CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“God rest ye merry gentlemen.

Let nothing you dismay.

Remember Christ our Savior

was born on Christmas day.

To save poor souls

from Satan’s pow’r

when we had gone astray.

Oh tidings of comfort and joy.

Comfort and joy.

Oh tidings of

comfort

and joy.”

That Christmas carol that they all knew was Big Daddy’s favorite played in a continuous loop in the background as the men stood around in the dining hall. All were dressed for dinner in their designer suits and expensive shoes. All were holding glasses of champagne as they talked quietly about the mansion and who could own it, about the uniqueness of the place, and about the retreat itself.

Tommy stood next to Mick, which Mick appreciated. Although they didn’t say a word between them, Mick always felt a sense of peacefulness whenever he was around Tommy. He liked the way he handled his family. He liked the way he handled himself. He always felt that if he ever got to a place where he needed somebody in the family to tell his troubles to, it would be Tommy. Charles would want to get involved and solve his problems. The others would ask him too many damn questions. Nikki, whom he adored, had her hands full with Teddy. Tommy would be his go-to guy.

When they heard high heels stomping down the staircase and then heading toward the dining hall like a herd of cattle, their small talk completely ceased. Only to be replaced with a high-grade tension as soon as their ladies walked in, all decked down in their form-fitting dresses and heels. All looking enticingly gorgeous in their own way. The men stared at their individual woman, and the women stared at their individual man. It had come down to that: Each man for himself.

Roz looked regal to Mick when she entered that dining hall. He hadn’t seen her since the slap. He didn’t go home that night and hadn’t been home since. He spoke to the twins on the phone a few times, but that was it.

Roz didn’t look Mick’s way. She was afraid she’d want to snatch his eyes out if she did. She’d want to take that sleepy-ass eye of his and make it woke to her pain and her suffering and to all that bullshit he put her through year after year after year. That was why she didn’t look. She was carrying too much baggage that she would unload on him. She, instead, went to her corner and stayed there. It was the other ladies that surrounded her.

Trina, on the other hand, gave Reno a serious stare down as she stood in that corner. Reno was admiring her slamming body, and was missing her again. He even wanted to take her to one of those rooms right now and get down on her. But he could tell she wasn’t having it. He could tell she was still royally pissed with him.

Gemma glanced at Sal with his cute self, although cute in a bulldog kind of way. But she was put off by that fake smile he put on as if their problems weren’t so bad and he wanted her to keep going along to get along the way they’d been doing most of their marriage. That was why she jumped at the chance to come to this retreat, even though the timing could have been better. They had issues. Big ones. And although she wasn’t there to prosecute Sal, she wanted her day in court.

All Nikki wanted was for her and Ted to get back where they started from. Before Mick made Teddy the head of the Sinatra crime syndicate. Before he approved her appointment as the underboss. Now they barely had time for their baby, let alone each other. Her daughter Marie spent more time with their baby than they did. Which she wasn’t going to tolerate much longer. And she had news to tell him she knew he wasn’t going to like. They needed this retreat. Because just like Roz told her that when you stop asking real questions, the Sinatra men stop giving real answers. Teddy had stopped giving real answers long ago because she’d stop asking real questions even longer.

Teddy knew it, too, as he watched his beautiful wife intensely. With her gorgeous face and big hips and big thighs and big ass, not to mention her gigantic heart and brilliant mind, she was everything he could ever want in a woman. He remembered how heartbreaking he felt when she blamed herself and asked him if he still wanted to be with a full-figured girl like her, or did he now prefer those skinny girls he used to date. He held her, told her not to be ridiculous, but they didn’t address delve into it at all. The fact that Mick was working them to the bone was the problem. The fact that they couldn’t find the guts to tell him they wanted out, they needed out, was the problem. Because that major problem that neither one of them had ever found the courage to even address between the two of them, let alone with Mick, was causing the other areas of their lives to fall apart too. It didn’t take a genius to know they needed this retreat badly.

Tommy and Grace knew they didn’t need a reset. But when they tried to tell Big Daddy that their marriage was solid, he reminded them that they thought their marriage was solid when they ended up getting a divorce. Every marriage had room for improvement, he insisted, and ordered them to attend. What the outside world didn’t know was that Mick wasn’t the undisputed king of the family. Big Daddy Charles Sinatra was. And when he ordered them somewhere, they knew they had to go. They packed up like everybody else and came. But that didn’t change their reality: They felt they truly didn’t need to be there.

When Charles and Jenay entered the dining hall, both dressed to the nines in their dinner attire, they all sat down at the table. There were nameplates around the table that had all of the women seated on one side of the table, and all of the men seated on the other side of the table. But not randomly as they would have hoped. But the way it was designed, the men found themselves seated directly across from their respective wives. They had to face them no matter how much they may not have wanted to. It was baked in the cake. Charles and Jenay sat at the front (Charles) and the back of the table.

Dinner, along with four different desserts, was on the table buffet-style and everyone was handed various dishes of food to scoop out portions to their liking. Which was fine by all of them since all of them were starved, but before they could dig in Charles explained the process. “I set it up this way,” he said, “because I wanted each of you facing your spouse. I want communication. Jenay and I will facilitate it, if necessary, but it’ll be good to see if you can get the ball rolling yourselves.” Then he blessed the food in a prayer, and they dug in.

But just as Jenay had predicted to him earlier, they also dug into their own positions and didn’t bother to communicate squat. They barely looked at each other. And the few questions that were asked, were all asked of Charles.

“Who owns this joint, Big Daddy?” Reno asked him.

“You like it?”

“It’s got some Addams Family vibes going on from the looks of it on the outside, but inside it’s cool.”

“It’s not The PaLargio, but it’s cool hun?”

“ Not the PaLargio ?” Reno was offended that such a place would be compared to his beloved hotel and casino, the biggest on the Vegas Strip. “It’s not even in the same zip code. It’s not even in the same country. It’s not even in the same atmosphere. It’s not---”

“Damn, Reno, we got it,” said an agitated Sal. “We got it damn!”

Charles chuckled. “I own it, Reno.”

“Dang, Big Daddy,” said Reno with a smile. “You’re richer than I thought.”

“Than everybody thinks,” added Jenay. “He hides it like it’s a badge of honor. And every one of his sons are just like him. The girls, however, are more like me,” she said, and they all laughed.

“But for real, Big Daddy,” said Sal, “how much property you gonna buy? I even heard you got properties in Europe and Africa and even Asia too. All over the world. I remember when they first started calling you Big Daddy when you were acting like Big Brother because you owned almost all of the state of Maine. They got to get a bigger name for your ass now. Maybe Big G. The granddaddy of them all.”

Charles and most of the others laughed at that too. “I’ve expanded, yes, I have. But that’s a good thing no?”

“Always a good thing,” said Reno. “Don’t listen to Sal.”

Sal frowned. “Whatta you mean don’t listen to me? I didn’t say it was a bad thing. I said it was a new thing. That’s all I said.”

And their bickering continued. Somebody, usually Tommy or Big Daddy, would tell them to knock it off, but this time, given the tension in that room, it was a welcome distraction. Everybody ate and laughed at the two men that bickered more than a married couple but always had each other’s back. It went that way until they had all pretty much finished their meals, although there was plenty left on their plates, and Charles decided to get on with it.

“I want to begin with the men,” he said, since he knew the fault line usually began there. “Ladies, hear them out. Don’t interrupt them. You’ll get your turn.”

Then Charles began with the man many called t he mouth of the Vegas south because of his verbosity. “Reno,” he said, “why is your wife seated on the other side of the table and not next to you?”

Reno could have been flippant and said because Big Daddy had placed her on the opposite side, but it was too serious for him to go there. He answered the question. “Because she’s a know-it-all. You can’t tell her nothing. She’s a hotheaded sometimes bitch of a woman,” he said to Charles’s and Jenay’s shock. They expected him to be conciliatory. Somebody who wanted his marriage back on track. They both looked at Trina.

Trina, with fire in her big hazel eyes, was staring daggers at Reno.

But his verbal assault kept going, as if he was done sugarcoating their stuff. “Because she’s the most stubborn person I’ve ever met in my whole life who won’t listen even if you yell it to her through a bullhorn. Who leaps to conclusions without hearing any of the facts. Who thinks her ghetto ass knows everything when you come down to it she don’t know shit. But you can’t tell her that. You can’t tell her nothing. It’s like talking to that wall over there when you’re talking to Tree. That’s why she’s sitting on the other side of this table.”

Everybody was stunned by his bluntness. Is that what we’re doing , their puzzled faces seemed to say. But Trina started shaking her head. She was ready to pounce right back. “Oooh boy!” she said. “Oooh boy oh boy oh boy!”

“Don’t respond yet, Tree,” Charles quickly interjected before she got going. “You’ll get your chance, just hold on. It’s the men’s turn. Let’s hear the rest of them out before anybody responds.”

“Oooh boy,” Trina said again as she began trying to regulate her heavy breathing. She was barely able to contain herself. And although she was still shaking her head, she was willing to wait her turn. She wanted to see how harsh the other husbands would be.

Once Charles felt Trina was under control, he turned to Sal. “Sal Luca, why is your wife sitting on the other side of this table and not beside you?”

And Sal took the baton from Reno and ran with it. “Because she wants me to baby her like Tommy babies Grace.”

Gemma’s mouth actually gaped open. Tommy and Grace looked at Sal as if he was insane too. “ Why are you putting us in this ?” Tommy wanted to know.

“Tommy, wait your turn,” warned Charles.

“His problems have nothing to do with us.”

“Now I mean it!” Charles said forcefully. “Shut the fuck up.”

Tommy glanced at Grace, who was red hot too, but he wasn’t going to buck Big Daddy. He settled back down.

Charles glared at Dapper Tom. He expected better from him. Then he looked at Sal. “Go on, Sal Luca,” he said.

“I told her she can kiss my ass if she thinks I’m gonna treat her like some little baby. Like Grace ,” he said that name as if it was a pollutant, although everybody knew he was quite fond of Grace. But they also knew he was not fond of that babying style of Tommy’s toward his family.

But he kept going. “She thinks I got time to go to this with her or to go to that with her when I’ve got businesses to run, Big Daddy. And I’m not talking one business either. I’m talking businesses! Many of them. All over the world. And she knows how much that other thing takes out of me too.”

That other thing , they all knew, was the fact that Sal Gabrini was the second most powerful mob boss in the world, behind only Mick himself, as the head of the Gabrini crime family. Teddy ran Mick’s outfit, and he had the title of boss of all bosses on paper, but everybody knew who was ultimately the King.

Sal concluded his rant. “That’s why her ass sitting on the other side of this table,” he said.

Gemma was cool as a cucumber. But all the ladies knew she was seething inside. But she wasn’t a rulebreaker. She knew Big Daddy’s rule to let the men have their say first. She would wait her turn.

Charles didn’t expect anything less from Gemma Jones-Gabrini. She was a class act. Always was. Always would be.

Then he turned to Teddy and asked him that same question.

But Teddy was a strong man like his father, and since his father was the true source of their issues, he wasn’t ready to go there. He was evasive. “Hell if I know,” he said.

Charles and Jenay glanced at each other. “You don’t know?” Jenay asked with skepticism in her voice.

“No.”

Both Charles and Jenay looked at Nikki. But she wasn’t ready to go there either. And besides, it wasn’t her turn. She stood on ceremony. In a way, they both did.

So Charles turned to his kid brother. If he thought Reno and Sal’s responses were difficult, he knew Mick’s would be difficulty on steroids. But he came to the retreat. Roz was heading to divorce court. He had to know this was his last chance to make it right. “Michello,” he said to the brother he practically raised because their parents were so dysfunctional, “why is your wife seated on the other side of this table and not beside you?”

Roz made a point of looking at him for the first time. She dared him to pull that blame it on the wife bullshit Reno and Sal had just pulled. She dared him.

But Mick was staring straight ahead. And he didn’t lose his cool. But he also wasn’t ready to air his dirty laundry in front of other people, he didn’t care who they were. “Next question,” he said to Charles.

And despite the other ladies getting far worse than that, Roz blew a fuse. “See? See what I have to put up with day in and day out with that asshole? See what kind of motherfucker I’m married to?”

Mick frowned. “Who are you calling a motherfucker?”

Roz jumped from her chair. “You motherfucker. You!”

Mick jumped from his chair. But as he was jumping up, too, everybody exploded all at once:

“What’s that shade about me leaping to conclusions?!” Trina yelled at Reno as she jumped up from her seat. “I caught your ass with that woman!”

“It’s not about you going places with me and you know it!” Gemma yelled at Sal as she jumped up. “It’s about prioritizing our family over your businesses!”

“You know what it’s about,” Nikki said to Teddy, although she remained seated.

“How can I?” Teddy responded, without jumping up either. “You won’t talk to me. How can I know?”

And they all kept going as if it was a free-for-all. All of those comments exploded in the room at the exact same time Mick had asked Roz who was she calling a motherfucker.

And Roz was still answering Mick as others were giving their spouses a piece of their minds too. Charles and Jenay just watched them in disbelief. It was as if a bomb of discontent had gone off.

“You had a hundred text messages to that woman,” Roz was yelling at Mick as the others yelled at their spouses. “You must think I’m Boo Boo the Fool!”

“She’s a business associate,” Mick said firmly.

“Bullshit motherfucker!”

“And I call bullshit on you, too, Reno,” Trina yelled at her husband.

“Call me that again,” Mick threatened Roz.

“Motherfucker,” Roz said, defying Mick. “And motherfucker! And motherfucker! And oh yeah: motherfucker!”

Roz was about to say it yet again, but her angry rose within her at just looking at his cheating-ass face and she grabbed a handful of her sizeable leftover food and threw it in his face, yelling motherfucker! as she did. When that food slammed into Mick’s face, stinging him, he grabbed his glass of champagne and threw the liquor into Roz’s face. But that only angered Roz even more and she not only threw the liquor in her glass of champagne at Mick, but she threw the glass at him, too. The glass missed, and crashed against the wall, but it seemed to signify nothing was off the table.

And it was on.

The ladies took their cues from Roz and started throwing plates of leftover food at their husbands, the plates the food was in, the liquor from their champagne glasses, the glasses the champagne was in. The bouquet of flowers. The forks and spoons. Anything and everything that they could get their hands on. And the men retaliated as all of them, men and women, tried to explain their sides of the stories.

Tommy hurried around the table, grabbed Grace, and hurried her away from the madness. Because it was mayhem on steroids. Charles had gotten Jenay on her feet and had moved her back too. Because even he knew nothing was all limits with those gangsters. They were hard. And not just the men either. It was a reason those particular men had married those particular women because those ladies came hard too. It was a fair fight, that was why he never even dreamed of helping them out. Those women could hold their own and some beside!

Dinner plates were flying. Cakes and pies were flying. Even chairs were flying. Reno reached for Trina, presumably to kick her ass for hitting him in the head with an apple, but he tripped and face-planted in a pile of chocolate pudding that had ended up on the floor. He went down a white man, came up a black man as he had to wipe the pudding from around his eyes just to see.

Sal was running Gemma around the table, but he slipped and fell against a curio set and broke all the fine glass inside of it. “Ouch, my back!” he started screaming, but Gemma didn’t give him time to suffer because she began raining down blows on the top of his head, forcing him got get back on his feet.

Teddy tried to grab Nikki and sling her across the table, but she was too strong and was nearly slinging him across the table.

After Reno had cleared his eyes of that chocolate pudding, he tried to grab Trina across that table again, but Trina only grabbed hold of his suitcoat and began beating him in the face with her fists. It was like he couldn’t even straighten up she was beating on him so hard. Grace elbowed Tommy so that he could see what she couldn’t believe she was seeing: Trina was beating on Reno with blow after blow after blow. She was holding onto Reno’s suitcoat, refusing to let him get away, as she continued to rain down blows on him. She was beating Reno’s ass.

Roz was still throwing things at Mick, all of which he was deftly ducking and dodging. But when she grabbed one of those pumpkin pies off the table and threw it at Mick’s face, hitting him in the face, he became so enraged that he reached over that table to grab her. And although she tried to latch onto his suitcoat and beat his ass like Trina was beating Reno’s, it didn’t work with Mick. He grabbed Roz by her blouse and slung her all the way across that table until she landed on the other side: right beside him.

Charles had let it go until that point. He wasn’t interfering in that madness. But as soon as Mick grabbed Roz all the way across that table, both Charles and Tommy knew they had to intervene. They knew Mick could kill her with his bare hands in one second flat. They rushed to Roz’s rescue.