Two days after Mick’s decision to stay back, it was a long work day for Charles.  After overseeing three evictions, two domestic disputes where his properties were badly damaged, and after several meetings with investors who wanted him in on lucrative land deals that turned out, after further review, to be lucrative money pits, he didn’t leave his office until almost eleven that night.

But as soon as he pulled away from the curb in front of his storefront office, and began to make his way home, he received a phone call.  From his cousin Angelo DeCoppola of all people.  They weren’t close, and Charles hadn’t heard from him in months, but suddenly he was calling?

“What do you want, Ang?” he asked him.

“I need your help, man.”

Charles frowned and turned the wheel of his Jaguar.  “Help to do what?  You’re in town?”

“I’m over at the trailer park on Hogan.”

“What are you doing in that rathole?”

“Can you come, Charles?  I got trouble.  I’m in serious shit!”

Charles had never heard his cousin sound so distressed.  He could be a prick, and a world-class asshole, but he was fearless too.  “What’s happened?  What kind of trouble?”

“I can’t tell it over no phone.  What are you asking me questions for?  Will you come?  I helped you out when you needed help.”

Charles just wanted to go home to his wife and daughter.  He was already bone tired.  But he could hear the fear in Angelo’s voice.  And Ang was right.  He came through for Charles once upon a time.

Fuck it, Charles thought.  He really had no choice.  “Which trailer?” he asked. Once he was given the number, he made a quick U-turn, and then headed that way.

 

Mick was watching him the entire time.  He was sitting in a nondescript Ford, one of three cars parked on the street, that would draw no attention.  And when Charles made his U-turn and began heading away from the direction of his home and in a different direction altogether, Mick, after Charles drove past him, threw a U-turn too.

But he was an expert in tailing people.  He knew how to stay just out of the frame of their rearview mirrors, and also made sure he wasn’t being followed himself.  He knew his capo, Guido, was in a different car, further back, and was poised to take over if Mick’s cover was blown or for whatever reason for concern that might come up.  But he was also checking for strangers.

A reason for concern came up almost immediately.  Because as soon as Charles hooked that U-turn, and drove back past his office, Mick noticed something odd.  One van suddenly pulled out of the parking lot two doors down from Charles’s office, and then another van pulled out of a parking lot of a convenience store four doors further down.  And both began heading, not in the direction Charles was now driving, but in the direction of Charles’s home.  It felt like a set-up to Mick.  It felt as if they were getting Charles to go away from his residence, so that they could go to it.

Mick did another U-turn, and began following, at pace, the two vans.  And he phoned Guido.  “Stay with my brother,” he ordered him, and Guido sped up to keep pace with Charles.  He passed right by Mick, without acknowledging Mick, as they were now traveling in different directions.

Guido followed Charles all the way to a rundown trailer park.  When Charles pulled in, at one of the trailers just off the road, Guido parked across the street, pulled out his binoculars, and watched as Charles knocked and then entered the trailer.

Guido didn’t know if the guy had a mistress in that shabby place, or was doing a drug deal, but it wasn’t the kind of place he would have thought this big-time brother of Mick’s would frequent.  But who would have thought this sleepy little town could be so alive with activity at night too, he thought amusingly, as he looked through his binoculars.

He hadn’t been looking through them ten minutes before he saw two old cars pull up and a group of heavily armed men jump out, and began running for the trailer.

Guido frowned.  “What the fuck?” he said out loud, and was about to pull out his gun and his phone, to call Mick.  But then he thought he saw some shadow, and looked through the rearview mirror of his car.  And that was when he saw him, and when all of his movements stopped.

A man, dressed exactly like the men that were at that moment about to storm the trailer doors where Mick’s brother was holed up, was standing in the back of his car.  And the man had an AK-47 assault rifle trained on Guido.  And he shot Guido repeatedly before he could call anyone, or try to shoot back.  Guido was shot dead by the second bullet, but he was shot at least five more times.

 

The two vans parked down the street from Charles’s house, so Mick parked around the corner.  But he was able to see men get out, go to the back of their vans, and began pulling out a lot of gear.  When he realized that that gear contained canisters, he immediately knew what they were up to.

“Ah, shit!” he yelled, put his car in gear and floored it, and raced toward the vans.  He knew he was going to be outnumbered and outgunned, but he had to scare them off.

He grabbed the rifle on the seat of his car and jumped out firing, using the car door as his barricade.

He shot one, and then another one, before the men could react.  But when they reacted, they didn’t get scared off.  These weren’t locals Mick could tell.  These men were armed to the teeth.

And they formed a barrier of five men strong, and began running toward Mick’s car, shooting as they ran.  The other men with the cannisters ran onto Charles’s property, to handle their mission.

Mick fired back at the five men storming him, but the incoming was so massive that he had to retreat almost immediately.  He was a dead man if he thought he could take on that much firepower.

He jumped back into his car, flung the gear in Reverse, and sped backwards away from the scene.  The men continued to shoot at him, and still running toward him, but once he turned the corner with a wild swerve, almost losing control, they got back to the vans, and to their mission at hand.

 

Inside the house, Jenay was awakened by the sound of gunfire.  She was a Sinatra.  She knew that sound like the back of her hand.  Something deadly was going on outside of her house!  She jumped up, wearing nothing but one of Charles’s big dress shirts, grabbed the gun Charles kept in their nightstand, and hurried downstairs.

All she could think about was stray bullets coming into her child’s bedroom.  She ran like her life depended on it.  Her cellphone began ringing as she ran.  It was Mick trying to alert her, but she’d left her phone upstairs and wasn’t about to go back up to retrieve it.  She had to retrieve her child!

Bonita, who was known to be able to sleep through a hurricane, was just waking up when her mother ran into her room.  She grabbed Bonita out of her bed, lifting her up although the child was almost as big as she was, and ran out of the room and into the hall.

“Mommy, what’s happening?” Bonita was crying.

“It’s okay, baby,” Jenay was saying as she ran down the hall.

“Where’s Daddy?” Bonita was asking.  “I want Daddy!”

“I do too, baby,” Jenay was saying as she ran.  “I do too!”

The shooting had stopped, and she wanted to run to a window to see what was going on outside, but then she saw the smoke coming in.

“God, no,” she said as she realized instantaneously that her house was on fire.  They had her house on fire!  And all she could think about was being surrounded by fire, and she and her baby were unable to get out.

She ran toward the back, still caring Bonita and praying that the fire hadn’t gotten that far.  But windows suddenly were busted out, and cannisters of gasoline were thrown in already lit, and the fire began to consume the downstairs.

She lifted her shirt over her baby’s head, and ran as fast as she could along the narrowest of traces, to make it to the backdoor.  Bonita was screaming, and crying for her daddy, but she couldn’t stop running.

But the flames and smoke were overwhelming, and Jenay could feel herself about to pass out.  She stumbled, but refused to fall, and she refused to let anything stop her from getting her baby to safety.

But then she felt an arm grab her and lift both her and Bonita up.  She couldn’t see who it was, and assumed it was Charles, but she didn’t have time to ask.  She was too grateful.  She was too busy praying that they all got out alive.

They all got out alive, but only to be met with gunfire, forcing them back inside.

Jenay was shocked to see that her rescuer was Mick when he sat her and Bonita on their feet.  And then he barked out orders.  “I’ll shoot,” he said, “and you and Nita run for the car.  Run as fast as you can.”

Jenay nodded.  But she had a gun of her own.  She hadn’t dropped it in the melee, and when Mick ran out the door firing with two rifles in his hands, she began firing too, as she and her baby ran for the car on the street behind their house.

She took down two of the gunmen, and Mick took down the rest.    But they got out of there alive.  Jenay had cranked up the car, and was ready to go, by the time Mick ran and jumped in.  He was grateful Jenay was somebody who knew how to roll, because she took off in that car, and left nothing but dust and fire, in its’ wake.

 

Charles had no clue the ordeal his wife and daughter had gone through when he left the trailer park.  After surviving the ambush at Angelo’s trailer, and after Angelo suggesting that the men who had killed his son also wanted to kill Charles and his family, he had phoned Brent, had tried to phone Jenay, and they both had arrived at a house in flames.

Charles knew it was over.  He knew his family was in that house, was in that explosion, and he tried to go inside anyway.  Somebody had to rescue them!

But Brent held him back.  Both men were in a state of unspeakable distress.  It seemed like a movie to them.  Like a mirage.  Like a nightmare.

But then Charles received a text from Mick.  They usually sent texts when they weren’t sure if the other was under guard and would be forced to ask for details.  I have Jenay and Bonita, the text said.  I’m taking them to Andersonville.

And as if he had been given a Death-Row reprieve, Charles let out a wonderful exhale.  He was as astounded as he was delighted.  And he began running to his car.

But Brent was still suspicious.  “That text could be a trap, Pop,” he said, as he followed his father.

“It’s not,” Charles said as he ran.

“How do you know it’s not?”

“He signed it Michello.”

“So what?  That’s his name!”

“A name he hates,” Charles said.  “A name we both decided would be our code.  That’s how I know it’s him.  When I sign my texts Big Daddy, that’s how he knows it’s me.  It’s him,” Charles said anxiously, jumped in his car, and sped away.  He was calling Mick’s phone as he sped.

But Brent was still suspicious.  When did Uncle Mick even get in town, he wondered.  And why didn’t he just call his father rather than texting him?  But if odd had a picture, it would be his Uncle Mick.

But then he jumped into his truck, and followed his father.