CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The door to the cabin flew open and Mick, followed by Roz, Teddy and Nikki, ran inside like a man who couldn’t get there fast enough. Cleo stood up when he ran in with panic in her own eyes. “Is Ricky still alive?” she asked them frantically. “Is my son still alive?!”
But nobody was answering her as Mick hurried up to her, grabbed her by her blouse, and ran with her until he was slamming her small body against the wall.
Cleo was horrified. “What are you doing?” she asked him angrily. But the look in his already terrifying green eyes said it all. She knew not to fuck with him.
“Is it true?” Mick asked her. “Tell me if it’s true. If you lie to me, I’ll break very bone in your body, Cleo. Is it true???”
Cleo was traumatized by Mick’s aggressiveness, and her wounded foot was throbbing again, but she knew she had to come completely clean. “It’s true,” she said to him with tears in her eyes. “Ricky is my son. And yours.”
Mick had a fixed frown of puzzlement on his face. “But he was your lover.”
She was shaking her head. “He was never my lover.”
“But he pimped you out to other men?”
She was shaking her head again. “No. That was all lies. The only pimp I ever had was you.”
Mick’s heart dropped when she said those words, and an embarrassment settled on Teddy and Nikki and Roz too. Mick had not been a good man in his life. There were parts of him that were downright despicable. But he knew it too.
“Let her go, Mick,” Roz said to him.
Mick didn’t even realize he still had her jacked up. He released her.
“Did you harm him, Mick?” Cleo asked with tears streaming down her face. “Mick, tell me if you harmed our child?”
The idea of Mick having another baby mama was appalling to Roz. How much more humiliation did she have to take from this damn man? But when Cleo said our child, that did it for Roz.
She looked at Cleo. “How old is your son?” she asked him.
When Cleo told her, Roz knew it was true. It was when she just had decided to commit to Mick, and Mick had claimed to commit to her. But yet he was still sleeping around?
And he told her he always wore condoms.
That wasn’t true either?
“You never knew she was pregnant, Pop?” They stopped by the hospital to get Teddy’s hand taped, but they didn’t leave him. Roz and Nikki knew they needed Teddy at that cabin should Mick get out of control. They waited on him.
Now he was as disgusted as they were. “Did she ever tell you she was pregnant?”
Mick exhaled. “She told me she put holes in the condoms I had at her apartment. She told me that.” Then he exhaled and nodded. “She told me she was pregnant at the time, yes.”
“And what did you tell her?” Nikki asked.
“He told me to get rid of it,” said Cleo.
Nobody doubted her. It sounded like something Back-in-the-Day Mick would have done.
But it was well beyond the outside of too much for Roz. She’d had enough.
She began leaving that cabin.
But when Roz began leaving, it felt to Mick that she was leaving him. “Rosalind, wait,” he said and hurrying behind her.
But Roz hurried out of that door and began hurrying to that SUV. The capos outside were watching her as she hurried out. Were they supposed to go with her? What was happening now?
But then they saw the big boss rushing out behind her. And the boss and Nikki rushing out behind him.
“Rosalind, I said wait!” Mick said and angrily grabbed her by the elbow and turned her toward him.
But that only made Roz angrier with Mick. She took her open hand, and in front of his own men she slapped him violently across his face. Not one time. Not twice. But three different times. “Stay away from me you bastard!” she yelled at him and then turned and ran to that SUV.
Mick’s men could not believe what they’d just witnessed.
They knew that woman was about to die. And Mick’s temper did flare violently as he hurried up to her and was about to grab her and sling her around again.
But Teddy ran and got in between his father and his stepmother.
“Let her go, Pop.” Agony was in Teddy’s bright green eyes. “You gotta let her go.”
Those words cut Mick deep. Because they sounded so final. But he didn’t detain her. He let her go.
Nikki ran behind Roz and hopped into the SUV with her as Teddy motioned to his men for a detail to follow them. Those capos hopped into the other Expedition and followed them.
As they sped away from that cabin, Mick just stood there. His wife wanted to leave him. His son wanted to kill him. His heart wanted to fail him. He felt like a shell of a man.
He looked at Teddy. And he spoke words Teddy never thought he’d hear from his father. “Is she gone, Teddy? Is this it?”
His voice sounded more devastated than anything else. But Teddy wasn’t about to massage his ego. “This is a mess, Pop. A mess of your own making. And yeah she slapped the fuck out of you in front of your own men. What the fuck you thought she was gonna do? Your ass would drive the Pope to drink!”
Mick’s jaw tightened. Nobody spoke to him that way. But Teddy was right. He brought it all on himself.
But Teddy saw his father’s anguish and calmed back down. Why he loved this man so much was still a mystery to him. He did so much shit to everybody that loved him!
But Teddy also knew his old man would die for every one of them, too, and he’d already risked his own life countless times to preserve theirs. More than any other reason, that was why Teddy stayed.
“I think it’s time to get the band back together, Pop,” he said. “I think it’s time for us to bring back Frankie and the Gabrinis and put an end to this shit.”
Although Mick was still licking his wounds of devastation, he knew he couldn’t disagree.