CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT #2
But Roz wasn’t being strategic in the least. She was being Roz.
And as soon as he said those disrespectful words, she got up, which scared Mick so badly that he jumped up and hurried behind her, as she slapped the shit out of Dory.
She slapped him so hard that his face snapped sideways. “Say that shit again,” she begged him.
Dory touched the side of his face, and looked beyond her at that chilling look in Mick’s eyes, and he decided against striking back.
He looked, instead, at Mick. “Better get your bitch,” he said, and Roz slapped him again across his face.
“Say that again motherfucker!” she yelled.
“He’s a fool,” Monk said to Teddy.
“You know it,” Teddy replied.
But this time, Dory looked to Bella. “You gonna let her treat your own son like this?”
“What you looking at me for?” asked Bella. “You’re the one disrespecting her with your foul mouth. And why I got to defend you? Your father ain’t doing nothing about it either and you not on his case.”
Dory shook his head at Bella. “You ain’t shit just like I said.”
But he never again looked at Roz or Mick as they stood there. That was why Roz went and sat back down, and Mick did likewise. They sat down, but continued to stare at Dory.
And that was when Toscano looked at Mick. “We got you good,” he said.
They all looked at Toscano. “How did you get me?” Mick asked him.
“I rule Rome.”
“That’s news to the Pope,” said Monk.
Toscano gave Frankie a nasty look. Then he looked back at Mick. “I rule Rome,” he said again, “which means all of these people in authority will do exactly what I tell them to do.”
“I thought Dory ran Rome,” said Monk.
“We run it together,” Toscano said. “Father and son.”
“Get to your point,” said an irritated Teddy.
“That DNA test you took?” Toscano asked Mick.
Mick froze. Everybody did. “What about it?” asked Bella.
Toscano and Dory smiled. “It was as fake as a nine-dollar bill,” Toscano said, and Dory laughed.
“Because your stupid ass did exactly what we knew you’d do.
Because your stupid ass defended the honor of your son.
” Toscano began laughing. “When he wasn’t even your son!
” he said and he and Dory had a little laugh-fest.
Roz, Teddy, Nikki and Monk all looked at Mick. Bella did too. He killed all of Monk’s men for Dory. And Dory wasn’t his son all along? And they knew it?
Then Dory put his hands to his eyes and removed the green contacts he wore. His eyes were still green, but they were lighter than that deep green of Mick’s eyes. Bella thought his eye color darkened over time. She had no idea!
But as Mick continued to stare at Dory, and as he continued to relive what he did to Frankie and Frankie’s men for this fool in front of him, his rage was growing palpable.
Teddy and Nikki looked at each other. They knew if Mick unleashed, there was no way they were going to be able to stop him.
No human being in that room would be able to stop Mick. Not even Roz.
But apparently Dory knew it too because as Mick was still simmering, and while Teddy and Nikki were looking at each other, and while everybody else in that room was looking at Mick, wondering what he would do next, Dory decided it was the absolute right time to shoot his shot.
He pressed his cufflink and in an ultra-fast movement, he slid a long knife down his long sleeve shirt, grabbed the handle with his fingers, and flung it straight at Mick’s face. It could not help but split his face in two.
But Mick’s reflexes were as sharp as they were twenty years ago, and as soon as he saw that knife sailing like the sword of Damocles for his face, he reached out his hand and grabbed it by the tip.
Although it sliced across his palm and the blood was beginning to pour, he stopped it in its tracks.
And then he lifted it up to fling it right back toward Dory even as his men and Teddy and Nikki were pointing their guns at Dory.
But Monk grabbed Mick’s hand just before he flung it, and took it from Mick’s bloody hand.
Then Monk threw that knife himself. Not just for Mick, but for all his men that perished because of Dory. He threw it straight through Dory’s heart.
Dory’s reflexes were nowhere near as sharp as the man he was just moments before ridiculing for believing he was his son, and that knife tore into him.
Toscano screamed out when Dory slumped over. When he saw that his son was dead, he jumped up to jump on Mick, but Mick had pulled out his Glock while Monk was throwing that knife, and he shot Toscano several times. His timing was too slow for Mick too.
Toscano fell backwards and dropped dead right alongside his dead son.
Bella was already crying out when Monk’s precision throw pierced Dory’s heart. That was her son. She was screaming.
Roz felt her pain because she knew she would have been crying out for her child, too, no matter how terrible he was. That was why she pulled Bella into her arms. That was why she was shedding tears too.
Mick took his handkerchief and wrapped the cut that was still bleeding in the palm of his hand, staunching the blood flow. But as painful as that injury was, it paled in comparison to how painful Mick felt about what he’d done in the name of Dorian Toscano’s honor.
Nikki and Teddy escorted Bella outside to the SUV, with Mick, Roz, and Monk following them. They were all eager to leave that place for good while their men cleaned up the mess.
But while the others got into the Ford Expedition that would take them back to the airfield, Mick pulled Frankie aside. And he looked Frankie dead in his eyes. “Why did you stop me from taking Dory out?” Mick asked.
“Because he was Bella Caine’s son,” Monk responded. “And you and Bella will always be, how can I say it? In communication. Let’s put it that way. You didn’t need that over your head.”
Mick nodded. “Thanks. But as insignificant as it is now, I do owe you an apology.”
But Monk was already shaking his head. “You thought you had legit proof that he was your son. I even was certain he was your son. No apology needed, Mick,” Frankie said. “You did what any father would have done.”
“And I played right into their hands.”
“And they overplayed their hands.”
Mick attempted a smile but couldn’t pull it off.
He stared at Monk Paletti. He was such an honorable man.
Such a good man. But Mick couldn’t get over himself.
The pain of what his no-holes-barred approach to every single major problem, an approach that caused Monk and especially his men everything, was strangling him.
Roz saw it too. That was why she got out of that SUV, went over to Mick, and pulled him into her arms.
And the great Mick Sinatra, who never showed any depth of emotions in public, didn’t show any depth of emotions that time either. He’d be damned if he let those people see him cry!
But inwardly, he was as vulnerable as a dove. And Roz knew it. His eyes were tightly closed, but so were hers, as she held him.