CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

"I don't see her car," Teddy said nervously when they arrived at the big, beautiful home that Mick purchased for Teddy's mother. The same kind of home he purchased for all of his baby mamas. "I don't see her car, Pop!"

"Probably in the garage," Mick replied to help keep his son calm as they got out of the Corvette. Mick gave a stay put motion to Big Ed and Vincent in the security SUV as he and Teddy hurried to the front door.

When they approached the door and could hear screams coming from inside the house, Teddy kicked the door in and, with their weapons drawn, they hurried inside.

The screaming was coming from the downstairs bedroom, which Teddy knew was his mother's bedroom, and they both ran down the hall to that room.

When they got to the room, they saw Teddy's mom, Ursula Mastriano, naked on the bed, bleeding profusely, as a man was wiping the blood off of the knife as if he'd just finished what he came to do and was preparing to leave.

Teddy jumped on that guy, knocking him down and dislodging the knife from his hand, and began beating the hell out of him with such force that the perp was bleeding profusely himself.

But Mick quickly took charge of the perp so that Teddy could tend to his terribly injured mother. With one hand, Mick grabbed the perp by his shirt and easily immobilized him by putting his knee on his chest. With his free hand he pulled out his phone and called 911. Even he could see the urgency. Even he could see that Ursula, a woman who, unlike Bella Caine, he almost never had any contact with, was in dire trouble. Teddy immediately began taking off his shirt, grabbing whatever he could, to staunch the blood.

When Mick finished speaking with the 911 dispatcher, he tossed his phone aside and lifted the perp just enough so that they were face to face. But instead of beating him down the way Teddy had, Mick had to have answers. All they had were questions. He needed concrete answers!

"What's your name?"

He was in pain so his answers were more like mutterings. "Pock."

"Pock what, motherfucker?"

Pock McCanns."

"Who do you work for?"

"I don't work for nobody. I do my own thing."

"For the mob?"

Pock didn't respond. Mick normally would have already kicked his ass, but he needed answers.

"Who hired you?"

"I was so close."

Mick frowned. "Close to what?

"He already put the money in an offshore account in my name. I checked myself. Four million dollars just sitting there waiting for me to collect after I do the job. And I was done. All I had to do was leave. But then you showed up."

"What job?"

"The job he paid me to do. To rape and stab your baby mama," the perp said as if he was saying it was his job to wash cars or lay pipes. "But you know what? I enjoyed the stabbing more than the rape. She ain't all that. You gotta step up your game, Sinatra."

Teddy heard what the perp had said and wanted to jump on that clown and kill him with his own bare hands, but he had to keep that pressure on his mothers' wounds. But Mick had had it himself and began punching the perp until he drew blood.

Mick packed a punch unlike any punch the perp had ever felt. "Okay, I'll talk. I'll talk!" he cried out, as the pain overtook his bravado. "Just don't hit me anymore."

"Who hired you to do this?" Mick asked him again.

But the perp was shaking his head. "I was so close," he said again.

"Tell me who hired you, motherfucker," Mick yelled, "or I'll kill your ass! Who?"

"The one man on the face of this earth that even you are afraid of. Your brother!" the perp screamed out. "Charles ‘Big Daddy' Sinatra. That's who !"

When Mick and Teddy heard that name the room seemed to turn sideways. The idea that somebody would even dare to implicate Charles in this craziness confounded Mick. His enemies knew better. They knew Charles was as lethal as Mick was, if not more so. They knew better.

Which led Mick to wonder if it was an enemy after all.

He and Teddy looked at each other.

What the fuck , both of their faces seemed to say as sirens could be heard getting closer and closer.