CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Hours later, after they both had cum again and were lying side by side in the still of the night, Roz looked at him. “Teddy told me what’s been happening.”
“Did he tell you that Ricardo beat the shit out of Cleo?”
She hadn’t heard that yet. “No. Is she alright?”
Mick nodded. “She’ll live. But we’ve got every available man looking for that bastard.”
“That bastard who just might be your son?”
Mick hated to admit it. “Yes.”
“You said he claimed to be the money man?”
“That’s what he claimed. But he’s a kid, Roz, and we’re talking millions. Where did it come from?”
“Cleo said he was trafficking her to all those horrible men around the world. She told me she willingly did it so I don’t know if you can call that trafficking.”
“Your point?” Mick asked her.
“My point is that all those horrible men, those third-world dictators and people like them, are super-rich. Maybe they were the ones who bankrolled Ricardo. Maybe that’s where the money’s coming from. Maybe it’s as simple as that.”
When she said those words, Mick sat straight up.
Roz looked at him. “What is it?”
But she could tell he was thinking. And thinking hard. And she decided to let him.
That was why, when he quickly got out of bed and began putting on clothes, she didn’t ask him all those questions she usually asked. She had already decided, before she even came over to Teddy and Nikki’s house, that she was going to let Mick be Mick.
“I’ll be back,” he said as he began heading for the exit.
But then he did something he almost never did before. He turned around. “I’ll explain later,” he said.
Roz nodded. “Okay.”
Which warmed his heart. And which made him say words that were never easy for him to verbalize. “And Rosalind?”
She looked at him. “Yes?”
“I love you more than you will ever know.”
Her heart swelled. “I love you too, Mick.”
For a long moment, they just stared at each other as if they were committing to each other for the first time. Then Mick actually smiled and began leaving.
“And your ass better be careful and stay clean,” Roz yelled after him.
“My ass better be careful and stay clean? Why?” he asked as he glanced back. “Because you may have to kick it?”
Roz saw the smirk on his face. “That’s exactly why. I don’t wanna get my foot dirty.”
Mick laughed out loud. He looked so boyish and youthful to Roz when he laughed.
But when he left the guesthouse, her smile slowly left too. Because she knew he wasn’t going to a party. He was more likely than not going to a situation that might end in a slaughter. Her only prayer was that he got out of it alive.
This was the hard part.