CHAPTER SEVEN

The upscale mall was packed with Christmas shoppers as Roz Sinatra, her stepdaughter Gloria, and her stepdaughter-in-law Nikki were going from store to store looking for gifts for family and friends. Bing Crosby singing The Little Drummer Boy (Do You Hear What I Hear) rang out over the mall speakers and all three women had that burst of joy in their hearts. It was the best time of the year for all of them.

But Roz was going overboard.

“Not another store, Ma.” Gloria already had three bags of gifts and so did Nikki. Roz had five bags - but still needed more? “Security is carrying your bags, so to you it’s not that much,” Gloria added. “But we’re here to tell you: it’s too much.”

Roz laughed. As the wife of the boss of all mob bosses Mick “The Tick” Sinatra, she was saddled with Security everywhere she went. Which she normally hated. But not this time because one of her guards carried her bags. The other one kept his eyes on the crowd.

The third Security guy was one of Mick’s men ordered to shadow his daughter Gloria. But she was no Roz. She dared not ask him to carry her bags.

As for Nikki, she needed no security. As the underboss of the Sinatra Crime Family, the most powerful syndicate in the world, she was her own security. She was good.

“I’m just going to pop into this store,” Roz said as she was entering the store. Which translated meant that they all were going to pop into that store. And they all did. Tired or not.

“Who this time?” Nikki asked Roz as they entered the fancy clothing boutique.

“Something for Jackie. You know how weird my child gets about clothes.”

“And then we can go to lunch?” Gloria asked. “I’m starved.”

“Then we can go to lunch. I promise this is the last store.”

Nikki and Gloria looked at each other with doubt all over their faces. It was the same promise she made three stores ago. But Roz was the undisputed boss of the ladies. They followed her all around the expansive mall.

After nearly half an hour of looking for that right outfit for a daughter that refused to conform to society’s norms in her clothing choices, Roz could find nothing satisfactory. Until Nikki’s eyes saw a mustard-colored, pocket romper jumpsuit with crisscross diamond buttons that had Roz’s youngest daughter written all over it. “If this doesn’t say Jackie Sinatra,” Nikki said, “I don’t know what does.” She removed it from the rack and showed it, on hangar, to Roz. “Don’t it look like Jackie, Ma?”

“Where do you think you’re going?”

It was the voice of Davarni, Roz’s security chief. All three ladies turned around to see that Davarni had stopped a tall man in a suit and horn-rimmed glasses from approaching Roz. “I need to speak to Mrs. Sinatra,” the man was saying as he looked at Roz. “Are you Mrs. Sinatra?”

Roz could spot a mile away somebody coming at her with bull crap, but he didn’t give off that kind of vibe to her. “May I help you?” she asked.

“It’s about your husband.”

A few patrons in the luxurious store glanced over at Roz. Knowing Mick and Roz’s tough marital history, Nikki and Gloria glanced at each other. Roz nodded for Davarni to let him through.

Davarni patted him down first, and then allowed him to approach the boss’s wife.

“What about my husband?” Roz asked.

“it’s about your husband and my wife.”

Nikki and Gloria rolled their collective eyes with that here we go again look on their faces. But Roz wasn’t as young as they were. There was a time when she’d be totally dismissive too. But not at her age. Not with her experience. Especially since it wasn’t that long ago that Jenay had been shot and presumed dead, and Roz had been in danger too. She could dismiss nothing concerning her husband anymore.

The man seemed to wait for Roz to give him permission to continue talking, especially after he saw Nikki and Gloria’s responses. But Roz wasn’t that kind of woman. He approached her. It was on him to say what he needed to say.

“Last month,” he said, “I confronted your husband about it.”

“You confronted him?” Nikki hadn’t meant to say a thing, but it was such a shocking way for anybody to describe any encounter with Mick Sinatra that it threw her.

It threw Gloria, too, and Mick was her father. Nobody confronted him. “What did he do?” she asked. Because if it was a load of crap, she was certain he would have done something, not say something, to that man.

“He didn’t do anything,” the man said to everyone’s shock, even Davarni’s. “He said it was nothing like that and that he and my wife were just business associates. He even laughed about it when I confronted him as if it was so out of the realm of possibility that it was laughable. And my wife said the same thing pretty much, so I just left it alone.”

The man pushed his glassed up on his narrow, pink face. “Then one morning she went to the gym, but she forgot her phone. Something she never does. When it rang and I saw that it was one of her employees, I answered the call. But when the call ended, I decided to go into her phone since I knew her password. I wasn’t expecting to find much. But I had the chance so I checked anyway. And that’s when I found them. Text after text after text between your husband and my wife. Hundreds of texts. See?” He lifted his phone up to Roz’s face and then he handed his phone to Roz.

Nikki and Gloria quickly crowded around Roz to see for themselves what the messages were saying, but Roz gave them both that chilling look she was famous for, and they just as quickly backed off. Roz could be a kind, funny, great person to be around. But she was nobody’s “buddy.” She was like her husband in a lot of ways: She was not to be trifled with.

She began thumbing through the text messages, specifically reading the most egregious ones that popped up, amazed at the amount of texts she was strolling through. It was like two teenagers texting each other. Two teenagers, Roz also noticed, that absolutely seemed to be in love. In love ! And those were text messages to this man’s wife from Mick of all people. From her husband.

“It’s hundreds there,” the man said as she strolled, and Nikki and Gloria were shocked by how long it was taking Roz to stroll through. “No man talks to a business associate the way he’s talking to my wife. Especially no married man,” he added as if the situation needed more drama.

Roz’s heart was hammering as she strolled through the messages, but you wouldn’t know it to look at her. Cool as a cucumber she looked to the outside world. Especially when she handed the phone back to the man. “Your name?” she asked him.

“Ernest Higgins. My wife is Daphne Higgins.”

Roz nodded.“Okay.”

“Okay?” The man couldn’t believe it. “That’s all you got to say after reading all of that?” But Roz just stood there, as if it was no big deal to her.

He was livid. “You tell your husband to stay away from my wife or he’ll regret it!”

Why did he want to say that? Because Roz’s temper flared. “Who do you think you’re threatening?” she said angrily, and Nikki and Gloria agreed with her. Did he not know who he was talking about? “Get the fuck out of my face,” Roz added with that look that brook no sympathy whatsoever.

“Let’s go,” Davarni said to the guy and began ushering the now angry man away from Mrs. Sinatra. Davarni couldn’t believe the nerve of the guy either. Did he have a death wish?

Nikki and Gloria didn’t know what to say to Roz. She wasn’t the kind of person they could go there with. Roz didn’t even allow Gloria to inject herself into any issues Roz might have with her father. It just wasn’t done. That was why both ladies remained silent.

Besides, Roz, at least outwardly, had already moved on. “It does look like something Jackie would wear,” she said to Nikki as she took the jumpsuit and checked it out.

Nikki and Gloria glanced at each other with that WTF look on their faces.