Mick Sinatra: For Once In My Life (16 page)

Mick made
his way down the stairs of her apartment building, out of the front door, and
into the limousine whose door Deuce held open.
 
And as he sat in the backseat of his own limousine, his eyes were bright
with unshed tears.
 
The best thing that
ever happened to him was up those stairs, only a few feet away, but they were a
lifetime apart.

Deuce got in
behind the wheel and looked at Mick through the rearview.
 
He saw the pain in Mick’s eyes.
 
He had made a decision.
 
Deuce feared it was the wrong decision.
 
“Where to, boss?” he asked over the open
intercom.

Mick just
sat there.
 
Every selfish bone in his
body wanted to race back up those stairs and claim that woman as his own, her
happiness be damned!
 
He wished there was
another way.
 
He wished there was a
middle ground.
 
Because he felt so out to
sea.
 
Love was not his lane.
 
Romance was not something he invested a lick
of time in cultivating.
 
Now it was
catching up with him.
 
Now he met a woman
more than worth it, but he lacked every skill imaginable to understand how to
reach her without hurting her.

Then he
blurted out four words.
 
“I don’t deserve
her,” he said heartfelt, not even realizing he had said it aloud.

Deuce heard
those words as he looked at his longtime employer.
 
He knew he would be taking an awful risk if
he spoke up, but he cared too much for Mick to remain silent.
 
Roz was right for him.
 
He knew it the first night he saw her.
 
“That’s not for you to say, sir,” he said to
Mick.

Mick, amazed
that he had been heard, looked at Deuce.

Deuce’s
heart fell through his shoe.
 
But he
didn’t back down.
 
“She’s an intelligent
woman,” he continued.
 
“Nobody knows
what’s best for her better than she does.
 
It’s up to her to decide if you deserve her.”
   

Mick could
have easily dismissed Deuce’s unsolicited advice as nothing more than a man
stepping into waters he had no business stepping into.
 
Deuce didn’t walk in his shoes.
 
He didn’t understand what he was going
through.

But Deuce
was much older than Mick and he had wisdom behind those years.
 
He was right. Mick knew he was right.
 
Rosalind was no sheltered violet.
 
She was a strong, independent woman.
 
She should be respected enough to make up her
own mind.

But then
Deuce, when he could have stepped completely out of bounds and Mick could have
fired his ass on the spot, actually provided the icing on the cake.

“Sometimes
the worse pride of all,” Deuce said to his boss as if he was Roz’s advocate,
“is the pride of selflessness.
 
The pride
of deciding for somebody else what they should be allowed to decide for
themselves.”

Deuce waited
for the outburst.
 
Mick respected him, he
knew.
  
But he respected him as his
chauffeur, not his therapist.

But Mick
didn’t lash out.
 
He was too busy
contemplating the wonderfully terrifying possibilities.
 
He was actually giving Deuce’s words
considerable thought.
 
Just thinking
about being with Rosalind was selfish.
 
In the end it would be very selfish.
 
But Deuce was right.
 
Deciding for
somebody else was selfish too.
 
Especially somebody like Rosalind.

When Mick
suddenly got out of the car, made his way across the sidewalk and back into the
apartment building, Deuce actually exhaled and leaned his head back in
relief.
 
“Thank you, Jesus,” he
said.
 
“That man could have killed me!”

But Mick
didn’t have a murderous thought on his mind as he climbed those stairs to the
second floor.
 
Rosalind was on his
mind.
 
It was going to be a long
journey.
 
A long, hard struggle he
knew.
 
And it could all backfire all
kinds of ways and devastate both of them.
 
But it could work.
 
It could
actually work!
 
The chances of it working
were slim, but it was a chance, if she was willing, that he was willing to
take.

He knocked
on her door.
 
It didn’t take her long to
open it, as if she was still standing by it.

When he saw
that she had been crying, despite the fact that she had attempted to wipe her
tears away, made him more convinced he was doing it the right way.

Roz, too,
saw the pain in his eyes.
 
And now she
was worried.
 
“What’s wrong?” she asked
him.

“I want you
to come to Philadelphia.”

Roz
considered him.
 
“Where you live?”

Mick
couldn’t believe it either.
 
“Yes,” he
said.

“Why?”

He stared at
her with so much feeling in his eyes that he thought she was going to cry
again.
 
“So you can see what you’re
getting yourself into.”
  
Then he added:
“Before we’re in too deep.”

Roz
understood exactly what he meant.
 
His
life wasn’t going to be all peaches and cream.
 
There were baggage there.
 
“When
did you want me to come?”

Mick had to
think about that.
 
“I’ll be out of the
country next week.
 
What about the week
after next?”

Roz kind of
felt relieved.
 
That would give her a
chance to decompress, to get herself together.
 
“That sounds good, Mick,” she said.

 
It was Mick’s time to soar.
 
He smiled.
 
“Okay,” he said.
 
“I’ll see you
next week.”

He moved
over and kissed her on the lips.
 
But
because it was Rosalind’s lips, and Rosalind’s body he was now holding in his
arms, he did not stop with a kiss.
 
He
backed her back into her apartment, closed the door, and took her right there
on her living room floor.
 
He didn’t fuck
her, he ate her.
 
He ate her until she
came.
 
And while she was still pulsating,
while she was still cumming, he sheath his dick and entered her.

And he
fucked her long and hard.
 
He fucked her
until she was cumming again.
 
He fucked
her until he came.
 
And he whispered in
her ears.
 
“I’m going to get tested.
 
Because the next time I make love to you,” he
said, as he continued to push into her, “I will be fucking you raw.
 
Skin to skin.
 
Flesh to flesh.
 
You hear me?”

Roz loved
the way he spoke to her.
 
She loved his
voice of command.
 
“I hear you loud and
clear,” she said, and then leaned her head back further, and lifted her legs
even higher, as she immersed her pulsating pussy deep into the forceful throbs
of Mick’s powerful dick.
 
And it was
on.
 
They were ready for the next chapter
in a relationship that they knew was about to go viral.
 
They were just getting started.

Two Weeks Later

Paul Ricci
and Silvio Fontaine entered the city-block sized lobby of Sinatra Industries
like two businessmen on a mission.
 
As
soon as the security guard saw them, he hurried to their side and escorted them
to the elevators.
 

“To the
top,” he ordered the operator, and the operator, who knew the two men himself
and didn’t have to be told where to take them, closed the elevator doors and
pressed the button that would take them to the very top.

On the top
floor, Mick Sinatra sat back in his executive chair and listened.
 
He was seated behind his desk with his suit
coat off, revealing a light blue dress shirt with very chic and elegant matching
suspenders on top of biceps as big as watermelons, while Leo Barone, his
security chief, stood beside him, his own beefy arms folded.
 
Three businessmen in three-piece suits sat in
front of his desk.
 
Begging for
help.
 
They owned Orinott, a major tech
firm in Philadelphia, but it was bleeding money bad.
 
They needed Mick’s capital, and know-how, to
turn their business around.

“We can see
those prosperous days return,” the white-haired majority owner said, “if you
agree to partner with us.
 
You won’t have
to lift a finger.
 
We’ll do all the
work.
 
We just need your know-how.”

“Now that’s
bullshit,” Leo said without hesitation, surprising the men with his language.

“Excuse me,
sir?” the majority owner asked.
 
“We
don’t understand.”

“You don’t understand
bullshit?
 
That’s bullshit too.”

“It is not
that at all,” another one of the owners insisted.
 
Then he looked at Mick. “We truly want your
know-how, sir.”

“You do?”
Mick asked.

“Why
yes.
 
We don’t understand why you would
even question it.”

“Maybe it’s
because I’m not a fucking idiot,” Mick replied.

All three
men were stunned.
 
“But we really do want
your know-how,” their leader said.

“Again he
says it,” Mick complained to a smiling Leo.
 
Then Mick looked at the owners.
 
“Let’s stop kidding ourselves, guys.
 
You don’t want my know-how.
 
You
want my money.
 
And you wouldn’t want
that if anybody else would give it to you.”

The majority
owner moved to the edge of his chair.
 
This hope, their last hope, was slipping away.
 
“We are very much interested in partnering
with you, sir.
 
This would be a win-win
situation for both of our companies.
 
We
don’t understand the hostility.”

“You
don’t?
 
Well let me break it down for
you,” Mick offered, his eyes as cold as ice.
 
“When you were in those prosperous days you mentioned earlier, when you
were riding high in this town, my people went to you.
 
You would make a fine addition to my tech
division, they said to you.
 
And you know
what you said to them?”
 
Mick could tell
the owner remembered exactly what he told them, but he also knew he wasn’t man
enough to own it now.
 

“No,” the
owner said.
 
“I don’t remember that
conversation at all.”

“Funny how I
remember it perfectly,” Mick said firmly and waited for the owner to ask what
the conversation entailed.
 
He was betting
he wouldn’t bother.
 
He won that bet.

“Regardless
of what happened back then,” the majority owner said, “we would be honored to
partner with you now.
 
Let’s not look
back.
 
Let’s move forward.
 
We would be honored to partner with you going
forward.”

“You would
be honored to partner with a sleazy, lowlife gangster who wasn’t worthy to be
in the same room as you?
 
Because that’s
what you said before.
 
Now you’re honored
to have me on your team?”
 
Mick
smiled.
 
“That’s what I call progress.”

The three owners
smiled too, hoping that Mick understood.

“It was
business, that’s all,” the majority owner felt comfortable enough to point
out.
 
“When you’re doing well, you don’t
see the big picture as much.
 
You
understand.
 
You’re a successful
businessman.
 
You know how it is.”

“Get the
fuck out of my office,” Mick said, his eyes cold again.
 
“That’s how it is.”

The hearts
of the three desperate businessmen sank.
 
But Mick was heartless.
 
“Nobody
goes from sleazy to honorable in a span of a few years,” he said to them.
 
“No man can be so despicable that you would
refuse to have him in the same room with you, and then want to partner with
that same man because it suits you now.
 
You had it right the first time.
 
I’m a sleazy bastard who doesn’t deserve to be in your presence.
 
So get the fuck out of mine.”

The
businessmen were livid.
 
Each one of them
wanted to tell that wop gangster what he could do with himself.
 
Who did he think he was?
 
Because he wore a suit, and had money, didn’t
make him respectable like them!
 
They
wanted to tell Mick off.

But they
didn’t say another word.
 
They’d heard
horror stories about Mick the Tick.
 
If
they weren’t so desperate, if everybody else hadn’t turned them down, they
would have never went anywhere near him.
 
But desperation was a pride breaker.
 
And they came anyway.
 
Now they
regretted it.
 
Now they were rising and
actually thanking him for his time, to avoid any retribution.
 

After they
left, Mick tossed the proposal they had placed in front of him into his trash
bin.
 
“Arrogant fuckers,” he said.
 
“Treat me like a piece of shit, now they want
my help.”

“That’s how
they are,” Leo said.
 
“Even in their
heyday, when Sinatra Industries could swallow them up like a bear swallowing a
fly, they still considered themselves better.
 
That’s how they are.
 
They think you need their respectability.”

“I need it,”
Mick admitted.
 
“It would have been a
nice acquisition.
 
But no man will piss
on my head and expect me to call it rain.
 
If I was a sleazy motherfucker three years ago, I’m a sleazy
motherfucker today.”

“But nine
will get you ten they still think they’re better.”

“They are
better,” Mick said with a sad note of resignation in his voice.
 
“They never had to do what I had to do in
this life.
 
They are better.
 
But that’s not the point.”

A look of
regret flashed in Mick’s eyes.
 
He wished
his life was unencumbered too.
 
He wished
to God he had no blood on his hands.
 
“That’s not the point,” he said again.

 
Then his desk intercom buzzed.
 
Leo pressed the button.
 
“What is it, Nan?”

“Mr. Ricci
and Mr. Fontaine wish to see the boss.”

Leo looked
at Mick.
 
“What the hell are both of them
doing here?”

Mick was
wondering the same thing.
 
Paul Ricci and
Silvio Fontaine were two of his operatives.
 
Mick ran two empires.
 
Sinatra
Industries and all of its subsidiaries were completely legit.
 
But his other enterprises: the gambling
houses, the gun running, the nightclubs and bars, all had their dirty
side.
 
He was getting out of every one of
his illegitimate businesses, but it wasn’t a simple proposition.
 
Getting out was always harder than getting
in.
 
There were major gangsters who had a
piece of his businesses and knew they would all collapse without him.
 
It was a syndicate of them who relied heavily
on Mick.
 
They didn’t want him out.
 
They were just thugs.
 
They knew next to nothing about running
businesses.
 
They would run it in the
ground without Mick.
 
They were holding
on to him as if he were their lifeline.
 
And Mick was loyal to those men.
 
They stood by him when he was scratching and clawing for crumbs.
 
Just because he had his, just because he was
a major player on the legitimate world stage, didn’t mean he could leave them
in the dust.
 
He was getting out, but it
was going to be tricky.

And then
there were the skeletons in his closet that could come alive at any moment and
threaten to take the whole thing down.
 
The hits he had to order back in the day.
 
The system corruption he had to feed.
 
The enemies who were afraid to take him out,
but occasionally tried to anyway.
 
Paul
and Silvio, and all the men Mick had working with them, were responsible for
keeping his past in his past.
 
Paul and
Silvio were Mick’s ghostbusters.
 
Which
meant, by the fact that they were there at all, that a ghost had escaped
again.
 
“Bring them in,” he ordered.

Leo pressed
the button again.
 
“Bring them in,” he
said to Nan.

And within
seconds, Paul and Silvio entered the office.

“I don’t
like it when you guys come here,” Leo immediately said as the two men
approached the desk.

“Fuck you,
Leo,” Silvio responded.
 
“Who the fuck
cares what you like?”

“Trouble?”
Mick asked Paul.

“Trouble,”
Paul said.
 
“We’ve got ourselves another
breach.”

Mick and Leo
both were surprised.
 
They just dealt
with a breach a couple weeks ago.
 
Now
another one?
 
“Where?” Mick asked.
 
“Same place?”

“We wish,”
Silvio said.
 
“The Hub this time.”

“The Hub?”
Leo asked, surprised.
 
“How bad is it?”

“We don’t
know that yet,” Paul said.
 
“But it’s
real.”

“How did you
find out?” Mick asked.

“One of our
spies in Provensano’s outfit.
 
He not
only had their names, he had pictures of the meet.”

“Their
names?” Leo asked.
 
“More than one?”

Paul
nodded.
 
“Four.
 
It’s four of those fuckers, boss.”

Leo looked
at Mick, unable to believe it.
 
But Mick
was in disbelief too.
 
He stood up and
grabbed his suit coat from off the back of his chair.

“The package
secured?” Mick asked.

“We got’em,”
Silvio said.
 
“They’re secured.”

“This shit
is getting out of hand,” Leo said.
 
“What
the fuck is going on?
 
One snitch is one
thing.
 
You get one in a lifetime.
 
But four?
 
That many one month later?
 
That’s
like . . . It’s like---”

“A problem,”
Mick finished for Leo, and they all hurried out of his office.

The gates to
the Sinatra estate opened, and the limousine drove the long trek toward the
super-secluded mansion.
 
There were so
many guards on the property that Roz sat in the backseat amazed.
 
Because they were everywhere.
 
Not just at the gate, but all over the
grounds.
 
She didn’t think the President
of the United States could be this protected.
 
And when the limousine made its’ way to the house, and Roz saw the
magnificence of it, she was floored.
 
This trip to Philadelphia, to Mick’s turf, was nothing like she had
imagined.
 
She knew he was a rich
man.
 
A man who owned a hotel like the
Carson had to be rich.
 
But seeing his
hotel-looking home stunned her.
 
She
thought Mick was the condo type.
 
She
expected him to be chilling in a gorgeous high rise.
 
But this house was a family home.
 
A family home with no family?