Roz was surprised, but never shocked by anything concerning Bella and Mick, even though she thought Bella would still be by her son’s bedside in Rome.
But as for Mick, he didn’t give a shit. He sat down in the armchair before he fell down, and leaned his head back.
Teddy went over and shook Bella, and Bella woke up.
When she saw everybody was in the penthouse, she quickly sat up. “What happened? Is Dory okay? Is Gloria?”
“That’s not it, Bella,” said Teddy. “But you need to leave.”
Bella looked at Roz as if it was all her doing, and then she looked at Mick. But Mick wasn’t looking at anybody. He appeared to be in his own world in his own thought process.
“I can’t leave,” she said. “And Mick knows it.”
But Jackie was disgusted with her father. “You knew she was here?” she asked him.
Mick looked at her.
“How dare you keep hurting Mommy like this. How dare you?” Then she ran into the bedroom she always used as her bedroom whenever she stayed at her father’s hotel, and slammed the door.
Roz never babied her children. She didn’t run behind Jackie to soothe her fears because everybody was afraid. She, instead, stared at Bella as she sat in the chair across from Mick.
“Why can’t you leave?” Nikki asked Bella as she and Teddy sat on the sofa beside her.
“Mick knows why,” Bella responded as she stared right back at Roz.
They weren’t enemies in the traditional sense. They were generally cordial with one another whenever, for Gloria’s sake, she was invited to family functions. But there was jealousy on both sides. Neither loved the relationship Mick had with the other one.
To Roz, it was no contest. She was Mick’s wife. End of discussion. But Bella’s place in Mick’s heart hadn’t eased at all over the years, and that was concerning to her.
To Bella, it was the fact that Roz had achieved what no other baby mama in Mick’s life had ever achieved: he put that ring on it. Roz won the prize when Bella didn’t even know she was in the running. Bella would never get beyond that painful truth.
But Mick wasn’t trying to hear none of it. Duke was on his mind. “Contact Security,” he said to Nikki. “See if they’ve got any leads.”
“Yes, sir,” Nikki said as she stood to do just that.
“Pop, I still say we need to talk to Frankie.” Teddy was on the edge of his seat. “It’s gone too far. We’ve got to resolve this.”
“We thought it was resolved, remember? We thought that hit on my shipment at the docks was the resolution. Ihit hard, he hit back soft. That was supposed to be the olive branch.” Then Mick’s look turned sinister. “Olive branch my ass!”
Teddy moved his head from side to side and exhaled. “Maybe if Big Daddy talks to him,” said Teddy.
“He already did. Have you forgotten that? He told Charles to his face that he wasn’t interested in a truce. What more do you need to see that he’s out for blood?”
“Just like you were?” Roz asked Mick and everybody looked at her. “This shit begins and ends with you. You went to Rome and shut it down. All for some son we never even heard of. Now what are you going to do about it?”
It was the question everybody knew needed answering. Not what they were going to do about it, but whatMickwas going to do about it. He was the only one with the power to force Monk to stand down. But how?
“Maybe we need to contact Hammer, Pop,” Teddy said. Panic over his little brother’s abduction was driving his decisions.
But as soon as Teddy made that suggestion, and before Mick could object to that suggestion, the penthouse door flew open and the capo on the door hurried inside.
Mick jumped up. “What is it?”
“We got him, sir,” he said excitedly.
“You’ve got who?” asked a tired and confused Mick as he stood up.
“Do you mean Duke?” Roz asked as she stood up too.
