CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Mick’s jumbo jet touched down in Naples, Italy and a convoy of SUVs made their way to Rome where Toscano lived. The idea was to arrive so far away that they would enter into Rome before any of Toscano’s people could react. The goal was to hit his compound before he knew what hit him.
But no known faces were going to be in the first wave: Not Mick, not Teddy and Nikki, and certainly not Monk Paletti. The first wave was already well ahead of Mick’s convoy: Fifty men strong who flew over on Mick’s plane too. Their job was to penetrate the residence and subdue everybody inside.
It was not the way Mick ever had handled an assault before. But he had Roz with him, and Bella. And whether or not they wanted him to worry about them, he had Nikki and Teddy to worry about too. He knew it was not like him to be so worried, but he was. He was worried sick and he didn’t know why.
But Roz knew why. They’d already discussed it on the long flight over to Italy.
It was Dory. Mick was terrified that Dory was involved.
That his own son didn’t just dislike him for not being there for him or fighting to find out if he was actually his son, but he hated his guts.
That was another level for Mick. All of his children had always loved him desperately despite his shortcomings in their lives.
They all wanted to be with him and wanted him to acknowledge them.
Dory wanted none of that.
Which led Mick back to the same conclusion: He hated him.
Mick leaned his head back. He and Roz, atypically as well, were riding on the third row of the big Ford Expedition that met them at the airport in Naples. Roz looked at him. “You may be worrying for nothing,” she said to him.
“I can only hope you’re right.”
She took her hand and intertwined it into his hand. And she leaned against him.
“What am I going to do, Roz, if it’s true?”
It was the first time in a long time that Mick asked her for advice. She had to look at him to make sure he was the one who just asked that question. And then she laid her head back onto his shoulder. “If it’s true,” she said, “then you’re going to have to do what you have to do.”
Then she looked up again, and they stared into each other’s eyes.
“I don’t want to have to do that,” Mick said. “I can’t keep doing that.” There was pain in his voice. So much so that Monk almost turned around, but Teddy hit his leg and shook his head.
But Roz was uncompromising. “This isn’t about him, Mick,” she said to him.
“This isn’t even about you or me or anybody else in this SUV.
All of us can take care of ourselves. This is about our children and grandchildren.
This is about legacy. If anybody is a threat to our babies, you cannot let that stand.
Just like you had to go against Frankie, you’ve got to do what you have to do.
I don’t care who it is. I don’t give a fuck! You cannot let that stand.”
Mick squeezed her hand and nodded. Because he knew she was one hundred percent correct. If it was true and Dory was involved, that meant he wanted to take out Mick’s children and other family members, and Roz too. Which would make him Mick’s enemy number one. If that was true.
He prayed to God it wasn’t true.
But once they arrived on the outskirts of Rome, near where Toscano lived, it would be another half hour before they received the all-clear.
“We have control of the compound,” Mick’s advance team chief said over the radio. “But Boss?”
Mick almost answered, but he let Teddy answer instead. “Yeah?” Teddy said.
There was a hesitation. Then their chief spoke. “Dory Toscano is at the compound too.”
Teddy frowned. “I thought his ass was on the outs with Toscano. I thought Tos said Dory wasn’t his father and that Dory had taken control of his syndicate and they were on the outs. That’s what they were saying.” Then he looked back at his father.
But what Mick had feared seemed as if it was coming true. And that fact was a devastating blow. “Apparently they lied,” Mick said as his jaw tightened into a slow-burning rage.
Teddy could see that rage, and that anguish, on his father’s face. That prick was his son. Despite all the destruction he tried to rain down on them, he was Pop’s kid too. Teddy could only imagine how he felt.
Teddy turned back around. And they made their way to the compound.
But when they arrived, and when they saw all the men that the advance team had to take out to take control of the property, it all got real for Bella. And she was hesitant to get out of the SUV.
The reason was because they said her son was inside that house. They said that her son was involved in everything Datvey Gagarin told them. The very idea of it, that he would try to take out Mick’s children and even Roz, was upsetting to her. She didn’t know how to process it.
She looked at Mick. He didn’t know how to process it either. He looked even more anguished than she did, which was so not like Mick.
But Monk offered his arm for Bella to hold onto. “Better to face it, Bella,” he said to her in his low, controlled voice. “No matter what the outcome, it has to be faced.”
Bella looked at Frankie. He was always the most ethical mobster she’d ever known.
And although she should have been mad as hell with him for ordering a hit on her own son, she wasn’t angry with him at all.
Because she knew that son of hers. She knew Dory had it coming for what he did to Danny Cerva’s wife and kids. Who does that but a monster like Dory?
But Monk, on the other hand, she trusted with her life. Always had and always would. That was why she nodded her head and placed her arm around his offered arm. Frankie was always right in her book because he was no conniver. He was no schemer and liar and cheater. She got out of the SUV.
But as they made their way to the front door, Nikki kept her eyes on Teddy.
And when they made it up to the entrance, and he glanced over at Nikki, she knew her instinct was right.
Teddy was unsteady too. It would be the first time he laid eyes on his so-called brother, a brother that caused his father to fight like hell against a great man like Monk. It was unnerving for Teddy too.
Roz hadn’t seen the boy before, either, and she didn’t care to see him now. He sounded like nothing but trouble in her estimation when they already had ten football fields and an extra soccer field full of trouble all on their own. They didn’t need anymore.
But she was glad she was there to stand by Mick.
Because he was still torn. This was not the outcome he had expected.
His own child involved with destroying his own family?
It was unseemly to Mick. It took him back to his late son Adrian, and how Adrian wanted Roz eliminated.
He couldn’t go back to those times ever again.
But here he was as he and Roz and those with him, all of whom with their own levels of anxieties, walked into Ron Toscano’s expansive compound.
Ron Toscano and Dory were seated on the sofa with no restraints on them. They looked as if they were just hanging out. But Mick’s capos standing guard behind them and beside them gave it away.
Mick, Roz, and Bella sat on the sofa across from the two men. Monk, Teddy, and Nikki stood behind Mick and the two ladies. They were on guard too.
For Teddy, seeing the young man did nothing for him. He felt nothing for him. It was as if his father and Bella had this son, and that was all there was to it.
For Roz, it was eye opening. Because she knew, just like Bella’s presence in her life, that this young man would constantly remind her of that history with Bella that Mick could never shake.
It was as if Roz was joined at the hip, thigh, and leg with Mick, but Bella was joined at that other hip. She was always there.
But if it was proven that this son of Mick’s wasn’t involved in trying to destroy them, then he would always be there too, regardless of his strained relationship with Mick. She didn’t want to deal with that, but for Mick she knew she would have to.
But once they all were seated, and after the butterflies of seeing somebody supposedly kin to them had ceased, they waited for Mick to take charge.
But he didn’t. He just sat there, staring unblinkingly at Dory.
It was Teddy who did the talking as he asked both Ron and Dory everything about what Datvey Gagarin had told them.
Neither man denied any of it. They, in fact, seemed to relish in it with smirks on their faces.
It was shocking to everybody in that room who wasn’t the two of them.
It was as if they weren’t afraid in the least.
Dory even said it for both of them. “We aren’t afraid of you,” he said arrogantly to Mick.
When he made that one particular comment, something woke up inside of Mick. And he frowned. “You aren’t?” he asked his son.
Dory didn’t shrink away at all. He sat proud. “No, I’m not afraid of you. Not at all.”
“You should be,” Mick said in that chilling way that every one felt. Including Dory. He still had that smirk on his face, but he suddenly had fear in his eyes too. As if his plan, whatever it was, might not work out.
But as Roz looked at the young man she felt as if something was off about him and the man he sat beside.
Something was wrong. Although Dory looked like Mick if you looked only at his eyes, he was nothing like Mick.
Teddy favored Mick. So did Gloria if she looked at her a certain way.
But this boy, no. Roz didn’t see it. She didn’t see it at all.
And she went there. “You’re a very arrogant young man,” she said to him. “You’re nothing like Gloria.”
“Fuck Gloria and you too,” Dory said as if he was purposely trying to get a rise out of Mick. But Mick continued to size him up. He would get him back in his own time.