Page 33 of Teddy Sinatra: Go Your Own Way
Duke was still behind the wheel, but his face was buried in the blood-stained deployed airbag, and he was lifeless.
“Get a stretcher back here now!” Nikki was yelling hysterically, and the cops were calling for a stretcher. “We need paramedics back here now!” She didn’t even know if Duke was still breathing, but that wasn’t going to stop them from pulling out all the stops.
Mick grabbed the jaws of life, went around to the passenger side of the car, pried that door open, lifted his daughter out of there, and kept her in his arms. She was crying like a baby. Duke was unconscious and bleeding profusely as Ted and Nikki sought to staunch his blood flow.
And Mick was in another world of rage. He hadn’t been so overwhelmed since the time when the twins were still babies and he, Roz, and the babies were all under attack. He looked at Duke as he held onto his hysterical daughter. These children were his heartbeat, what were these assholes thinking? They came for hischildren? For Mick the Tick’schildren? Were these fuckersinsane???
Teddy was beside himself with grief and the kind of rage he could hardly contain too. He held that torniquet tightly against his kid brother’s body as he could hardly believe that somebody had the gall to come for them like this. They came for their business and their men, which was brazen enough. Now they were coming for theirfamily?
There would be no peace on the face of this earth until he stomped every one of those motherfuckers through the ground. His bad decisions might have started this shitshow, but his rage was going to finish it.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Roz was in her office at the Graham Talent Agency, the agency she founded and kept under her maiden name. She’d just arrived at work and already was trying to convince a Broadway producer to give her client another chance.
“She admitted she was wrong, Will. She admitted it to your face. What more you want from her?”
“I don’t want anything from her. I want her gone and she’s gone. I’m not taking her back.”
“She’s the best actress you’ll ever get to play that role and you know it,” Roz said. “Just give her another chance. On my word she’ll never pull those stunts again.”
“I know she won’t pull’em because she won’t be here. I love you, Roz, but you’re out of line on this one. She wants to play the diva, she can play the diva. But not in my play!” he yelled definitively, and ended the call.
Roz looked at her desk phone and then slammed the receiver on the hook.
“She’s cooked, Boss.” It was Teegan, Roz’s longtime secretary. “She brought it all on herself.”
“I know that and you know that. Her problem is that Will knows it, too, and he’s not going tonot know itanytime soon. Tell her there’s nothing more we can do. We’ll try to find her another gig, but if she pull that diva shit again she’s out of this agency. Got it?”
“Yes ma’am,” Teegan said and was just about to turn to leave when Mick walked through the office door. “Mr. Sinatra?”
Mick showed up every now and then to Roz’s office, but it was extremely unusual. And from the look on his face, it was no drop by. It was for a very definite reason.
Roz saw it too. “That’ll be all, Tee,” she said, and Teegan hurried out of the office, closing the door behind her.
Roz looked at Mick. “What happened?”
She knew it was bad because Mick kept walking around her desk until he was at her side.
“Tell me, Mick, what is it?”
Mick still was distressed and couldn’t hide it. “It’s our babies, Rosalyn. There’s been an accident.”
Roz stood up as if she was coming out of her own skin. Her heart was pounding and sinking all at the same time. “Are they alright? Tell me they’re alright, Mick.” She grabbed his arms. “Are they alright, Mick?Are they alright?”
“Yes,” he said, finally able to get a word out through Roz’s hysteria, as he held her arms. “Jackie’s fine.”
Roz sighed relief. “Thank God!”
But then she waited for him to say Duke was fine too. “What about our son? What about Duke? He’s alright, too, isn’t he?”
“He’s . . . going to be, yes.”
Roz frowned. “What does that mean? He’s not alright?”
“He’s in surgery, Roz. They have him in surgery.”
“Surgery?” Roz’s knees buckled and Mick had to hold her up. That was why he didn’t send Nikki to retrieve her, or even Teddy. He came himself.
