“What’s going on, man?”
“Major shit going on. That’s what.”
“Involving who?”
Drake hesitated.
“Come on, man. Who we gon’ tell?”
Drake leaned in closer to them. “You didn’t hear this from me, but Boss got smoked.”
They were stunned. But the driver wanted clarity. “When you say boss, are you talking Teddy or his old man?”
“His old man.”
“Motherfuck! Are you for real? Who would smoke Mick the Tick?”
“Hell if I know. But it’s going down if he recovers. And if he don’t recover, it’s really going down.”
“So he ain’t dead yet?” the bodyguard asked.
Drake and the driver looked at him. “Well damn,” said Drake. “You make it sound like it’s a foregone conclusion. No he ain’t dead yet. Let’s pray he don’t die period.”
All three men, all Catholics, did the sign of the cross.
“Who’s behind it?” the driver asked.
“Don’t know,” Drake replied. “We don’t know nothing yet. Not even the details.” Then a worried look appeared on his face. “All we know is that it’s bad.”
The driver glanced at the bodyguard. He didn’t want to say he told him so. But he told him so.
They instead watched in a way that felt surreal to them as all of those millionaire and billionaire Gabrinis and Sinatras, along with all those who married into the family, continued to deplane, with their capos and security surrounding them with blankets of protection, as they headed their way.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Security was tight all around the small hospital, inside and out, with many of Mick’s men and Sal’s men and Monk Paletti’s men, too, all providing protection.
Big Daddy stood at the window inside the private hospital on the outskirts of Philly and watched alongside his oldest son Brent Sinatra as another SUV arrived and the Drakos family stepped out. Gloria Sinatra-Drakos, Oz’s wife and Mick’s oldest daughter, hopped out ahead of all of them and took off running toward the hospital’s entrance. Her little girl and Nikki and Teddy’s little girl both began running after her, but Oz hurried and grabbed them both before they could catch up to Gloria. It was tough enough.
He and the girls waited on everybody else, instead, and then they all made their way inside the lobby area where Big Daddy and Brent were waiting.
Big Daddy had already pointed Gloria to the waiting room where the rest of the family was holed up by the time the Drakos family made it inside.
They all embraced father and son and was glad to see them, but it was an overall somber greeting.
“He’s still in surgery?” Alex asked.
Brent nodded. “Afraid so.”
“Damn,” said Oz. “That’s a long-ass surgery.”
“Where’s everybody?” Marcellus asked. “Is he the only patient here?”
“That’s how it’s designed,” said Brent. He knew Marcellus was a new addition to the family, and he’d only methim a few times before at various family functions, but every report about him was positive. “If your net worth isn’t in the high millions or billions, you need not apply.”
“Wow.”
“So everybody’s here then?” Alex asked. “I saw most of their planes at the airfield.”
