He paused. “My father didn’t just drink, he raped my sister when he drank. He kicked my brother’s ass when he drank. And my brother? He could have kicked our old man’s ass easily. But he wouldn’t do it. Not Charles. He had too much respect for authority. He honored his mother and father. He was the toughest sonafabitch I’ve ever met.”
Another pause. “But I didn’t have that sense of loyalty. I hated my father. I blamed him for why my mother turned to the town for love and affection. And unlike Charles, whenever he tried to kick my ass, I didn’t lay there and take it. I kicked his ass back. I was only five years old when I first tried, and if he would have caught me, he would have killed me. But I fought back. He didn’t like it. He hated me as much as I hated him. One night, he tried to burn me in my bed. He said it was an accident. He said the cigarette slipped from his hand while he was in one of his drunken stupors. I had no proof, but after that he started smiling at me whenever he saw me. But I knew I was going to get my retribution. It wasn’t going to be then. But one day, I was going to get him back. And I did.”
Yet another pause, as his look turned more tragic than sinister. Roz could barely breathe.
“One night he killed her,” Mick said so calmly that it confused Roz. Surely he couldn’t be talking about who she suspected he was talking about. Not that calmly.
“Killed who?” she asked.
“My mother. My father killed my mother right in front of myself, Sprig, and Charles.”
“Oh my God,” Roz said, horrified. “And you saw it too? Oh my God, Mick!”
“Yeah, talk about dysfunctional, right? But Charles, being the honorable man he is, held my father to account, and at gunpoint until the Sheriff could arrive.”
“Was your father convicted?”
“Yeah. He got convicted. Thirty-plus years later, my brother’s son Brent had this special prosecutor of a girlfriend who got him out. But that didn’t last a full day.” He looked at Roz. He couldn’t utter the words that he had his father killed that day. That, he knew, would be too much for her to take right now. Besides, those words wouldn’t be true anyway. He didn’t have him killed. He did it himself.
“I was only six when my parents were snatched from us, so Charles, who was only thirteen himself, raised us. But he raised me too late. I had too much within me and he never allowed me to explode. He forced me to keep that rage so tucked inside of myself that I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t bear anything about that life, that town, those people. By the time I became a teenager, I was a walking time bomb. Before I exploded, before I tore down everything my brother was trying to build up for us, I got the fuck out. My sister got out too and became an alcoholic and general fuck up like our father. But I made a name for myself right away. Nobody fucked with Mick the Tick and everybody understood that.”
He looked at Roz. He was surprised she was still there. But she was. “That’s me,” he said. “That will always be me. You might think I can change. You might think you can change me. I say don’t hold your breath. You saw the real me in my office today, Rosalind. Mick Sinatra, the businessman, the man you can do business with, I’m that person, yes. That’s the real me. Mick the Tick. The one they don’t want to fuck with? That’s the real me too.”
Roz’s heart was pounding as she listened to him speak so freely. He didn’t have to tell her she was at a crossroad. She knew she was there. She’d known bad boys before, but Mick was a bad man. He was also a kind, generous, loving man too. She also had feelings for him. Or she wouldn’t be there.
She sat there for a few moments longer, then she headed upstairs. She appreciated the fact that he didn’t try to follow her.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Not only did Mick not come upstairs, but he left the house altogether. He left and stayed away all night. When he returned, early that next morning, he was as shocked by what he saw, as what he didn’t see.
He saw Roz lying in his bed, wide awake, in one of his dress shirts. What he didn’t see were packed bags anywhere. He had been certain she was going to leave him. He had been certain she was going to decide he was too fucked up for her to have to deal with, and take off. He thought happiness was going to elude him once and for all and he would have to keep bringing different women to his bed whenever he needed sexual gratification, and live the rest of his life without love. Because he knew a profound truth. He knew that if Roz gave up on him, he wasn’t ever again going to give another woman the chance.
But Roz was still there. He was too shocked to be happy. It was too soon to be glad.
He stood there, his hands in his pockets, his eyes trained on her beautiful eyes. The fact that she was there soothed his troubled soul.
He sat on the edge of the bed. She noticed he was in the same suit from yesterday. He was a very elegant man. Sleeping in his clothes was not his style. But apparently, she thought, it was his style last night.
“I didn’t expect you to still be here,” he said after he sat down.
“I didn’t expect to be here either,” she admitted.