“Yes, Sal, that’s exactly what I’m saying. And no, Mick, I wasn’t in on it as you put it. I had nothing to do with it. I was under house arrest the entire time. I couldn’t even go take a piss without being filmed. Every room we were in wasn’t just wired, but cameras were everywhere. Ricky saw to that. That’s why they always came to us. We never went to them.”
All three men fell silent. Sal and Teddy didn’t like her, but they never would have wished any of that on her. But for Mick, it was that guilt that was kicking his ass. To his credit, he tried to get her out of it when he stopped using her. But he should not have gotten her in it in the first place. “How did you escape?” he asked her in the silence.
“He and one of the johns had a huge fight. Guns were drawn and shooting started. When my bodyguard ran to helpRicky, nobody was paying me any attention. So I took off. We were at a beach house in Milan and I headed for the woods. I ran and I ran until I was on the highway. I hailed down a truck driver who agreed to give me a lift to Verona where a friend of mine lived. He dropped me off at this truck stop kind of place, I called my friend, and he came and got me. I told him I was with this creep who abandoned me, and he believed me. He paid my way back to the States.”
Mick was studying her. “Why did you land in Vegas?”
“The only flight I could get out of Verona that night was to Vegas. So I took it. And I figured it was as good a place to lay low as any. Ricky knew how I felt about Sal. I figured Vegas would be the last place he’d come looking for me. But I never thought I’d run into Robby Yale.”
“What about Ricardo? Have you heard anything from him?” Mick asked her.
“Not a word,” Cleo said. “But I was using a burner phone with the money my friend fronted me in Verona. But I couldn’t use my credit cards or anything associated with me or he’d track me down again. I’m just that valuable to him.”
“But this ain’t jelling for me,” said Teddy. “You call Pop about everything going on in your life. Every single thing. Why couldn’t you call him when you got to your friend’s house in Verona? He would have sent an army to get you and you knew it.”
Mick hated that so many people had images of him that was always whacked. They didn’t know the backstory so they made stuff up. It infuriated him. But he never confronted it.
But Cleo knew better. “He wouldn’t send no army after me. He didn’t even look for me.”
“That’s a lie,” said Teddy. “He looked high and low for you.”
Cleo still wasn’t convinced. “He was already thinking something wasn’t right when he didn’t see that blood. If I would have called him two years later like that, he would have for sure known I was in on it. But I wasn’t,” she said as she looked at Mick with a plea in her voice. “I would never do that to you.”
Do what to him, Sal and Teddy wanted to know. Why was there something always weird about their relationship? And it wasn’t just the age difference either.
Mick stood up. As did Sal. And then they began to head for the exit.
“Am I free to go, Mick?” Cleo asked him.
Mick turned around and looked at her. “Do you or do you not want him caught?”
“Yes I want him caught. I want to see him face to face again.”
“Then you aren’t free to go,” he said, and walked out of the safe house with Sal and Ted behind him.
When they got outside, Robby and Marco went over to them.
“You believe her, Uncle Mick?” Sal asked.
“We’ll find out,” Mick said.
“What’s her story?” Robby asked.
“She was a victim of human trafficking,” said Sal. “Let her tell it anyway.”
“I want a full crew on her,” Mick said to Teddy. “Marco, you’ll take the lead.”
Marco didn’t expect it, but it was always a big deal when the big man personally gave him an assignment. “Yes sir.”
“I want her moved to Lackawanna, under full guard, until you hear directly from me, Teddy, or Sal.”
“Yes sir.”
“And when will he hear from us?” Teddy asked.
“When we get Ricardo DeSouza off the streets.”
“It’s funny how I never heard of his ass before,” Sal said.
