CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

“It’s the street gate again,” Charles quickly said as they gathered around the iPad. Then he pulled up the street gate sector of the security cameras. The snow was picking up in their area, but it was still clear enough to see.

And when they saw what had transpired, they were astonished. “Damn!” said Reno. “Everybody’s down?”

“Where’s Robby?” asked a frantic Sal, his eyes searching the small screen for his underboss. “You see Robby?”

“I just see our street gate security guys down,” said Charles. “They’re all down. And look at that crater in the street. What the fuck kind of explosives these people have?”

“Where are they?” Mick asked, studying all the cameras on the screen. “Where did they go?”

“I need a wider view,” Charles said as he ran out of the room.

“Sal and Reno come with me,” Mick ordered as he hurried behind his brother. “Millie, get some control down here!”

“I will,” Amelia said as her brothers and Reno and Sal hurried out of the chaotic bunker where all of the young people were now hysterical.

They made it up the various flights of stairs and around corners until they were in an office where Charles quickly grabbed a remote and turned on the 70-inch screen. He pressed buttons and went frame by frame from the street gate. And that was when they saw a Jeep stop outside of the gate. When security opened the gate to see what the driver wanted, they realized there was no driver inside and the Jeep exploded in their faces. It easily took every man out without a mile’s radius of the blast. That was how powerful it was.

“They’re packing some serious hardware,” said Reno.

Then they saw a convoy of Jeeps entering the frame and heading for the main gate. “Well got damn, how many men are there?”

There were a cavalcade of Jeeps: an army of men. “It has to be two hundred easily,” said Charles. “Maybe more.”

“Bring in every man outside,” Mick ordered. “That many men and those kind of explosives, they can’t defend against that!”

There was a ten-mile drive from the street gate to the main gate that led to the house. They had no time to waste. Reno ran out the backdoor and Sal ran out the front door to order every man onsite to get inside.

But Robby ran over to Sal. “Where’s everybody?” Sal asked him.

“They’re on their way to the street gate. They felt they could have saved some of those guys during that first ambush had Nikki let them leave their posts. They left their posts to go help.”

“Call’em back!” Sal ordered. “There’s no way they can defend against that size army of men.”

“How many?” Robby asked as he grabbed his handheld radio.

“At least two hundred,” said Sal.

Robby looked at him as if he was nuts. “ Two hundred ?” Then he quickly called their guys back to their posts.

“Where’s everybody?” Reno asked as he ran around the front. But then another explosion occurred that knocked all three off of their feet. “What the fuck?” yelled Reno.

But inside, Mick and Charles saw it all unfold onscreen. The invading army saw the SUVs approaching from the main gate and they launched a series of rocket-propelled grenades that took out every single one of the SUVs, including those that tried to turn tail and run back to base. But it was too late.

Mick and Charles both were astounded. They looked at each other as if they couldn’t believe it.

Reno, Sal, and Robby ran back into the house to find out what happened. But when they ran down the hall toward the office, Mick and Charles were running out of the office.

“What’s happened?” Reno asked anxiously.

“They took out the grounds security,” said Charles. “We’ve got to get everybody out of here.” They continued to run toward the bunker.

“Don’t you mean we need to stay down in the bunker?” asked Sal as he, Reno, and Robby ran behind them.

“I mean everybody has to get out of this house,” said Charles.

“They have bunker-busters in their arsenal,” said Mick. “They have it all. They aim to burn this house down to the ground. We’ve got to get everybody out of here.”

“And go where?” Sal asked, but nobody answered. They were too busy turning corners and running downstairs.

When they got into the bunker, the grownups quieted the young people so that they could hear what Mick and Charles had to say.

“We’ve got to get all of you out of this house,” said Charles.

“You mean leave the bunker?” asked Jimmy. “Why?”

“They have an arsenal that we can’t withstand,” Mick made clear. “We’ve got to get out of here and take our chances in the woods out back. Right now, the enemy should be about five or six miles away. We’ve got to try to run out back and get to the woods. That’s our only hope. We’ve got to go now!”

Jimmy didn’t hesitate. “Everybody, follow Uncle Mick!” he yelled out, and then all of the other appointed group leaders yelled the same thing as everybody began hurrying out of the bunker and up the stairs behind Mick, who led the pack. Charles and his sons made sure everybody was out: they were the last to leave.

They ran up the first stairs with no problem. But when they made it into the second stairwell, another powerful explosion rocked the house, as if the enemy was already there, and it knocked all of them against the walls and collapsed part of the roof in front of them, halting Mick’s progression. He knew leaving now would be mass suicide. Although staying was beginning to look that way too.

Standing on the top stair, he turned to face the family.

He looked down at all of those sweet, beautiful eyes staring back at him. At the eyes of all of his children. And his wife and brother. Although every single person in that stairwell was terrified, not one child screamed, and not one baby cried. As if, in that moment, they were Gabrini and Sinatras and they knew how to behave.

They all looked to Mick, their lifelong hero, for answers. They looked to the one man the family always built up as legendary. A man that could do no wrong even though Mick knew wrong was all he ever did. And his heart just broke. Because he knew all of this could be laid at no one’s feet but his own. They were all doomed because of him and his naked need to always be on top. And to always stay there.

“I’m sorry,” he said to his family collective with a voice that began to crack.

Roz pushed through the crowd and went to Mick, knowing the guilt he had to be carrying was eating him alive, and she held his hand. She knew it was a doomed operation too.

He squeezed her hand, grateful for her support, and he had to clear his throat just to continue. “I’m sorry for putting everybody through this. I love each and every one of you.” For the first time ever, the children got to see tears in their legend’s usually hard, cold eyes. “I’m sorry I haven’t been a better man. None of this would have happened had I been a better man. I’ve done it wrong,” he said as tears welled up in everybody’s eyes.

“I’ve done it wrong,” he said again. “Please, if you get out of this, and I’m praying to God Almighty that every one of you do, don’t be like me. Please. Don’t. Be. Like. Me.”

But Jackie ran to her father and hugged him. Duke ran to his father and hugged him too. “You’re my Dad and I’m gonna be just like you,” Duke proclaimed.

“You’re a great man, Daddy,” proclaimed Jackie.

Tears were in Mick’s eyes as he held onto his wife and two youngest children. Gloria, Teddy, and Nikki went to him as well, with his grandchildren in tow, and he held them too.

But then another explosion rocked the foundation of the house, causing a part of the roof just beyond them to further collapse as they were slammed into the side walls again.

“Everybody back into the bunker!” Mick ordered, although he knew it wasn’t going to withstand the onslaught either. Although he believed it would withstand it a bit longer than where they were.

But just as everyone turned to leave, they heard a familiar sound. The sound of a helicopter. But not just one. Many .

“They have air support? How those fuckers get choppers in the air in this kind of weather?”

Mick actually smiled. “Not them, Sal Luca,” he said. “Those choppers are ours.”

Everybody turned and looked at Uncle Mick again, but only this time a ray of hope was in their eyes. “What do you mean they’re ours, Pop?” asked Teddy. “How did you get choppers in the air?”

“I didn’t. But I called the only man I knew that could.”

Charles was hopeful. “Hammer Reese?” he asked his kid brother.

Mick nodded.“Yes.”

“Yes!” shouted Hannibal with a fist pump. His father Hammer Reese was his hero.

“I tried to reach him,” said Amelia of her husband, “but I couldn’t reach him. How were you able to do it?”

“I called in a favor. You may know him as the President’s boyfriend. He knew how to reach her, and she knew how to reach Hammer. But let’s get back in the bunker,” he said, least the remaining roof caved in too.

They all hurried out of the stairwell and into the bunker. Only this time they were hopeful. Charles hurried to the iPad and pulled up the security cameras. The senior members of the family gathered around the small screen. They all saw that the castle was on fire, but that the choppers were mowing down their attackers. That their attackers were no longer hurling bombs, but they were running for their lives. The hunters were once again the hunted. And Hammer’s helicopters were now the hunters.

“They’re taking them out!” Charles proclaimed to those who could not see the screen, and everybody cheered.

Then the screen showed a huge fleet of armored vehicles arriving, the kind not uncommon in war, and they finished off the ones who thought they were getting away. They mowed them down like they had mowed down Mick and Sal’s men.

And when the call came into Mick from Hammer Reese himself, a man who was the former head of the CIA and currently responsible for the entire government’s special ops divisions, they knew the worst was behind them.

“Hello Hammer,” said Mick with a grand smile on his face. “So good to hear your voice!”

Everybody laughed because they knew the contentious relationship Mick, the outlaw, had with Hammer, the lawman.

“All is clear,” Hammer announced. “We’re coming in. We’re clearing a pathway to bring you out. I have you on thermal detection. Stay where you are. And Mick?”

“Yes?”

“Thanks for having the right instincts, and doing something about it. You were right. It was Jonah Tella. He and Nails Trosetto teamed up after you screwed over both of them. Tella confessed. We have him in custody. You kept my family safe too. Good job,” Hammer added, and the entire room erupted in applause for Mick.

“Everybody stay where you are,” Hammer reiterated. “We’re coming to you!”

But as Charles and Amelia hugged their brother, and Mick and Roz and their kids stood by Mick and wouldn’t leave his side, and all of the other families hugged each other in relief and gratitude, nobody needed to be told twice. They gladly stayed where they were.