“You won’t mind?”
Mick always wondered why even his closest men viewed him as some kind of dictator who would dispose of them for speaking the truth. He didn’t think he was that man. Yet everybody around him, except Rosalind, behaved as if he was. “No,” he said. “I won’t mind. I want you to tell me.”
“You’ve been with a lot of women in your life, sir,” Leo said. “A lot of fine ladies. The mothers of your children are all fine ladies.”
“But?” Mick asked.
“But you’ve never dated any of them. If I can be blunt, and you said I could, you never gave a damn for any of them. Never put one man on them, let alone an entire detail, and they were the mothers of your children! But this dame comes along, and excuse me for calling her that. The lady comes along. Rosalind Graham. And now you seem to be more concerned about her than you are about yourself! What does this mean, boss? I’m not used to this, and the men aren’t going to be used to this. They may not be as all-in on this detail the way they would be if it was you. They aren’t used to you caring about anybody to this extent.”
It felt like a stab through the heart. Not intentional. Leo didn’t realize how his honest words affected Mick. But they did affect him to his core. “I understand your confusion. And how the men might be confused too. So let me clear it up. Rosalind Graham is my lady. There is nobody else on the face of this earth who has ever held the position she now holds in my life.”
Leo nodded. He was stunned by such a revelation, given that it was Mick the Tick making it, but he nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“And if my men have any doubts about how seriously they should take their assignment, let them know that when they guard Rosalind Graham, they guard me.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Let them further know that if their lack of seriousness causes any harm to my lady, then---”
“They already know,” Leo said. “They will answer to you.”
“No,” Mick said, shaking his head. “If their lack of seriousness causes anything at all to happen to my lady, there will be no answer to give. I will kill them.”
Leo saw that undeniable look in Mick’s eyes. He understood the stakes. “I’ll make that clear to them, sir.”
Mick nodded. And stood erect. “Now I’m going to bed,” he said.
“I take it this will be a blind follow?” Leo asked.
“Goes without saying,” Mick responded. “She can never know even one man is tailing her. She wouldn’t like it. She wouldn’t feel it’s necessary.”
“And what if they find out something disturbing?” Leo asked. He was treading in sensitive territory again, but the question needed to be asked.
“Disturbing how?” Mick asked.
“What if she’s screwing another man? Shit like that. Do you want them to report that?”
Mick frowned. “Hell no,” he said. “They don’t report on her. They guard her. They aren’t her spies, they’re her protectors. And they had better behave that way.”
Leo nodded. That was what he loved about Mick. There was never any ambiguity with him. “Yes, sir,” he said.
Now, one week later, Roz was riding around Philly, going from open house to open house, thinking she was flying solo, only to have a team of Mick’s men somewhere around everywhere she went. And Mick and Leo assumed she was none the wiser.
But when she met Mick at the restaurant for dinner later that evening, and she made her way to his table, she decided to humor him. She was learning a lot about his ways. And she knew, if he had men following him around, he certainly had one or two following her. She wasn’t bragging, but she honestly felt that Mick cared deeply for her.
“We made it,” she said as he stood up and helped her to her seat.
Mick wasn’t sure what she meant. He looked at her as he sat down too. “Come again?” he asked. “Who’s we?”
“Me and Joe and possibly Moe.”
Mick stared at her. Did those assholes blow their cover already?
Then Roz smiled. “You have a guy on me. Don’t you?”
Mick hesitated. “Why would you think so?”
“Because it’s true.”
“You’ve seen them?”
“No. But I know you. It’s true, isn’t it?”
Mick smiled. “Don’t you worry about that.”
“You’d better be glad I’m a faithful person, or I wouldn’t like it one bit.”
Mick laughed. And then the waiter arrived, and took their drink orders.
“How did it go?” Mick asked, after the waiter left.
“Not good. I saw plenty places, but they were all too something, or not enough of something else.”
“You don’t’ have to find anything. You know that.”
“You’ve made that clear. But I need my own. I don’t want---”
“You don’t want to be considered my whore.”
Roz smiled. “Not just that. It’s just that I can’t rely on another person so totally like that. I want to find a place with a reasonable rent.”