CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

When Mick and Roz got into the Escalade, Big Ed sat behind the steering wheel while Vincent, riding shotgun, sat on the front passenger seat. Mick and Roz sat on the middle row. "Who's Beppie Gastone?" she asked.

"One of my dock supervisors. He claims Frankie gave him four million dollars in exchange for our unload time. They wanted to intercept three of my largest ships."

Roz could not believe her ears. "Frankie Paletti? Are you telling me The Monk turned on you?"

Mick shook his head. "That hasn't been established."

"But you think it's Monk Paletti?"

"That's what Gastone said, but I don't know that yet."

"But you think the same guy that gave your capo four million dollars also gave four million to Patrick?"

"It's looking like it, although your so-called friend said it wasn't Monk who met with him."

Roz leaned her head back. "This is getting wild. Got damn." Then she looked at Mick. "Your timing was perfect. Thank you."

But Mick had a nagging question. "Why would you go to his hotel room?"

"To meet Darryl Siskind. A producer I needed to see. That was his voice on that recorder you were hearing. Patrick was supposedly bringing me up to his room to meet with Darryl. Or at least I thought that was what we were going to do before I found out it was all a scheme. But what kind of scheme I still I don't understand."

Mick continued to stare at Roz.

"What?" she asked him.

"Had that been me in some woman's hotel room with that kind of lame excuse, you'd be all over me."

"Damn right I would because you're the one with the past. I'm not. You don't have shit on me. I have binders full of shit on your ass. So don't even go there," she added.

Then she exhaled. "I just want to know why somebody would want Patrick to abuse me like that."

"If he's telling the truth."

"And if he is?"

"Whether he is or isn't won't change his fate. He's a useful idiot to me right now in case I need to get more intel from him. But once his usefulness is over, he's over."

Roz looked at Mick.

Mick looked at her. "He tried to rape you. What did you expect was going to happen to him? I pat him on the back and send him on his way?"

"You already nearly killed him."

"And the job will be finished. I let these fuckers out here do something like that to you then it's open season. Whosoever will will come for me, you, and the children."

"Over my dead body," Roz said.

"No," Mick corrected her. "Over theirs."

Roz nodded her agreement. She was still a little pissed with Mick, but there was no denying he'd do anything for her.

Roz's detail chief knocked on the window and then Vincent got out and let him sit in.

"That was quick," Roz said as he turned to them.

"Once I saw who it was," the detail chief said, "I knew what we had."

"Who is it?" Roz asked.

"Hate to tell you this, Boss. I know he's married to your brother's adopted daughter."

Mick exhaled. She and Roz both knew Monk was married to Big Daddy's adopted daughter Ashley. They both hated to hear that. "So it was Frankie Paletti after all?" Mick asked.

"The Monk?" The detail chief shook his head. "No, sir. I'm not talking about Ashley's old man. I'm talking about Carly's old man. It was Trevor Reese."

Mick and Roz both were floored. Roz placed her hands on the sides of her face in disbelief. " Trevor ?"

"Show me," Mick ordered.

The detail chief quickly pulled up the video he had recorded from the hotel security cameras and handed his phone to Mick. And there it was: Trevor Reese knocking on Patrick's door four nights ago right around eleven that night. And he had a box in his hand that was big enough to carry the body of a dog.

Roz looked at her baffled husband. "Trevor Reese would order him to rape me?" She was dumbstruck. "What in the world is going on, Mick?"

But Mick leaned back. He was as in the dark as she was.