CHAPTER TEN
When Mick first walked inside his safe house and saw Cleo sitting in that chair with her legs crossed in a miniskirt that purposely revealed way too much, looking as if she’d seen some rough days in the last two years, his heart squeezed with that heavy guilt again.
She was a good kid before she hooked up with him.
Now look at her. There was no telling what she’d been through.
When Cleo saw Mick for the first time in two years, her heart squeezed too. And the tears flowed from her huge eyes. She thought he loved her on some level. But he didn’t love anybody but himself. He never even tried to find her, or she was certain he would have.
“Mick, you see how they treat me? Got me in handcuffs like I’m some criminal. Y’all the criminals, not me. I haven’t done anything wrong, and this is how you let them treat me?”
“Untie her,” Mick ordered the two capos standing beside her chair and one of them quickly did as he was told.
But when Cleo saw Sal walk in, she went ballistic. “Get him away from me!” Terror was in her voice. “Mick, get him away from me! Mick, don’t let him hurt me, Mick!”
But Sal was frowning. “If I wanted to hurt your ass you would have been hurt. You just better be glad it was Teddy who found your ass and not me.”
“See Mick. He wants me dead. He’s always wanted me dead.”
It happened nearly two-and-a-half years ago when two of Sal’s capos followed her to her apartment after hanging out at a bar with her.
A rival boss was waiting for them inside her apartment.
She declared up and down she had nothing to do with it and that the mobster somehow broken into her place without her permission.
Which Sal knew was bullshit. And Mick knew it too.
That rival boss killed both of Sal’s guys.
Sal took out the rival boss and his entire crew for what he did to his men.
But Mick inexplicably ordered hands off when it came to Cleo.
Sal was livid, because he was certain she set the whole thing into motion, and he and Mick almost came to blows over that craziness.
But no matter how badly Sal wanted to do so, he knew he couldn’t defy a direct order from Mick. He didn’t touch her.
But Cleo was certain he still blamed her for what happened to his men.
He could pretend he didn’t around Mick, but she knew Sal Luca.
She knew, one day, when Mick wasn’t paying attention, he was going to exact his revenge.
“He just said so,” she said. “He said if he would have found me instead of Teddy, he would have killed me, Mick. You gotta keep him away from me!”
As Mick and Sal walked up to Cleo, the two capos hurriedly got them chairs from the card table. They both sat down with Mick crossing his legs with his arms resting in a cross fashion across his lap.
But Sal, who despised Cleo for what she did, slouched down in the chair with his arms folded and his legs stretched out before her. She was a gorgeous girl. He’d never deny that. But she was nothing more than a conniving, dirty bitch as far as he was concerned.
But outside, Teddy was fuming. He ran his Pop’s syndicate, which was the most powerful syndicate in the world.
And they relegate him to wait outside like he was the damn help?
This was so disrespectful that it bordered on disloyalty to Teddy.
And he wasn’t having it. He began heading for the entrance.
“Pop, I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Marco warned. “You know how Big Pop can get if you defy him.”
“You’re not me and fuck Big Pop,” Teddy said as he walked past the capos guarding the door: they weren’t about to stop him. Then he opened the door and let himself inside.
Sal looked at him as soon as the door closed. “Didn’t we tell your ass to wait outside?”
“I’m not waiting outside,” Teddy said as he walked over to them. “Your ass wait outside.”
Sal didn’t order him out, which he knew he could have done, and Mick didn’t even look his way. Mainly because both of them were inwardly pleased that Teddy didn’t let them handle him. He was the head of the Sinatra Crime syndicate. He’d better not wait outside!
But Mick’s attention was on Cleo. “You were supposed to be dead,” he said to her.
“To everybody who cared to know, I was.”
“That was the point?”
“That was the point, hell yeah.”
“Why?” Mick asked her.
“I had my reasons.”
“Which were?” Sal asked her.
“None of your damn business, Sal Luca!”
Teddy frowned. “You don’t talk to Sal Gabrini like that. Who do you think you are?”
“Tell them to leave me alone, Mick,” Cleo said as if she had a right to ask him such a thing. “You know how they treat me. Tell them to back off. Like for real.”
Sal and Teddy looked at each other with smiles on their faces. “Check this chick out,” Sal said as he nodded his head toward Cleo.
But Mick didn’t entertain any of it. “Where have you been for the last two years?”
When he asked that question, they all saw a far less defiant look come over her face. Then she frowned as if she was reliving it. “He came and got me.”
“Which one?” Sal asked.
Which only pissed her off again. “What you mean which one? I wasn’t messing with no other man but Ricardo, and Mick knows that.”
“Were you in on it?” Mick asked her.
She looked at him. “Why would you ask me something like that?”
“There was no blood.”
They all looked at Mick. “What do you mean, Uncle Mick?” Sal asked him.
“When we doubled back to the scene of that shooting, not only was her body gone, but there was no blood left anywhere. Not even a sprinkle.”
“Shit,” said Sal. “So you suspected the bitch was lying all along?”
“Don’t you call me a bitch,” Cleo said.
“I didn’t even see it at the time, Uncle Sal.”
“That’s because you believed your eyes,” said Mick. “She was shot down and we were being shot at and we had to get out of there.”
“Didn’t you think it was strange that they took my body?” Cleo asked him.
“What’s strange about that?” asked Teddy. “That’s what mobsters do. They get rid of the evidence. We figured the shooters took your ass to dump you in the river to get rid of the evidence. But we were certain you was dead.” Then he looked at his father. “At least I was certain of it.”
But Mick was staring at Cleo. “Answer my question,” he said to her. “Were you in on it?”
She was offended again. “No, Mick, no! You know I wasn’t in on it. Richardo shot me with a tranquiller gun that knocked me out immediately, and then he and his crew put me in the car and flew me out of Philly that same night.”
“Flew you to where?” Teddy asked.
“First to Dublin.”
“To Ireland? I thought his ass was Jamaican. Why would he fly you all the way to Dublin?”
“Because he was afraid Mick would figure he had something to do with the shooting and send his goons to Jamaica. We stayed away from the Caribbean the entire time.”
“Doing what?” Mick asked her.
Another sad look appeared on her face. “You know what. We flew from town to town, country to country, yacht to yacht as we ‘entertained,’” she said as she made air quotes with her fingers, “millionaires and billionaires. I was still his biggest draw and he knew it.”
“So you’re saying your ass was trafficked all this time?” Sal asked her.
“Yes, Sal, that’s exactly what I’m saying.
And no, Mick, I wasn’t in on it as you put it.
I had nothing to do with it. I was under house arrest the entire time.
I couldn’t even go take a piss without being filmed.
Every room we were in wasn’t just wired, but cameras were everywhere.
Ricky saw to that. That’s why they always came to us. We never went to them.”
All three men fell silent. Sal and Teddy didn’t like her, but they never would have wished any of that on her.
But for Mick, it was that guilt that was kicking his ass.
To his credit, he tried to get her out of it when he stopped using her.
But he should not have gotten her in it in the first place.
“How did you escape?” he asked her in the silence.
“He and one of the johns had a huge fight. Guns were drawn and shooting started. When my bodyguard ran to help Ricky, nobody was paying me any attention. So I took off. We were at a beach house in Milan and I headed for the woods. I ran and I ran until I was on the highway. I hailed down a truck driver who agreed to give me a lift to Verona where a friend of mine lived. He dropped me off at this truck stop kind of place, I called my friend, and he came and got me. I told him I was with this creep who abandoned me, and he believed me. He paid my way back to the States.”
Mick was studying her. “Why did you land in Vegas?”
“The only flight I could get out of Verona that night was to Vegas. So I took it. And I figured it was as good a place to lay low as any. Ricky knew how I felt about Sal. I figured Vegas would be the last place he’d come looking for me. But I never thought I’d run into Robby Yale.”
“What about Ricardo? Have you heard anything from him?” Mick asked her.
“Not a word,” Cleo said. “But I was using a burner phone with the money my friend fronted me in Verona. But I couldn’t use my credit cards or anything associated with me or he’d track me down again. I’m just that valuable to him.”
“But this ain’t jelling for me,” said Teddy. “You call Pop about everything going on in your life. Every single thing. Why couldn’t you call him when you got to your friend’s house in Verona? He would have sent an army to get you and you knew it.”
Mick hated that so many people had images of him that was always whacked. They didn’t know the backstory so they made stuff up. It infuriated him. But he never confronted it.
But Cleo knew better. “He wouldn’t send no army after me. He didn’t even look for me.”
“That’s a lie,” said Teddy. “He looked high and low for you.”
Cleo still wasn’t convinced. “He was already thinking something wasn’t right when he didn’t see that blood.
If I would have called him two years later like that, he would have for sure known I was in on it.
But I wasn’t,” she said as she looked at Mick with a plea in her voice. “I would never do that to you.”
Do what to him, Sal and Teddy wanted to know. Why was there something always weird about their relationship? And it wasn’t just the age difference either.
Mick stood up. As did Sal. And then they began to head for the exit.
“Am I free to go, Mick?” Cleo asked him.
Mick turned around and looked at her. “Do you or do you not want him caught?”
“Yes I want him caught. I want to see him face to face again.”
“Then you aren’t free to go,” he said, and walked out of the safe house with Sal and Ted behind him.
When they got outside, Robby and Marco went over to them.
“You believe her, Uncle Mick?” Sal asked.
“We’ll find out,” Mick said.
“What’s her story?” Robby asked.
“She was a victim of human trafficking,” said Sal. “Let her tell it anyway.”
“I want a full crew on her,” Mick said to Teddy. “Marco, you’ll take the lead.”
Marco didn’t expect it, but it was always a big deal when the big man personally gave him an assignment. “Yes sir.”
“I want her moved to Lackawanna, under full guard, until you hear directly from me, Teddy, or Sal.”
“Yes sir.”
“And when will he hear from us?” Teddy asked.
“When we get Ricardo DeSouza off the streets.”
“It’s funny how I never heard of his ass before,” Sal said.
“Me neither,” said Marco.
But Teddy and Mick knew that name. He was Cleo’s old man for several years. “Do we bring him in dead or alive, Pop?” Teddy asked him.
“Alive,” said Mick. “At all costs, alive. I want to hear his side of the story too.”
But Sal could tell there was something more. “What aren’t you telling us?” he asked Mick.
Mick exhaled. “I got a note.”
“From who?”
“I don’t know.”
Now Teddy was worried. “What did it say, Pop?”
Mick pulled out the note and handed it to Teddy. He, Sal, Marco, and Robby read the note. Then Teddy looked at Mick. “He knows what you did? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“And it was signed Your Past,” said Sal. “What that mean?”
Mick exhaled again. “I have no idea.” He took the note from Teddy. “But I keep feeling like it has something to do with Cleo’s disappearance. I don’t know why, but I feel it.”
“Maybe we should twist her arm a little more,” said Teddy. “Maybe she knows more than she’s telling us.”
But Mick shook his head. “She’s not at the center of whatever’s going on. She wouldn’t know any more than we do. But Ricardo might. That’s why I want his ass alive.”
Teddy. “And that’s how you’ll get him,” he said.
Mick nodded, and then he walked to his SUV, got in, and took off.
They all looked at Sal. “Wonder who would send Big Pop a note like that, Uncle Sal?” Marco asked.
“Hell if I know.”
“And what does Cleo have over Pop, Uncle Sal?” Teddy asked.
“What you mean over him? He loves her,” Sal said. “Ever heard of that?” Then he thumped Robby on his stomach. “Let’s get out of here. I got some business to take care of.” And they left too.