“You never heard of subterfuge?” Gagarin said. “Surely a man of your reputation has.”
“I thought you didn’t know him,” said Bella.
“I know him alright. I know Mr. Paletti on the other side of me too. That is why it’s imperative that we straighten out whatever misguided notions you have about me and release me.”
“We need answers first,” said Monk as they made their way out of the club and into the waiting Escalade. Teddy and Monk sat on the back row, while Mick, Gagarin, and Bella sat on the middle row. Nikki drove away.
And Mick minced no words. “This is how it’s going to be done,” he said as he quietly pointed his Glock at Gagarin’s penis.
“I’m going to ask you a series of questions.
If you lie to me, or pretend you don’t have the answer, I will not hesitate to shoot off one of your balls.
Or both. I’m not here because I just happened to find you here.
I’m here because I know of your involvement in all of it.
Fuck with me and I’ll kill you. Am I making myself clear? ”
“Like glass,” Gagarin responded as he stared at that Glock.
“Why?” Mick asked him.
“Money.”
“Why would a Russian Oligarch need money that badly?”
“I fell out of the good graces of Moscow years ago. That ship sailed long ago. I do odd jobs for a living now. They pay me millions, but they’re still odd jobs.”
“Such as?”
“Oh, let me see: Such as hiring that flash mob of young people to disrupt your wife’s opening night so that those hired gunmen could kidnap the son and/or wife of a legendary mob boss.”
Mick’s jaw tightened, but he kept his rage in check. “Why?”
“Because the man that hired me wants it all. And that meant toppling the top four. First, Monk Paletti, number three, had to be dealt with. Then number two Sal Gabrini. And then Teddy Sinatra. And then you.”
“Dealt with how?”
“That’s his business. I only do what my business requires.”
“What all have you done?” Mick asked him.
“I hired a gentleman to try and take out Teddy.”
They were all surprised. Teddy turned around and looked at Gagarin. Nikki looked through the rearview as she drove. “That car crash wasn’t an accident?” Teddy asked.
“Not in the least.”
“But that driver was so scared,” Nikki said.
“All an act,” said Gagarin.
Teddy and Nikki were floored.
“Go on,” said Mick.
“I had that beam fall from that scaffold at that construction site in Las Vegas. It was supposed to be all of the beams falling. At least the men I hired were supposed to rig it that way. But only one beam fell. It was supposed to take out Sal Gabrini and his queer underboss Robby Yale. But that didn’t work either. ”
“Go on.”
“And the kidnapping of course. That was the extent of my odd job thus far.”
Now the most important question. “Who hired you?” Mick asked him.
“Now you know, as a boss yourself,” Gagarin said, “that such is privileged information.”
Mick didn’t hesitate. He shot Gagarin in the balls.
Everybody in that car was shocked. But none as much as Gagarin himself. “You shot me!” he kept crying out as he held his balls with blood gushing out. “You shot me in the balls. You shot me!” Then he started yelling in Russian.
“Shut up,” Mick said. Then Mick angrily put the barrel of his Glock up against Gagarin’s temple. “Shut the fuck up!”
Gagarin was in so much pain that he had beads of sweat all over his forehead. But he fully understood who he was dealing with now. He managed to shut up.
“I am going to ask you one more time. Just one more. Who hired you? The Russian Mafia?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
“Ron Toscano,” he said.
Everything seemed to go still. Teddy frowned. “Those fuckers again?!”
But Mick was stunned. He had not expected to hear that. Roz even turned around and looked at Mick. Because she knew what he had done for Ron’s supposed son. Because she knew the stakes.
Monk knew the stakes too. “Just Ron Toscano?” he asked, glancing at a now unsteady-looking Mick.
“He’s the only one I know about,” said Gagarin. “But look at me,” Gagarin cried. “I need serious medical attention. Don’t let me just remain here. I’ll die.”
Mick looked at him. And woke up from his stupor.
“You kidnapped my son and tried to kill both of my other sons. You tried to kidnap my wife. You tried to murder my nephew. Your ass was gonna die anyway,” Mick said angrily, flung open the door of the SUV even as Nikki flew up the highway.
Then he grabbed a screaming Gagarin and threw him out of the vehicle to his certain death.
His sudden departure silenced the van. No more screams. No more conversation. And Mick returned to his stupor.
“Close the door, Pop,” Teddy said in a voice barely discernible. But Mick heard it, and closed the door.
“What’s next?” Monk asked him. But the answer was obvious.
They had to go to Rome.