“Beginning with Cleo?” Sal asked and stared at Mick. He wasn’t surprised at all when Mick didn’t respond.
But it was his lack of response that fuel Sal’s rising anger. “How could you do that to Roz, Uncle Mick?” he boldly asked him.
Mick looked at him with that chilling look they all feared. “How could I do what to Rosalind?”
“How could you cheat on her like that? And with a bitch like Cleo. Man if you love that broad your ass will sleep with anything.”
They all knew Sal hated Cleo for leading his capos to their slaughter, but he knew not to come at Mick with that kind of juice.
Mick knew it too. That was why, as soon as Sal made his wisecrack, Mick sat his drink on the side table, stood up, andwalked over to Sal. Sal stood up on his feet, too. He knew a challenge when he saw one. But Mick was already clocking him with a roundhouse right before his feet were firmly planted. And Mick’s licks always packed a punch. He knocked Sal completely over the back of that sofa. “Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to like that?” Mick angrily asked him as he hurried around that sofa to give Sal more.
Tommy and Reno were grabbing for Mick as they were trying to get up too, but Mick was too elusive. And Teddy was running to stop his father too. They all knew Mick had no limits when he was enraged.
But Monk Paletti stayed completely out of it. It was a family scuffle as far as he was concerned. And he wasn’t family per se. He was family-adjacent. He married into it. He wanted no parts of their squabbles.
But by the time Mick got to the back of that sofa, Sal Luca was on his feet and didn’t need their help anyway. He grabbed onto Mick as Mick grabbed onto him and both men fell backwards into an expensive curio stand as they wrestled for dominance. All of the expensive Baccarat and Swarovski glassware began cracking from the impact of their two, muscular bodies. Reno, Tommy, and Sal tried to break the men up, but they only succeeded in breaking Sal free.
And as soon as Sal broke free, he punched Mick so hard that Mick fell against the back of that sofa. His licks packed a punch too.
Reno, Tommy, and Ted tried to stop Mick from hitting back, knowing that Sal was playing with fire, but they were no match for Mick.
As soon as Mick fell against that sofa, he pushed Reno and Tommy aside and hurried back to Sal. In a maniac’s rage, Mick punched Sal so hard with a running punch that Sal’s knees buckled, his head felt like it was spinning, and the floor seemedto rise up toward him in very slow motion until the side of his face slammed against that floor and then it all raced back up and he landed with a crash. Mick had knocked Sal out cold.
“Talking to me like I’m yourgotdamn equal!” Mick yelled out, still enraged. “Who the fuck do you think you are?!”
But Reno and Tommy hurried over to Sal. Teddy looked at Nikki, whom he ordered to stay out of it, with anger against his father on his own face. But Nikki just thought it was all so sad.
Reno, on his knees, began frantically slapping Sal’s face, trying to wake him up, praying that there would be no permanent damage. “He can’t take no more brain damage, Lord,” Reno said, prompting Tommy to give him the side eye. But within seconds, Sal did wake up. But Reno, not realizing it, continued to slap him.
“Well damn, Reno,” Sal said with irritation in his voice, “you trying to beat my ass too?”
Reno finally stopped, and he and Tommy exhaled. They were relieved. They helped Sal to his feet.
But Sal wasn’t relieved at all. He was still angry as hell. He jerked away from his brother and cousin and looked Mick squarely in the eyes. “I’m done with your ass!” he yelled at him. Pointing at him. “All you do is destroy everything you touch. Including all of us. But we still come running every time you call. I’m done. I’m done with your ass!” he yelled out again. Then he began heading for the exit.
“Come on now, Sal,” Reno said, although he’d gladly sign off on everything Sal said.
But Sal wasn’t listening anymore. He went out of that door, slamming it behind him.
Outside, Robby Yale was running his mouth with a couple of Teddy’s capos. When he saw Sal hurrying out the house,looking as if he was fuming, he hurried to his side. “What happened, Boss?” He could see the bruising on his face.
“Get me out of here,” Sal ordered as he got in the limousine.
Robby hopped in, too, and he motioned for the driver to leave.
But back inside the house, Mick was no longer enraged, but he was extremely restless. He was pacing the floor like a wounded animal. Nikki was trying to clean up the mess from the curio stand, and Teddy was helping her, but Reno and Tommy and even Monk, who stayed out of it, were just tired.
Mick finally stopped moving around and stood still, his hands in his pockets. “I had just met Rosalind when I slept with Cleo. Rosalind and I weren’t exclusive yet.”
But even Reno knew better than that. “Now that’s bullshit, Uncle Mick,” he said, and Mick and Tommy looked at him. “Just like Trina, Roz would never play that open relationship shit and you know it.”
“You cheated on Roz,” Tommy said. “It was at the beginning of your relationship, sure. But it was an exclusive relationship. Or so Roz thought.”
Mick felt as if the world was against him when even Tommy was tired of his ass. But Reno still had questions. “Did you know she was pregnant?” he asked him.
“Later she told me that she had put holes in my condoms and that I might have leaked out. That was when she told me she was pregnant.”
“Did you believe her?”
