“They came for me, Charlie.”

“Who came for you?”

“But they got him instead.  They took him out, instead!”

Angelo DeCoppola was shaking.  He was a powerful mob boss, but he was shaking like some scared kid.  Charles had never seen his cousin in such a state.  “You’ve got to tell me who, Angelo,” he said to him.  “How am I supposed to help you if you don’t tell me what happened, and who the fuck is pulling this shit?”

But Angelo continued throwing clothes into a suit case.  They were in a doublewide trailer in a rundown trailer park on the southside of Jericho.  Angelo had been hiding out after the Feds got wind of a hit he had ordered out in L.A. He, his wife, and his younger kids had all been hiding out in the small Maine town, Angelo’s hometown, until the heat died down out West.  But after he heard about Plassido, they were all packing up to leave.

Charles Sinatra was not a patient man.  It was almost eleven at night when the call came in, which had already irritated him, and now his cousin wasn’t being straight with him.  To make matters worse, he didn’t know, until that phone call, that Angelo was even in town.

But now he was standing in the middle of the master bedroom, trying to make sense of what his cousin was saying, but had to go to him and grab him before he could toss another article of clothing into a suit case, just to get him to settle down.  “Get a hold of yourself, Ang,” he said angrily.  “What the fuck is wrong with you?  Tell me what’s going on.  You called me here for a reason.”

Angelo stopped packing when Charles forced the issue, and rubbed his forehead with his fingers.  Charles could see the tremble in those fingers as he rubbed.

Then Ang looked at Charles.  His eyes were wild.  “I don’t know who exactly.  That’s what Plass and some of my men were trying to find out.  I had a meeting with this guy I know; guy’s named McNaughtry but everybody calls him Naughty, who tells me he needs my help.  I say help for what.  Then he tells me he needs intel on you.”

“On me?” This surprised Charles.  He was a businessman.  He wasn’t steeped into that mafia shit like Angelo was.  Like Charles’s baby brother Mick was.  “Why would he need intel on me?”

“That’s what I asked him.  But when I asked why, he starts giving me this cocking-bull story about how he was thinking about competing against you on some land deal, and needed to know your plans and shit.  But I know Naughty’s ass.  He works for Arnie Palmer, and Arnie works exclusively for the Brazzanos.  And Peetie Brazzano ain’t gonna be interested in no land deal in Jericho.”

Angelo rubbed his forehead again with trembling fingers.  “But I get worried, see.  Because, for one thing, how the fuck they even know I’m in Jericho?  You didn’t even know.  Nobody was supposed to know!  So I figure I’d better look into this.  I pretended to go along with Naught.  Told him I’d get the skinny on you.  Then I told Plass to take a crew and look into it.”

“What happened?” Charles asked.

“They didn’t come for you like they were laying it out.  They came for me.  They came for mine!  They killed Plassido, Charlie.  They killed my son.”

Charles’s heart began to pound.  He didn’t know Angelo’s family like that because he and Angelo were never close like that, but the idea that he had just lost his son hit hard.  “Damn, Ang,” he said.

But that response triggered something nasty in Angelo.  “What you feeling sorry for me for?  They’re coming for you next.  You and your family.  You’d better get your family ready.  They’re coming for your ass next!”

And when he said it, that was when they heard it.  First, it sounded as if the doors were trying to be kicked in.  Then they could hear gunfire outside as if it was unrelated to the kick-ins.  But then the front-trailer-door was kicked down, and then the back-trailer-door was kicked down, and gunmen, a small army strong, was running inside the trailer with military-styled AK-47s drawn and ready.  And they started shooting everything moving.

Charles pulled out the gun he always carried for protection and Angelo grabbed a gun he had in his suit case.  Both men ran out of the bedroom toward the hall, but as soon as they did the majority of the men started running for them, firing as they ran.

Charles had to pull Angelo back into the bedroom, slamming the door, and they jumped behind the bed taking cover.  As soon as the door was kicked in and the gunmen entered shooting, Charles and Angelo shot back, picking off the gunmen one by one by one.

They fired and fired and held back the charge as hard as they could; killing every man that entered that bedroom.  But two handguns against AK-47s wasn’t going to hold back the charge for long.  They fired every bullet they had, but they were already pushed into a corner.

When the intruders realized they were out of ammunition, and was no longer firing back, that was when they pounced.  And Charles and Angelo had no choice but to raise their hands in surrender, dropping their empty weapons, as the big guns moved in and aimed for their heads.

But Charles was nobody’s fool.  He knew, as sure as he knew his name, that those thugs weren’t about to let them live.  They might make them suffer, because they might need to get some intel, but at the end of the day they were going to snuff them out.  He knew the game.  Mick the Tick was his brother.  He knew how this movie was ending.

But he had a family, a wife and children, depending on him.  He had grandchildren depending on him.  He wasn’t going out like that.

As soon as the first gunman was upon them, and had slammed Angelo in the stomach with the butt of his gun, forcing Angelo to his knees, it was Charles’s time to pounce.

He grabbed the gun from the first gunman, fell against his kneed cousin to protect him, and began firing at the second gunman first, and then the now-defenseless first gunmen.  When they both dropped, he and Angelo quickly got up.

Charles tossed the AK to Angelo, and then grabbed the AK of the second downed gunman.  They both picked up the dead men as body armor, and waited for the onslaught.

It came.  Not as ferocious as they would have thought: there were less gunmen still alive.  But they came nonetheless, and Charles and Angelo beat back that charge too.  So much so that they were able to make it out of that bullet-riddled bedroom, firing at all incoming before a single shot could hit them, until that small army was just a couple men, who both turned tail and ran.

When Angelo saw the state of his family, and that his wife and all of his children had been shot and shot repeatedly, he ran to them, and fell to his knees.

But Charles ran outside, after the fleeing gunman.  He needed one of them alive.  He needed one of those motherfuckers to tell him what the fuck was going on.

But they both got away.

“Gotdammit!” Charles yelled angrily, and thought about jumping in his car and chasing their asses.

But then he thought about what Angelo had said.  About how his family was going to be next.  About how the Brazzanos weren’t going to rest until they took out Charles’s family too.  It was late at night.  Charles was away from home.  What better time to do it than now?

Charles’s heart fell through his shoe at just the thought of the implications, and he took off.  He was calling his wife on his cellphone as he jumped into his Jaguar, shifted gear, and sped away home.

But he got no answer from Jenay.

He got no answer at the house.

He called his oldest son, chief of the Jericho County Police Department Brent Sinatra, and ordered him to get cops to the house and get them there quick.  Brent was at the hospital, still at his wife’s bedside, but he heeded the call.  And went too.

But Charles was driving so fast, and was in and out of lanes like such a madman, that he beat the police there.

And even that was too late.

Because as soon as he sped onto his street, his house was already in flames.  He couldn’t believe what he was seeing.  “Lord, no.  Lord, no.  Lord nooo!” he cried.

He sped into the driveway, stunned by the view, but had to slam on brakes and swerve his car around when the house suddenly buckled, and exploded with even more fire.

He jumped out of his car.  The house was now a fireball of bricks and mortar and shards of glass.  But it couldn’t be.  His wife, his youngest daughter, were in that house!

And Charles ran.

He was going in even though he knew it was an impossible mission.

He was going in even if it cost him his life.

He left them home alone when his stupid ass should have known better.

This was on him.  Their lives were on him!

But his son Brent pulled up in his pickup truck just as his father had gotten out of the Jag and began running toward the fire.  Brent ran even faster to overtake his own father, and had to tackle him and wrestle him to the ground.

And they both, on that ground, looked up in horror as their family home caved into itself like a house of cards.  And crumbled.

Charles thought he heard screams.

And he did.

But they were his own.