CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Around nine a.m., Philadelphia time, they met in the nicely-appointed basement at Mick's house. Trevor Reese and his wife Carly Sinatra, and Frankie "The Monk" Paletti and his wife Ashley Sinatra, and Teddy and Nikki were waiting downstairs. It wasn't lost on Mick as he and Roz entered the basement, that the two men mentioned in the events of the last few days were both married to biological sisters who also happened to be Big Daddy's adopted daughters. Was there a connection there too, he wondered.

"What's this about, Uncle Mick?" Ashley asked him.

"Everybody sit down," Mick ordered and both couples sat on the sofa together while Teddy and Nikki sat in the chairs. Mick and Roz sat on the second sofa.

"Why are we in the basement?" Ashley wanted to know.

"Privacy," said Mick.

"I told you my guys had nothing to do with that intercept scheme," Monk said. "This is a waste of my time and yours too."

Mick stared at Monk, but then he nodded to Teddy.

Teddy handed Trevor his cell phone. "Play the video," he said.

Monk and Ashley leaned over and watched it, too, as Trevor and Carly watched. Mick and Roz were watching Trevor intensely. So was Teddy and Nikki.

Even Trevor was spooked by the similarities of the man on the video. He looked just like him! "Damn," he said.

"Were you at the Ritz-Carlton four days ago?" Mick asked him.

"No."

"Were you in town four days ago?" Teddy asked him.

"Come on, Teddy T. You know I'm not coming to Philly without hitting up one of y'all."

As they talked, Carly was staring unblinkingly at that figure in the video and was rewinding and relooking and rewinding and relooking. Until she realized what was wrong. "That's not Trevor," she blurted out.

Mick looked at his Harvard-educated, African-American niece. She was a sweet young lady he greatly respected and had hoped to have her working for him instead of where she landed: working for and then married to Trevor. Everybody was looking at Carly.

"What do you mean it's not him?" Roz asked.

"The face is his face. But the physical features aren't."

Roz frowned. "What you talking about, Carly?"

"I know it sounds crazy, but Trevor has an extra step in his walk, and his butt is bigger than that."

Ashley grinned. "His butt?"

Monk looked at his young wife. Although Carly was even younger, she was by far more mature than Ashley. Ashley's immaturity and the fact that she was going back to her partying ways were beginning to cause dissension in her marriage to Monk. And a lot of gossip among his capos.

Mick took the phone from Carly and put the video up on the television screen. They all looked at that video again. "Get up and walk, Trevor," Roz said to him.

"This is so stupid," said Ashley. "It's obviously Trev.

But Trevor knew the backstory about what almost happened to Roz. Mick had informed Trevor's big brother, former CIA Director Hammer Reese, and his brother told him. Understanding the seriousness of it, and anxious to clear his own name, he got up and walked.

And just as Carly had said, Trevor did have a kind of extra step, or skip in his walk. And his butt was larger! He was more muscular, too, than the man in that video.

Mick exhaled. "Smart girl," he said of Carly.

Ashley glanced at her much-hyped baby sister and felt wanting like she always did. As if she was never good enough, and Carly was always better than good. Monk, knowing her insecurity, placed his arm around Ashley.

"But it's Trevor's face," said Roz. "How can that be?"

"It has to be A.I.," Carly said.

But Ashley frowned. "What's A.I.?"

Although some in the room seemed exasperated by Ashley's lack of knowledge, Monk was always very patient with her. "Artificial Intelligence," he said to her. "It's a way to take one image and overlay another image on top of it."

"They found a guy who they thought fit Trevor's body build precisely," Carly said to the group, "and then they used computer technology to place his face over the face of that guy. It's Artificial Intelligence. It has to be because that is definitely not Trevor's body."

"But it still doesn't answer the question as to why would Patrick use Trevor's name when he has no involvement?" Roz asked.

Trevor shook his head. "I have no idea," he said as he sat back down.

"I have no idea why I was summoned to Philly again either," said Monk, "when I for damn sure have no involvement in that."

Mick looked at Monk. "How's Carlton Rickie working out for you?"

When Mick said that name, everybody could see a change in Monk's demeanor.

"Who's Carlton Rickie?" Ashley asked Monk.

"What about him?" Monk said to Mick.

"You're in an alliance with him."

"The Bonaducci family is, yes."

Mick exploded. "You're the head of the Bonaducci family. You're the Bonaducci family. Don't you dare play games with me, Frankie!"

"But who is he? Who's Carlton Rickie?" asked Teddy. "I've never heard of him. Who is he, Pop?"

"He's a man that tried to kill me," Mick said, and everybody looked at him.

It was news to Monk. "He tried to kill you?"

"When?" Roz asked.

"A long time ago. Years. After I killed his brother."

Monk and everybody else were surprised to hear that. "You killed his brother?"

"Who was his brother?" Teddy asked.

"Alfonse Rickie. He was a made man in the Costantino crime family back in the day when I was first starting out. He and his guys planned an ambush. I got a beforehand notice within seconds of the shit popping off and I was able to get out of there. And double back and take them all out. Carlton tracked me down about a year later and tried to take me out, but he failed. And got away. Then he went to prison for decades on unrelated racketeering shit. He just got out."

"He just got out?" Teddy asked with surprise in his voice.

"And suddenly Frankie wants that pile of shit in his camp," Mick added.

"How was I to know that history, Uncle Mick?" He was not Monk's uncle, but that was the title of respect everybody gave to him. "You're the one who knows everything, and we're supposed to be in an alliance too, but you don't tell me a thing."

"Why did you align with Carlton Rickie?" Mick asked him.

"Is he hooked up with the Costantino family still?" Teddy asked.

"Who knows?" Mick said. "He just got out of the joint after decades in and Frankie go sweep him up into his organization like he's as desperate as his old man was."

Monk stood up when Mick denigrated his father. It wasn't unfounded, but it was still wrong in Monk's eyes. "Say it again, motherfucker," Monk said to the man he feared, and to the amazement of everybody in that room. Roz looked at Monk as if he had some nerve talking to Mick like that. Nikki was looking at him that way too.

But Teddy, scared for his best friend, quickly stood up. "Let's cut out the insults, Pop. Frankie don't deserve the insults. Let's just focus on what we need to focus on so we can find out what the hell is going on."

Everybody looked at Mick because they knew the ball was in his court. But Mick was staring unblinkingly at Monk. He could tear him apart with his own bare hands. Even Monk knew that. But Frankie Paletti was a man Mick respected to the highest level. He would not have expected a lesser response from him.

And Monk, realizing Mick was a fair man, after all, sat back down.

"But Pop makes a good point, Frankie," Teddy said as he sat down too."What would possess you to hook up with some ex-con with no power? How does he help your crew?"

"He has power," Monk said.

"What power that pile of shit has?" Mick asked.

"While he was locked up, his son runs the police department. That's how he got out."

When Monk made that declaration, Mick and everybody else in the room were surprised.

"I put him under my protection, get him to do stuff that'll get him locked right back up, and I get the son in my pocket too."

Teddy grinned. "That's Frankie. Always a step ahead."

But Nikki was floored. She looked at Mick. "You didn't know Carlton Rickie's son was a big shot in the Police?"

They all assumed Mick miraculously knew everything about everything. "No," he admitted.

"But what's the connection?" Roz asked. "Why did they pretend that Trevor was doing their dirty work, whoever they are. And why implicate Monk?"

"Who's implicating me in this?" asked Monk. "I had nothing to do with what happened to you. I still don't know why I'm here."

"Carlton said you were in the room with Trevor when he was plotting to harm my wife."

Monk was shocked. "He told you that? That's a lie!"

"I know it and you know it," said Trevor. "I wasn't in any room with him either. But that's what he's telling."

"And it takes us right back to where we started from," said Roz. "Why? Who's behind this? What point are they trying to prove?"

"And why is Carlton Rickie lying on us," added Monk. "I'll talk to his ass about it."

"No you won't. Carlton Rickie is no more," said Mick as he looked at Monk. "That alliance is over. He had a check that had to be cashed. He had old shit to pay for."

Monk exhaled. "You could have told me all of that, Uncle Mick. All you had to do was communicate that to me," he added as Mick's phone rang that certain tone that let Mick know it was Bella Caine. Roz looked at him. She knew what that tone meant too.

Mick answered the phone. "What is it, Bella?"

"It's not her, sir. I'm using her phone."

It was her detail chief.

"What happened?"

"She's being rushed to the hospital as we speak. We just found her in her villa, sir."

"Found her?" Mick's heart began to pound. "What do you mean you found her?"

Everybody stared at Mick. They knew what that usually meant.

"She wasn't answering her doorbell," her detail chief said. "She wasn't answering her cell phone. We had no way to reach her. So we broke in and found her badly beaten, sir."

Mick's heart began to pound. "How bad?"

"Very bad, sir. She's clinging to life. And she was sexually assaulted, too, from what I could see."

Mick stood to his feet when he heard those words, and all of them stood up too. "Keep men around-the-clock outside of her hospital room."

"Yes, sir."

"I'm on my way," he added, and ended the call.

Mick barked out orders, including ordering Teddy to stay at the compound with everybody on lockdown until he could assess the situation. Nikki, he said, was going with him. Their daughter, like Trevor and Carly's daughter, were already at the house with the twins, and they would be protected. But first an attack on Roz, and then an attack on Bella? Mick knew there had to be a connection.

Then he looked at Monk and Trevor. "I don't care what you do, Frankie, or what you do, Trevor, but Ashley and Carly are staying at my house until I get more intel."

Trevor and Monk hated it when Mick and Big Daddy took over their wives' security as if Carly and Ashley were still children and they had every right to do so, but they understood the concern. Although their wives didn't know it, but both men knew about Roz getting attacked too. He was just being overly-cautious the way he always was when something odd went down.

Mick looked at both men, who were alpha males and powerful in their own right. And he respected both of them. But he also needed to make certain that they understood he didn't give a fuck about their power when it came to his family. Whatever he said goes. Period.

They understood.

"Yes, sir," said Trevor.

"I hear ya," said Monk.

"I'm headed to Paris. I'll keep you in the loop," Mick said as he turned to leave.

"I'm going with you," Roz said to Mick.

Mick looked at her as if that was already a foregone conclusion. "Who said you wasn't?"

Everybody in that room knew that Mick rarely ever allowed Roz to go on any trips with him that might entail any level of danger. But Roz didn't call him out on it. She was going with him. That was enough for her.

Mick made his way out of the basement with everybody following him.