Page 22 of Teddy Sinatra: Go Your Own Way
“I’ve been running my syndicate since before you were born, boy, who do you think you’re talking to? You fucked up! Three of my top men are dead because of your ass. You killed those men just as surely as you would have put a gun to their heads and fired! You killed them!”
When Mick said those words, Teddy couldn’t take it. And as Roz and Big Daddy and even Monk were telling Mick he was going too far, Teddy had jumped up from his seat and jumped on his father with such force, and with all the power of his big body, that they both flipped over the desk and landed on the backside.
Monk and Big Daddy and even Nikki hurried behind that desk to pull the two titans apart, but the fight was already on. They were back on their feet and wrestling each other for dominance as if their lives depended on it. They were knocking over cabinets and crashing into curio sets and shattering vases and everything else their two muscular bodies came into contact with. Big Daddy and Monk were doing everything they could to separate the two men, but there was no separation. It got so bad that Roz had to hurry over and pull Nikki away from the chaos. Even Monk got knocked down. It was just that epic.
And they fought and they wrestled all around that office. Teddy was holding his own. He was going toe-to-toe with Mick. Until both men flung each other against the closed office door so violently that the door snatched off of its hinges and broke loose. And they fell out into the corridor. And kept on fighting.
When Duke heard the commotion he ran downstairs to help Big Daddy and Monk separate the two men.
“Daddy stop!” Duke was crying. “Daddy stop!”
It took the voice of his beloved youngest son, and the fact that he was actually battling with his beloved oldest living son, did Mick finally come back to himself and let up on Teddy. Duke and Big Daddy kept Mick back. Monk, who realized that was the real reason he needed to be there, kept Teddy back. Nikki hurried to Teddy’s side too. And it was finally a truce.
But Mick was still enraged. “You’re fired!” he yelled at Teddy. “You will never run my syndicate ever again. You’re fired!”
Roz, now concerned that they were going down a road they could not come back from, hurried over to Teddy. “Get out of here, Ted, and go now. Don’t say a word, just get out. Nikki, Frankie, get him out of here.”
Monk and Nikki began hurrying Teddy toward the front door before he could get into a verbal altercation with his angry father. Because he was still enraged himself. He snatched away from Monk and Nikki, but he didn’t say a word to his father. He glanced back at him, and Mick was staring at him, and Nikki and Monk could see the regret in their eyes. But they saw the defiance too, as if Mick meant every word he said and Teddy was going to hold him to those words.
Teddy left his father’s house with fire under his feet.
But Mick’s voice stopped Nikki from following after him. “We need to talk, Nicole!”
Roz looked at Nikki as Nikki turned and looked at Mick. He stood there as if he was more than willing to elevate her to boss and actually kick Teddy out. Many of their men didn’t want to accept her as underboss as it was, but he was going to make her boss? And over Teddy of all people, who wasn’t just her husband but who was the most respected boss, behind Mick and Sal Gabrini, in the world? That was insanity to her.
But she knew what Mick was doing. He was testing her. He wanted her to chose sides and chose them right smack in the heat of the battle. He was testing her meddle. Was she what he thought she was, and did she have what it took to command his organization? It was a test and she knew it. But he picked the wrong one to test. “I’ve got to check on my husband,” she said, to Roz’s delight, and then she hurried behind Teddy.
Roz looked at Mick. “Why did you even go there?”
But Mick knew what he was doing. Had Nikki stayed to talk with him, and left Teddy to lick his wounds alone, he never would have trusted her as far as he could throw her. He knew exactly what he was doing.
But as Nikki left out of that house to go to Teddy, she knew her husband, when he was enraged, never wanted to be bothered. He never made it easy for Nikki when he was in that zone. That was why she was not surprised at all when she made it outside and saw that he had already hopped into his Bugatti and was speeding away, leaving Monk, her,and their daughter, in the dust.
Nikki exhaled as she stood beside Monk in the chill of the night. “What is wrong with him?” she said with anger in her voice.
“He’s got to work off some steam,” Monk said as they watched Teddy leave. “He told me to take you and Kimmie home.”
Then he shook his head. “Mick and Teddy. I told him from the beginning it wasn’t a great idea to work for his old man. I worked for mine and that was a disaster too. But with Mick and Teddy? It was a disaster on steroids. There was always going to be heavy contention between those two.”
Nikki looked at Monk. “Why would you say that?”
Monk lifted his hat slightly, revealing that beautiful soft hair he had but rarely showed. “I’ve never met two people more hellbent on destroying each other before in my life,” he said, and Nikki looked at him as if he couldn’t be serious.
But it wasn’t as if she never thought the exact same thing.
Just that it felt jarring, and far more tragic, to hear it affirmed by somebody else.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
It was well after two a.m. when Nikki finally heard their front door open and close and Teddy ascending the stairs. She could only imagine where he’d been all this time, but she was more concerned about him than where he’d been. She was lying in bed, on her back, but she hadn’t slept a wink.
When he walked into the bedroom, he saw that she was awake. But he didn’t say a word. He went into the bathroom, removed his clothes and keys and phone, and took a shower. Nikki was a little disappointed that he didn’t bother to at least say hey to her even after he saw she was wide awake, but that was just Teddy being Teddy. He wasn’t a moody man, but he was a broody man. And his broodiness, his inability to get out of his own head, was perhaps his greatest weakness.
That was why Nikki waited patiently. She didn’t just love the good side of Teddy. She loved him in his flaws too. She wished he was the kind of man that would include her in his moments of deep contemplations, but he wasn’t that kind of man. He had to figure it out for himself. He was a loner by nature and wasn’t interested in changing.
After he showered and dried off, he didn’t bother to put on any pajamas as he got in bed beside her. Although she wore a gown, it took him all of two seconds to lift that completely off of her and toss it aside. And although he still hadn’t said a word to her, not one word, he began kissing her with a desperateness that made her know he needed a release right then and there or he was going to explode. And given what happened at his father’s house, she was more than willing to accommodate him. That scene, and the events of that week, had her uptight too. She needed a release almost as much as he did.
That was why she was ready for his entry from their kissing alone. But he went down on her anyway, which only fired up their bodies even more, and by the time he moved back up and entered her they were both near their breaking points.
