Then the intercom at the table buzzed. Mick pressed it. “What is it?”
“The truck is here.”
Mick looked at Teddy and Nikki, who stood up too. “What truck?” Mick asked them.
“I didn’t order any truck to come over here,” said Teddy.
“Neither did I,” said Nikki.
“Did you ever track down those tankers that had gone off line?” Mick asked them.
“Yes. All three were located the next day. It was a logistics error.”
“I don’t know what’s going on,” said gate security on the intercom, “but one of your semis are heading toward the gate.”
Every man at that table immediately pulled out their weapons. “Get the ladies inside!” Mick ordered as they all ran down the long driveway that led to the gate. Grounds security was running toward the gate too.
But Big Daddy, along with Nikki, Jimmy, and Dommi, began hurrying the ladies toward the house. Roz grabbed her necklace, book, and Mick’s phone as she and the other ladies hurried out of the courtyard. Nikki was on her walkie talkie ordering the grounds security around back to get all the young people in the house and to get them in now!
But up front, when the gate opened and Mick, Teddy, and the Gabrinis ran out, they were shocked to see one of their transport trucks heading for the house. “What the fuck are they doing?” Teddy asked.
“Is anybody driving that thing?” asked Reno, who was squinting his eyes to see a driver.
“Shit,” said Mick, when he realized it was powering down without a driver. “It’s an ambush! Get back in the gate!” He was waving his gun and ordering everybody back inside the gate. “Get back in the gate!”
They all were running back inside the gate when they witnessed that big tanker of a truck suddenly explode into a fireball, with the shockwaves knocking every one of them off their feet.
When they all got back up, everybody was okay. But Mick, who never made it back inside the gate, was the first one running toward the explosion. By the time everybody else had run up to him, he had to back off because of the extent of the blaze. He just stood there, staring and thinking. Thinking and staring.
But everybody else was confused. “What motherfucker is bold enough to pull this shit right in front of Mick Sinatra’shouse?” asked Reno. “And with his own tanker? They must have several screws loose.”
“They got something loose,” Sal agreed. “Why else would they do it?”
They didn’t know why, but Mick knew why. And Teddy, who was at his father’s side staring, not at the explosion, but at his old man, suspected why. It was a warning. That much he knew. A warning of the highest order.
But unlike his old man, he had no earthly idea why they were being so violently and undeniably warned.
Unless . . .
“Pop, are we at war?” Teddy asked Mick point blank.
And Mick didn’t skip a beat. “Yes,” he said. Then he looked at his son.
But Teddy didn’t see that arrogant defiance he usually saw in his father’s eyes. He didn’t see a defiant man at all. He saw a broken man. A general sick and tired of the battlefield, but was forced to be on another one anyway. And then Mick walked away.
What was that about? Teddy wondered.
He was even more baffled than he already was.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
After the police and the fire department had come and gone, and after they all had given an account of exactly what happened, Mick, Teddy, and the Gabrinis made their way back inside the house. All of the ladies that were ordered by Big Daddy to remain inside, hurried to meet them. Nikki hurried over to Ted. “What happened?” she asked him.
“One of our tankers exploded.”
“But what was it doing here?”
“I have no idea,” Teddy said as a phone began ringing. “Did you get everybody in from out back?”
