Mick Sinatra: The Harder They Fall (18 page)

But when
those same wonderful feelings began to intensify toward a full-blown climax,
Mick sucked her breasts harder, held onto her ass tighter, and pumped into her
even harder.
  
He loved this woman and he
wanted his cock to do the telling.

And it
told.
 
It told a story that had never yet
been told.
 
Roz had an orgasm that caused
her to jerk repeatedly, as if she couldn’t control herself.
 
Mick, feeling her sensation, began to cum
too.
 
Only his cum matched hers and he,
too, could barely control his body.
 
They
were feeling one of those deep down feelings, where love was more dominant than
lust, and all they could do was go along for the ride.

They rode
that wave hard.
 
Mick released a torrent
into her, and she felt as if he was bathing her with his love.
 
He stopped sucking her breasts, pulled her
down further, and they began kissing as they fucked.
 
But it was no tender kissing.
 
It was hard and rough.
 
It matched the passionate intensity inside of
them.

The wave
didn’t stop until they were too exhausted to stay on the ride.
 
Mick had poured out, Roz had jerked out, and
both of their bodies were empty and satisfied at the same time.

Roz wanted
to roll off of him.
 
She knew she was
heavy dead weight.
 
But Mick wouldn’t let
her leave.
 
He held her tighter.

She looked
at him.
 
He could not have looked more
beautiful to her.
 
“It’s getting late,
buster,” she said to him.
 
“We’ve got to
pick up the twins and take them to their doctor’s appointment.”

“I know,”
Mick said, but he didn’t let her go.
 
He,
in fact, held her tighter.

Roz didn’t
know why.
 
Sometimes Mick behaved needy
this way.
 
But every time it happened,
she never questioned it.
 
She just held
him as tightly as he was holding her.

Less than
two hours later, Mick and Roz were in the fight of their lives.
 
They were in the parking lot at the doctor’s
office.
 
Their twins were in the backseat
and they were outside of the Escalade.
 
Bullets were sailing all around them.
 
It was an ambush.
 
Mick had been
struck once, twice, and a third time by the time he ordered Roz to get in the
SUV and take herself and their children to safety.
  
Mick knew he wasn’t getting out of this
alive, but he wasn’t about to die until he knew Roz and the twins had gotten
out.

He rolled
off of Roz the way she had wanted to roll off of him two hours earlier, and gave
her cover with his gunfire while she jumped into the SUV.
 
But Roz knew she couldn’t leave him to
die.
 
Because she knew he would surely
die if she drove away.
 
She was at
risk.
 
Their babies were at risk.
 
But she couldn’t just leave him there to die.
 
She had to do everything in her power to
save Mick’s life.
 
She had to!

She reached
into her purse that was still in the SUV, grabbed her gun, and leaned out of
the door firing too.
 
She fired and she
fired.
 
Mick was firing and yelling at
her.

“Get back in!”
he yelled.
 
“You can’t save me!”

“Don’t tell
me what I can’t do!” Roz yelled back.

And as soon
as she said those words, there was a lull on the other side, as if they were
reloading their weapons.
 
Roz knew it was
now or never.
 
She grabbed Mick by his
shoulders.

“I can’t
move, Rosalind,” Mick cried, as he tried to move. “You can’t help me.
 
Get out while you can!”

But for the
first time in her life, Roz ignored Mick.
 
She pulled on him and pulled on him.
 
She listened to his yells and shouts and prayed for strength.
 
Mick was a big man, and solid as a rock, but
she kept pulling.
 

She pulled
on him until she hoisted him up onto the SUV’s step up.
 
When he realized she wasn’t going to leave
without him, he forced his badly wounded body to react too.
 
And he found just enough strength that he
didn’t think was possible for him to still have left, and helped her hoist him
up and halfway into the SUV.

But then Roz
saw the gunmen’s car speeding toward the SUV.
 
They were coming to finish Mick off.
 
They were undoubtedly reloading their weapons as they came.
 
And Roz got in a hurry that bordered on pure
panic.

Without
bothering to close the door, as his body wasn’t all the way in anyway, she
scurried to get behind the wheel.
 
When
she did, she pressed the Start button and sped away.
 
She flew away.
 
The SUV swerved and almost tilted over, but
she held onto that wheel as if she was holding onto her family’s very survival,
and kept on driving.

Mick,
sweating profusely, held onto the handle beside the dashboard and kept trying
to hoist himself further into the SUV.
 
Their babies in the backseat were crying hysterically.
 
They were too young to know what was going
on, but they knew their parents were in distress and something wasn’t
right.
 
Mick felt so guilty his heart
felt as if it was pounding out of his chest.
 
His fucking lifestyle brought this upon his family.
 
His fucking need to be fucking gangster
caused his wife to risk her life to save his own, and caused both of them to
put their children, their precious babies, in danger too.
 
The physical pain his body was feeling was
excruciating, but it paled by comparison to the emotional pain that racked his
soul.

And then, as
if it was no longer up to him at all, and his entire body reacted to the
strangeness of such a reality, Mick Sinatra lost all consciousness.

Roz was
holding onto him with one hand, and driving with the other hand, and it was she
who kept his body from sliding out of the SUV.
 
Sirens could be heard in the distance as Roz drove her heart out.
 
Their assassins apparently heard those sirens
too, because they suddenly completed a U-turn in the highway, and took off in
the opposite direction.
 
But Roz wouldn’t
have cared if they stayed on her tail.
 
She had to get her man to the hospital.
 
She had to save his life.
 
And
nobody, not the cops, not the crooks, not a million different assassins in a
million different fast cars, was going to stop her from getting there.

The
automatic hospital doors slid open and Big Daddy Charles Sinatra, along with
his oldest son Brent, hurried inside.
 
Charles was Mick’s oldest brother.
 
He was the man who raised Mick when their father killed their mother and
was carted off to prison.
 
Mick was as much
a part of him as Brent was, or his other children.
 
When he heard the news, he was devastated.

The family
was in a private waiting room, for their own security, with police officers
posted outside.
 
When the cops refused
Charles’s attempt to enter the room, Brent, wearing a big cowboy hat that
automatically made him stand out, moved in front.

“Hello,
gentlemen.
 
My name is Brent
Sinatra.”
 
He flashed his badge.
 
“I’m the police chief up in Jericho County,
Maine.
 
Mick Sinatra is my uncle.
 
This is my father, Charles Sinatra.
 
He’s Mick’s brother.
 
We’re family.”

The officer
looked at Brent’s credentials, but still pressed the police radio button he
held on his shoulder to get permission to allow them through.
 
Once permission was granted, they had to be frisked.
 
They were getting on Charles’s last nerve,
but he kept his cool.
 
It was tough
enough.

Once the
cops realized Brent was packing, his gun was taken away.
 
But they were allowed passage in.

They walked
into a somber room.
 
Teddy was sitting
between Gloria and Joey, and all three of them had tear-stained eyes.
 
When they looked up and saw that their Uncle
Charles from Jericho had arrived, Gloria and Joey ran to him.

Charles
pulled them into his powerful arms, and they sobbed in his arms.
 
He had never seen them so distraught.
 
Teddy came up too, and shook cousin Brent’s
hand, but even he could hardly handle this.
 
He and Brent embraced.

When the
hugging stopped, Charles looked at his brother’s children.
 
“Where is he now?” he asked them.

“In
surgery,” Gloria said.
 
“He’s still in
surgery.”

“He was shot
three times, Big Daddy,” Joey said.

Charles’s
heart dropped.
 
“My Lord,” he said with a
frown on his face.

“Three
times?” Brent asked.
 
“Geez.”

“What about
Roz and the twins?” Charles asked.
 
“Where are they?”

“She’s with
the twins,” Teddy said.
 
“The doctor’s
examining them.
 
They appear to be okay,
but Roz wanted to make sure.”

“Dad would
have died if Roz wouldn’t have pulled him into that truck and drove him away
from there,” Joey said.
 
“He wanted her to
leave him, but she wouldn’t.
 
Our daddy
would be dead if she hadn’t saved him.”

Joey was by
far the most unhinged of Mick’s children as they all digested the incredible
news that their mighty father had fallen.
 
That he was only human after all.
 
Charles squeezed Joey’s arm.
 
He
reminded him so much of his own son Donald.
 
They both were man-babies in the end.
 
“He’ll pull through,” he said.
 
“Don’t you worry about your father.
 
He’s tough as nails.
 
Nobody
tougher.
 
He’s going to get out of this
alive.
 
I promise you.”

Joey needed
that reassurance. He gave his uncle another hug.

Brent looked
at Teddy.
 
“Do we have any idea who’s
behind it?” he asked.

“None,”
Teddy said.
 
“And not for a lack of
searching.
 
His men are on the case.
 
I’ve ordered everybody to hit the
streets.
 
They haven’t turned up anything
yet, but it’s still early.”

“Wasn’t
there some trouble about a month ago?” Charles asked Teddy.
 
“Mick mentioned something about some
trouble.”

“We had some
trouble, yeah,” Teddy said.
 
“Some
batshit crazy motorcycle gang got away with a hijack, and a couple thugs out of
New York had a scheme to bring Pop down.
 
But Pop eliminated those threats easily.”

Brent was a
lawman, and he didn’t approve of his uncle’s lifestyle, but he wasn’t blind to
the reality of it.
 
“But did he eliminate
everybody involved in the threats?” he asked Teddy.

Teddy
nodded.
 
“Everybody,” he said.
 
“Don’t worry.
 
It’s Pop you’re talking about.
 
He
left no stones unturned.”

“My mom was
spared,” Joey said, and everybody looked at him.
 
Teddy was surprised that Joey even knew that
his mother played a role in that drama.

“Your
mother?” Charles asked.
 
“Cathleen was
involved?”

“She doesn’t
like Miss Roz,” Joey said, “so she tried to get dirt on her.
 
She hooked up with this guy who once accused
Miss Roz of sexual harassment.
 
She
thought Dad didn’t know about him.”

“She was
spared?” Brent asked.
 
“What does that
mean?”

“Dad didn’t
kill her ass,” Joey said bluntly.
 
“He
warned her not to try it again.
 
I warned
her too.”

Teddy and
Gloria knew how much Joey loved Cathleen.
 
They knew how hard that was for him to say.
 
But they understood.
 
Because they loved their mothers too.
 
But it was nothing like the feelings they had
for Mick.
 
His specialness made them feel
special.
 
He elevated them unlike anybody
else could.
 
Mick came first to all three
of his grown children, despite their belief that he had never put them first.
 
But their love for Mick was on a different
level.

Roz came
into the waiting room shortly after Charles and Brent had arrived, and
everybody hurried to her to hear the news.
 
But Roz, who had been a tower of strength throughout this ordeal, saw
that Charles had arrived and ran to him.
 
She needed his strength.
 
She
needed his tower.
 
He swooped her up and
held her tightly.
 
She almost crumbled in
his arms.

But she
rallied somehow and kept her composure.
 
Mick’s children would fall apart too if she fell.
 
She had to hold on.

Charles
looked at her when they stopped embracing.
 
Emotionally, he could tell she wasn’t well.
 
Her big, brown eyes looked too wide open,
with stress lines underneath, and her clothes suddenly seemed ill-fitting and
too big, as if her weight lost had been measured in hours rather than
days.
 
It wasn’t possible, but she looked
that way to Charles.
 
Because he knew
that stress, as potent as a bullet itself, was a killer too.
 
“How is he?” he asked Roz.
 
“Have you heard anything new?”

“He’s still
in surgery,” Roz said.
 
“He’s still
fighting for his life.”

Gloria
covered her mouth as a cry escaped.
 
Big
Daddy pulled her into his arm.
 
He was
the real tower of strength in that room, but only because he had to be.
 
Inwardly, he was crumbling too.

“Hey,
Brent,” Roz said and they hugged.
 
“How’s
Jenay and Makayla and everybody?”

“They’re
hanging in there.
 
They all wanted to
come of course.
 
But Dad said no, and I
agreed with him.
 
Tony’s looking after
everybody.”

Roz
nodded.
 
Tony was a good man.
 
“Good,” she said.

“What about
you?” Brent asked.
 
“How are you holding
up?”

“I’m holding,”
Roz said.

“Why don’t
you lay down, Roz,” Teddy suggested, “and get some rest?”

“Thanks,
Ted,” Roz said, “but resting isn’t going to be possible until I know your
father’s out of danger.”

Then she
exhaled with a stretch of her body.
 
“I’m
going to get back to the twins,” she said to all of them.
 
“As soon as I hear anything, I’ll let you
guys know.
 
But I want everybody to stay
at the hospital until we can figure out who’s behind this.
 
You hear me, Joey?
 
Glo?
 
Nobody goes anywhere.”

“We won’t,”
Joey said.
 
“We have to know that Dad is
okay first.”

Roz was
pleased to hear it.
 
But then she stared
at Mick’s children.
 
At her
stepchildren.
 
“I need each and every one
of you to pray for your father.
 
I don’t
mean any weak prayers, either.
 
He needs
divine intervention.
 
I need you to pray
like you have never prayed before.
 
Pray,
and then keep praying.
 
Only God can help
him now.”

They felt
the graveness of her voice.
 
And tears
returned to their eyes, along with a heaviness that overtook the room.

“We will,
Roz,” Gloria said. “We will.”

Roz then
turned to leave.
 
But she gave a look to
Charles first, a look he understood.
 
He
followed her out into the hall.

They walked
out of earshot of the policemen on guard.

“How bad is
it?” Charles asked her.

Roz exhaled.
 
“It’s bad.
 
Shot three times.
 
He lost a lot
of blood.
 
Our family doctor is in the
operating theater, and he’s been giving me updates.
 
But he says it’s not looking good, Big
Daddy.
 
He says it’s touch and go at this
point.
 
Given the extent of his injuries,
it’s a miracle Mick arrived alive at the hospital.”

Charles’s
eyes turned hard, but Roz could tell he was fighting back tears.
 
“I’ll pray too,” he said.
 
“I already have.
 
I’ll keep praying.”

“And another
thing,” Roz said.

Charles
looked at her.
 
How could there be
anything else?
 
“What?” he asked.

“I called
the Gabrinis.”

Charles
opened his suit coat and placed his hands on his hips.
 
He shook his head.
 
“I don’t know about that, Roz.
 
Last time I spoke with Mick, he was still reeling
about that kidnapping allegation.
 
He
wasn’t ready to forgive them yet.”

“I know,”
Roz said.
 
“He told me the same thing.”

“We have to
stay mindful of Mick’s wishes.”

Roz
frowned.
 
“I am mindful of them, Big
Daddy,” she said.
 
“That’s all I’ve been
mindful of.”
 
Tears appeared in her
eyes.
 
“He wanted me to leave him
behind.
 
And I should have, because our
babies were at risk.
 
I should have drove
away to protect them.”

Charles
placed his hand on her upper arm.

“But Mick
had been shot multiple times,” Roz said.
 
“He was dying and I knew it.
 
And
I couldn’t leave him, Big Daddy.
 
I
risked my babies’ lives, and my own life, to save him.
 
If anybody would have ever told me that I
would have risked the lives of my two babies to save anybody, I would have
declared them a bald-faced liar.
 
But I
did it.
 
I risked everything to save
Mick.
 
And I’d do it again.
 
That’s the kind of connection we have.
 
So don’t you dare talk to me about being
mindful of his wishes.
 
He’s my
life.
 
He’s my everything.
 
I’m always mindful of him.”

Charles
could not have respected another human being more.
 
He nodded his head.
 
“I stand corrected, Rosalind,” he said.
 
“Please forgive me.
 
I’m just . . .”