CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Alex Drakos and his wife Kari, who flew into Philly with their family just after Mick and company arrived back home, were seated in the dining hall with Mick and Roz, Sal and Gemma, Reno and Trina, Tommy and Grace, Monk Paletti, and Alex’s kid brother Oz. Nikki was in the dining hall too, but she was on her phone pacing the floor, talking to her lieutenants, making certain they were leaving no stones unturned in their search for Gloria. Teddy was in the field with them.

The rest of the family were out back in the pools, on the tennis and basketball courts, on the greens playing a round of golf. They didn’t know Gloria was missing, and the family heads wanted to keep it that way.

When Alex heard that Gloria was being held captive, he didn’t hesitate rounding up her daughter and his family and flying to Philadelphia. His plane touched down a mere hour behind Mick’s plane.

But even with all of those heavy-hitters at that table in that dining hall, they were still racking their brains trying to put pieces together that didn’t seem to fit.

And then Charles and Jenay came into the room. Alex stood up and greeted her with a warm embrace. He flew down and saw her when she first returned, but it was good seeing her again. “How you feel?”

“I feel good,” Jenay said. “How’s everybody on your end?”

“We’ll be better once Gloria’s back.”

Jenay nodded. “Right,” she said as Charles held out a chair for her at the table, and then sat beside her.

“Do your kids know?” Alex asked Charles. He knew how close all seven of his children were to him.

“No,” Charles said. “And I don’t want them to know yet. I’ll be the one to tell them.”

“What about Amelia?”

Charles looked at Mick. “She’s too close to Hammer,” Mick said. “Can’t take the chance that he won’t start snooping around again and hamper our efforts.”

“But what efforts?” asked Roz. “We don’t have any efforts. Tomorrow that fool expects us to turn over Bella and Big Daddy in exchange for Gloria. And we’re just supposed to do that? What if he doesn’t turn over Gloria?”

“We have to do it,” said Teddy. “Even if I have to take Big Daddy’s place myself, we have to take that chance.”

“You aren’t taking anybody’s place,” said Charles.

“Because I am,” said Mick.

“She’s my wife. I am,” said Oz.

“We aren’t going through that again, boys,” Charles said firmly to the three of them. “He doesn’t want any of you. Get that through your thick skulls. He wants me. You’re going to mess around and get that girl killed if you aren’t careful. So cut it out!”

Mick ran his hands through his hair. Roz could see how it all was taking a serious toll on him.

“What about Bella?” Alex asked. “Does she know yet?”

Everybody looked at Mick. Mick ran his hands through his hair again. “I was hoping to have a plan in place first.”

“That’s her daughter, Mick,” Charles said. “She needs to know.”

“Knowing Bella Caine,” Teddy said, “I personally don’t think she’ll sacrifice herself for anybody but Pop. That’s my humble opinion.”

“Keep your opinions to yourself,” Mick warned him. “Humble or otherwise.”

Teddy didn’t say anything, but everybody could tell he was royally pissed. Here he was the head of the most powerful syndicate in the world, and his old man still manhandled him. But only a fool with a death wish would fight back.

“Say what you want about Bella,” Roz said, “and I can say a lot about that heifer. But I know she loves Gloria. She’ll do whatever it takes to bring Glo home.”

“You need to tell her, Mick,” said Charles. “And I mean like now.”

Mick knew it too. He pushed himself up from the table and left the dining hall. When he made his way outside onto his back patio, he could see Bella in the pool having a ball too.

“Belle?” he called out to her.

When she heard Mick’s voice, she looked quickly, wiping water from her face with her small hand.

“Come here,” he said to her.

Some of the men in the pool elbowed each other beneath the water because they knew Bella Caine was going to get out of that water in record time to get to Mick. And they laughed and high-fived when she did.

When she got out of the water with that same gorgeous body Mick remembered when he used to have it any time he wanted it, he glanced over at his nephews, who were on the patio playing cards. But they were taking peeps themselves. They were admiring her too even if they didn’t really know her like that.

“What’s up?” she asked as she grabbed a towel and made her way over to Mick.

“We got a problem.”

“What problem? I didn’t do anything. I only got in the pool because everybody else was--”

“It’s not that. You have every right to get into my pool.”

“Then what is it, Mick?”

Mick swallowed hard. “It’s Gloria.”

When he said those words and from the distressed look in his eyes, Bella knew immediately that it was bad. “What about Gloria?”

Mick looked around. Too many eyes. “Come inside,” he said and turned and left.

Bella quickly dried off her arms and legs, threw the towel to the ground, and then made her way into the house behind him. Mick and Roz were standing at the table when she made it into the dining room.

Most of the men in that hall got a hard-on they couldn’t help as soon as they saw her in that skimpy bikini that fit her like a glove, although they didn’t care that much for her either.

“What’s happened to Gloria?” Bella’s voice was already in the near-panic mode. “Mick? Oz? What happened?”

Oz stood up too. “Hey Ma.”

“What’s wrong? Where’s Gloria? Please somebody tell me what’s going on!” She looked genuinely concerned, which surprised Teddy. And what made it worse for Bella was that she could see the distress in all of their eyes. Even Roz’s eyes, whom she knew loved Gloria too.

She focused on Roz. They didn’t get along at all, but Bella knew Roz was the only woman in history to do what every woman that had ever been with Mick wanted to do: Roz figured out a way to get him to put a ring on it. That woman, in Bella’s eyes, had skills. “Is Gloria alright? Will you please tell me what’s happened to my child?”

Roz could just feel her distress, and she spoke up. “Glo’s missing, Bella.”

Bella frowned. “ Missing ? But she told me she was with Oz.” She looked at Oz. “She text me and told me she was with you.”

“She didn’t send that text,” Oz said, shaking his head. “It came from her phone, because she sent my brother one, too, claiming to be with me, but she wasn’t with me.”

When it hit Bella, it hit her hard. She burst into tears and near-hysterical crying. “Oh Mick!” she cried as he hurried around the table to fall into his arms. But by the time she got around that table, Roz had stepped in front of Mick and Roz’s arms were the only arms for Bella to fall into. The Gabrinis turned around, unable to suppress their silent grins.

Everybody in the room could see that Bella was at first shocked that Roz would be her comforter, and not the man she wanted to comfort her, but she was torn up about Gloria enough to take what she could get. The two women embraced.

Then Bella thought about what had been said and pulled back, looking at Mick. “But how could she be missing? It makes no sense. After what happened with Jenay, I thought you would have had tighter security on her, Mick.”

“I did have security on her. Tight security.”

“Then what happened?”

“I don’t know what happened.” A distressed look appeared in Mick’s eyes.

“What did your men say?”

Mick exhaled. “I haven’t been able to locate them.”

That was news to Charles. “You can’t locate them? Any of them?”

“We’re still working on it,” Nikki assured Big Daddy, even though she was still on the phone. “Pop’s got everybody on the case. Teddy’s out there too. We’ll catch that fucker.”

“Catch what fucker?” asked Bella. She looked at Mick. “I thought you said she was missing.”

“She is. We don’t know where she is. But we know who has her,” said Oz.

Bella looked at him. “You do?” That seemed to give Bella hope. “Who’s got my baby?”

“Aristotle.”

Bella frowned. “ Aristotle ? That old man?”

“You know him?” Roz asked her.

“I never met him,” Bella said and then looked at Oz again. “But isn’t that the name of the guy she said was teaching her how to speak Greek?”

Oz nodded. “We think so, yes.”

“You think so?”

“We know so,” said Charles.

“So are you saying that Aristotle kidnapped her?”

“That’s what we’re saying,” said Roz to make it plain. “She’s being held captive.”

The life seemed to seep right out of Bella. “God no. Is he a bad man?”

“If he is who we think he is?” said Oz, then he nodded his head.

Bella covered her mouth as tears appeared in her eyes again. She looked to Mick the way she always did when she was afraid. “Oh Micky. Our baby has been kidnapped ? What are you gonna do?”

Mick’s jaw tightened. It was obvious he was devastated. It was Roz who answered her question. “He’s going to find her and bring her back home to you,” she said. “That’s what he’s going to do.”

Bella nodded her head as Oz went around to her and pulled her into his arms.

“There’s more,” Charles said when the two stopped embracing.

Bella looked at him. “More? What more?”

“The demand.”

“What demand?”

“The kidnapper wants two people in exchange for Gloria.”

Bella realized they were negotiating with him, which was a good sign too. “Is Mick one of them?” She looked at Mick. “Are you one of them? Because if you are they’ll kill you, Mick. That’s why they kidnapped her. To get to you.”

“Not him,” said Jenay, unable to shield her own fear. “They want Charles.”

Bella frowned. “Charles? Why would they want Big Daddy?”

“We have no idea,” said Jenay.

“And who else? Big Daddy said two people. Is it you, Oz?” Then Bella realized something. “Does this have anything to do with all those trips you’ve been taking to Greece?”

Oz frowned. “Absolutely not!”

“Aristotle is a Greek name,” Bella pointed out. “The man that has her has a Greek name!”

“Purely coincidental,” Oz said. “Besides, that’s not his real name.”

But everybody was looking at Oz. Even Nikki while on the phone.

“She makes a good point,” said Reno.

“Gloria’s kidnapping has nothing to do with me. Or my entanglements,” Oz made clear. “I assure you of that.”

Everybody looked doubtful except for Mick. He didn’t seem to see it as a possibility either.

“If Oz isn’t the second person, then who is?”

There was a long pause, and then Mick spoke up. “It’s you, Belle,” he said.

“ Me ?” Bella was floored.

“He wants you and my brother in exchange for our daughter.”

Everybody looked to see Bella’s reaction. She was stunned, but she wasn’t cowered. It took her a few seconds for it to settle in, but she nodded her head. “Okay,” she said as if she was determined to accept her fate. “When?”

“Tomorrow.”

She nodded again. “Okay.”

“You accepted that mighty easily,” said a dubious Monk.

“I have to accept it. What else can I do? My child is being held captive and if I can get her free, then I’m down for whatever. That’s my child!”

Everybody in that room would have responded the same way, but coming from Bella Caine felt surprising to all of them. Except for maybe Mick and Roz.

“Where do we meet for the exchange?”

“We’ll know tomorrow,” Mick said, staring at her.

She rubbed her forehead. And then she started crying. “Did you hear her voice? How did she sound?”

But Mick was shaking his head. “We haven’t heard her voice yet. But we will before you and Charlie leave this house.”

She and Mick exchanged a sad look. Then she nodded.

And then Teddy entered the home, with an iPad in his hand, and made his way to the dining hall too.

“Got something?”

“Oh yeah,” said Teddy. “Once we retrieved her phone pings off of various cell towers, I sent out massive crews to round up every single piece of video we could find within a four-mile radius of those pings. Then we poured over all of that data, looking for Glo. We got something alright, Pop,” Teddy said affirmatively as he sat the iPad on the table in front of his father.

As they all gathered around Mick to see what he was about to see, Mick sat down and looked at Charles. Charles sat beside him. Both of their hearts were hammering.