PROLOGUE #2
That was why he reached his hand out to her with a thick wad of one-hundred-dollar bills. It had to be five thousand easy, which was more than what she could have hoped for. But he always gave her more than she asked for. Always.
But Mick the Tick didn’t give any shit for free.
He always expected some form of repayment.
And she knew, like all those times before, he would expect it of her too.
As an informant maybe? As “entertainment” for one of his arms clients maybe?
It used to be being with him was the repayment.
But that was back then. And that was why she didn’t grab the money and run.
She’d never outrun him. That was why she watched that money flap in his hand like a bad temptation dangling in front of her.
“Once I leave his ass this time it’s gonna be final,” she said. “I mean it this time, Mick.”
Mick didn’t want to hear that either. She could fool herself about that toxic relationship she had with whichever man she was fucking now, but she couldn’t fool Mick.
She knew it too. A part of her wondered if she kept getting in bad relationships so that he could bail her out.
A part of her wanted to forever be in his grip, anyway, and she knew it.
And to her shame she wouldn’t have it any other way.
She wanted to stay in his debt. She wanted to stay at his beck and call.
She hated herself for doing it, but she took the money. God help her, she took it.
Then she looked at him. He never looked smug like some men in his position easily would.
But he always seemed disappointed. Like she, once again, had disappointed him.
Like she, once again, would never live up to the only woman he ever thought enough of to marry.
The one woman she and every woman that had ever been with Mick despised more than life itself.
“I know I’m not Roz in your eyes,” she started saying to him.
But before she could finish her sentence, Mick gave her a look that could bend steel. “Keep her name out of your mouth,” he said to her in no uncertain terms.
She wanted to cuss his ass out right then and there.
Why did he put Roz above all the rest of them?
Even above Bella Caine, who was another one Cleo hated with a passion too.
But what did Roz have that they didn’t have?
Cleo knew she was a beauty no man could deny.
Men still groveled at her feet and would give a right arm to be with her.
She could have any one of them she wanted!
But none of them was Mick.
And that was the problem of her life.
But every time she called, he came. Every time she cried on the phone to him, begging him to help her, he gave her whatever she needed.
Why would he always be there for her if he didn’t love her and want her too?
Him coming to her was what kept her going back to him.
Although she knew, by keeping her on his you owe me list, it benefited him far more than it would ever benefit her.
But she wanted him and no one else. And Cleo always got what Cleo wanted.
She leaned over and kissed him on his lips before he could object. And then she tightened her grip on that blood money and got out of that car as quickly as she could. He would reject her if she didn’t kiss and run. He could be such an asshole like that.
Teddy was glad to see her go as he got back into his car.
He didn’t give her a second glance. And then, in typical Teddy fashion she knew so well, he sped away from her with no regard for the fact that his spinning tires were kicking up mud against her shapely legs.
Which had her fuming. But even that was worth seeing Mick again.
If she didn’t love Mick so much she’d hate him.
But oh how she loved him. He was her drug of choice.
Nobody picked up what Mick laid down and didn’t want him to give it to them more and more and more until they had to have more and more and more of it.
Until it was a magnificent obsession. Until nothing else mattered and the magnificence was long gone.
Until getting rid of that obsession, for her own sanity, became the obsession.
As Mick drove away, he was looking through his rearview mirror at her too.
And it seemed that he was looking back at her with a fondness that Teddy just couldn’t understand.
She was messy as hell and stayed in trouble.
Always had shit going on. Was the most chaotic person he’d ever known.
But his old man just loved her. It was inexplicable to Ted how much Mick loved her.
But Mick wasn’t looking out of that side mirror out of fondness.
He saw a car speed up toward Cleo before they turned the corner that would get them out of that back parking lot.
Why would somebody be driving up back there?
But when Cleo stood at her car door and turned and saw that car speeding toward her, she tried to hurriedly get inside of her car. That was when Mick knew it was trouble.
“It’s a hit!” Mick yelled out as he began pulling out his gun. “Turn around!”
Teddy didn’t know what his father was talking about, but he quickly hung a fast U-turn.
But as they were turning, the gunman in that automobile began firing shot after shot at Cleo. Mick’s heart dropped as Cleo went down after the second shot, but that gunman inside that car kept on firing at her. He was going for the kill shot.
Teddy was shocked, too, when he saw Cleo go down. He couldn’t stand her ass, but he didn’t want her dead!
Mick pressed down the window, leaned out, and began firing at the car to get that gunman away from Cleo.
But just as he started shooting, and just as Teddy was speeding toward the action, a group of four cars began speeding toward Teddy’s Hellcat, with many of the men inside those cars leaned out firing AK-47-style assault rifles at his car.
The firepower was so excessive and intense that Mick had to get back inside the car and Teddy had to hook another U-turn and speed away.
Those gunmen tried to keep up with his car, but it was far too fast. Teddy was gone like dust in the wind.
Mick hated it, but he knew it was the right call.
They were easily outmanned and outgunned.
But they weren’t three blocks away when Mick ordered Teddy to go back.
“Back?” Teddy was shocked. “For what, Pop? She’s dead. We can’t outshoot that much firepower..”
“Go back. I’m not leaving her like that. Not behind some abandoned building. Not alone. Go back.”
Teddy looked at his father. He truly loved that girl. Which blew Teddy’s mind. He had Roz. He had a good woman. Why was he always willing to mess that up over these dime-a-dozen whores?
But Pop was the boss. What he said always went during Teddy’s entire life. That was why against his better judgment, Teddy headed back to the scene of the crime. He could only hope that those gunmen were gone.
And they were. By the time they made it back behind that abandoned shoe factory, the only car left back there was Cleo’s. The gunman that shot her down was gone. Those four cars that came for Mick and Teddy were gone. But, incredibly, Cleo’s body was gone too.
“What the fuck?” Even Teddy was shocked.
He stopped the car and he and Mick got out, with Teddy more as his father’s bodyguard as he had his own gun out looking in every direction to make certain those punks weren’t lying in wait.
Mick looked inside Cleo’s car and found nothing. Then he just stood there, as if something was wrong, but Teddy had no idea what.
But when sirens could be heard in the distance, they knew they had to get out of there. They’d get their guys to try to find out what happened to Cleo and who was behind the ambush later. But right now, they had to leave.
Mick went back to Teddy’s car and got in on the passenger seat. Teddy looked around one more time, hopped in, and drove off once again.
He glanced at his father several times. He wondered what was it about that girl that he would give her the time of day.
But Teddy didn’t know the backstory. He didn’t know what Mick had her doing for him and his “clients” once upon a time.
He had no clue the guilt Mick carried every time he saw that young lady.
Every time he remembered, for the sake of his own illegal arms sales, what he did to her.
The change in Cleo after she hooked up with Mick was immediate. Although Teddy couldn’t remember it.
But Mick couldn’t forget it.