CHAPTER ONE
They could have danced all night. It was that kind of wedding reception. Hammer Reese, the former CIA Director and current Special Ops Chief, was laughing heartier than anybody had ever seen before, as he walked around his ballroom like a peacock on display, and with a long cigar between his teeth. Amelia Sinatra-Reese, his brand new bride, joined in on the dance train and was leaning forward and leaning back and moving to the right and moving to the left and couldn’t stop laughing either. Roz Sinatra led the dance train and was so popular that all of the single men in attendance who didn’t realize who she belonged to, were doing all they could to get next to her. They thought she was single too. She showed up alone, after all, and although she had that big rock on her finger, most of them didn’t even notice it. The rest didn’t care. Roz was so focused on having fun for a change that she didn’t notice their attention anyway.
But Mick Sinatra, her husband, noticed it.
He stood in the back of the ballroom, against the wall, making no secret of where his entire focus was aimed. Although many women in attendance were giving the dangerously sexy-looking man in the Armani suit loads of side-eyes and peeps, too, Mick wasn’t giving them any looks at all. He was staring unblinkingly at Roz.
Roz was taking peeps at him, too, in the midst of her gaiety. She was an actress. She knew how to put on the happy face. But Mick was no actor, and his displeasure seeped through his muscle-tight body like a cancer. That was why he wasn’t just taking peeps at his wife, he was outright staring. So much so that his big brother, “Big Daddy” Charles Sinatra, who stood nearby, felt as if Mick’s stare wasn’t just about watching Roz, but more about making a decision. He felt as if Mick was trying to decide if his long-time ladylove, whose behavior the week prior had angered and hurt him mightily, was worth it.
But when one of those young, single men in the dance train moved beside Roz and slyly placed his hand on her hip, and Charles saw Mick stand erect from that backwall as if he was about to go over there and show that bastard the error of his ways, Charles hurried to the young stud. And calmly, but firmly, took him by the arm.
“Move it along, son,” Charles whispered to the young man, removing the guy’s hand from Roz’s hip. Roz hadn’t even noticed the guy, until Charles came over.
But the young man didn’t see where he’d done anything wrong. He looked at Charles with a puzzled look in his eyes. “Why am I required to move? What did I do?” he asked him.
“Beat it, son,” Charles said. “If you value your life, beat it.”
“But what did I do?”
“This woman, whom you have been trying to cop a feel-on all evening,” Charles said, “happens to be the wife of Mick Sinatra.”
The young man’s eyes grew wide with fear.
“Uh-huh. That’s what you did,” Charles said. “Now beat it!”
The young man didn’t have to be told twice. He hurried away from Roz so fast and so far that he didn’t stop speed-walking until he was clean out of that ballroom. Charles looked at Mick. Mick placed the sole of one of his leather shoes back against that backwall, and leaned back again. Disaster averted, Charles thought.
But the fact still remained: what on earth was going on with Mick and Roz?
That was the hot topic of conversation at the huge wedding of Amelia and Hammer Reese, and even more so at their Canadian reception. Everybody wanted to know why the power couple of all power couples wasn’t showing the united front they almost always showed in public. Instead, Roz was on one side of the room. Mick was on the other side. Why? What happened?
But not one human being in that room dared ask the question. They figured Roz wasn’t the problem and was trying to have some fun, so they weren’t about to approach her. But they couldn’t just walk over and breech a subject like that with Mick either. Not even the big guns in the family, from casino mogul Reno Gabrini, to business mogul Tommy Gabrini, to major mob boss himself Sal Gabrini, dared ask. But Sal wasn’t above trying to get somebody other than himself to ask it.
“Reno?” Sal said to his cousin as the Gabrini men stood together with glasses of champagne in their hands and watched their women danced in the group dance train too.
“What?” Reno answered him. “And it better not be none of your bullshit.”
“Why don’t you shuffle your sorry ass on over there and ask Uncle Mick what’s up with him and Roz? Go and find out what the fuck’s going on.”
Reno looked at Sal as if he had lost his mind. “No, you go,” he said. “Shuffle your ass over there. We’ll wait right here for you, Sal Luca. You go!”
Sal looked at his big brother. “Tommy, you do it then. Uncle Mick loves you. Go ask him.”
“No, I’m good,” said Dapper Tom Tommy Gabrini. “I’m with Reno on that one. But you can go, Sal.”
“And when Uncle Mick throws you down this mountain we’re on, for getting up in his business,” Reno said, “we’ll come down there and pick up the pieces. We’ll do that just for you, Sal Luca,” Reno added, and he and Tommy laughed and high-fived. “Trying to get us killed. Get your ass away from here!”
Sal had to smile, too, because he knew the truth: they were big, powerful men, all feared in their own right, but not one of them had the nerve to go that far. They pushed the envelope all day long, and crossed boundaries regularly. But not with Mick.
And the young guns of the family wouldn’t have the nerve to entertain the thought of going there. And there were plenty young guns in attendance: From Teddy and Joey Sinatra, to Bobby and Brent Sinatra, to Jimmy Gabrini and Reno’s fearless younger son Dommi, their young guns were tough guys too. But when it came to approaching Mick the Tick? They were useless. But they had their hands full anyway as all of the younger kids, including Amelia and Hammer’s son JoJo, and Mick and Roz’s twins, were running all over the place and needed constant reprimands.
Big Daddy Charles Sinatra, they all knew, was the only one on that same level with Mick to take the dare and ask him what was up with him and Roz. But Charles didn’t have to ask. He already knew.
But instead of wasting his time going over to Mick and trying to get Mick’s stubborn ass to at least talk to his wife about it, Charles went to the wife. To Roz. And pulled her aside.
“Who was that guy?” Roz asked, assuming the guy that had his hand on her hip was why her brother-in-law moved her away from the dance train.
“Some jerk,” Charles said, trying to speak over the loud music. “But that’s not why I pulled you over.”
Roz looked at him. “Okay. Why?”
“You need to talk to Mick.”
“Forget it, Big Daddy.”
“Don’t tell me to forget it. Go to him, Roz. You know how he is. You guys need to have a conversation.”
“I’ve tried to talk,” Roz said. “You don’t think I tried? But he’s not listening. He doesn’t want to hear it.”
But Charles was insistent. “Go talk to him, Roz,” he said again. “I mean it now. You’ve got to be the bigger person because Mick doesn’t know how to be in situations like this. And don’t get me started on stubbornness.”