CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

A Cadillac Escalade with Mick's guys standing at the driver and passenger doors, was waiting at the airfield when Mick's plane turned around from its original Baltimore course and touched down in Clayview, Delaware. A second SUV, filled with Mick's men too, were also there for security purposes.

Mick and Charles made their way down the airstairs of Mick's massive plane and Mick walked around and got in behind the steering wheel while Charles got in on the passenger seat. The bodyguards closed their doors and then hopped into the second SUV. Both vehicles pulled off. It was a lot of activity for a small airfield.

But the drive to the police station was a somber one.

"I can't believe Hammer left her like that," Mick finally said as he drove. "Those hick cops would not have taken her if he would have been there. What's wrong with him?"

"He's a busy man on an entirely different level than what we're used to, Mick. You and Millie seem to keep forgetting that fact. The newspapers call him the government's golden boy. They don't call him that shit for nothing. He's the best operative they've ever had. That puts him in demand."

"And he's got a wife and son that needs him too. But he's always putting them on the backburner. Especially Amelia."

Charles looked at Mick. Sometimes it amazed him how tone deaf he could be. A man who nearly lost his own wife due to his neglectfulness, and who had only a financial relationship with all of his grown children before Roz came along, was now scolding Hammer for being the same way? And Mick didn't see anything wrong with that picture. Which was unbelievable sometimes to Charles.

And true to form, Mick kept on talking. "After he left her and those cops showed up, Millie had to deal with that shit all by herself. Had she gone home with us, instead of staying at her place with Hammer, those hick cops wouldn't have dreamed of knocking on my door. Bet that. There's no way she'd be sitting in some rat-infested jail cell in the middle of nowhere."

"Did your guys follow her?"

"No," Mick said. "Those cops wouldn't let them. They kept them on that property until she was clean out of sight. They assumed it was Baltimore cops."

"Probably were. And they handed her over to Delaware when they know it's not done that way. But that's how they roll."

"They're about to see how we roll," Charles said as Mick flew through the narrow streets.

But as he was driving, he saw another SUV driving on the opposite side of the street heading their way. But what caught Mick's attention was that it was driving too fast for a nothing town like Clayview. Where the fuck was he going, Mick wondered. And it kept seeming to favor the left side of the road, as if it couldn't wait to cross over. It might have been an overread, but Mick had to follow his instincts. And when it didn't look right to him, or didn't feel right, it wasn't right.

And Mick didn't hesitate. He suddenly swerved his big tank of an SUV down a side street as if he'd lost his mind. Even Charles was looking at him askance. But Mick's swerve was just in the nick of time as gunfire from that speeding SUV suddenly erupted like a bomb and peppered the backside of that Escalade with a barrage of bullets.

"What the fuck?" a caught-off-guard Charles said as he ducked and pulled out his own weapon.

Mick had swerved down that side street so fast that his SUV nearly flipped. He swerved so fast that they ended up on two wheels about to lose total traction but Mick's experienced driving was able to course correct and slam it back on all fours.

But the gun battle was unrelenting as his guys in the security SUV were under assault. That speeding vehicle stopped focusing on Mick's SUV and focused on Mick's security detail. Mick knew they had to take Security out to be able to get to their target: which Mick had no doubt was him and Charles.

But to Charles's shock, Mick wasn't trying to get away. He slammed on brakes, grabbed the loaded assault rifle from beneath the tricked-out seating of his Escalade and hopped out.

Charles, still unsure what was happening, immediately got behind the steering wheel to be ready if Mick needed a quick getaway, He turned the SUV around as Mick, with his assault rifle, began running toward the gunmen's SUV and began firing from behind, riddling that SUV with bullets, taking out anybody inside. He didn't care if it was a man, woman, boy or girl. They were going down. They started the shit. He was finishing it.

He ran all the way up to that SUV still firing. He was taking no prisoners. Those were his capos in that Security SUV. They were there to protect their boss. He was determined to protect them.

When all the shooting stopped, Mick ran to his security SUV and Charles drove to it. Two of Mick's men didn't make it: the driver and one of the guys in back. But three of them did make it, thanks to their boss's quick thinking, and they hopped out grateful to be alive.

"We didn't see it coming, Boss," one of them said, but it didn't sit well with Mick. They should have seen it coming. What did they think their job was? To not look? To assume shit?

But Mick didn't go there. He and the three survivors jumped into the Escalade and Charles sped off. To those local hick cops it would look like a gun battle between two men in one SUV and however many were in the gunmen's SUV. They would undoubtedly try to tie it to the arrival in town of the man known as Mick the Tick, the boss of all mob bosses, but they wouldn't be able to prove shit. And the thing Mick knew better than anybody else: he was too big to touch. Nobody, and especially not law enforcement, came at him sideways.

But as they sped away from the scene, and as Mick was forced to leave his dead capos on the scene, something he hated doing, he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. He was getting so tired of the close calls that it was eating him alive.

But he was never so far gone that he couldn't handle his business. His security capos weren't in shape to do so. They were still reeling by the sneak attack. He called for a cleanup crew himself, to try to get somebody to the scene and get their guys out before the cops got wind of the action, although he knew that was highly improbable that they'd get there in time. He also ordered a backup Escalade to meet them near the airfield. They couldn't drive around in the bullet-riddled one they were in. Then he leaned his head back again.

It would have been different had he been alone. Or even with his guys who signed up for this shit. But to have Charles in that near-miss bothered him. It could have just as easily been his wife. Or the twins. Or even Teddy and Nikki and Gloria and their babies. That bothered him.

But Charles was bothered for a different reason. They had thought that Amelia's troubles could be linked to somebody seeking revenge on Hammer. But now he wondered, as he looked over at his distraught younger brother, if it all could be linked to Mick. If they were going down dead-end roads after dead-end roads while whomever was behind it all had their ticket and was flying right past them.

"Stranger and stranger," Charles said out loud, as he sped down those back streets like it was nobody's business.

Then he looked at Mick again. "We can't strong-arm these people into releasing her," he said to his younger brother. "A senator is involved. Actually two, but they just don't know it yet. But that means it's going to be handed over to the Feds. And the Feds can get your ass for real. So don't even try that intimidation high-handedness when we get to that jail house. Or you may end up behind those bars with Millie."

Mick didn't respond to him, which he didn't expect him to do. But Charles was certain he heard every word.