Those words cut Mick deep. Because they sounded so final. But he didn’t detain her. He let her go.
Nikki ran behind Roz and hopped into the SUV with her as Teddy motioned to his men for a detail to follow them. Those capos hopped into the other Expedition and followed them.
As they sped away from that cabin, Mick just stood there. His wife wanted to leave him. His son wanted to kill him. His heart wanted to fail him. He felt like a shell of a man.
He looked at Teddy. And he spoke words Teddy never thought he’d hear from his father. “Is she gone, Teddy? Is this it?”
His voice sounded more devastated than anything else. But Teddy wasn’t about to massage his ego. “This is a mess, Pop. A mess of your own making. And yeah she slapped the fuck out of you in front of your own men. What the fuck you thought she was gonna do? Your ass would drive the Pope to drink!”
Mick’s jaw tightened. Nobody spoke to him that way. But Teddy was right. He brought it all on himself.
But Teddy saw his father’s anguish and calmed back down. Why he loved this man so much was still a mystery to him. He did so much shit to everybody that loved him!
But Teddy also knew his old man would die for every one of them, too, and he’d already risked his own life countless times to preserve theirs. More than any other reason, that was why Teddy stayed.
“I think it’s time to get the band back together, Pop,” he said. “I think it’s time for us to bring back Frankie and the Gabrinis and put an end to this shit.”
Although Mick was still licking his wounds of devastation, he knew he couldn’t disagree.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Two days later and the limousine drove up to the gate, they waved at the capos who stood on guard duty with their long guns and their holstered pistols, and drove on through.
Reno, Sal, and Tommy,the Gabrinis, sat in the back of the limo anxious to get this over with. It had been over a month since Mick went down. His strategy of easing out whoever was behind that ambush failed. Now they were hoping, by coming back in, they were going to smoke them out instead.
But Reno didn’t get it. “Why we all of a sudden got to go to Teddy’s instead of Mick’s? This don’t make no sense. Why can’t we meet at Mick’s house?”
Tommy didn’t want to discuss it, but he knew his brother Sal and cousin Reno wouldn’t let it go. “Roz kicked him out of the house,” he said.
Reno and Sal looked at Dapper Tom as if they were looking at a stranger. “What you say?” Reno said. He loved gossip. Was a big gossip himself. “What she kicked him out for?”
Tommy was still reluctant. But he told it. “According to Teddy, and I didn’t hear this from Uncle Mick, but according to Teddy . . .”
“According to Teddy what, Tommy, damn?” Reno asked. “Just spit it out.”
“There’s another baby mama.”
Reno was shocked. Sal was livid. “You have got to be kidding me. That man got another woman pregnant?”
“Not recently, Sal. But yeah. He got another woman pregnant.”
“But he didn’t cheat on Roz, right?” Sal asked.
Tommy exhaled. “It was early days in their relationship. He was talking to her. So in a way, no. But technically, yeah. He cheated on her.”
“I’ll be damn,” said Sal.
“But that’s not the worst part.”
“I’ll bet it is to Roz,” said Sal.
“What’s the worst part?” Reno asked.
“That baby, Uncle Mick’s baby boy, wants him dead.”
Reno was floored. He couldn’t imagine any of his children feeling that way about him.
“But what are you really telling us, Tommy?” Sal asked his brother. “Are you telling us that Mick’s kid might be behind that ambush?”
