Mick Sinatra: Ice Cold Love

  MICK SINATRA

  ICE COLD LOVE

  BY

  MALLORY MONROE

  Copyright©2019 Mallory Monroe

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  This novel is a work of fiction. All characters are fictitious. Any similarities to anyone living or dead are completely accidental. The specific mention of known places or venues are not meant to be exact replicas of those places, but are purposely embellished or imagined for the story’s sake. The cover art is depicted by models and are not the actual characters.

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  EPILOGUE

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  MICK SINATRA SERIES

  IN ORDER:

  1.MICK SINATRA: FOR ONCE IN MY LIFE

  2.MICK SINATRA: LOVE LIES AND JERICHO

  3.MICK SINATRA: HIS LADY, HIS CHILDREN, AND SAL

  4.MICK SINATRA: IF YOU DON’T KNOW ME BY NOW

  5.MICK SINATRA: THE HARDER THEY FALL

  6.MICK SINATRA: NOW WILL YOU WEEP

  7.MICK SINATRA: BREAKING MY HEART

  8.MICK SINATRA: LOVE AND SHADOWS

  9.MICK SINATRA: NO LOVE. NO PEACE.

  10.MICK SINATRA: HEAT WAVE

  11.MICK SINATRA: NOT IN MY HOUSE

  PROLOGUE

  They waited like rats at a city dump. At least that was how Don Aronzo felt about the meeting. Like a big fat rat. Not for telling somebody else’s business, but for not being able to handle his own. And to have to beg a man like Mick the Tick. A man his father never could conquer although he went to his grave trying. Now he was forced to go running to him? That was the hard part. That was the bottom of the barrel part. And as he sat upstairs in the boarded-up barbershop with two other east coast bosses and waited for Sinatra to arrive, he knew this was the gravest day of his life. If his father knew what had come of the family, and what his son was forced to do to protect it, he wouldn’t turn over in his grave. He’d get out of that grave and kick his ass!

  And he wasn’t alone. Don Peshi felt the same way. His old man hated Sinatra’s guts, too, and battled him tooth and nail while he was alive just like Aronzo’s father. Now they had to go to him? Their parents’ mortal enemy? It would have killed Peshi’s father too.

  “If we fail,” Peshi said, looking at the other two dons in the room, “we’re fucked. You realize that? We are out of fucking luck!”

  “What else can we do?” Aronzo asked. “You tell me that, Pesh. What other choice we got? We can’t fight those fuckers alone. We need Mick the Tick. There’s no way around that shit. We need him.”

  But it still didn’t feel right to Don Peshi, as he moved around in his seat; as his five-thousand dollar suit was sticking to the chair because he was sweating so much.

  Didn’t feel right to Don Corello, either, as he sat there too. He knew Mick the Tick when they both were young hotheads running numbers in South Philly. They bumped heads then, and still bumped heads now. But Corello knew Aronzo was right. They needed Mick. But Peshi was right too. “If we can’t get him to join forces with us,” he said, echoing Peshi, “we’re good as dead. And not just us. Our families too.”

  And that sober reminder caused Don Peshi to stop moving around in his chair complaining, and to start figuring out how in the world would they convince a fox like Sinatra to defend the henhouse, rather than destroy it.

  Outside, the Cadillac Escalade pulled up and stopped at the curb. The bodyguard got out, buttoned his suit coat, and waited at the back door. The driver remained behind the wheel, which was protocol in case they ever needed a fast getaway, but he looked through the rearview. The three Sinatra men just sat there, waiting, he presumed, for the boss to make a move.

  But Mick the Tick wasn’t making any moves. He was just sitting there. Teddy was sitting there too. And Joey. Which still surprised the driver. It was the first time he’d ever seen Boss allow Joey Sinatra to be in on a meeting of the dons. But there it was. Joey sitting back there too. Things were changing fast.

  “We may have to help’em, Pop,” Teddy said to his father.

  “Why would we help them?” Joey, sitting in the third row seat, said to his brother. “Fuck them! They hate Pop’s guts. They’ve been going against us day and night but now suddenly we’re gonna join forces with them?”

  But Teddy, as their father’s underboss, ran the day-to-day operations and he knew not one of those dons would have called a meeting, asking their father of all people to attend, if it wasn’t vital. He ignored Joey’s objection and looked at their father. “It’s not like it used to be anymore,” he said. “Now everything’s like fucking dominos. They fall, we could fall. It’s as simple as that.”

  “So we prop up our enemies?” Joey asked. “Is that what you’re telling us, Teddy?”

  “Sometimes we have to,” Teddy replied, refusing to back down. “This may be one of those times.”

  “I ain’t feeling it though,” Joey said with skepticism, his thin body leaning forward as he sat on the edge of his seat. “I don’t think any one of those fucks are worthy to carry Pop’s jockstrap, and we’re supposed to help them?” Joey was shaking his head. “I ain’t feeling it though,” he said again.

  Mick Sinatra, a man coined the boss of all bosses in the mob world, sat quietly and heard both sides. But, as usual, he kept his own counsel. Neither son had a clue what he was thinking and they knew not to ask or they’d be the ones in need of help. That was why, when Mick got out of his SUV, they forgot all about their own feelings and got out too. They were soldiers in their father’s army with more power than most dons running major families could boast about. But their father, everybody knew, was still the general.

  Mick stood at his SUV for a few beats longer than usual, buttoned his Armani suit coat, and then made his way across the sidewalk. As the bodyguard closed the back door and remained standing outside of the Escalade, his sons followed him across that sidewalk and into the boarded-up barbershop that sat bare on an old, long-deserted Philadelphia
street filled with deserted, boarded-up buildings.

  “The champ is here!” Don Peshi’s underboss said with a smile as soon as Mick crossed the threshold and entered the barbershop. He gave Mick a half-handshake, half-shoulder bump. “It’s been a minute, sir.” He knew Mick before he started working for Peshi.

  He began escorting them up the side stairs. “They didn’t think you’d show,” he said. “But I knew you would,” he added as he glanced back at Mick. “We greatly appreciate this kind gesture, sir.”

  “We’ll see if you appreciate it when we tell your asses no,” Joey said as they walked up.

  The underboss was well-acquainted with Joey’s sour disposition. He smiled and glanced back at him. “And hello to you, too, Mister Sunshine,” he said dryly.

  Teddy laughed.

  “Very funny,” Joey said to the underboss. “See how funny it’ll be when we tell your asses no,” he said again.

  The underboss kept smiling anyway. He knew Joey had nothing near the sway over Mick the Tick that Teddy had. Other than Sinatra himself, it would be Teddy’s feelings they would be most anxious to hear. And Joey’s? They already assumed he would be against it. Unlike his father and brother, he was no transactional figure who knew how to take the long view. He was a man of the here and now and was always reactional.

  As the underboss led the three men up the stairs and then down a narrow hallway, he noticed how Mick and Teddy were dressed in their usual sartorial splendor: Armani for Mick. Tom Ford for Teddy. But what was striking to him was that Joey wasn’t dressed in his usual baggy jeans and oversized jersey. And there was no bling in sight. He smiled again, as he looked Joey over. He was impressed.

  But Joey knew exactly what he was doing. When his old man gave him the opportunity to sit in on a don-level meeting, and told him to come with them, he knew he had to dress the part. He wore a suit. It was no designer number like his old man and brother wore: it was off-the-rack. But unlike his usual style, it fit. That was why the underboss was impressed.

  But seeing Joey dressing up for the occasion also impressed upon the underboss the gravity of this meeting. A meeting so important that Hip-hop Joey would wear a suit. A meeting that even the underboss knew would determine their very survival.

  He cut the jokes and turned serious once again as they walked down the hall. And then he opened the door to the meeting room, and the Sinatras walked on in. He closed the door behind them, and remained in the hall.

  To their credit, Mick thought, the three dons didn’t try to grin and play friendly with a man they had never been friendly with. Even Don Corello, whom he knew the longest, was cautious. Mick was pleased to see it. Had they put on airs with him, and pulled that happy-to-see-you shit, he would have turned around and walked right back out of that door. But they knew how he was. There were no fake airs that night.

  Mick sat in the chair they had designated for him, while Teddy and Joey sat in chairs beside their father. Mick crossed his legs. Both sons remained flatfooted. When the Sinatras said nothing, not even Joey, the dons knew they had to get down to it or they might lose the little attention Mick was willing to give to them.

  “It’s the Russians,” Aronzo said.

  Teddy frowned. “The Russians? As in Russian mob? You know Pop don’t get involved in that shit.”

  “But he has to, Teddy,” Corello said. “This is worse than what happened with you. This is off the charts worse. He have to get involved.”

  Mick raised an eyebrow at his old nemesis. “I have to?” he asked.

  “For life and death reasons, Micky, yes,” said Corello. “You have to.”

  “I don’t have to do a motherfucking thing,” Mick said calmly.

  Corello folded his leg. He hated that bastard. But he also knew he needed that bastard. “I apologize, Micky,” he said. “But it’s just that these damn Russians got us in a bind here.”

  Mick stared at Corello. He had never seen him so unhinged. “And what are the Russians up to now that makes me have to get involved unlike I have before?” Mick asked.

  “They want to conquer America,” said Aronzo.

  “Who doesn’t?” Joey asked with a smile on his face. “They can get their asses in line.”

  “Which Russian?” Mick asked.

  “Gregor Govanoff,” said Aronzo. “Ever hear of him?”

  Mick said nothing.

  “Who is he?” asked Teddy.

  “He’s a rich oligarch in Russia,” said Aronzo. “And when I say he has ties to the Kremlin, I’m not bullshitting. He’s said to be Putin’s cousin or some shit like that. He has deep, serious ties to the Kremlin.”

  “So what?” Teddy asked. “What of him?”

  “He’s another fucker who thinks of himself as a modern day Alexander the Great,” said Peshi. “He wants to control all of America’s underworld. The west coast he’s already conquering. He’s coming for the east coast. Since we’re the biggest families on the east coast, that means he’s coming for us.”

  “He and his syndicate are already hounding us,” said Corello. “Your nephew, Sal Gabrini, is bigger than us. He’ll be next. But as the biggest of us all after Sal, it’ll be your turn, Micky. He’ll come for you last, but he’s coming for you. He and his syndicate wants you most of all.”

  “Says who?” asked a doubtful Joey. “Who says they’re stupid enough to come for Pop?”

  “This is no lie, Joey,” said Peshi. Then he frowned. Why was a capo like Joey even there? “They’re coming for your old man, just like they’re coming for us. This ain’t no fucking game!”

  “They ain’t coming for Pop. They know better,” said Joey.

  “They don’t know shit,” said Teddy. “Times have changed. Nobody’s off limits these days. Not even Pop,” he said, looking directly at his brother.

  The dons inwardly sighed relief. Teddy, at least, understood the stakes.

  But Mick showed no signs. He just sat there with his legs folded as if he was above it all. And then, shocking them all, he stood up.

  Everybody in the room stood up, too, when Mick rose to his feet. But when he turned to leave, the dons panicked.

  “Mick, what are you doing to us?” Aronzo asked. “At least give us an answer!”

  “I’m not giving you shit,” Mick said, “until I know the facts.”

  “We just told you the facts! What are you talking?” Corello asked.

  “You just told us unconfirmed suppositions,” said Teddy. “Once Pop confirms what you said, then he’ll see.”

  “And what are we supposed to do in the meantime?” Peshi asked. “We can’t fight the Kremlin alone!”

  “When he gets the facts,” Teddy said again, “he’ll see. End of discussion,” he added.

  But Aronzo panicked. They all could be dead by nightfall, and Teddy was bullshitting with that bullshit answer. He went straight to the man. “Mick, please,” he begged. “We need your help!”

  Mick stopped in his tracks when Aronzo said those words. And then he turned around.

  Uh-oh, Joey inwardly thought. That prick had crossed a line.

  But Aronzo didn’t see the danger even as Mick walked all the way up to him. When the two men were toe-to-toe, Mick angrily took the back of his hand and slapped Don Aronzo so hard he knocked a tooth out.

  Joey smiled. It was what that asshole deserved, he felt. But everybody else in the room were stunned. Aronzo was no lightweight. He was one of the biggest dons in America. But there would be no retaliation for such humiliation, they also knew, because Mick was always bigger.

  But Mick didn’t strike Aronzo to prove his status. He slapped the fire out of him to prove Aronzo’s status. “If your father was still alive,” Mick said, “he’d be ashamed of you. He was my enemy, but he was a man I respected. And if he was under attack, he wouldn’t beg me for help. He would fight! You are under attack, you fight. You don’t wait for another man to fight for you. You fight!”

  “But we’re not big enough,” Corello said. “We can’
t fight Govanoff and the Kremlin too. It’s not possible, Michello, without you.”

  Mick continued to stare at a now-ashamed Aronzo. Then he exhaled. “When I confirm the facts,” he said, “then you will know my decision. Not a second before,” he added, and then walked out of the room.

  Teddy and Joey stared at Aronzo, wondering if there would be any retaliation and they would have to defend their father’s honor, although they already knew that answer. Because instead of railing against Mick or vowing to get his revenge, Aronzo, instead, plopped down in one of the chairs like a tired old man, even though he wasn’t that old at all. But it was enough for the Sinatra brothers. They left too.

  But as soon as they made it back outside, behind their father, they bumped into him because Mick had stopped in his tracks.

  “What is it, Pop?” Teddy asked, concerned.

  It was the atmosphere outside. It felt heavier to Mick. It felt unnatural. He looked up the right side of the deserted street, but saw nothing unusual. He looked up the left side of the street and saw nothing unusual on that end either. But that didn’t mean something unusual wasn’t going on. Mick trusted his instincts. And his instincts were screaming that something was wrong. Something deadly was wrong.

  And there was only one location where it could be.

  For one thing, his bodyguard was not standing outside of his Escalade the way he should have been. A bodyguard who knew how strict Mick was about protocol. For another thing, although the back windows were completely tinted, he could see through the front window that his driver was no longer behind the steering wheel either. Which was beyond explainable.

  One change-up was a blip. Two were a problem.

  And Mick didn’t wait for confirmation. Waiting could get them killed because his instincts were never wrong.

  He pulled out his Magnum and began firing passionately at his Escalade even as he began walking toward the vehicle. Teddy was shocked, but didn’t hesitate either. He trusted his father the way his father trusted his own instincts. Teddy pulled out his gun and began firing and walking toward the SUV too.

  Joey didn’t know what was going on, either, but he followed his father and brother and pulled out his weapon, too, and began firing at his own father’s SUV. They fired shot after shot after shot, so many shots that all three dons and Peshi’s underboss had run downstairs and out onto the sidewalk too, their weapons drawn.