“Mick!” she screamed as soon as she realized what was happening. She wasn’t screaming to warn him. She was screaming to spook her captors just enough for her to tear away from them, and for Mick to have a clear shot.
It worked. To Mick’s great delight, Roz did exactly what he needed her to do. Because now he was ready to play ball. He came out of that limo with two guns, and both were blazing as he hurried toward Roz’s two captors. Roz was terrified, but she didn’t try to make a run for it. That would have been too risky. She would have been giving one of the three men a license to gun her down. So she fell to the ground and stayed down, covering her head.
Mick was firing on all cylinders as he made his way toward the gunmen, with his white coat flaring out, and the gunmen were trying to return fire. But they were being picked off with precision, one after the other one. Leo took one out, Mick took three out, and then both men started firing as another group of men jumped out of a parked car, the getaway car, firing too.
That group was shot down as quickly as they exposed themselves, but Mick and Leo spared the final man. They needed an inside man.
Mick pointed his weapon as he hurried toward the last man standing. “Drop it now!” Mick ordered. He was terrified that the gunman would still try to take Roz out. He kept his eyes trained on him. But thankfully, Mick thought, the fool knew he was a dead man anyway. He dropped his weapon.
Leo quickly grabbed the man and hurried him to the limousine, while Mick ran to Roz, grabbed her, and hurried her too. Now they were in a race to avoid the cops. That was why the limousine, with Carissa Caine, the driver who flew with them to the Big Apple, sped off even before the doors were shut.
What Roz didn’t understand was why they had allowed one of the gunmen to not only live, but to get in the limo with them. She quickly found out.
She and Mick were seated on one seat, while Leo and the gunman were seated on the seat opposite them. If she thought Mick was going to pamper her, and make sure she was okay, she was sorely mistaken. Mick’s total focus was on that gunman. Mick’s total focus was finding out who ordered this hit on his infrastructure and he had to know now.
Mick placed his hand behind the scruff of the gunman’s neck, yanked his head forward, and then placed a gun to the side of his head. Roz saw a look in Mick’s eyes, a look so chilling, that it scared even her.
“Give me the name,” Mick said to the gunman.
But the man was crying like a baby. “Don’t kill me,” he pleaded. “I was just following orders.”
“Whose orders?” Mick asked angrily.
“Don’t kill me. Please don’t kill me.”
“Whose orders, motherfucker?” Mick screamed. “I’ll blow your fucking head off of your fucking body and scatter your fucking brains all over your fucking face if you don’t tell me who gave you the orders to take out me and mine? Who?”
The man was shaking his head, the tears draining down.
“Who motherfucker?” Leo angrily asked. “Tell him who!”
“Carp,” the man said quickly, still shaking his head. “Carp Bianchi.”
Mick and Leo both stopped cold. Roz could tell it was not the name, not in a million years, that they expected to hear. Carp Bianchi was one of the trio of Dons Mick did business with. Roz had met him before, in Mick’s office, and she also remembered how Mick nearly rearranged his face just for speaking ill about her. It didn’t seem that impossible to her that the man would seek revenge. But Mick and Leo looked dumbstruck.
It was such shocking news that Mick didn’t ask for more information. He didn’t try to bully that man any further. He sat back.
Roz was sitting on the edge of the bed while Mick was pacing the room and talking on his cell phone. His white coat was off, the sleeves of his turtleneck were rolled up, and his black trousers looked as if they were sagging on his sagging body. He was exhausted. Roz could see it even in his posture.
They were at what Mick called a “safe house” in upstate New York. It was in an isolated area not far from town. The house itself was nothing to write home about either. Just a walk-up to the residence, a couple bedrooms in back, and a living room and kitchen up front. Mick and Roz were in the bedroom. When Mick ended his conversation, he sat on the edge of the bed beside her.
“Have they found him?” she asked.
“No,” Mick said. “I’m probably going to have to get out there myself.”
Roz frowned. “You?”
“Yes! We’re shorthanded. We lost a lot of men today. And Shane,” Mick said, with pain in his voice.
Roz’s heart fell. “Shane? What about Shane? They got him too?”
Mick looked at her. Took her hand. “Yes, Rosalind. They got him too.”
Roz was shocked. “Oh my God,” she said. “That poor child! Who would kill a ten-year-old?”
“Carp Bianchi, that’s who!” Mick said angrily. “Rat bastard!” Then he stood up again, and began pacing again.