“Turn around,” Charles was already telling his driver. “It’s near Charlemagne. Go back. Go back now!”
As Jenay attempted to call Roz’s cellphone, to make sure she was alright, and as Brent Sinatra attempted to call Mick, the driver turned the big SUV around with a swerve and sped back toward Hammer’s mountain. All the other family members, who all came to the ceremony on their various planes, were long gone, but Charles and his brood were the stragglers. And now he was grateful that they were. They had been too far away to hear the gunfire, but they weren’t so far away that they couldn’t hear that massive explosion. They raced back to the scene.
When they got to the scene, they saw a limo engulfed in flames, Mick’s SUV abandoned and his driver dead beside it, and all of the earmarks of a horrific ambush. Charles’ heart dropped. Not his kid brother! And was that the limo Roz had been in??? He could hardly contain his grief as he fumbled to get out of his seat belt.
“Stay here,” he ordered the women in the car, as Charles, his oldest son Brent, and his middle son Bobby Sinatra hurried out of the SUV. Charles was grateful that the younger children in the family were back in Maine with his sons Tony and Donald, and were not there to witness such carnage.
All three men had their revolvers drawn as they moved around the scene, searching for any sign of life, saddened that they had to witness it too. The flames were billowing, as sirens could be heard in the distance, but they had no way of knowing if anybody was inside of that limousine. They couldn’t see inside for the flames! Charles and Bobby ran to the SUV and looked inside, but they saw nothing.
Bobby ran his hand through his thick hair and frowned. “Where’s Uncle Mick?” he asked hysterically. “Where’s Uncle Mick?”
“Call his cell phone,” Charles ordered, hoping against hope that Mick had stayed back at Charlemagne somehow. “Call his cell.”
Brent had already tried, but Bobby pulled out his own cell phone. Although he knew it was a fool’s errand, his father seemed so desperate. If truth be told, he knew Big Daddy loved Mick more than life itself, and although they were close in age, he treated Mick more like his son rather than his baby brother. Bobby, the mayor of Jericho, Maine and a force to be reckoned with himself, did what he was told.
Brent Sinatra saw three men running out of the woods near the scene. He aimed his weapon and braced himself for trouble. Until he saw the terror in their eyes.
“Down there,” one of them was pointing anxiously. “I saw the driver roll down that incline! I saw the driver!”
Brent hurried over to where they were pointing, and when he looked down and saw his uncle Mick’s longtime employee Deuce McCurry, he began racing down to aid him. “Pop!” he yelled to Charles as he began hurrying down that incline. “Pop, down here!”
Charles and Bobby ran where Brent was yelling, and when they saw Deuce, too, they began to head down that incline. But Charles stopped Bobby. “Stay here,” he said to him. “Watch those men. Make sure it’s not a setup.”
“Yes, sir,” Bobby said, his revolver still at the ready, as Charles hurried down the incline to where Deuce and Brent were.
“You okay?” Charles asked Deuce, who appeared to be just waking up from unconsciousness.
“I’m okay,” said Deuce, although he still looked groggy.
Charles was about to ask about his brother and sister-in-law when he looked beyond Deuce. And that was when he saw both of them. “Thank you Jesus!” he yelled as his heart leaped with joy, and he ran to where Mick was sitting, with Roz in his lap.
Brent, seeing them, left Deuce’s side too.
“We’re okay,” said Mick, barely able to catch a breath. “Thank God, we’re okay.”
CHAPTER FOUR
At the Montreal Medical Center, Mick and Roz checked out just fine, although the doctors wanted to keep Deuce overnight for observation. He had a particularly nasty-looking hickey on his head that they wanted to monitor.
After saying their goodbyes to Deuce, with Mick promising to send a driver to pick him up tomorrow, they all made it outside of the sprawling hospital. They stood on the top step ready to say their goodbyes to each other.
But as the women made their way down the steps and began a conversation near Charles’ SUV, Charles, along with Bobby and Brent, pulled Mick aside. It was obvious on Charles’ handsome face that he was still worried. “Do you have any idea who could have ordered that kind of ambush?” he asked his brother.
“Yes,” said Mick. “I have an idea.”
“Does that mean we’re in danger too?” Bobby asked. “Do we need to take extra precautions?”
“No, you’re not in danger,” Mick said. “But take extra precautions until this is over.”
“Which means it’s not over?” Brent asked.
Mick nodded, as a weary look appeared in his eyes. “That’s what it means, yes,” he said.
Bobby exhaled. “Another ordinary day in Uncle Mick’s world,” he said, and then smiled that charming smile that drew men to him. He was, Mick knew, a man’s man too.
But Charles couldn’t find the levity. “Give us a sec,” he said to his sons.
Brent extended his hand. “Bye, Uncle Mick,” he said, and Bobby gave Mick a half handshake/hug, and headed for his family’s waiting SUV.
“What’s up?” Mick asked Charles.
“What’s going on with you and Roz now?” Charles asked him. “I saw how you were holding her. You don’t want to let her out of your sight, do you?”
Mick wasn’t about to admit his vulnerability, not even to his brother. “We’ll get through it,” was all he was going to say about it.
“Still going to Belarus?” Charles asked him.
“No.”
“Still letting her go to London?” Charles asked.
“She was headed to California.”
“You know what I mean.”
Mick hesitated. “No. She’s not moving to London.”
“That’s her call, Mick.”
“Not anymore it’s not. She’s going to Philly, with me. And we will have that conversation.”
Charles smiled and squeezed Mick’s broad shoulder. “About damn time,” he said. “Does she know her plans have changed?”
Mick wondered if it would still be a battle. “Not yet.”
“And if she doesn’t agree to go back to Philly?”
“She doesn’t have a choice anymore,” Mick made clear. “Somebody targeted her. Not me, her. It’s in my hands now. She doesn’t have a choice.”
Charles nodded. “Damn right,” he said. He wasn’t adverse to slamming down the hammer too, when it came to his family’s safety. “Just try to be diplomatic about it, Mick. Don’t try to bend her to your will, and none of that hard-arm shit. Roz is a strong-willed woman just like you’re a strong-willed man. That’s why you married her. Don’t hold it against her.”
Mick was about to respond when he suddenly frowned. Everybody frowned and looked, because they heard it too. They heard the sound of helicopters in the sky, and they all looked up. Four choppers were circling from the north, south, east, and west, and they were hovering over the hospital.