EPILOGUE
A hospital was the last place Mick and Roz wanted to visit, but they showed up anyway.
It had been six weeks since that night in that house on Bluebond Road and this was Mick’s first visit.
What Roz loved most about it was the fact that she didn’t have to ask him to do it the way she had to force him to spend more time with his emotionally neglected children when she first met him.
She was praying he would come to that conclusion himself and do the right thing.
But Mick wasn’t so sure if it was the “right” thing to do. That joker killed his capos. Doing his mother’s bidding, he nearly killed Mick and Roz and Duke and Nikki too. All because she was rejected. All because she couldn’t have what she wanted. All because he had turned her out.
And that was the part Mick had to own.
And that was why he decided to pay his son a visit.
A policeman was guarding the door. Ricardo was going straight into custody after he recovered from what Hammer Reese said were nine gunshot wounds.
“Six gunshots here. Nine gunshots there. You and your son must have some thick-ass blood,” Hammer said to Mick.
“You two can take a licking and keep on ticking!”
And when Mick opened the door after he and Roz were allowed inside, taking it was the exact thing on Mick’s mind. He took whatever they threw his way. And so did his son. That much Mick could respect. The rest he could not.
Ricardo was sitting upright in his bed. It was Roz’s first time seeing him in person and she was struck by how young he looked. She knew he was in his twenties, but he looked as if he could be fifteen. And he looked like Duke in so many ways to Roz. She saw Mick in him too.
She remembered how Mick said Cleo spoke about that young man the night she died, and how she said she hated him because he reminded her of Mick, and used him his whole life to get what she wanted. That had to be horrifying for him.
But Mick was right. It was difficult to feel sorry for a killer.
“Hello Ricardo,” Mick said as they walked up to his bedside.
“Hello sir.” Ricardo was staring unblinkingly at them, as if he was waiting for them to lash out at him like his mother had to have lashed out at him the night he rescued her from that cabin and took her to his house.
But when there was no lashing out, they could tell Ricardo had a few questions. And he wasn’t shy about asking them. “Why did y’all come see me?”
“Because you’re my son,” Mick said.
Ricardo stared at him. “That’s the only reason?”
Mick nodded. “Yes.”
Ricardo continued to stare at him. “All my life I was taught to hate you. I was told all those horrific things you did to my mama, and how much you used and abused her. But all the while she was the one using and abusing me. And I didn’t even know it.”
“When did you realize it?” Roz asked him.
He smiled a smile that wasn’t meant to be joyful.
Then he shook his head. “When she was pumping nine bullets into me,” he said, and Roz’s heart dropped.
“When the first bullet struck, I looked up at her as if it couldn’t be true.
It just couldn’t. But by bullet number three or four, all that couldn’t be shit was over. It was true. She hated my guts.”
“Were you the one who beat her up?” Roz asked him.
“That’s what the cops asked me too. But no ma’am. I never did anything to my mother but worship the ground she walked on.”
“They already determined those were self-inflicted wounds,” Mick said. “She was a sick bitch.”
Ricardo nodded. “I know that now. Nobody could tell me that then. Although many people tried.” Then he looked at Mick. “Could I ask you a question?”
Mick could feel a swell of emotion inside of him when the young man felt he had to get permission to ask his own father a question. “Yes, you can ask me a question.”
“How did you know I was hiding in that house?”
“Because you hid in the house I bought for her,” Mick said, “and you hid underneath the floorboards. I thought it was worth a try.”
“You saved my life,” Ricardo said. “If you hadn’t figured that out, I would have died in that hole, and I would have died all alone. And nobody would have ever known or ever cared.”
“We care,” Roz blurted out. When Ricardo looked at her as if he just knew she was going to take that back, she said it again. “We care.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Sinatra,” Ricardo said and then looked at Mick. “But I’m sure you aren’t speaking for Mr. Sinatra. I’m sure he doesn’t care at all. I’m sure he hates my guts. I’m sure you aren’t speaking for him.”
Roz waited for Mick to respond, and so did Ricardo. They both wanted to wrap this shit up into a neat little bow and pat him on his head like his neat little child.
But Mick wasn’t built like that. “You’re right,” he said.
“She’s not speaking for me. Because I don’t give a fuck.
Your mother might have tried to brainwash you, but my old man tried to brainwash me too.
But at some point you have to think for yourself and stand your own ground.
At some point, when she had you doing all of that evil shit she had you doing, it’s not on your mother. It’s on you.”
Then Mick’s eyes hardened even more than they already were.
“You came for my wife. And my child. And my daughter-in-law. And you came for me. The only reason your ass isn’t already six feet under is because it’s confirmed you’re my son.
But don’t you dare get it confused. Ain’t no kumbayas in our future. ”
Roz could see Ricardo’s jaw tighten. He knew it too. “I respect that,” he said.
But Mick knew he was going to say whatever he thought they wanted to hear. Because he was too far gone. He was too much his mother’s son.
“I’ve marked you as hands off when you get incarcerated. You’ll be protected and my guys will keep money on your books. But that’s only because you’re my blood. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here to give a shit. You’d better thank your lucky stars you’re mine.”
Then Mick exhaled. “Come on, Rosalind. I don’t like the air in here.” Mick took her by the hand and led her out of there.
When they made it to the door and Roz glanced back, she actually saw a smirk on the young man’s face. As if his ass hadn’t changed at all. And it was in that moment that she realized Mick knew exactly what he was doing. He knew the type a mile away.
She nor Mick would still be alive if he and his mother would have had their way. That smirk on his face woke her up. She would never again defy Mick’s orders when it came to her safety. She couldn’t get out of that hospital fast enough.
And when they climbed into Mick’s Escalade and he sped away from there, she looked over at him. “He was smiling when we left. He don’t deserve your protection.”
Mick nodded. “I know that. You don’t think I know that? But he’s my son. He’s getting it anyway.”
Roz smiled. “What’s that called? The privilege of being with Mick?”
Mick laughed. “Something like that!”
But their gaiety didn’t last very long as Mick got a call from his office, and then Roz got a call from her office, and then they both were consumed in phone call after phone call from their respective offices.
But when their latest calls ended, and before another call came in, Mick stopped at the red light and looked at Roz. “What are we doing?”
She was on her iPad and she looked over her reading glasses at him. “What do you mean?”
“You have people that work for you. I have thousands that work for me.”
“And?”
“And why aren’t we letting them work for us? What are we doing?”
Roz began to get hopeful. “What are you trying to say, Mick?”
“Let’s go somewhere.”
Did he mean it? “But where?”
“Anywhere! We can go anywhere we want to go in this entire world, and stay as long as we want to stay. But we’re sitting up here as if work is our life.
What are we doing, Rosalind? Why are we still working our asses off?
You worked your entire life, and so have I.
Enough of work. It’s time to live. Are you in? ”
Roz smiled. “Finally you get it. Yes, I’m in you idiot. I’ve been all-in with you from the moment I said I Do.”
Mick smiled too. “So have I, Roz. So have I.”
Roz closed her iPad. “Then let’s get to it. What are you waiting for? Go!” she said happily as the light turned green. And Mick, overjoyed, floored it.