Roz couldn’t believe it. “So all that bullshit about that miracle knee replacement surgery was actual bullshit?”
“No. The bullet tore up the cartilage. It had to be repaired, and they did it with a procedure that hasn’t been approved here in the States yet. All of that is true.”
But Teddy and Nikki shook their heads. They didn’t know what to make of this news. They were the two leaders of Mick’ssyndicate and they had no idea about any of this! Neither did anybody else in that room.
But Mick remained focused on Roz. “What I told you was true.”
“You just failed to mention the fact that you’d been shot.”
Mick exhaled.“Yes.”
Roz didn’t even want to deal. “What’s his name?” she decided to ask him.
Mick hesitated again. “Dorian. Everybody calls him Dory.”
“Does he carry your last name?”
Mick shook his head. “No. And he doesn’t want to.”
“Why not?”
“He despises me.”
“Sorry to hear that, Uncle Mick,” said Tommy.
“Nothing to be sorry about. I’m not crazy about him either.”
Big Daddy frowned. “Mick, stop it!” yelled Big Daddy. “What’s wrong with you? That’s your son. What do you mean you’re not crazy about your own son?”
“Just what I said. Did I fail him when he was a kid? Yes, I did. I should have stepped up when I knew his old man was blowing smoke up my ass. But does that mean I’m supposed to take his bullshit forevermore? I’m not doing that. I don’t like his ass. That’s a fact. Am I supposed to lie?”
Big Daddy shook his head. That brother of his was too much. Too much!
“Where’s his mother?” Amelia asked.
“At his bedside.”
Roz shook her head. Another baby mama she had to contend with! She knew marrying Mick Sinatra was going to be one headache after another one. She knew that going in. Butlately it seemed to be one heartache after another one. And Roz wasn’t sure if her heart could take much more of this.
But Teddy needed to know the stakes. “How many of Monk’s guys did you take out, Pop?”
“I took out every last one of those bastards that hit Dory in Rome. The rest I took out here.”
Teddy frowned. “Here?In America? You hit Monk inAmerica?” Teddy and Nikki couldn’t believe it.
Sal couldn’t either. “How many of his men are we talking, Uncle Mick?”
“I stopped counting at fifty,” Mick said.
“Fifty?
“Damn, Uncle Mick!” said Reno.
“But we could have called Frankie. We could have talked this out.”
“Are you out of your fucking mind? Time for talk ended when he tried to take out my son.”
“But fifty men, Uncle Mick? You decimated his syndicate,” said Sal.
