CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The three Cadillac Escalades, all fortified even more impressively than those armored Bearcats, left the highway after about half an hour and then drove down a long, narrow driveway that led to a lakeside cabin backed up by woods. Two big black Ford Expeditions were parked in the driveway.
“This is very nice,” Roz said as they all began getting out. “How long have you owned this property, Mick?”
Mick hated to admit it because he never once mentioned it to Roz. “About twenty-five years,” he said.
Nikki and Teddy glanced at Roz. The idea that her husband would own this beautiful lakeside cabin for that long and she didn’t even know it existed had to hurt.
And it did hurt Roz deeply. Mick was the most layered human being she’d ever known and every time she thought she’d peeled the last layer, there was another one. And another one. And another one. It was never going to end!
The cabin was heavily guarded by the capos she assumed came over in those Expeditions as the other capos that came with them joined their colleagues and remained outside. But Mick, Roz, Teddy and Nikki went inside.
And that was when Roz got her first look at Cleopatra Burgess.
And she had three thoughts at once as soon as she saw her.
She wasn’t surprised that she was African-American too, because of all of Mick’s women down through the years, the black ones were usually the ones he couldn’t seem to shake.
They stuck to him like white on rice. Which wasn’t surprising.
You find a good horse, you ride it. But what troubled Roz down through the years was how definitively he also stuck to them.
Her other thought was just how nice-looking she was. She had it. There was no doubt about it.
But she was also around Teddy’s age, which meant she was younger than Roz. Which didn’t help Roz’s mood at all. She always wondered if Mick would do like other highly-successful men loved to do as they got older and trade in his wife for a younger woman.
But this younger woman was no shrinking violet. Roz saw that too.
What Cleo saw was something completely different. As soon as Roz walked into that cabin by Mick’s side and Mick was holding Roz’s hand, Cleo became apoplectic and stood on her feet. “What’s that bitch doing here?” she angrily blurted out.
“Bitch?” Teddy responded just as angrily. “Who you calling a bitch? And you have the nerve to ask what’s Mrs. Sinatra doing in her own husband’s cabin? That’s really rich, Cleo. Even for you.”
“Ah fuck you, Teddy.”
“You wish.”
“Sit your ass down, Cleo,” Mick ordered her as he escorted Roz to the sofa. He sat down with Roz seated on one side of him and Nikki on the other side. Cleo was forced back down in her chair.
Teddy didn’t sit. He remained standing and was staring at Cleo.
He noticed how well put together she looked, in her own designer shit, as if she had been expecting his dad to show up.
Why these women couldn’t let Mick go he’d never know.
Even his mother was still in love with his father when his father, Teddy truly believed, never loved her at all.
But that was how his old man rolled. Once bitten by Mick, they were smitten for life.
Mick leaned back and crossed his legs. Roz leaned back territorially, with part of her back against his chest. Which worried Teddy.
It was as if she wanted to make it clear to Cleo that Pop was her man when such a declaration wasn’t even necessary.
He married Roz. Not Teddy’s mother. Not Gloria’s mother.
Not his deceased brothers Joey and Adrian’s mothers.
And certainly not Cleo’s ass. He married Roz only.
In Teddy’s eyes that should have been all any of his whores needed to know.
And by the way Cleo was staring at Roz, she got the picture.
Roz was a beautiful woman too, but nowhere near what Cleo considered was her own most desirable woman in the world kind of beauty.
But there was something about Roz’s style and elegance, and the way she moved so gracefully that made Cleo instantaneously realize why Mick chose her to be his wife and not any of the rest of them.
There was something there that made her stand out.
That gave her sophistication with her looks. Which only made Cleo inwardly envious.
But Mick wasn’t thinking about any of that. Today was reckoning day. “Where is he?” he asked her.
Cleo looked at him and put on that fake vixen smile. “And hello to you too, Mick.”
Something switched in Mick. Nobody saw it coming.
But Teddy, who was standing across from where Cleo was seated, saw it clearly.
And that was why, when his father stood up seemingly casually and walked over to Cleo’s chair, Teddy walked over there too.
Mick’s temper was unleashing and Cleo had no clue.
There was no limit to what he could do to that woman in an instant.
And although Teddy couldn’t stand Cleo since she turned him down in high school, he knew they needed her more than ever now that they knew her lover was involved.
“Stand up,” Mick said to Cleo when he stood in front of her chair.
Cleo stood up. She was not afraid of Mick the way all his other women were. Although, Teddy noticed, she seemed less sure of herself when she was eyeball to terrifying eyeball with Mick.
“Where is he?” Mick asked her again calmly.
“Where’s who?”
When it was clear he wasn’t going to play dumb with her, she got real. “I don’t know,” she said.
Mick calmly reached into his coat and pulled out a switchblade. He flipped it open and then pressed it beneath Cleo’s chin. Even Nikki stood up then. She understood Cleo was still valuable to them. She knew how unpredictable Mick could be.
But Roz wasn’t even looking at Cleo. It was rare for her to get a chance to see him at work. She was staring at Mick.
“I’m going to ask you again,” Mick said as Cleo leaned her chin up in defiance, as if she was angrier at him for having the nerve to bring Roz with him than the fact that he had a knife at her throat.
But Teddy and Nikki knew that Cleo might not have seen the real Mick the Tick at work before. She had no clue the danger she was in.
“Where is he?” Mick asked her again.
“I told you I don’t know where he is!” Her voice was loud and still defiant. “You ain’t got to keep asking me that.”
And that was when Mick’s anger flared and without any hesitation he took that knife and flung it downward. It pierced all the way through her shoe and through her foot, sticking into the floor and trapping her there, as they all watched in horror.
Cleo screamed out in severe pain as she bent over, trying to grab her foot. But she was looking up at Mick as she did so. She had a look of total disbelief on her face.
But Mick was just getting started. He quickly reached down and forcefully pulled his knife out of the floor and out of her foot. She screamed out so loud this time that the capos outside wondered what kind of torture was going on inside.
But Mick wouldn’t let up. He stood up erect and placed that now-bloody knife to Cleo’s throat. “Where is he?” he asked her again.
“I told you I don’t,” she began crying out, until he pressed that knife against the skin of her neck, nearly piercing through it.
And that was when Cleo seemed to realize that Mick was about to go for her jugular, where she would bleed to death if he stabbed her there, and she panicked. She was defiant no longer. “He’s at my house!” she screamed out hysterically. “He’s at my house!”
But her answer was almost as shocking as the stab wound Mick had inflicted on her foot.
They all stared at her. “At your house?” a confused Teddy asked her.
“What the fuck you talking about? I picked your ass up from your house. How could he be at your house? You got another house other than the one on Pulsar?”
Cleo was in so much agony that she wasn’t listening to Teddy.
“Is that your only house?!” Teddy yelled at her.
“Yes it’s my only house!” she yelled back at him.
Mick looked at Teddy. “Did you just snatch her and leave just because she said she was home alone? Or did you do your due diligence, Teddy?”
“Our guys checked it out, Pop. You know I’m not gonna just grab and go. You know I did my due diligence. She was home alone!”
Mick looked at Cleo. “Where was he hiding?”
Cleo was in tears with pain. She looked at Mick. “How could you do this to me?”
Mick moved a little closer to her and she flinched. “Beneath the floorboards,” she said quickly. “I had a trap space installed after you bought me that house. He was hiding in that space.”
Teddy and Nikki glanced at Roz when Cleo mentioned that Mick was the one who bought her that house. Although Roz’s facial expression didn’t change, she got up and made her way to the bathroom. Nikki went with her.
But Mick wasn’t looking at his wife. He was staring at Cleo as if he was still trying to figure her out. “How long has he been at your house?” he asked her.
She was in tears and shaking her head. Teddy could see on his father’s face that it was hurting him to hurt her.
But because her lover boy came, not only for Mick, but for his family, he knew his father didn’t give a shit.
That was what the world still didn’t understand about his old man: You come for his family, you die.
Cleo was sniffling as she answered Mick’s question. “He’s been at my house since before Teddy found me,” she said, still grimacing. “He was there when Teddy kidnapped me.”
“Great work, Teddy,” Mick said.
Teddy’s anger flared too. “How the fuck was I supposed to know about some trap space, Pop? Your ass wouldn’t have known about it either.”
Roz and Nikki came out of the bathroom with towels and a bathrobe belt. When Roz went over to Cleo, bent down, and was about to wrap her foot with the towel, Cleo flinched. Everybody else were shocked. Especially Mick.
But Roz looked up at Cleo. “We’ve got to stop the bleeding or you can bleed out.”