CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

It was just beginning to snow by the time the men put on their winter waist-high jackets and made it to the small guest house at the back side of the property.

“It wasn’t me,” Nails Trosetto said as he held up his manicured hands. “See? There’s no blood on my hands.”

Mick and Charles, and Reno, Sal, and Tommy, along with Teddy and Monk Paletti, all stood in front of his chair. Mick and Teddy were astounded to be eyeballing him again.

“That’s why I came to clear my name. I’ve been at war with you before.” Nails was looking specifically at Mick. “I know what that’s like. That’s why I never reconstituted. Never tried to get the band back together. I’ve been riding solo ever since. For me to hear that my name’s at the top of your enemies list? Are you kidding me? I’m not equipped to go up against you. I’m not trying to go through that hell again.”

“How did you know where I was?” Mick asked.

“Phone calls.”

“Who would talk to you on a phone?” Mick asked.

Nails smiled. “Very funny. Mick got jokes now.”

“Just answer the question,” said Teddy. “Who did you call?”

“Your old man’s people actually.” Then he looked at Mick again. “I called your corporate office and said I was a business partner looking for you.” He smiled. “She believed me because I know how to talk intelligently when I have to. The lady I spoke to told me you were at a retreat in the Catskills and wouldn’t be available until after Christmas. I said a retreat ? But to myself I’m thinking: ‘ A retreat for gangsters ?’ What the fuck kind of retreat would Mick the Ticking Time Bomb be going to? When that lady said a marriage retreat, I said oh no. I must have the wrong bastard. Ain’t no way Mick the Tick was gonna be at no damn marital retreat. I was sure she was talking about the wrong motherfucker then. But I didn’t argue with the lady. I did my research. Found out that Big Daddy Sinatra owned a piece of property in the Catskills. So I called his office. He was at this retreat too. So I put two and two together and ended up at that gate miles up the road. This is a big-ass piece of property.”

Mick looked at Teddy. “Don’t worry, Pop. He’s not going anywhere until his story completely checks out. I’ll check it out personally.”

“It’ll check out,” said Nails confidently. “I don’t have no beef with you people. Word on the street was that some sicko was using my modus operandi all over Europe. But when I heard that same bastard used my m.o. to off one of your capos, I didn’t like that shit. Didn’t want anybody’s guns trained on me because they think I’m stupid enough to come for you again when I got my ass kicked and handed to me the last time.”

“You ran underground,” Mick said.

“That’s right. Am I proud of it? No. Did I do what I had to do? Yes. I’m alive, ain’t I?”

“Where you been holed up, Nails?” asked Teddy.

Nails smiled. “South Dakota. My wop ass was so out of place when I first got there it wasn’t even funny. But I still had my spies. They’re the ones told me what was happening. All those years I been out of the game and suddenly I’m back in? Oh hell no. I never even left South Dakota until now. All those sightings of me in Rome and Palermo and I’m supposedly de-nailing everybody’s gangsters was just bullshit. It wasn’t me. It was never me.”

“What do you know about Ignatius Zarbolinski?”

“Zarbo? What’s there to know? You iced him years ago in the war of 2012. I remember that war. It was crazy times. Z almost toppled you. Then you started playing dirty.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” said Mick. “I wasn’t playing.”

Nails grinned. “Still a bastard I see.”

Those loud, horrifying sirens sounded before he could finish his sentence and all of the men, except for the capos guarding Nails, ran out of the guest house.

“What the fuck is that?” Nails asked, covering his ears.

But the capos weren’t talking and the others were already outside. Robby Yale and Nikki were running toward them.

“Where?” Charles asked as they approached each other.

“We don’t know, sir,” Robby said over the loud sirens.

“None of the gates have been breached,” Nikki said as she gave Charles the iPad she held in her hand.

They all gathered around Charles and looked at the security monitors on the tablet even as those sirens were deafening to their ears. But it was Teddy who spotted it. “There,” he said, pointing to the section of woods near the south lawn. “There’s movement back there.”

When he said it, they saw it and Mick took off running as Charles quickly threw the iPad back to Nikki. “Tom, you and Monk stay inside with the family,” Charles ordered as he and Teddy and Reno and Sal ran to Mick’s Escalade, hopped in with Mick as driver, and they took off toward those southern woods.

“Check all the gates again,” Monk ordered Nikki and Robby as he and Tommy hurried back toward the main house.

Mick drove so fast across that lawn that everybody held on for dear life. Charles was on the front seat with Mick. Reno and Sal were on the middle seats. And Teddy brought up the rear. But as Mick flew into those woods, it was Teddy that felt the brunt of the overgrowth and branches and general rough terrain as they bounced along.

“There it is!” Reno said when they spotted a big red pickup truck driving even faster than Mick was speeding through those woods. But Mick put the pedal to the metal and was able to catch up.

“Get ready to take out tires,” Reno ordered and all of them, including Charles, had their guns ready. Teddy, a new school gangster, double-checked his. Reno, Sal, and Big Daddy didn’t have to. They always knew what they were packing and how much ammo they had to go around.

But just as Mick was about to ram into that truck to force a spin-around, the truck sped around a corner, Mick turned the corner, too, nearly losing control, and then suddenly a body of water was upon them. And that truck was still going full speed ahead.

Mick started slamming on brakes as soon as he saw the water. He had been going so fast that he skidded all the way to the water’s edge. But the driver of the truck had not slowed down, not even for a millisecond, and plunged right into the water.

“ Got damn!” yelled Sal. “How could that blind-ass driver not see that big body of water right in front of him?!”

Teddy hopped out of the SUV, took off his shoes and jacket, and dived into the water. The others hopped out, too, and waited onshore. Sal made himself bodyguard and was looking around, ready to shoot anything moving.

Teddy stayed down nearly twenty seconds as he looked inside the truck, and then he came back up for air. He got out of the water.

“They’re dead?” asked Charles.

Teddy was nodding his head. “There’s nobody in there.”

Reno frowned. “What do you mean nobody’s in there? They got out that fast?”

“Nobody’s in there. It’s one of those self-driving trucks. It wasn’t meant to stop. It was programmed to never stop until it flew into that pond.”

“I’ll be damn,” said Charles.

“It’s like a setup,” said Reno. “Like they wanted to get us away from. . .”

But before Reno could finish his sentence, they all heard a massive explosion that rocked them where they stood. But it wasn’t coming from where they were. It was coming from the front of the property.

“The mansion!” Reno yelled out and all of them hopped back into the SUV, with Teddy grabbing his shoes and jacket, and once they all were inside Mick took off again.

He backed up, turned around, and then sped around that corner and drove as fast as he could the same way he drove in.

“Nikki? Robby?” Charles was on his handheld radio. “Can anybody hear me? Is everybody alright? Nikki? Robby? Anybody !”

But nobody was answering. Sal was attempting to call Tommy. Teddy was attempting to call Monk. But nobody could get through. “We’re in too deep,” said Teddy. “No satellite or cell towers this far in. We need to get out of these damn woods.”

Mick was doing just that. He couldn’t possibly drive any faster.

But then, just when they didn’t think their anxiety could get any worse, gunshots ricocheted off of the SUV, forcing Mick to swerve violently to the right and then to the left, slinging that big steering wheel the way a NASCAR driver would as he fought to maintain control.

“Where the fuck is it coming from?” Sal yelled as they all were looking around.

When that self-driving truck had gotten them into those woods, and now, with a blowback ambush, Mick was convinced that Zarbo was still the master strategist he had been all those years ago, and he had outmaneuvered Mick once again. Mick angrily slammed his hands on that steering wheel as he drove to get away.

Then the gunfire intensified and the back glass of his SUV quickly shattered, forcing Teddy to dive to the middle row to avoid certain injury. Everybody hit the deck as Mick swerved and ducked as he drove, and as everybody else began firing behind them where they now knew the gunfire was coming from.

But then Mick surprised them all and angrily slammed on brakes, turned his SUV around, and then began speeding toward their attackers, determined to take those bastards head-on.

“Mick, what are you doing?” a stunned Charles yelled at his younger brother. “Are you insane? You’re going straight into the fire!”

But Mick only saw red. Because going straight for their attackers was exactly what he was doing. He wasn’t about to let those assholes chase them out of those woods and take that gun battle to the mansion and right into the laps of their families.

It was a Chevy Tahoe that contained the gunmen and as soon as the driver saw the Escalade speeding straight for them, he yelled what the fuck , changed course, too, and turned that big tank of an SUV around. He kicked up dirt speeding off in the opposite direction to avoid a face-to-face, head-on collision with No Limits Mick the Tick. And suddenly the hunters were the hunted and Mick was in the position of strength his maneuver was designed to get them into.

And Reno and Sal and Teddy and Big Daddy, too, were firing at the Tahoe, trying with all they could to take out tires.

And it worked. The Tahoe was suddenly leaned onto two of its tires, with the other two incapacitated, but it was going too fast. It flipped onto its side and glided down the wood path like an out-of-control missile. It came to a violent stop when it slammed into a tree, splitting the tree in half.

Mick slammed on brakes. “Ted and Sal, come with me. Reno, you and Charles cover us.”

“We got you, Uncle Mick,” Reno said as Mick, Teddy, and Sal hurried out of the Escalade, their weapons drawn, and they ran to the smashed Tahoe. They got inside quickly.

There were five men inside, including the driver, and all five were dead. Teddy checked their fingernails. All of the men had been de-nailed. They checked their palms. Now that Teddy knew what he was looking for, he saw what his father had seen during the first attack: The letter z was etched in the lines of each one of their palms as if it belonged there. Teddy was amazed at how easily it could have been missed had he not been looking for it.

He looked at his father. Sal looked at Mick too. “Why are these men letting Zarbo do this shit to them and they still do his dirty work?”

“He’s got their family or their money or something else they love more than their own lives hanging over their heads,” said Teddy.

“Oldest mob trick in the book,” said Sal.

“And it still works,” agreed Teddy.

But Mick noticed something else. And Teddy noticed his father. “What is it, Pop?”

Mick was staring at the driver. “I know him.”

“You know him?” Sal was pleased. “Good. That’s a good start. Who the fuck does he work for? That’s what we need to know.”

But Mick was thinking. “I’ll be damn,” he said.

“What?” asked Sal.

“What is it, Pop?” asked Teddy.

But Mick said I’ll be damn again, as if he was just figuring it out, and then he took off running.

“Pop!” yelled Teddy as he and Sal ran after him. They all hopped into the SUV and Mick took off.

“What is it?” Charles asked. “Mick, you look like you saw a ghost. What is it?”

But Mick wasn’t talking. He rarely did when he was in that zone. And they all knew it.

Charles looked back at Sal and Teddy, but they only shook their heads. They didn't know what was going on either.

“Were they dead?” Charles asked Sal and Teddy as Mick sped away.

“All five.”

“Same m.o.?” asked Reno.

“Same,” said Teddy.

Mick drove so fast they all had to hold on for dear life again. But he got them back to the main house. To their relief, everything looked to be in order.

Robby Yale and Nikki ran up to the SUV. “Everybody in the house okay?” Charles asked as they were getting out.

“Everybody’s okay,” said Nikki.

“Where did that explosion come from?”

“The street gate,” Robby said. “It was a big one. It rocked the foundation. We lost at least thirty men.”

“Damn!” said Charles. “They were at the front gate and they were all the way back up in those woods too? What the fuck is going on? I’m going inside to check on the family,” Charles added as he hurried toward the main house.

“We heard gunfire,” said Nikki, “but I ordered everybody to stay on post. I knew you guys could handle whatever threat there was, and I didn’t want us out of place should a breach occur around the mansion too.”

Mick squeezed Nikki’s shoulder. “Good move,” he said. And as a dig to himself, he added: “At least that asshole didn’t outmaneuver you. But that doesn’t mean you and Robby didn’t fail. You still failed,” Mick said. Then he looked at his nephews. “Reno, you and Sal take charge of Security. Thirty of my men dead? That’s a fuckup. That’s a screwup. Fix the gaps,” he ordered and then began heading for the back of the property.

“Where the fuck is he going?” Reno asked.

“Just handle security,” Teddy said. “I’ll take care of Pop,” he added, as he ran behind his father.

““How did they penetrate that deep in?” asked Reno. “This place is more protected than the fucking White House, and they still took out that many men? How ?”

“Hell if I know,” said a flustered Sal. “But we got work to do. Me and Robby will handle the street gate. You and Nikki double check the grounds crew.”

“I’m on that,” Reno said as they all took off to handle their assignments.

But Reno was glancing back at a determined-looking Mick the Tick. What did he know, he wondered, that had him so cockeyed?