She frowned. “No. I’m not blaming you for how she feels. I’m blaming you for how I feel. For how your actions makemefeel!” Roz said it with great emotion and then she looked at him.
Nikki and Teddy wanted to look, too, as the tension in the SUV intensified. But they didn’t even look at each other. Nikki kept driving and Teddy kept his eyes on the road ahead of them.
And Mick and Roz knew, in that moment, that their tumultuous marriage still had a long, long way to go.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The three Cadillac Escalades, all fortified even more impressively than those armored Bearcats, left the highway after about half an hour and then drove down a long, narrow driveway that led to a lakeside cabin backed up by woods. Two big black Ford Expeditions were parked in the driveway.
“This is very nice,” Roz said as they all began getting out. “How long have you owned this property, Mick?”
Mick hated to admit it because he never once mentioned it to Roz. “About twenty-five years,” he said.
Nikki and Teddy glanced at Roz. The idea that her husband would own this beautiful lakeside cabin for that long and she didn’t even know it existed had to hurt.
And it did hurt Roz deeply. Mick was the most layered human being she’d ever known and every time she thought she’d peeled the last layer, there was another one. And another one. And another one. It was never going to end!
The cabin was heavily guarded by the capos she assumed came over in those Expeditions as the other capos that came with them joined their colleagues and remained outside. But Mick, Roz, Teddy and Nikki went inside.
And that was when Roz got her first look at Cleopatra Burgess. And she had three thoughts at once as soon as she saw her. She wasn’t surprised that she was African-American too, because of all of Mick’s women down through the years, the black ones were usually the ones he couldn’t seem to shake. They stuck to him like white on rice. Which wasn’t surprising.You find a good horse, you ride it. But what troubled Roz down through the years was how definitively he also stuck to them.
Her other thought was just how nice-looking she was. She had it. There was no doubt about it.
But she was also around Teddy’s age, which meant she was younger than Roz. Which didn’t help Roz’s mood at all. She always wondered if Mick would do like other highly-successful men loved to do as they got older and trade in his wife for a younger woman.
But this younger woman was no shrinking violet. Roz saw that too.
What Cleo saw was something completely different. As soon as Roz walked into that cabin by Mick’s side and Mick was holding Roz’s hand, Cleo became apoplectic and stood on her feet. “What’s that bitch doing here?” she angrily blurted out.
“Bitch?” Teddy responded just as angrily. “Who you calling a bitch? And you have the nerve to ask what’s Mrs. Sinatra doing in her own husband’s cabin? That’s really rich, Cleo. Even for you.”
“Ah fuck you, Teddy.”
“You wish.”
“Sit your ass down, Cleo,” Mick ordered her as he escorted Roz to the sofa. He sat down with Roz seated on one side of him and Nikki on the other side. Cleo was forced back down in her chair.
Teddy didn’t sit. He remained standing and was staring at Cleo. He noticed how well put together she looked, in her own designer shit, as if she had been expecting his dad to show up. Why these women couldn’t let Mick go he’d never know. Even his mother was still in love with his father when his father, Teddy truly believed, never loved her at all. But that was how his old man rolled. Once bitten by Mick, they were smitten for life.
Mick leaned back and crossed his legs. Roz leaned back territorially, with part of her back against his chest. Which worried Teddy. It was as if she wanted to make it clear to Cleo that Pop was her man when such a declaration wasn’t even necessary. He married Roz. Not Teddy’s mother. Not Gloria’s mother. Not his deceased brothers Joey and Adrian’s mothers. And certainly not Cleo’s ass. He married Roz only. In Teddy’s eyes that should have been all any of his whores needed to know.
And by the way Cleo was staring at Roz, she got the picture. Roz was a beautiful woman too, but nowhere near what Cleo considered was her ownmost desirable woman in the worldkind of beauty. But there was something about Roz’s style and elegance, and the way she moved so gracefully that made Cleo instantaneously realize why Mick chose her to be his wife and not any of the rest of them. There was something there that made her stand out. That gave her sophistication with her looks. Which only made Cleo inwardly envious.
But Mick wasn’t thinking about any of that. Today was reckoning day. “Where is he?” he asked her.
Cleo looked at him and put on that fake vixen smile. “And hello to you too, Mick.”
Something switched in Mick. Nobody saw it coming. But Teddy, who was standing across from where Cleo was seated, saw it clearly. And that was why, when his father stood up seemingly casually and walked over to Cleo’s chair, Teddy walked over there too. Mick’s temper was unleashing and Cleo had no clue. There was no limit to what he could do to that woman in an instant. And although Teddy couldn’t stand Cleo since she turned him down in high school, he knew they needed her more than ever now that they knew her lover was involved.
“Stand up,” Mick said to Cleo when he stood in front of her chair.
Cleo stood up. She was not afraid of Mick the way all his other women were. Although, Teddy noticed, she seemed less sure of herself when she was eyeball to terrifying eyeball with Mick.
“Where is he?” Mick asked her again calmly.
“Where’s who?”
When it was clear he wasn’t going to play dumb with her, she got real. “I don’t know,” she said.
